In Loving Memory of LaShawn Velasquez A.K.A LaLa

Posted by twinklev

Last week I began sharing photos straight out of Hawaii. My daughter and her local best friend Jessica went to Hawaii to be with LaLa. LaLa lives in Hawaii via her Military wife. In the early morning hours of May 21, 2017 I received a horrifying call from my daughter Kharisma. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the screams into the phone. LaLa was being placed into an ambulance. Soon after she was pronounced deceased even though the impact already took her. I haven’t been able to talk about it in the details everyone wants. None of us can.

Bring LaShawn Home

https://www.gofundme.com/bring-lashawn-home

If you can’t give to it, can you share it please?

I wrote this for her, her family, those who love her and for all the LaLa’s out there. It wasn’t about me.

Twinkle VanFleet

May 21 at 9:11am ·

My name is Suicide. People don’t know me they only know of me. I’ve kept my identity secret because of the shame my name reflects onto others. There are many who share my name and like other names there’s more than one of me. I’m not unique. I’m unique in who I had become. I’m beautiful and I ride or die in a world filled with pain and chaos. I sometimes leave behind the ones I love a little too much for hope in something better, to put my own hurts behind me or to help from somewhere else. Other times the decisions and choices I make leave lifetime scars that I didn’t consider when I…

For this I’m sorry.

My name is Suicide and it wasn’t your fault.

~Twinkle VanFleet
Sunday, May 21, 2017. 8:10 a.m. PST
#Suicide #Awareness

The next day I shared this via YouTube

My Name is Suicide

What should have been nothing but an amazing vacation of a lifetime became something my daughter will never forget seeing. I couldn’t get to my own child in living hell. I can’t imagine another mama not being able to get to hers in death.

When we can teach people that depression, suicidal ideations and attempts shouldn’t be stigmatized as voodoo we might be able to save lives. No one reaches out. Those that do are told they’ll be fine, suck it up. What they really mean is shut up because you embarrass them, shame them, or they are unable to understand fully why you reached out. Some people never will. Other’s may but are not believed. Yet there are others who shout it out as a cry for help or attention. Whatever the reason it becomes another persons fall. Just like stigma in chronic pain, medications, suffering, abuse, misuse, overdose. Judgement! LaLa didn’t overdose.

LaLa fought a chronic pain disease. She wasn’t apart of your community. She was apart of mine.

Hawaii May 16-21. Kharisma came home on the 24th.

You’ll see that my shares on Facebook went from incredible happiness to overwhelming sorrow.

She’s a warrior, too.

LaLa and Twinkle November 18, 2016

Photo: LaLa and I 6 months ago. After I completed the Gohl Program the first time. I can still remember what we said to each other.

I rode with my husband to take Kharisma and Jessica to the Airport in San Jose CA on May 16th. And the memories began. They would not have arrived until the morning of the 17th.

At precisely 6:59 a.m PST. 3:59 a.m Waikiki Hawaii I heard the phone ring out of my sleep and I missed it. I pulled myself up, something was wrong. As I redialed my daughter I began making coffee. No answer. I sent her a text: May 21, 6:32 a.m PST (3:32 a.m Hawaii) –> You called? Everything OK?

Everything wasn’t.

I still don’t want to talk about it. I understand it because I was almost someone of it. There are variations. Planned action and immediate uncertain action. Sometimes we want to die and we want to live at the same time yet there isn’t any way out of that final choice we make. Sometimes there isn’t any coming back. It’s only a finale.

LaLa was the first person my daughter ever told when she became pregnant with our grandson. Kharisma and Rikki have been close to her since they were young teens. Ozra has known her since he was 7. De’Mantai all his life. Ozra and ‘Tai have no memories of not having her part of their lives.

Sulma and LaLa spent much time with us here at our home. Coming over to be with Kharisma and having me part of those amazing times together.

I have a lot of daughter’s, some I never gave birth to.

LaLa and Sulma

#Suicide #StrongerThanPain #Breakthrough

2.5

Posted by twinklev

Not using home access for the internet for a couple of months now has been interesting since everything is social media and email, anymore. Web based. I have quite a few articles/essays/pieces to share, but I’ll wait to post them for now. I’ll probably only ever get 3 of a dozen or so up anyway. They were written offline as ability permitted. I generally don’t open the laptop at home.

I’ve been doing Bowen Therapy, each Monday, for about 4 weeks now. Also known as the Bowen Technique. I’ve done this before, but not to this extent. I’ve also been having LLLT at the same time. For more information on Low Level Light Therapy, you can also refer to NCBI or using the search terms. Having done a clinical trial for LLLT in 2011, I’ve been privileged to be able to have this treatment on several occasions since.

Since I’ve been off those 3 medications in their entirety, I’ve lost nearly 35 pounds in 10 weeks. That time line also coincides with that thing I did, and a second attempt which I’ll keep right there at this time. Last week, after, I received my certification to help down the anxiety highs. Holistically legal. An option I didn’t want to choose for myself, but one I had to make in order to prevent the 3rd time which could be the charm.

I can feel some change in soft tissue damage and related areas in my upper extremities. I can feel a decrease in some symptoms at my hips down to my feet. (Also the covered areas by my SCS, Spinal Cord Stimulator). Headaches, less intense. No matter what level of decrease I get non weight bearing, the moment I step is the rise. I incorporate dance with Yoga though it’s only upper body and sitting. I only do 4 Yoga poses. I’ve done this for years, off and on, but using it as a tool again, 3 times a day.

Really it’s all about finding my center, again. Solar Plexus, Celiac is in bad shape. I knew that before a few tests last week before therapy. Oh it’s a little about Chakras, aligning grounding etc and a bit about the physical reality of the bodily damage itself. The life force. The breath. Chi, Zen and the ‘I’ll heal me, mentality” because I know no one else can. That includes the medical profession. Besides they are just a tool, too. And one tool that like us, sometimes needs to be replaced.

I’m hyper sensitive. Not be be confused with hyper sensitivity as a medical term. Few would ever know it, yet I don’t just feel, I feel you and me. I don’t just carry emotion, but I carry your emotion. I don’t just feel pain, but I feel yours, as well. I have to shake that off, somehow and I don’t think it’s possible even in possibility without pretending, or lying to myself that I’m not feeling it. Takes us right back to mental health doesn’t it? Fake it to make it until we break it, or rather, ourselves. Every physical and emotional pain learns a coping strategy. Even a crying baby will learn to cope. .. eventually. It’s all in the mind. Our brains can’t feel pain. The only area that does feel are receptors encompassing outside the brain.

At first I thought I don’t want to lose my mind, I haven’t, I’m not crazy, but know what? Yes I do! I want to lose it. All of it. Let it all just roll out from the bottom of my feet and go away.

Things are still ongoing for now. Appointment and blood draws tomorrow. LLLT and Bowen on Monday. I tell you though when life’s harder experiences are constant, you really come out having learned.

Over

Posted by twinklev

In the last week I’ve shared about 6 video’s in the raw. Unedited, me without make up, me with make up, me just going on about the last few months or more, blah blah.

I made it 15 years. I made the last 10 with SCS, medication and functional restoration and the last 4 by medication management, SCS, and home functional restoration enough to help me set goals and achieve them. Sometimes it can really take time to get unstuck from the pain cycles, the why me’s, sulking pity party. I busted my butt, learned, wanted to learn, and aside from a patient, I’m a caregiver too. Hard? It has to be done.

So many times I’ve had to alter my list of the 3 most important tasks needing done in a day. I’d move the least important to the top of the following day’s list. All those little tricks and things I’ve learned over the years that hang out in my toolbox of survival mechanisms.

I knew it was almost over. I just never imagined it would be by the hands and decisions of others/provider’s before giving up of my own. I just didn’t think… of all the thinking I do that my award also became part of my end. I worked hard for that. Decades for that. Unpaid for that.

Spontaneous? Not really. I messaged my mom to have my Advanced Directive revoked and destroyed. I’ve tried to and I haven’t been able to get them back. It was Valentine’s Day, I called the radio station The new STAR and dedicated a song to my man. I’ll hold back on that song title right now. I took the last walk I ever thought I’d walk. It was long and hard, and I had to sit on people’s lawns or lean against trees or mailboxes and it was really only a little farther than end of our block.

Am I a quitter, a coward? Perception. A quitter and a coward would have never rolled into those headlights, but let’s be fair, I haven’t quit yet.

I was already in withdrawal, unstable, but woke up to a nice day. It was all good until I re read the first denial letter stating those 2 medications (Cymbalta and Zonegran) weren’t medically necessarily and not supported by the California MTUS (Yes they are). It also claimed that due to the doctors report it was left to interpretation on a couple of matters and one of them was that those 2 medications didn’t reduce my potential for abuse or minimize my current opioid use. Seriously?!!

I appealed and I won. No potential for abuse or misuse and both medically necessary.

Approved on appeal February 16, 2016. I’m still not on them, nor am I on any pain reliever at all.

I can get through the 7’s, bouncing 8’s and 9’s. I can use my tools to bring those 8/9’s down enough to level myself. I couldn’t handle the 9/10 I couldn’t bring myself out of it. The physical 9/10 that can make you lose your mind. Why? Because it’s in your mind where you’re coping abilities and strategies are.

Already living in your head all day just to manage your 7, see what happens when 10 comes and there isn’t any help. I’ve rarely used 10 in my entire life, I seldom use 9, except to acknowledge it gets there off and on throughout any day for seconds, minutes, hours.

10 though! I drank that bottle, intoxicated, drunk, I could care less about labels because I hit the ground on my stomach and face so hard I passed out. Somnolence, narcoleptic episodes (diagnosed) or alcohol, perhaps a combination of each. Though my husband said he dropped me as I was leaning against him.

I walked out of our gate and stood against our lamp post. Husband came out and told me to go back inside. I wasn’t doing anything but standing there, reflecting, thinking, but then…

He started grabbing me to lead me in and a lady called the Sheriff’s Department on him for abusing me. He wasn’t, but he was in my space and I just wanted to chill. I was sure to tell her that he didn’t hurt me, beat me, abuse me and that I was fine. I was. I think.

Our street, people drive down it like there is no road and a speed limit doesn’t exist.

That was my out! I laid down in the center of the street, spread my arms and my legs as best as I could and I could see headlights flying right for me. Am I mad I was pulled out of the street? A little. Why would I ever think to let a driver be responsible for killing me. Well how about this, slow down and do the speed limit. Everything is a learning experience.

The unbelievable inaccuracies in my medical records are nearly beyond fixing. Medications listed I’m not even taking, and a few for more than a year. I’ve updated again since my release and tonight I peeked at my Patient EMR. They’re all still listed. So the medications go on the record, but they don’t come off? There’s a difference between previously taken medications (inactive) and medications currently taking (active). It say’s I’m on 11 medications including 2 opioids, a benzo, oic med, lidoderm patches, cymbalta, and zonegran and I”M NOT! Lisinopril, Hydralazine, Atorvastatin and Nuvigil. That is what I’m on. 4 medications. Red flag above 7, did you know that? So yes, I’ve been red flagged and it’s flying the wrong way.

I’m sorry to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, the Metropolitan Fire Department and the EMT and probably ambulance driver too. I didn’t trust you.

When you asked if I was in pain? I told you I wouldn’t tell you even if I was… Because… I wasn’t going to have in my record an opioid pain reliever documented as given to me. Yeah I suffered and I suffered for not being truthful. I’m learning though that truth and honesty is just someone elses made up lies. Unfortunate casualties of the world we live in.

To the Officer that lacked a little faith, I pray I left you with something. Heart! Have a little faith that sometimes not everyone is who the rest of the world made us out to be.

I’m not sorry for the actions that led to my consequences or my responsibility in it. It’s forever now. I’m glad I screamed all the policy issues going on and made it loud and clear for blocks. I’m sorry for all those who played a part and either bailed or covered their own asses. I’m sorry for all those who think relieving pain leads to misuse, abuse and heroin above the overdoses that are self inflicted one way or the other.

Who ever thought it’d be me? No one!

Courage - Your fear

Goals? Get my lyrics out to those who’ve been interested and play that part of a lifetime. Really though, I’ve already done everything I wanted. From Poster Girl to TV Commercial, being published by my 20’s, being a part of Sacramento history in the news, hard copy, on the news live, iPain Foundation, my own endeavors. All in the background from my space, my cubby.

I’ll either fly off this earth by the grace of God, or by my faith in options. Take that as you will. I’ve had to choose, make choices, decisions, options to save my own life. My own!

Still not what you would simply assume.

I don’t hardly care about much right now because I can’t fix me enough to put in the few hours a month I had been to help others. I’m numb and it’s not the numb I wish it was. It really is easy to rectify wrongs, accidents, mistakes, oversights, correct errors and be responsible for your own actions. It really is easy to do. The only reason someone would choose not to is to hide their own guilt and be unable or against a face to face with you in the presence of a sit down meeting with lead staff for a reconciliation. I feel bad about that and I shouldn’t because I did move to rectify and was denied. I was even denied the 30 days of “emergency care” allotted by law when being dismissed by a provider.

I am grateful for the person who provided LLLT and Bowen Therapy yesterday. Bowen might take a few more times. LLLT I’ve done a few times before. The only “maybe” for months.

Really though, my problem is that I care too much but I think that’s been back handed out of me. None of this is finished, some has only just begun and the rest well… it is what it is, for now.

Over and…

out.

The Body, Mind and Spirit; Humanizing the Soul

https://rsdadvisory.com/2016/02/11/the-body-mind-and-spirit-humanizing-the-soul/

It Really Hurts to Hurt | Live On. Give On.

https://rsdadvisory.com/2016/03/20/it-really-hurts-to-hurt-live-on-give-on/

The Unintended Side Effects of Fighting Prescription Drug Abuse by Twinkle VanFleet

The California Progress Report January 8, 2015

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/unintended-side-effects-fighting-prescription-drug-abuse

Bracelets; Lockdown; Profound and Letdown

https://rsdadvisory.com/2016/02/26/bracelets-lockdown-profound-and-letdown/

Death: Overdose or Suicide?

Posted by twinklev

Dont Say... If I had anything worth betting, I’d bet that many of the documented opioid related overdose deaths were suicides.

How dare I say such a thing? Because in either circumstance the people who should have known better, didn’t. Why didn’t they know? Because they didn’t want to.

No one wants to acknowledge that their child, spouse, parent or partner has a drug problem or is at risk for misuse or abuse and no one wants to believe that even those who appear the strongest, laughing, joking, caregiving, keeping it together for you, would ever take their own lives.

A person seeks medical care to gain something; pain management, acute or chronic, or to manipulate for medications they don’t actually need, but want.

Some people fall through the cracks of not only the medical communities, unintended consequences, access to care, emergency services, but families, too.

I’ll leave this post short and simple.

Ponder that!

Deliverance | Suicide

Posted by twinklev

Deliverance

By Twinkle VanFleet

March 2, 2016

Your secrets she carried them well

Your regrets, she could have taken to hell

Your confidences, she held inside so tight

Your lies she covered them

From pretend to spreading for headlights

She took the blames as her own

Most- right toward the gravestone

Taken for granted; abandoned

Alone

Your lies she hid to never tell

For your own rise, prizes and people

Drained, too much to hold onto

Take some? Not even a little

Except your own sins to confess at the steeple

Deceptions, other’s misconceptions, restless

Decisions; pained spirit, heart, body and bones

Liquid courage, that little bottle lured it

To breaking down glass houses and home stones

Upon the pavement

She spread her wings

Intent, mission served

Ignitions curved

Reasons observed, so well deserved.

Abide or suicide

Ignored, no one to reach for

Many folks lost, blind to the signs

People are given up on for not enough time

Will swear to God they never saw anything blue

The beginning becomes the end,

Suicide ensues

Reaching out, passively pleading, Negative 10-4

Raining, blaming, scolded, but still loved them more.

Pressed, distressed, stressed, aggressed, led to arrest

51-49 and a half, leaped toward ridding someone elses mess

Deliverance, have you guessed?

Insist, persist, wouldn’t resist, did her best

Affirmative, 5150, tests failed, now you’re dismissed!

—

#StrongerThanPain

#CRPS #RSD #Suicide #Ideations #deliverance #5150 #poeticimagery

—

I truly am grateful for life, but not all tests and experiences are mine or just for me…

They’re yours, too.

Trinity (Mama Lived)

Posted by twinklev

Trinity (Mama lived)

by Twinkle VanFleet

3 years old

Sitting on the officer’s lap

Daddy wasn’t there,

The memory still impairs.

Dying,

Little girl wandering

No one around,

Baby girl pondering

Someone come home.

(Trinity)

Where’s mama?

Pained, bruised, all messed up

Tried to take herself out,

Didn’t know what it was all about.

Took little daughter into her arms

I love you, Mama said before she went

Little girl remembers before the decent

Flat line, just in time

To come back to it all again,

Hard life, battered wife

Just couldn’t know it then.

(Trinity)

21 gun salute

Young woman watched the ammo fly through the air,

Picked up a shell, couldn’t really bear

Daddy went to heaven, mama left the state

Fate would be sealed,

All those years ago

Would lose them both, never would heal.

Flash backs, no take backs

Destiny became the remedy,

Mama got a new life

She’s a good wife.

(Trinity)

Big girl now,

Never had to forgive it

By the trinity that gives

Blessed to know and feel it

Ma ma my mama lives

I-love-You-Saying-Images-and-Wallpapers-26

CRPS/RSD and Suicide

Posted by twinklev

Over the years we have heard that suicides for CRPS/RSD (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome/Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy) patients is the highest of all suicide rates.

This may not be as necessarily true as it seemed. This also does not entirely mean it’s false.

The following is an excerpt by the Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association (RSDSA) –

Suicide and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
On June 23, 2012, Jill Harkany-Friedman, PhD, spoke to the RSDSA Board of Directors and invited guests on the topic of CRPS and Suicide Prevention. Dr. Harkany-Friedman is the Senior Director of Research and Prevention for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). RSDSA asked Dr. Harkany-Friedman to speak because of recent suicides in the CRPS community. She assured us that although most individuals have fleeting thoughts of ending one’s life, suicide is relatively rare (12 out of 100,000). Furthermore, 90% of those who die by suicide have a diagnosable mental disorder, i.e. depression, anxiety, alcohol or substance abuse, and a potentially treatable mental disorder. We are posting her PowerPoint® presentation for your information.

I respectfully give all credit to the RSDSA for the above information.

While I respect the educated view of Dr. Harkany-Friedman the thought presents itself that she seems to be stating that nearly all those CRPS related suicides indeed had and underlying mental disorder therefore was the reason they took their own lives. I am not certain though. The estimates were on an over all amount of suicide percentages rather than CRPS specific.

I do apologize in advance for any misunderstandings.

I have rarely ever used offensive language in my posts, but in order for the general masses to understand what I mean in a blunt manner, I will come right out and say it, “Chronic severe pain is a mind and head fuck”. It becomes mental. We all know, at least most of us do, in order for us to feel pain, our brain has to feel it first.

That’s why coping strategies, meditation, relaxation, bio feedback, breathing exercises, guided imagery, aroma therapy and so many other techniques are necessary tools for the management of pain.

I have a hard time believing each of the CRPS suicides also had a mental disorder. Of course we’re mental. That doesn’t mean we have a mental disease, also.

It’s not all in our heads it’s in our bodies!

This also bring up another thought and that is if those suicides were CRPS misdiagnosis’. I hate to bring this up but there are some people who desire to be sick, who seek attention, who thrive on pity, who watch and listen to others for their symptoms so they can take what they learn to their own doctors and claim the same illness. Those people would have mental disorders.

In these cases I would hope the doctor’s were watching the objective findings rather than only listening to the subjective.

A little example,

30 people on a plane

Someone starts coughing and gagging suddenly, itching themselves all over. Making a scene for all to notice.

The person gets out of his seat and stumbles into another passengers and coughs all over him.

That person begins to worry he is catching something. He starts to itch himself.

Suddenly others are doing the same.

Next thing you know every one is hacking, coughing, itching and going nuts.

They all think they’ve contracted some illness, epidemic..

The problem is no one has it’s all in their heads. They only believe it to be true.

The first person never had anything at all. It was just a test.

This only goes to show the power of suggestion.

For some reason I tend to think that if deaths were related to CRPS/RSD we wouldn’t know that it was. Somehow some way it would be found and reported that that there was a psychiatric condition present or un diagnosed and that was the reason behind the suicide. Since nearly all CRPS/RSD patients have been diagnosed with depression secondary their illness, I have a feeling the depression would be used as the cause and not the horrible pain itself.

Suicidal ideations would be almost natural for anyone going through a painful hardship. The mind tries to free itself from ongoing pain and turmoil. It may plan and think of ways out, do things it wouldn’t normally do when more at ease, may even harm, cause bodily injury and so much more.

Self harming, cutting and causing bodily injury isn’t always a sign of suicide or suicidal ideations, sometimes it’s just a diversion to the original pain one is constantly feeling.

I think most CRPS/RSD’rs who have suicidal thoughts don’t really want to die at all, on the contrary they want to live.

They just need help managing their pain and most of them aren’t getting it.

~Twinkle Wood-VanFleet