Travels through trials.
Katie | Queen
"There is no beauty without some strangeness" -Edgar Allan Poe
Katie is not short for another name.It's just Katie. I was born and raised in Vancouver, WA.. I was diagnosed a type 1 diabetic at the age of 10 (before anyone new it was autoimmune). Of course my parents were blamed for feeding me too much sugar, which we now now wasn't the cause. At the same time I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and osteoarthritis in my hands and feet. I had 3 siblings. Sarah, Stephanie, and Charlie. Sarah passed away when I was 9, due to complications with her cerebral palsy. That directly lead to my parents divorce six years later. Which leads me to a lifetime de-layering past traumas, behavioral patterns, and copious amounts of baggage that needed unpacked. My goal was/is to end negative hereditary patterns. I worked plenty of odd jobs here and there. My health made it difficult to hold a job long. I finally got a break from health disasters, and hospital stays around the age of 21. I started bartending, and did that for about 12 years. I gave birth to my daughter, Hannah when I was 25. Now it's her and I hell bent on conquering the world.
"In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" -The Beatles
I met my husband Tommy in 2008. Hannah was 3, and our lives began when Tommy joined our little earth take-over duo. We were now a family, and my heart truly beat for the first time. We moved in together in 2010, and got married in 2011. Then came the birth of our son, Tiberius Aleyn Ka-El , Our galactic super baby conceived in Mexico while bringing in the age of Aquarius in December 2012 (the end of the Mayan long count calendar) . Though not planned, an epic addition to the family. The first of many "best day of my life!". Tom and I quickly realized that one lifetime was not enough, and proceeded to fill every moment with passion, adventure, and new experiences. Since inception, we've touched 4 different oceans ( Tom touched, I don't do water),except that one time in Hawaii because there were whales involved. We've experienced dozens of beaches, seen numerous sunsets, fell in love with every animal we came across (You shall now be my new squishy), immersed our children in worldly and other worldly cultures, while also enjoying those cultural libations.
"Happiness is whiskey and coffee" Mrs. Takemoto if yr' nasty
Yep, I'm still a coffee and whiskey girl. Whether Tommy and I were on some epic adventure, or cooking dinner and doing homework with kids, we found a way to fall in love again and again, everyday. Still and always in the mind set of "there's still so much left to see and do" we plan a grand adventure to Japan in spring of 2019. We had just returned from an extended family Mexican cruise in December of 2018, when I started noticing some problems with my feet. Not new, just worse. Pain, and a small ulcer that just wouldn't heal. My symptoms were progressing so We decided to postpone our trip to Japan. It would be a lot of walking and why go if I was going to be miserable. Back and forth to the same doctors, who kept sending me home with topical numbing cream. Finally in May I get to see a podiatrist, who shrugs and sends me to a vascular specialist, who shrugs and sends me back to podiatry. This pattern repeats, until finally getting an angiogram on the books. A procedure to look at the vasculature of my left leg. If they find any blockage, they can stint or balloon to fix. They do find a blockage in my femoral and use an archaic procedure to break up said blockage. I say archaic because It's normal practice to remove or mesh that blockage, but instead when broken up it then travels to my foot and blocks all blood flow. Which leads to my toe turning black, then it has dry gangrene. So I thought gangrene spreads right? Well all these said specialists want me to wait to get a diagnosis before proceeding forward to amputate my toe (insert the world's biggest WTF and eye roll). While still waiting to find answers, Tom takes me to the E.R. At this point the pain is a 12, and I haven't slept in months. I've accepted the toe must go. Remember Gangrene? Well the toe wasn't enough. They amputate half the foot, and when that wound turned black, within 72 hrs, they amputate below the knee.
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"When you're in a slump, you're not in for much fun. UN-slumping yourself is not easily done." -Dr. Seuss
So we're still waiting for answers and my pain is still unmanaged. I just replaced one wound with an ever bigger wound. Over the next couple months, the amputation wound is healing slow but normal. Sparing you from too many details, I have a violent reaction to the pain medication (that wasn't working anyway) that landed us in ER...again. They find nothing wrong with me actively seizing and in pain, and try and send me home. Tom and I insist on being treated so they send me to another hospital who discovers that I was having a heart attack (all due to medication) at the same time the "other" doctors give me an enzyme that eats through the flesh of the healing wound. It grew and spread from October (3 months post amputation) to about January. Six months of a gaping wound and still unmanaged pain, they schedule a skin graft in May. It successfully healed around fall. Over a year from original amputation. Around this time I develop another ulcer on my right foot. This heals, but I develop 2 more on other toes. We find out that I'm not a candidate for a vein bypass (take a leg vein and attach to main foot vein), because I'm missing most of my vasculature from the foot. We find out later that I have a genetic mutation that has caused an inability to build and maintain proper vascular systems in my limbs. I'm a year and a half past first left below knee amputation and I'm back in ER with pain about a fifteen. They amputate below the knee and I'm in the hospital another couple weeks and even on Christmas. Pain still unmanaged. This time we leave staples and stitches in a little longer than last time and doc puts on butterfly bandages at the last stage. They leave no gaps for air or drainage. Seems odd to me, but I make the mistake again to trust they know what they're doing. With no drainage the wound bed has an overgrowth of bacteria (bio burden) that will not heal and continues to rot. That May the "rot" was to the bone and only option was to go back and amputate again, this time above the knee. Two weeks in the hospital, and 5 added types of pain management. My pain is better managed, but still not getting the desired relief . At this point, it's all that I'm going to get, and hopefully having no legs now the pain will just improve with healing. We leave the stitches in well over a month this time, and the wound heals normal. Here we are Another year and a half later and I'm finally working with prosthetics to hopefully get my dancing shoes back. I'm so ready to get back to all the things I used to do and enjoy like movies, metal shows, comic cons, SHOES, crafting, arts, museums, TRAVELING, sunshine, all things Disney, sci-fi, Star Wars, all the make-up, road trips, finding & squishing every single animal in the world, driving, dancing, karaoke, 'sexy party time' with my gorgeous husband Tommy (everywhere and all the time), quality time with my kids, family, and dogs Indiana & Georgiou (aka big bitch and little stuff). I'm very excited for this new venture to share our experiences, including our struggles traveling with disabilities, learning the do's & do-not's, and deciding if we need an old priest, young priest, or both!