In my previous post, “Life’s Unpleasant Surprise” I shared that I last fall I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Chronic Kidney Disease. I am not writing about this to get sympathy but rather to inform others that no one is exempt. I think as young people we assume were invincible and that if we take relatively good care of ourselves nothing will ever go happen. Unfortunately I doesn’t always work that way.

No one want to be told that they have something incurable or that they have a potential fatal condition. No one!

Chronic Kidney Diseases can be hereditary, it can be caused by other conditions like diabetes but the type of Kidney Disease I have it wasn’t caused by either one. My doctor presumes it’s tied to pregnancy but that is still yet to be proven. The unanswered end of this still bothers me but I deal.

By looking at me, I look healthy. But that’s thing about this disease it’s a silent killer because most don’t know they have it until they go for a physical or become pregnant like I was.

Knowing this diagnosis for the last 6 months, I’m learning to accept my condition and press forward with getting on the transplant list and following my diet (which is such a major struggle) but also I do these 4 things to cope as well:

1. Prayer– Everyday I talk to God and ask him to lay his healing hand on my body and to continue to give me strength to get up everyday, run my business, take care of my son and our household. When bad or negative thoughts or fear come into my mind I also try to ask Him to take that away.
2. Write– Writing has always been therapy for me. Even during periods of depression, I’ve tried to at least write a sentence or two. Writing clears my brain and in away is very cleansing. I can use paper to tell any feelings or emotions down without judgement. When no one else is there I always have my journal and Jesus!
3. Yoga– Stretching is meditative. It releases certain endorphin’s into your body just like regular exercise and just feel so good. Often times will illness you can be tired and not feel too much like strenuous activity and also your body may not be able to take the stress. There for awhile I wasn’t able to run on a treadmill or walk but I could get out of the bed and do some stretching and bending. At first it’s hard but it’s also a good way to clear your mind in the morning too!
4. Counseling– I am a firm believer that when you are going through something difficult it’s okay to talk to someone. Sometimes you just need another ear. Someone other than a family member or friend. It can be a pastor or a licensed counselor but someone outside of you’re inner circle may be of help. When life deals you blow after blow, back to back consistently sometimes you need to just have a ear that can help you navigate the rough waters. Sometimes we need help.

Hopefully these little tips help as you get through whatever illness you have. It’s difficult and a constant battle but these little things have helped me lighten the load.

If you are suffering from anything or have a difficult diagnosis, how do you cope? Comment below!

 

What if you were going along one day and then BOOM out of know where you found out that you have a serious illness?

Well this happened to me, November 2016. After the loss of our son Nicolas in August 2016, I found out while hospitalized that their was something going on. My blood pressure had skyrocketed and I had mass amounts of protein in my urine indicating pre-eclamsia. But fast forward from that, I found out that my kidneys were failing me and that I basically had 25% kidney function left.

In medical terms, they call this Chronic Kidney Disease. When the doctor told me this, all I could think about was my son. I have a 2 year old that I want to see grow up! I have a husband! I don’t have time for this! Plus, I don’t feel bad. I mean I’m unusually tired, but I thought that was because I was coming out of a major depression from the loss I had just experienced months prior.

No one ever wants to hear that a major organ is failing them!

After much discussion with the doctor, I had to have a biopsy to take a small piece of tissue from my kidney in order to find out what was going on exactly(I had to have two biopsies! Talk about OUCH! But, that’s another long story). Turned out that I have glomerular sclerosis which in layman terms is severe scarring of the the tissue and filters in my kidneys. Prior to this I really didn’t know much about what role your kidney’s played in you’re bodies overall function. I have known a few distant relatives that were older and it ended up playing a major part in their final demise. Words like dialysis came into play and transplant and that’s when things became even more scarier.

My second thought was Isn’t this an “old person’s” problem? I’m only 32! Then came the why me, and then I started asking God other questions that I still don’t have an answer about yet.

Long story short…

I’ve decided to get on the list for a kidney transplant. I’m not sure at this point what’ scarier, The thought of another person’s organ in my own body or the thought of surgery and recovery.

There’s nothing like a life changing medical diagnosis, “to get your rear in gear” as my grandmother would say.

Life gives us surprises sometimes good and sometimes bad. Unpleasant as it may be they take you on a journey sometimes. If you believe in God, and I surely do, you know that if God brings you to it, he’s already got it worked out!

Join me next post as I share how I am dealing with having Stage 4 Chronic Kidney Disease.

 

Spring and Summer are my favorite seasons. I like Fall and particularly hate Winter. It’s so nice when the trees and grass are returning to that lovely green color. Trees in our neighborhood bloom white or purple and they make the block look simply stunning. But I love that cold Winter air has left (for the most part) and warmer days are ahead. So I decided to make a list of 10 Things I Love About Spring…here we go:

1. Walking through your neighborhood or the park without a bulky coat-I like outside just not with the extra stuff you have to put on all weather. It gets me down after awhile!
2. It’s Ice Cream/ Popsicle Season-I’m a little kid at heart and love to sit outside when it’s hot and devour a cool treat. Don’t you?
3. The beautiful trees budding and beautiful flowers- I have a pretty tree in my front yard that blooms purple each year.
4. Rain- I don’t like to be in it or drive in it but oh how I love to watch it from inside! There’s something soothing and poetic about it for me.
5. Snow is gone- well around here in the greater Kansas City area you never know what you’re gonna get from day to day but we think it’s pretty much gone for now 🙂
6. It’s the precursor for Summer- I don’t like extreme temps, but I look forward to Summer every year now since I’ve been a mom. My son loves water and it’s a joy to see him in the pool.
7. May is Mother’s Day and my wedding Anniversary month-Mother’s Day is so very special for me seeing as that I had such difficulty getting and staying pregnant. Oh yeah and my wedding anniversary, that’s pretty special as well!
8. Being able to put on a little dress again- I love wearing dresses. However, I don’t like wearing dresses in cold weather. I like to be comfortable and warm weather makes me feel way more confident in a cute little dress.
9. Opening up the windows in my home – Not only to I love being able to hear the birds singing outside, but I like to air out the place from time to time and not worry about catching a chill.
10. It’s Spring-enough said!

 

Earlier in the month my husband , tells me that he saw this movie on Netflix I might like called “Burning Sands”. Produced by Gerard McMurray, I knew this was going to be a good one. He was associate producer of the movie “Fruitvale Station”.  But when he told me what the title was, immediately I knew what the movie was probably about. No not hot sand in a desert, but rather “crossing” or becoming “Greek”.

No, I was not in a sorority in College but I wanted to pledge very badly (long story short the chapter at our school was banished because of hazing my sophomore year). My boyfriend decided to pledge a fraternity my Junior year. During the time he was “online” he shared with me his experience.

I was a typical girlfriend. I didn’t care for him pledging. A, it took away from OUR time together and B I felt like it would change him.

I told him if he was going to do it, just let me know what’s going on and I’ll try to support best as possible. He did. He shared with me the drinking, adventure, cruel, harshness, bruises, soreness, history of the fraternity he had to memorize and the I just got in at 3 am I’ll call you later today texts. He tried to come see me as often as possible being that he went to different schools in a different cities. Just like on the movie, we struggled to keep a relationship going but he did little sweet things for me when he could.

I didn’t attend an HBCU though I was very close to going to Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO. Actually, the College I attended Missouri Western State University is a relatively small University in St. Joseph, Missouri and a small town. It is predominately white institution but there were a good deal of black students when I attended. When I arrived in 2002, all of the black fraternity’s and sorority’s were active on campus. Unfortunately, two ended up being banned from campus because of hazing and I know one fraternity chapter was put on probation for hazing for a semester or two while I attended that school. So that kind of tells you how often it is that chapters of fraternity’s do get caught.

Unfortunately, the sorority I so wanted to join that my aunt had joined so many years ago (those ladies who wear 20 pearls) the chapter was banished. They even had a meeting to tell girls who were interested that if you wanted to pledge there wouldn’t be a chapter ever, ever again so forget it. I was crushed! But when I found out that they had made this girl drink until she got alcohol poisoning and had to go to the hospital. I was cool on that, plus my academics was way more important.

But it’s crazy that someone actually made a movie about this aspect of life most know nothing of. I mean the movie was so accurate though right down to the ugly doo-doo faces they made while responding to “big brother” whoever.

When my ex said he was going to pledge this certain Fraternity I knew I was in for it. I had witnessed a friend be online years prior and he just disappeared for an entire semester. I mean you didn’t see him hardly during the daytime and if you did, he was moving fast and by himself. Then when you did see him at night he was in a hoodie. And my ex did the same. Every time I seen him. If I did see him, he was in a hoodie!

By the way the hoodie thing guys is a TOTAL give away! LOL

I liked the backstory though of the movie. The ending was very real! You have heard of this happening so many times before. Someone drinking them self during a hazing ritual or suffering serious injury while being flogged.

I understand the explanation that it creates “brotherhood”. But you never know when someone could go too far like on the movie and like so many situations that have happened in real life and actually kill someones poor child for some letters.

I know hazing is not going to end magically overnight, but I hope because of this movie black fraternity’s and sorority’s seriously self-examine before it’s too late. Like Lawrence Fishburn said at the end of one of my favorite movies, “Waaaaakeee Upppp”!

 

 

 

 

By Nicole Alicia

Opening one eye, she could see the orange glow from the street light outside her window. The dull glow pierced through the blinds that had no curtains covering them to block out the light.

She rolled over, breathed in deep and closed her eyes again. Wishing and thinking, maybe today wasn’t what it was. Sitting up in bed, she reached down to grab her phone out of her shoe that was right next to her nightstand. 6:45am.

Still worn-out from the night before, she had fallen asleep only a couple of hours ago. Her glasses now half tilted,about to slide off but still on her face. Getting off late at 2am, she still had chosen to come home an attempt to write the speech for class the next morning.

Anxiety was slowly creeping in and slapping her upside the head. Not only was she unprepared, she hated speaking in front of people. She was starting to wonder if her hate for public speaking was turning into more of a fear.

Hesitantly walking over to her old wooden desk chair, she tried to breathe through her thoughts. Stopping at the chair she said a brief prayer. “Lord, please let me make it through this. Amen.”

Getting dressed, she carefully placed one leg in her pants legs at a time. She looked at the clock on the wall again to check the time. The long hand was on now on seven and the short hand on three. Class was at 8 o’clock.

“Great,”she said.

I can have enough time to run over what I have, eat breakfast and finish. She rushed out of her room racing over went to the cafeteria to try and finish before class. While eating breakfast she pulled out the purple colored notebook and turned to the page she had begun writing on last night. There was only one paragraph existing so far.

“Things that we need to get through life, such a perplexing subject.”

The professor said to give a speech about anything. She wanted to tap into people’s emotions. She wanted her speech to touch the students and spread positivity like a Maya Angelou speech or Oprah speaking to a graduating class of students. But she had once again let life get in the way.

She knew she was in trouble too. This time procrastination might have been the splintery steak that killed her academic career.

Priorities, a word that had been swept under the rug. Priorities had been all screwed up since she was on her own paying for school now. Work had become more important than anyone and anything. It never started out to be a permanent thing either but spirals down goes the staircase.

Amongst the chatter she spaced out. A friend from class had came along and asked “Are you ready,” to which she laughed and shooed them away pointing to the nearly blank page that stared her down. There was only 10 minutes left to get across campus to class. Gathering her things she almost started to cry. Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat she decided it was best to press on.

Running across campus she got to class out of breath and even more frayed. Walking in slow pretending to be calm, she sat down hoping the professor would overlook her tardiness. Settling down she rummaged for her notebook in her bag. She pulled it out and looked at the 3 paragraphs that she had formed, thinking about how she would make this into a 3 minute speech. 3 mins being the bare minimum.

She knew her grade was about to suffer for this one. She was thinking about changing her major for the 2nd time or 3rd time anyway.

“Okay, we will begin with Autumn Jones,” said Professor Noslack.

Looking up to the front of the snapping her neck up abruptly. Hoping that maybe there was another Autumn Jones in the class. She knew there wasn’t.

There it went. Boomp, boomp, save me, save me! Her heart starting beating rapidly as the 100 some students in her class all turned to fix their eyes on her. Trembling and heart racing she began to stand, forgetting the notebook on her lap. She bent down to grab the notebook, smacking her head on the side of the desk.

“Shoot,” she exclaimed.

They knew her as that odd chick on campus. The one that wore combat boots when it was 80 degrees out and flip flops in the fall. But more than that she just couldn’t ever seem to tame her super curly, bird’s nest, a beautiful pile of light brown curls.  She did the opposite of everyone else not to be annoying or different on purse, because it suit her. Following trends was never her thing. And people looked at her as being awkwardly odd for that.

Funny how people assume because of your looks.

Rising up slowly from kneeling next to her seat she made her way down to the podium that set up next to the regular lecture desk. As she got to the podium she nearly tripped on her long flowing paisley skirt.

She stared down at the silver bracelet her grandmother had given her shortly before her passing she remembered the strength and courage she had. But she didn’t have that poise. Nor did she have that confidence. After looking up and clearing her throat about 10 times. She tried to breath.

“Breathing relaxes you Autumn, breathe right. It’s no different than work.”

“Today, is she gonna speak today? You know I got a class I gotta get to after this !,” a boy spoke from the top corner of the classroom. She thought to herself. She nodded her head forward letting the curliness of her hair fall into her face. She hid her face most of the time with her big curly hair. On occasion which she pulled back out of her face with a headband or scarf.

“Hi my name is…uhhh Aut-umn. I’ll be speaking on the subject of …”

As she began her voice began to quiver and she stopped.

“Hey, instead of making a fool of myself, I guess I’ll actually speak on something that I do know about.”

Just as she began to speak, the professor who was sitting in the front row, motioned to her to stop.

“If you’re not going to give your speech on the topic you signed up for, kindly have a seat Miss Jones.”

She strolled back to her seat as everyone looked at her. She gathered up her things and prepared to leave.

She knew what she had done and was prepared to have to do some silly make up assignment or flunk the class. Even thought that was her M.O. these days.

She knew she had to pull it together and soon.She wanted to make this College thing work so desperately, but right now it was all about the money. School could wait couldn’t it? She would never say what she was thinking in her head to her parents.

I think just about everyone agreed that 2016 was a pretty crappy year.

Everyone was looking forward to a fresh start on December 31st, 2016. So, here we are at the last day of January 2017.

You know what?

Aside from a couple of things, 2017 has been OK thus far for me.

Not only have I started writing and blogging again. I have two different Etsy stores now open for business (Miss Nikki’s Hair Accessories and Dear Alice Company) and also a little Ebay store selling miscellaneous goods. I just have my hands super full right now but am having such a fun time doing it!

For New Edition fans, the highlight of our year was The New Edition Story that came on BET last week, which was a three-part series. I know personally, I had been waiting to see this since I had seen the previews during the BET awards last Summer and I was not to say the least disappointed.

That’s enough about me for now though.

Locally here in Kansas City we lost our star pitcher for the Kansas City Royals, Yordano Ventura. Sadly January 22nd in an accident in his home country in the Dominican Republic. I had started watching our home team the Royals on TV because we started doing really good in 2014 and went to World Series. Even though we didn’t win that year we went again in 2015 and actually won. I thought he was just so cute and so talented. I was pregnant last Summer and wasn’t able to go see any games and was looking forward to going this Spring. It was sad that he lost his life at such a young age. He was only 25. It messed with me for a few days because people say life is short. But wow!

But what’s going on politically right now is just crazy. I mean this new president (he’s not mine but you know what I’m saying) has only been in office for all of 12 days and look at all that is going down hill.

So all in all 2017 has been OK for me. How about you?

 

I used to be fairly good at this.

Coming up with topics to write about was nothing. I stopped blogging almost a year ago due to intimidation. I felt like I had somehow lost my way. Back in 2007, blogging seemed so new to a lot of people. It was a little bitty baby just growing and learning to walk. Now, it seems it’s become a big overgrown hairy beast. I had been blogging for almost 7 years with very little following on my blog. I had so many people tell me they read my blog, but it was seeming like no one really followed it. I began to get frustrated. I admit I started to try to fit in. I started trying to do what everyone else was doing because that was what you were “supposed” to do apparently. Wrong!

I’m quirky, I’m odd and pretty much just all around different. I never really was too good of a dresser. Let’s be honest, I really like fashion but I’m not a fashion blogger. I’m not going to take pictures of myself in different outfits everyday. That may have worked when I had to go to the office everyday, but now that I’m a stay at home mom…well you’d be getting pictures of me in t-shits, leggings or sweatpants.

I also discovered I’m not a makeup guru. Sure, I wear make up when I go out of the house but I need all you make guru’s out there with these YouTube channels to help me do that. How can I help someone else when I need the help?
LOL.

Am I a branding guru, social media specialist, mom blogger, consultant or expert? The answer is probably slightly all of the above and none of the above.

I tell you what I am though. Someone who just loves writing, sharing and connecting with others. When you try to be something your not, it’s always going to come off as un-genuine and fraudulent and no one wants that. Plus, I don’t do fake very well.

So on from that confusion, I am just going to be me.

-Nicole Alicia