Content Note

This post contains discussion of chronic illness, disability, medical trauma, pain, mobility struggles, family grief, food insecurity, and the realities of living in a medically complex body. As always, please take care of yourself while reading.

Welcome to The Crippled Cryptid: Saturday Health Updates

This is your gentle heads up before we begin.

These posts talk openly about chronic illness, disability, medical trauma, hospital visits, symptoms, and the unfiltered reality of living in a body that doesn’t always cooperate. Some weeks are soft reflections. Some weeks are heavy. Please check in with yourself before reading and come back when you’re in the right headspace.

No one will ever judge you for skipping a post here.

We understand that things get heavy, especially in spaces like this.

If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.

Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Occasional chronic illness and disability advocate.
Medically complex enough to make my chart look like a horror anthology.

I cope with sarcasm, stubborn hope, whatever snacks survived the week, and a concerning amount of coffee. At least, it would be if my cardiologist recognized POTS as a disability. But, what do I know?

Most days are lived inside a haunted meat suit with a questionable warranty and a long-standing feud with my nervous system. I spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™, but I’m rarely alone thanks to Luna, my medical alert service dog.

Guardian.
Enforcer.
Tiny chaos gremlin with a medical degree she absolutely gave herself.

She’s the voice that says, “Hey. Sit down.” And when I ignore her, she upgrades to, “Mumther, we are not negotiating with your bad decisions today.”

I like to joke that she’s the sassiest spirit guide alive, but when you’re a cryptid who’s notoriously good at ignoring red flags from your own body, you need a spirit guide with teeth.

Then there’s M&M.

My Player 2. My soft place to land. The one who shows up with garden spades, chicken poop, and the kind of quiet strength that keeps the world from tipping sideways when my body decides to startle everyone. She gives the 90% when I only have 10%, and she reminds me that survival is still a team effort.

This space is for chronic illness without inspiration porn.
Disability without apologies.
Honesty without pretending it’s always neat or hopeful or easy.

There will probably be dog hair involved.

If you’ve been here before, welcome back.
If you’re new, take a breath. You don’t have to prove anything to exist here.

Welcome to the Lunatic Café.

On Today’s Health Update: Gardening, Recovery, Food Bank Days, & Freedom

Hey everyone, I hope you’re all having a good week.

This is one of those rare weeks where I can honestly say my health feels… stable.

Not good. Not great. But stable in a way that doesn’t feel catastrophic.

Not falling apart.
Not on the floor.
Not actively negotiating with my nervous system like it’s a haunted Victorian child living in the walls.

Just… okay.

And honestly? Sometimes “okay” feels revolutionary when you’ve spent years surviving one medical fire after another.

This week, we finally got the garden planted, and I’m genuinely proud of it.

Not Pinterest proud. Not influencer proud. Real proud. The kind of pride that comes from standing in aching joints and sore muscles looking at something you built anyway.

Because disabled people are still allowed to participate in joy.

Even if we have to do it slower.
Even if we need breaks every ten minutes.
Even if we pay for it later with heating pads, braces, electrolyte drinks, and a dramatic groan every time we sit down.

I’m tired of the idea that disabled people should only spend energy on survival. Sometimes we deserve to spend energy on joy too.

And believe me, your ghoul is sore.

By the end of planting, my fingernails were packed with dirt, my knees were screaming, and the whole backyard smelled like tomato vines and overturned earth.

There’s absolutely no way we could’ve tackled all of it alone, though. Tyler and Ethan came over and helped us clear weeds and prep everything beforehand, which saved us an unbelievable amount of work. So, thank you, boys. I hope lunch was worth the manual labor and accidental adoption into Cryptid Garden Ops.

Because obviously if my friends come help me destroy my spine in the backyard, I’m feeding them.

That’s just Midwest Law.

The Plant Prowl Chronicles 🌱

Then came the annual plant hunt.

M&M and I prowled garden centers like two exhausted raccoons with caffeine and ambition.

This year we scored a bunch of plants thanks to Home Depot’s Memorial Day sale, Harm’s Farm, and Hoffman Nursery nearby.

This year’s garden lineup includes:

• Black Beauty zucchini
• Beefsteak tomatoes
• Yellow Sunset cherry tomatoes
• Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes
• Mad Hatter peppers (a new contender I’ve never seen before but I’m so jazzed about)
• Purple bell peppers (I literally screeched in the garden center, I’ve never seen these before)
• Red bell peppers
• Yellow bell peppers
• Green bell peppers
• Jalapeños
• Green beans
• Sugar snap peas
• Parsley
• Strawberries
• Purple flowering chives (our legacy plants that come back every year)
• Asparagus (another legacy)
• Raspberry bushes (established last year, hopefully this year they’ll fruit!)
• One immortal rhubarb plant fueled entirely by spite like me

And honestly? I love it.

I love knowing that later this summer there will be tomatoes warm from the sun sitting on my kitchen counter. I love the idea of handing friends peppers and zucchini like some sort of overenthusiastic garden cryptid wandering out of the woods with produce offerings.

But more than that, I love what the garden represents.

Not perfection.
Not productivity.
Not some sanitized “wellness” aesthetic.

It represents survival.

It represents creating something despite pain.
It represents community.
It represents disabled people still being allowed to cultivate beautiful things.

Even if we have to sit in the dirt to do it.

Luna, naturally, supervised the entire operation like a tiny OSHA inspector with unresolved trust issues.

Between demanding ball tosses and aggressively monitoring my activity levels, she spent most of the week giving me side-eye every time I bent down near the freshly tilled dirt.

You could practically hear her thinking:

“Mumther. Explain yourself immediately.”

🐾 Luna Note From Management

Mumther planted herself in dirt repeatedly this week despite visible structural instability.

I supervised extensively.

There were:

• Too many shovels
• Not enough breaks
• Questionable bending mechanics
• Several unnecessary “I’m fine” statements
• One emotional support zucchini incident

I attempted intervention through:

• Side-eye
• Blocking maneuvers
• Tactical ball placement
• Concerned herding behaviors
• Medical sass

My recommendations were ignored.

Again.

0/10 patient compliance.
Would still protect with my life.

🐾

By Wednesday night, after all the gardening and soreness and dirt-covered chaos, M&M and I finally collapsed into Bed Jail™ and rewarded ourselves with The Boys series finale.

No spoilers here. Your ghoul was raised right.

We’ll talk about it properly in a future Bed Jail™ Broadcast once everybody’s had time to emotionally recover and scream into the void accordingly.

But there was something nice about it. Sitting there sore and exhausted, Luna sprawled dramatically across the bed like she personally paid the mortgage, and just getting to exist for a little while instead of surviving.

Those moments matter too.

Food Banks, Found Family, & Being Able to Give Back

One of the biggest things this garden means to me is that eventually, some of this food won’t just feed us.

It’ll feed other people too.

Anything we can’t use, can, freeze, or preserve is going straight to the food pantry that helped carry us through some incredibly difficult months.

And today feels especially important because after seven months without a vehicle, we finally have a car again.

That freedom doesn’t just mean grocery trips or doctor appointments anymore.

It means possibility.

During those months without transportation, the food pantry stopped feeling like a place we visited and started feeling like family. Like people we genuinely looked forward to seeing every week. People who treated us like human beings instead of burdens.

That matters more than I can explain.

So, now that we finally have the Jeep, I want to help where I can.

If they need help moving boxes from one place to another? I can do that.
If they need pickup help during the week and I’m not trapped at a doctor’s office? I can do that too.

If the Jeep is big enough to haul a wheelchair, a walker, and my chaotic medical existence around town, it’s big enough to haul food.

And maybe it isn’t some massive world-changing thing.

But I think survival changes you.

I think when people help keep you alive during the hardest parts of your life, you remember that forever.

And I think if everyone paid kindness forward just a little bit, this world would feel a whole lot less lonely.

Cardinals & Ghost Stories

While I’m typing this at the back table before heading to the food pantry, there’s a female cardinal sitting out on the deck.

Bright and beautiful against the morning light.

You know what they say about cardinals, right?

That they’re loved ones coming back to visit.

And lately, I’ve caught myself wondering if maybe it’s my mom checking in on me somehow. Saying hello. Letting me know she sees me finally piecing together parts of my life that used to feel missing.

Especially now that I finally figured out who my father is.

Even typing that still feels strange.

Father.

That word still feels new in my mouth. Like trying on a coat that technically fits but still feels unfamiliar around the shoulders.

But I like him.

He’s kind. Weird in the best possible way. The sort of person who absolutely looks like he’d haunt a horror-themed thrift store after dark searching for VHS tapes and cursed antiques.

Which, honestly, explains a lot about me.

For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel pressure to perform normalcy for someone else’s comfort.

I don’t have to pretend to be polished or cookie-cutter or white-picket-fence acceptable.

I can just be the purple-haired cryptid goblin that I already was.

And somehow that feels like freedom too.

The Year of Adventure

Now, with all of that said, am I still sore from gardening?

Absolutely.

Do I also have plans to wander around 7 Mile Fair with M&M and the Yard Yeti on Monday despite my body sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies every time I stand up?

Also, yes.

Because I said this was going to be the Year of Adventure.

And I meant it.

I want to do more before surgery. I want memories that exist outside hospitals and specialist appointments and waiting rooms that smell faintly like antiseptic despair.

So, if that means sunscreen, mobility aids, sitting every five minutes, or renting one of those little scooters when my hip decides to audition for an exorcism and dislocate itself, then so be it.

Disabled joy still counts.

Even when it looks different.

Especially then.

Anyway.

The tomatoes are planted.
The cardinal came by.
The Jeep is running.
The cryptid is still here.

And for now, that feels like enough.

If something here hit close to home, you’re not alone.

If you stayed anyway, thank you.

You don’t have to earn your place here.

Before you go, a soft little check-in from the Lunatic Café:

Take your meds if it’s time.
Drink some water.
Eat something small, even if it’s just a few bites.

No gold stars required.

Just a reminder from one haunted meat suit to another.

-Sky

© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability. Honesty. Survival without the performance.

🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

No pressure to donate. Reading, sharing, and existing alongside me is already enough.

If you want to support the long, unglamorous work of survival and mobility:

💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility