I am tired of metal detectors

I am up late writing this at 1:20 am on a saturday night, or sunday morning if you will. The reason I am up is my PD insomnia as usual, but I am also sitting here just sort of processing an event that happened yesterday at SF Pride.

If you dont follow me usually, heres the tea. I have a neurostimulator. I have had Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery, and so I have a battery in my chest. Heres a cute picture of my scar tattoo I got recently:

Under that scar is a big battery that is basically responsible for my ability to move. If you havent seen the video, here is what happens when we turn it off:

Yeah. We dont turn it off. 

Now to what happened at Pride. And this really makes my blood boil because after 3 years I am sick and tired of not being respected at security checkpoints.

I tell them I have a pacemaker because that is just easier. No one knows what a neurostimulator is. They had no protocol in place for people who cant go through detectors at Pride, when I said I had a pacer they all looked at each other for a moment trying to figure out what to do. So they sent me around this whole mess and the guy says I can get wanded. He was really forceful, so usually when I would say no to even that because I don't want to take the chance, I said it had to be waist down (which is standard as the wand is a stronger and more localized EM field). He flat out said no. I said I can't, and he said this is pacemaker safe. And so is the metal detector walk through (not true, fyi). I tried to explain it wasnt a pacer but a neurostimulator, and that if the machine turned it off I would end up in the hospital. He shook his head no.

He literally said "then you cant go into the event."

What the actual fuck??

Let me break this down. This was Pride. An event that was supposed to be for the entire LGBTQIA+ community. The disabled members of the community too. What is the point of security? To make the event safe for the community. Last I checked, bullying the community wasn't a good way to achieve that goal. 

I know working security isnt easy, but I reject the idea that in trying to keep us safe, they can prey upon the disabled, a group less likely to be able to stand up for themselves.

Here I am, a capable, fierce and formidable woman who speaks her mind all the time, and I am exhausted. Completely exhausted. I should not have to defend my medical needs to enter a freaking event. It should just be respected. It just should be. I don't even know how to describe how gross it feels to have someone tell you that your medical fear is unfounded and that to even get in to something that you have every right to be at you have to literally risk your health.

And what about disabled community members who didnt have the voice to stand up for themselves like I did? It took all my energy to do this. I cannot imagine what happened to those who could not, and that makes me furious.

How did I finally enter SF Pride? The woman with the wand whispered in my ear "dont worry i wont turn it on until i get to your waist." I would have literally been denied entry if not for her. To this woman, thank you for being my angel today. Thank you for seeing the fear and frustration I had when this giant guy was yelling at me for something I could not control. Thank you for seeing a little way to ease the situation and making it okay for me to get through and enjoy Pride without killing my DBS battery. Thank you.
This woman fake wanded me while another officer searched my bag which my feeding tube was in, and seeing the feeding tube pump and bags she looked at the woman with the detector wand and said 'is this allowed?'
My security angel said "zip that back up, its her medicine, its literally connected to her, let her through already."

So thanks to this hero I got through and got to enjoy the day. Metal detectors are getting really exhausting.


When you see injustice, be it racial injustice, gender discrimination, violence against our transgender friends, prejudice against the disabled, be a hero. Stand up for what is right in whatever way you can. Be it confronting someone if it is safe or helping the victim get through like that woman did for me. In this day and age we need to help each other. Be weary of what you say. These microagressions really add up, and everyone who experiences them is freaking exhausted.

Post MedX thoughts on Medical PTSD

It has been so long since I have written! In March I moved from LA to the Bay to work at Stanford Medicine X as the e-Patient coordinator for the Medicine X ED conference this weekend. It was amazing and I had an incredible experience and my e-Patient crew was epic and I could keep going, but I want to write about something specific here. I will probably write more on MedX another time, because there is a lot to say, but I want to write about my takeaways about talking about Medical PTSD here. 

I have written about my experiences with it before, but this is really the first time talking about it in a big space. I actually brought it up at the preconference workshop I was facilitating with a group of amazing people. 

As someone who grew up singing, I was always in front of people. In no way am I crowd shy. But I was so nervous to bring this topic up. It had been on my heart for so long, and it had become so relevant in the weeks prior to the conference. I have been working with a psychologist about my medical PTSD for a while now, and it has been helpful to talk about those experiences. There are a few different experiences, but there is one in particular that was extremely awful involving Interventional Radiology (IR) after my J tube was only a few weeks old. My balloon ruptured and it had to be replaced. A delay caused me to not get my Parkinson's meds on time, and then on top of that the procedure was extremely painful because it was so new. My muscles cramped uncontrollably from the PD flaring due to the trauma of the procedure + not having meds on time. I felt like I could not breathe because my chest muscles were tight from the PD in addition to the stress. I kept trying to tell them I needed my sinemet but instead of listening they kept telling me to be quiet. I also don't sedate at all with the twilight they use so I was wide awake for this. And by the time I was crying and screaming the nurses were yelling at me to stop and to calm down (as if that is helpful) and they held me down and continued to replace my tube while I was in agony. 

I managed to get through awake brain surgery twice just fine, no tears during them drilling a cage to my head, slicing my head open with only a lidocane shot, and drilling a hole into my head for my DBS electrode. That should say something. 

This experience is where my head goes when I enter a hospital now. A few weeks ago my Mirena IUD stopped working (it was almost at the five year mark) and I had to get a new one. It is not a very difficult procedure and takes about ten minutes, they basically just pull the old one out and pop a new one in. It is a little bit worse than a standard pap smear. But half way through I had to ask her to stop. I was feeling my whole body get hot and my heart was racing. Despite how great this doc was and how vastly different the experiences were, the smells and the environment took me right back to that day in IR, and I could not keep going. The Mirena insertion 5 years prior was no big deal, but this was like the most difficult feeling thing in that moment. Luckily this doc was so sweet. She had her nurse get me an ice pack for my head and she stopped and she told me that we would not keep going until I was ready. I caught my breath and we continued and I was okay. I was lucky to have a doctor who was so understanding and kind. Compassion changes lives. 

But back to MedX. Now that I have described a bit about why Medical PTSD is relevant to me, lets talk about this workshop. In the weeks planning it, so much medical crap was happening to my friends. That is the only word for it, crap. It is completely unacceptable that more of my sick friends have PTSD than not. These people are not mildly sick. They all have serious, life altering, life-long, often deadly conditions. These are people that do not get to choose not going to the doctor, it is necessary to be alive. They go to the doctor to treat their illnesses and walk away with Medical PTSD. 

It is completely unnecessary and I refuse to buy into the idea that it just comes with the territory or something. Not when it is SO easy to limit the suffering of patients. All it would take would be a little compassion. If the IR doc had just stopped to take a moment to get me a freaking sinemet, to stop and say what can I do to make this easier, to stop and say lets just take a moment to breathe, we can do this together, you are going to be okay. If he had taken five minutes to stop and talk to me like a human being, my life would be so different. Maybe I could get through a doctors appointment without feeling like the world was collapsing around me. Maybe I could actually go to the dentist and get past the waiting room, or not have to think twice before going to the ER and say 'is it worth it' when I know I need help. Maybe I would not have every little medical encounter tainted by the pain of that experience. I refuse to believe five minutes of his day is worth more than my pain. 

So once again I am the queen of diversions and I still haven't gotten to day 1 of Med X ED. My precon workshop was a lot of fun, and I brought up Medical PTSD. We were talking about incorporating patient goals into medical decisions and I wanted to stress what not listening to the patient can do. 

Simple, right? Let me break down why this was scaring the hell out of me. This is a room full of doctors. And here I am saying you guys have the ability to ruin someones life, and your profession is responsible for some serious trauma. And if you do that to someone, it really is on you. So lets do better. Now saying this to the wrong crowd is just asking for a bunch of defensive docs to try to discredit you, to say you are being over-dramatic, and all kinds of other things. So I was pretty nervous going in. 

Instead, it was embraced. And throughout the weekend it was talked about a lot! And everyone acknowledged that it happens and that it is unacceptable and that we can do better! Isn't that amazing?

So the real inspiration for writing this came from a doc who I wont name out of respect for her maybe not wanting that to be public. But I will say she is one really awesome anesthesiologist and person who I have a huge amount of respect for. I drove her and two ePatients to the hotel on the last day. We had a great conversation and I mentioned something about IR and she says something to the effect of 'there are some seriously awful IR docs out there. I genuinely do not think they understand that their patients are actual people.' And I was so stunned by the fact that it happened everywhere, and that I didn't just have an exceptionally bad IR department at my hospital. I told her the story of the tube replacement and she was not in the least bit surprised. She said 'some of those doctors lack basic human empathy. You could have said hi my name is Jasmine and they would have said why is the J-tube talking.' This of course got a laugh but it also sent a chill down my spine. It was so accurate to the treatment I got that day. We were talking about why that may be. Perhaps the specialty that just assigns them a body to cut and leave breeds people who do not know how to practice with empathy. Perhaps too many people who just like to cut enjoy a profession where they do not have to talk to patients. And of course we were not saying that ALL IR docs are evil. Just that a large percent seem to really suck. 

She went on to tell us that she had seen over and over again with complicated patients that they were terrified of anesthesia because they call the sedation that IR uses 'twilight anesthesia' (which makes you a little loopy and sleepy and numbs some pain but doesn't knock you out, and if you are like me, leaves you wide awake with a dose that could knock out a 300 lb man). She said she is always having to explain that no, this stuff anesthesiologists use actually puts you out, and that she will make sure your unconscious body will be taken care of, because the association of the past trauma is so strong. It blows my mind that she has to keep trying to undo some of the damage caused by irresponsible IR docs. It is amazing how many times this can happen and for the specialty to not realize it has a problem. 

What I really wanted to do with this article was really explain how much it touched me that my experiences were validated and affirmed. When that happened to me, I was treated like I was just being sensitive, like I was just supposed to have been fine after that. Someone saying I am sorry that happened, it is all too common and it is wrong and is a problem was so wonderful, and I am so lucky to have volunteered to drive a wonderful doctor home. 

Icing on the top of the cake, I was saying that the last time I was in IR for my line removal and tube replacement, I asked for my IV benadryl before hand. We know I am really allergic to contrast dye. My skin is also super sensitive to so much, and I always end up itchy. The contrast dye gives me full body hives, and that is so scary. Having allergic reactions and knowing that with more exposure you are so close to anaphalaxis is terrifying and I was really anxious about it. I took prednisone pre-procedure, but I just felt more confident getting the IV benadryl first too, because I know for sure the contrast dye is a severe reaction. 

After I asked, the doc said sure. Then he came back and he said 'you had an MRI with contrast amd were fine.' Trying to figure out which MRI (I have had 8, two for DBS and 6 in my teen years for diagnostic purposes). He answered it was a pelvic one and I looked at him like he had grown a second head. 'You mean the one I had when I was 15?!? That was almost a decade ago! I had the reaction to the contrast dye in the ER last year!'

He tried to explain to me that the time should not matter. Luckily the nurse went to bat for me and she pulled up the doctors notes from the ER where I had the contrast reaction and it clearly stated that the doc had given me the dye and I had a severe reaction. So he gave me the benadryl, begrudgingly. 

That makes me feel really confident going into a procedure, knowing that my doctor did not even believe me that I had an allergy, that he went digging in my records trying to prove that I was making this up or something to that effect. This is they guy I was letting cut my central line out of my body and replace a highly sensitive feeding tube while I was going to be awake. And somehow it was put on me to just be okay. 

I think my biggest frustration with the allergy thing is the lack of acknowledgement that allergies are scary and traumatic. Also that they are not something you should just believe if its in someones chart or they say it is. Him trying to invalidate that was completely pointless and wrong. Is giving me a little benadryl going to have any negative effects what so ever? No. But having a crazy uncontrolled allergic reaction because the doc refused to listen does. 

The reason I add that little anecdote is that this doc looked horrified. She told me that contrast for MRIs and for IR procedures are two completely different solutions. They are about as chemically similar as orange juice and lemonade. So the MRI nearly a decade ago did not have anything to do with my needs at IR. 

For some reason, that makes me oddly happy.

The Storm

Strong. What the heck does that even mean anyways? I can tell you one thing with no shame, physically I am pretty weak. Five pound weights can go to hell. 

But I have long been lauded as 'strong' for speaking out about my struggle with Parkinson's. Often people ask me how I did it all, how I am still here, still speaking, still going 'strong.' People seem to think that if they were me they would not still be here, or at the least not still be happy. But I believe that assumption is false. When we have no other choice we fight because in the end we have a zeal for life. You do not realize how much you want to live until you are staring brain surgery, a feeding tube, IV nutrition, ect., straight in the face. You do not know just how much you love living until you are in the middle of the ocean and you can sink or swim. I promise you would swim as hard as you could because drowning is unimaginable. 

Things have been so hard lately. I have felt like it is the end of the rope over and over again, even when good things are on the horizon, they just do not feel good anymore. I am so close to getting off of TPN, and yet that is clouded by the protein deficiency I have aquired in the past few months. Due to the shortage of IV nutrition thanks to the hurricanes that wiped out the manufacturing of vital IV supplies, I have been on half protein for months. Lately exercise has left me in bed for days, and that is due to not having enough protein to rebuild my muscles. The muscle mass I have spent over a year to develop is practically gone and the activities that bring me joy, like dance and rock steady, have been impossible. I finally got the answer to why in the form of a blood test showing how low my protein level was. The good news is being almost off TPN, my formula should remedy that. But it is still just a blow right now. Instead of feeling happy that I finally got answers, like I normally would be, all it feels like is how stupidly unfair this problem was to begin with, how the pharmaceutical system screwed over me and thousands of other patients who depend on artificial nutrition to survive. 

Also, I just want to eat a freaking pizza and I know that would just mean misery so I don't. I take a few bites here and there and even that hurts a lot but it is all I can do and I have to accept that. And I do. But sometimes, its just unfair, and not admitting that is lying to myself. Not saying that is not fair to myself, and is more harmful than anything. 

I am realizing how often I say 'its okay' when people pity me. How often I make excuses for my failed health, how I justify being 23 and having the past nine years of my life defined by Parkinson's. Its not okay. It is not okay that I can barely remember who I was before this disease. 

Actually, before this disease, there were some rocky years. I got sick towards the end of Freshman year of high school. I was 14. 14 was the first year of my life since 11 that I was happy, the middle school years for me were full of self hatred and angst. I was finally free. I finally felt accepted, felt worthy of something. Felt like I was good at something, like I could see beyond where I was then and knew that a future was ahead of me that could be full of possibilities. And then it happened. It was April and I felt a pain in my leg. And nothing was the same after that ever again. 

Here is where maybe I turn back into the eternal optimist (with a big wedge of sarcasm and cynicism). What happened after that was amazing and awful all at once. The timing of which I got Parkinson's, as cruel as it might be, also was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me. I love who I became because of that time. I had to give up singing, which was my world at the time. I defined myself by my operatic ability. And suddenly, I could not make it through a rehearsal. I couldn't stand for a performance. My once rich tone and vibrato became horse after half an aria. Doctors appointments replaced voice lessons and a dream was taken from me. 

Grieving that loss was the hardest thing I had to do at that point in my life. It sucked. But it made me stronger. And it put me in a place of emptiness, at just the right time for me to find chemistry and art, the two things that became my life. I learned that I needed to fill up the creative space left by music with something, and I learned that creating something from nothing gave me the clarity and strength to work through hard times. Late nights of pain have long produced some of the pieces I am most proud of, and the practice of creating filled the hours of pain and kept my mind off of misery. A quilt for my cousin's daughter was made in the days following my brain surgery, where I needed something to fill my time and keep me sane in my recovery. I also discovered my passion for science in the year following the onset of my Parkinson's. Chemistry filled my mind with infinite possibility, attempting to understand the molecular world expanded my universe, and has captivated me ever since. I had something I was once again good at, and a new passion, one that is my passion to this day. I also took my health into my own hands as the more science I learned, the more I understood my broken body. I started reading medical research, and what began with me looking up every other word ended with me developing a medical lexicon in my head and assisting in my own diagnosis. Chemistry gave me the power I had lost back. I went to college because it rebuilt my confidence, because I had a need to keep learning. I do not know how I would have started college with an undiagnosed disease that was quickly robbing me of my motor skills without that passion. It was at times the only thing pushing me forward. 

As much as I can look back on my teen years and see the childhood that was cruely taken from me, I see the person who I became because of how it broke me down and how I had no choice but to build myself back up. But here is the thing never spoken. Talking about that now is different than when I lived it. Talking about it now doesnt take into account the times I left doctors appointments with my head held high to promptly collapse in the elevator because the doctors didnt believe I was sick and told me it was all in my head. It doesnt account for the nights I woke up screaming in pain, the times I went to school despite a three week long muscle spasm that was so severe you could see the groove in my thigh. It doesnt show the times where the fabric of my uniform skirt hurt so bad as it brushed against my skin, the class retreat a teacher made me climb a rock wall for 'team bonding' and my body went rigid half way up, the belayer having to lower me and my inability to even land standing. You do not see the times where I pushed myself to be able to do stupid teenage girl things like wear uncomfortable shoes to a dance only to end up in extra pain for the next two weeks because I just wanted to be normal for once. 

None of that shows when I talk about my teen years because to someone in their 20's, that is ancient history. And when I look back, even though I remember the heart break that was so much of my teenhood, I feel proud of what I did with all of that. I feel strong because I made it through and I like what I became because I swam through the darkness. But if you asked me at that time, I would not have admitted it, but it hurt. It was not okay. 

College for me is divided into two parts. The first two and a half years where I achieved so much, while my health was remotely behaving, and I felt unstoppable, and the three semesters that followed the crash of my health, where I had two brain surgeries and a feeding tube put in. 

While I was pretty sick the first five semesters, I pushed through and I did a lot of living. Yes, the ER was a frequent thing when I did too much, and while my friends were partying I was sleeping, I got to do some living in between. I got to do what I love, and to travel, and to just for a moment pretend my life was typical. There were moments of course, Freshman halloween sticks out in my head. I had been on PD treatment for a few weeks at this point, and I had gotten ready for the frat party we were all going to go to. A ten minute walk from the dorm. I got ready, I knew better than to 'pre-game' as I could barely get around sober, but I had fun putting on a skimpy costume and makeup and taking silly pictures with my friends as every 18 year old woman who wants to should get to. And then it was time to leave, and walking to the door of the dorm hall, I had to turn around. I could barely walk the hall of the dorm, I was not even going to make it to this party, let alone enjoy it. I made my way back to my room and the RA thought I was drunk because I was hugging the wall. After explaining I was sober, just sick, I went back to my room and traded my costume for pajamas and washed all of my makeup off, and climbed into my bed. That night I learned that there were certain things that were just not for me. As time went on I made different friends, the kind that loved me for me, that traded wild nights for movie nights, the kind who brought wild nights to me, and made memories that will last a lifetime. When I look back on halloween of Freshman year I no longer feel the pain of what happened because I think of the times that despite illness I had so much fun. Perhaps it was different fun but the nights that turned into mornings with people I love are my favorite college memories. The people I call family made those years beautiful even when they were painful. 

Even the night my health crashed junior year I have a happy memory of. That night, where dyskinesia took over and I knew it was the beginning of the end, what made that night beautiful was that my friends were there. They held me when I sobbed uncontrollably. They laughed with me when filming a clip of my dyskinesia to show my neurologist, I was more worried about how messy my room was than the uncontrollable flailing. We cried until we laughed together. When the valium I took finally knocked me out and I was falling asleep while talking they pulled me up into my bed and tucked me in. One of the hardest nights of my life was marked with an amazing display of friendship. 

That is why I feel all of the crap feelings I feel right now and I know that they will end and a brighter road is ahead. Those examples are only a few. So much more is on my heart right now, I think of the incredible displays of love that I have been lucky enough to recieve. I think of the friends that are still my family from high school and college. I think of the teachers and professors and faculty who still believe in me and encourage me. When I decided to delay grad school again this past fall, a decision that I know is right and yet still stung, the words that meant the most was from the people who were writing my letters of rec, who said that they were proud of my decision. That it was the adult thing to do, that I would be a better scientist by my experience and by waiting until I was able to put my all into it, and that they will still support me fully whenever that dream does happen. 

Right now, when I have been struggling to find joy, when I have felt emotionally beaten up, when my anxiety is uncontrolled, I know that brighter days are ahead because for the past nine years, in a constant storm, 100% of the time I have gotten through hell and have lived to tell the tale, and as a scientist I believe in evidence. When I do not feel like there is a light at the end of this tunnel I remember the times in the past that I have felt lost. I remember that in the end I was always found. Strength is not pretending that pain does not exist, but feeling it all and still believing that life is worth living and loving. Strength is knowing that even at the worst moments of your life, even when the pain feels to great to bear, someday when you look back, you will feel more than just pain. Perhaps it will be a memory that makes you smile, not because of how much it hurt, but because of beauty that you couldn't see at the time. 

Jasmine vs. Sweet Potato Casserole

The holidays are supposed to be a joyful time of the year. For those of us with Gastroparesis, or paralysis of the stomach, it can be a difficult time as families gather to eat meals. When you cant physically eat, the holidays can feel really isolating. My GP diagnosis actually happened on Thanksgiving day, 2015. Here's the story:

To say that 2015 was a mess in the life of Jasmine is the understatement of the decade. 

On the Thanksgiving of 2015, my life would change forever. It was a day that I both laughed and cried harder than I had ever before, and a day that I would learn a valuable life lesson from a sweet potato casserole.

Let’s back it up. At the end of 2014, my health rapidly crashed, and the beginning of 2015 was the beginning of three difficult years to follow. The first half of 2015 was a massive health decline leading to my DBS in June, and then I went back to my senior year of college. 

At one point, in the early years of college, my gut operated pretty well, I ate normally. I have always been lanky and tall, at 5'8 I was a healthy 130 lbs, wearing a woman's 0-2. I remember even seeing some of the girls who were even thinner than I was, and being so frustrated by the fact that due to my disease I couldn't actually go to the gym and work out like the other girls. Even though I knew that my weight and lifestyle were healthy, I still found myself wanting to be like a photo-shopped model on the cover of a magazine. Silly isn't it, looking back? Just a few years later i would be praying to gain weight. I wish I had been better than at respecting and loving my body for /what it was.

That is why when I lost my appetite at 18 I didn't really complain. My docs all just thought it was a side effect of my meds. I would find myself laying in bed at night realizing that I had only had a smoothie that entire day. 

I would set an alarm to remind myself to eat during the day because I had no hunger pangs, and being a work-a-holic, if I didn't set the alarms I would forget that I had to eat to survive. 

I remember the first time I had a significant flare of Gastroparesis. Chronic illness 'firsts' have a way of sticking with you and haunting you for the rest of your life.

During the Christmas season of 2014, Marisa, one of my best friends from high school, came with my family to our yearly tradition of going to The Grove, a mall here in Los Angeles that has a silly yet super fun yearly 'snow fall' during December. It is basically soap bubbles that fall from machines on top of the buildings every hour in the evenings. No, it does not feel like snow, but it looks like snow, and so its just fun and silly for a bunch of Southern Californian's who only get to dream of a "white Christmas" to get to take a few fun photos. We started doing it towards the end of my teen years and we stuck with it, it was a fun way to have time together as a family as I went off to college when I came back for the holidays.

My love of food is one of the most ironic and cruel things about having Gastroparesis.

That is just one of the things that I look back on and think to myself that maybe my life is just a sitcom someone is getting a real kick out of. Maybe the writers ran out of good ideas so they are just doing crazy things because they can’t kill me off. The crazy adventures of the tragically flawed yet lovable dying girl are far more interesting than a dead one.

Marisa and I have been close friends since we were 14 years old and met as freshman. We have grown and changed so much since we met back in ’08, but our friendship has grown with us instead of grown apart. I am lucky to have a few amazing high school friends who to this day are still my sisters. Below are a few pictures of my high school best friends Marisa and Danielle and I then and now, its pretty amazing how much we have grown, and yet every time we see each other its like no time has passed. 

I was a SUPER picky eater as a kid. I mean crazy picky eater. A lot of it had to do with textures, which is still something I struggle with, but my love for flavor overruled it. For example, lettuce’s texture makes me throw up, completely unrelated to my stomach issues. I also get some real serious anxiety when food which I cannot associate together in my mind touches, that is all I can think about is the fact that the foods are touching, that their flavors are combining in ways that I dislike, and I just cant eat it. I will eat around it, but I will give it a pretty wide margin. My family has always thought that was hilarious. We tend to laugh at each other quite a bit, and my picky eating and food touching stress was a family joke. 

Now as far as my picky-ness goes, I am pretty sure that I survived toddlerhood on a diet of rice, mac-and-cheese, and tofu with soy sauce. 

When I was 14, coming home from yet another failed doctors appointment. Those appointments were always mentally draining, and my dad and I were hungry. A few minutes from home, I saw a taco place I thought to myself, screw it. Life is too short not to try new things. I am not sure what possessed me to do that, but I decided to for the first time in my life that maybe there was more to food than my stress over the way it looked or felt.

I grew up on the east side, where we boast some of the best Mexican food in the state. I would always eat tacos as separate entities, eat the tortilla and the meat separate from each other, with a little lime, because the onions were too crunchy, and the salsa was too chunky (I know, I know. I can’t believe me either. Silly kid Jasmine). But I decided to get out of my head and eat it all together. And it was amazing.

It sounds stupid, but that taco place changed my life. Every time I drive down Beverly Blvd and I see Karina’s Mexican Food, I smile a little and say thank you. 

At that point I got super into trying new food. I wanted to try everything and anything. And our shared love of trying new kinds of interesting food very much catalyzed my friendship with Marisa. The memories we made together running around LA on our hunt for interesting meals will last a lifetime.

FOOD ADVENTURES!

“Food Adventures” became our thing. Even our moms were in on the trips that lasted through our college years. Our very first one was at a Peruvian resturaunt called Aji Limon, a favorite which we have returned to many a time. Marisa and I also facebook documented these adventures, and here are a few pics from our first one. Its pretty clear from these photos as to why we were hooked.

We were determined to try everything we possibly could, eating our way through the various cultural restaurants in Los Angeles, we learned about our neighbors through their cuisine, often looking for places to eat operated by local families instead of corporations and chain restaurants. As often as possible we would ask the people who worked there what they would suggest, what their favorite dishes. We also both got to learn a little bit more about ourselves through this process, Marisa's mom is Mexican, and my mom is Korean, and together we shared many meals with our moms that they would relate back to growing up. All things considered, our food adventures were amazing. 

So that was a crazy detour from my point. I am really good at going off on tangents. Back to The Grove, Winter of 2014.

There is this Italian restaurant, Andre’s, right near The Grove, that I was OBSESSED with. It just sort of stole my heart the first time I went in there. One thing about me is I despise bougy places. I will take a ‘hole in the wall’ over prim and proper any day. Andre’s is so down to earth, its family owned, the food is AMAZING, and its really affordable. Did I mention the food is amazing?

There is always a long line, but it goes fast. It is cafeteria style, as you go down the line, you take trays, and they serve you and then you pay at the register.

I had been hyping this place up to Marisa for like two years, and when my family was going to the grove that December when I was home on break I just had to take Marisa with us on this cheesy tradition, so she could experience the magic that is Andre’s.

After it took us like an hour and a half to go the ten blocks from the freeway to The Grove down 3^rd street the WORST traffic ever, we finally got there. And I was feeling really off.

I was dystonic, which wasn’t abnormal at that time, just more pronounced than typically, and my stomach felt weird. One bite of the dense pasta and I felt so extremely full that I could not eat anything else, not even a gelato.

I shook it off, thinking it was just a stomach bug, but later on that feeling would come back over and over again until it was the only feeling I had in my stomach. At least Marisa got to try Andre’s! It lived up to the hype 😊

~~~

Fast forward to 2015. By that point, I had steadily been losing weight. It wasn’t intentional, I simply could not eat a full meal without feeling stuffed. Like i had just eaten, well, thanksgiving dinner. 

And so I ate lots of little meals, drank ensure, did what I could to try and get enough calories to live. 

I went from 130 lbs to 105 lbs by the time I had the first brain surgery. 

I am no fool, I knew I had gastroparesis. It’s a known complication of PD. What I didn't realize was how dire the situation was getting or how serious the implications of this complication was. It was such a slow process that i didn't realize I was dying until I was skeletal, when laying down bruised my rib cage because I had no cushion, when I learned hip bones are the perfect height to be attacked by doorknobs. Being extremely thin is not fun, its painful. Its like looking in the mirror one day and wondering, what happened to me?

Even though I knew DBS wasn't going to fix my stomach, I convinced myself that it would, that this problem was not going to be something that I would have to deal with forever. DBS is great for movements, but it does nothing to improve the mess that is my vagus nerve. 

Denial is a powerful force, one that can convince even someone who's entire life aspiration is science to ignore logic and reasoning and put their stock in hope, because when it all comes down to it, our human desire to live is stronger than any other force. 

So after I had DBS #1 in June of 2015, I tried to carry on my life as normal, heading back to Redlands for my senior year, which I was excited for. At that time I had thought that I wanted to be a medical doctor, an ambition which I decided in the end was not the path I was meant to walk, which is a whole other story that I will have to tell at some point. But the point is that by the end of the end of the Summer of 2015, I had taken the MCAT (which was super brutal two months after brain surgery and no sleep for four days thanks to not yet controlled insomnia), had written a personal statement about why living with my disease inspired my desire to work in the medical field (which you can read here if you would like), and I was planning on applying, casually in between brain surgeries. 

Senior year started off rough. I was struggling with the cognitive recovery of DBS, it made it difficult for me to concentrate. Back at school, I lived on sandwiches from the UofR plaza market, and on ensure shakes. Some days I could barely drink an ensure, other days half a sandwich was my entire meal. By the time I went home for thanksgiving I was barely functioning. It had been a few days subsisting on a few sips of water and I had had enough. The day before Thanksgiving, my dad desperately took me to urgent care at 4pm.

The doctor called the on-call GI doctor, and his advice was to come back at 5am the next morning, GI docs have to do rounds in the hospital between 8 and 9, and if I could get in and have a GI consult requested, they would be able to see me. 

So there I was at 5 am on Thanksgiving in the ER, and the jerk of a doctor didn’t want to call GI, even though I was so dehydrated it was showing up in my labs. Because my nutritional markers were just at the very bottom of the range, he was refusing to call GI, and I begged him. I was miserable and desperate for someone to fix me.

He begrudgingly called, in a very snarky tone informing me that if they came it would just be a courtesy consult.  

Well, whatever. Jerkface doctor was wrong. The on call GI was the same one as the night before. This GI doc would become my GI doc, and it took him all of five minutes to tell me I was presenting classically with Gastroparesis and given my history with Parkinson’s, it was clear this was what was wrong.

Then he told me that I needed a feeding tube, and that given my state he would have put one in that day, but there was no anesthesiologist available on Thanksgiving Day. 

Its fair to say I was a little bit shocked. “oh no, see when I have my second DBS surgery in like three weeks this is going to go away.”

Yeah, it didn’t.

But he treated me with kindness. He said ‘its very unlikely that will happen but okay, lets say it does. You will still need help gaining back the weight even if you do get your stomach working, and the tube can help if it comes back slowly. Besides, its totally reversible, if you don’t need it later, we will just take it out." 

To be fair, I don’t think he truly understands just how painful tube surgery is because from a docs perspective it’s a 30 minute quick little surgery. From my perspective it was them stabbing me, pulling my stomach through the hole, sewing it and stabbing a tube through it. 

OUCH.

It was bad. But I am glad I did it, because he was right. It didn’t come back. I was holding onto a tiny thread oh hope that it would, even though I knew better. Denial is a powerful force.

So after all that backstory, we can FINALLY get to the funny Thanksgiving dinner story that I had intended to write this blog about but felt the need to write ten pages of background info so this story’s magnitude in my life makes sense.

Sweet Potato Casserole

Every year for a little longer than I have been alive, my mom has made this sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving. She found the recipe in some random cookbook made by firemen for some charity that she had. It has Kalua in it which gives it this incredible flavor, and it has marshmallows on it.

So remember when I talked about sensitivities to textures and mixed foods?

Do you think I was even a little bit okay with this casserole? NO.

Marshmallows with sweet potatoes? Are you kidding me?

For 20 years, I wouldn’t touch the thing. The sight of it made me nauseated. And then there was 2015.

That Thanksgiving, after being told I was getting a feeding tube within a week, and not knowing if I would ever even get to eat a little bit ever again, I took a big spoonful of that casserole and said “what the hell, its now or never, may as well try this before I can never eat again.”

And I took a big bite. And it was delicious. And I loved it. With my family all waiting for my reaction, I burst into tears.

Literally sobbing (and I am really not a crier) I managed to utter “its so good, and I didn’t eat this for 20 years, and I love it and in a week I can never have it again”

And tears turned into laughter on the ridiculousness of the situation. I cried until I laughed and we all laughed until we cried. 

Moral of the story: Try new things. Live it up. You never know when something you love my be gone and you wasted 20 years of not eating it.

Happy Thanksgiving. A holiday with a screwed up history, but hey, lets all spread some thankfulness. The world could use a little more of that. And to my sick friends reading this struggling with the holiday food, you are not alone <3