I'm in incredible pain. My prognosis is a year. I will spend every day in unbelievable pain until then. I wrote about why I'm enrolling in a clinical trial. I chose survival because leaving would have broken them worse than it broke me to stay. ninelivesbykpb.substack.com/p/im-still-s...

God help me, I think I’m becoming a bird person.

Spilled a Gatorade and ruined: my phone (had to get a new one), my beloved Powerbeats Pro, my iPad’s battery, and my MacBook’s charger. One spill cost me thousands of dollars. Combine this with PMDD, grief, horrible “you’re gonna die in 5 yrs if you’re lucky” medical news and you have me right now.

Writing about the 3 weeks I spent inpatient at the #NIH while they gutted funding and cut jobs including maintainence crews. Two days later, sewage started coming out of the patients’ shower drains. Including my own. I had to switch rooms mid-vomiting attack.

A nurse here at NIH heard I needed the basics as my stay is now for weeks. I’m quite ill. This angel nurse heard and went to Target on HER DAY OFF! She refuses to let me pay her back. That is beauty and empathy, things you’ll find at the National Institutes of health.

Trying to swallow with candida esophagitis is like trying to swallow knives. I head to the NIH on Sunday or else I’d go to the ER. Unfortunately NIH is so strict about IV pain meds. Candida esophagitis is horrific; I shouldn’t have to fight for minor, short comfort. We’ll see how they are Sunday.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. More than 90 members of my extended family were murdered. Children. Parents. Grandparents. I'm sharing a piece I wrote in 2021. #neverforget open.substack.com/pub/jenmen/p...

I’m babysitting till midnight and I need something to watch. I don’t like anything scary, disturbing, super serious. My fav show ever is The West Wing & unfortunately, Gilmore Girls. I love the new Matlock. And High Potential. Should I watch episode 2 of #ThePitt? Help. I can’t watch another Gilmore

I fell down 6 wooden stairs in my parents’ house today and I’m fairly certain the ring and pinky are broken. They’re so swollen. My baby toe looks like Chris Farley.

Great coping method, cuz lol

@ehahnmd.bsky.social hey, can I send you a private message? My friend’s niece just got diagnosed w osteosarcoma and starts chemo Friday at MSKCC and I told the mom that the pain team was great but I’m sure she’d be super reassured knowing I mentioned her name to you. Would so appreciate it. Thanks.

“I have never cried so much in a day,” she says every couple months now. #grief #suddendeath #67istooyoung #deadDadclub

Not me being cranky on this app cuz I have like 40 followers lol. I keep forgetting to log on. I’m such a baby. I do think social media is built to feed resentment and envy and consumerism. And yet we persist! Find me and my insane hair on Instagram @KellyBergin where I’m unfortunately more active

@taylorlorenz.bsky.social tay, post these bills I got today from an ICU stay at UCLA. I’m on SSD, $1100 a month, Medicare Part A, B and D.

Celebrating Adelaide’s birthday without my dad really fucking hurt. Worse than Thanksgiving. Raw emotion and an empty chair don’t mix. He should fucking be here. This is them during the speech he gave with Ad at my brother’s rehearsal dinner. He died 12 days later.

It’s my middle niece’s 9th birthday. She is an incredible kid—brilliant, hard-working & deeply kind. She’s an empath so she has really struggled since my dad died unexpectedly 7 months ago. She misses him and hates seeing us all heartbroken. She is magic. So glad she had a good day.

My family is too Irish Catholic to do a turkey trot. The only running we do is to the toilet to throw up the alcohol we drank last night.

Okay. Tell me where you live and how much an average cheeseburger is at a bar/tavern. I’m aghast that they’re now $18 here. (Asbury Park, NJ)

Peter James Matthew Kingston the Fir-irrrstttt 🎤Sing that in an annoying singsong voice and you have me conversing to my dog every day.

Found this in my TimeHop. No one is more peak middle child than my second niece, Adelaide. Fear her. (She’s almost nine now and the kindest kid in her class according to her teacher. According to us, yes…and she will fillet you like a fish using only her words)

My dog is too attached to me. He has to be touching my arm. He’s definitely part human.

Did some of my best writing recently on today’s new newsletter. Please check it out. It would mean the world to me if you subscribed. #terminaldisease #grief #loss #writing ninelivesbykpb.substack.com

Grief is such a mindfuck. I had no idea your brain basically ceases to exist when you lose someone close to you, especially suddenly and unexpectedly. It’s been 6 months, and I’m nowhere near okay. Miss you, Dad. www.legacy.com/us/obituarie...

Do I have to delete my X account now? I didn’t archive it yet and I want it up for posterity!!

Hi, y’all. I’m a writer with a new newsletter about grief and living with a deadly disease. YET IT IS FUNNY! I promise I will make you laugh here too. So glad to meet you all. ninelivesbykpb.substack.com

Hi, y’all. I’m a writer with a new newsletter about grief and living with a deadly disease. YET IT IS FUNNY! I promise I will make you laugh here too. So glad to meet you all. ninelivesbykpb.substack.com

I’m here now! The mass exodus from X has begun.