#mcas

What toxins? Never specified.

Relied upon how? Never elaborated.

Which I find is an odd way to describe allergic reactions to mold in your environment.

Like I get it. I’ve joked that back in the day, I’d be the village witch telling people not to settle the village so close to the willow trees because willow trees are notorious for causing houses built too close to them to rot and mold (not to mention the insects they can attract and the subsequent bacterial and viral illnesses that may follow) and I can seemingly smell mold a hell of a lot quicker than people without MCAS, but it’s not actually a superpower.

I didn’t “sense” shit. My throat closes up.

It’s not magic or “women’s intuition” or however the fuck some of them are phrasing it.

It’s a medical condition, one that is very hard to treat and one that doesn’t react solely to “toxins.” I’m allergic to my own god damn hormones, for Christ’s sake.

And while my genes have clearly made it this far, I have to imagine that most of my ancestors with the same gene defects just fucking died owed to the lack of auto-injector epinephrine and the countless other modern drugs that keep me alive.

(“Oh, but back in the day we were exposed to less toxins.” The Tudors used lead face paint to cover pockmarks. I’m going to go ahead and press X to doubt on that one. People like me just died. That’s why you didn’t hear so much about them.)

And maybe I’m being a hypocrite, but part of me sincerely feels like it’s one thing for people with the illness to joke about being the canaries in the coal mines of certain environments that could eventually make other people sick, but it’s another for “medical professionals” to try to turn around and label it a superpower when people are dying trying to access testing and care, and being labeled as hysterical and attention seeking in the interim.

But don’t worry, girly-pop, maybe if we do a rebrand and give your suffering some sort of purpose, maybe the temporarily abled will stop trying to kill you through malicious neglect.

My dear friends, it has Been A Minute. Yes, this is my first post on this blog since September 2025, and my last post was a promise to make sure everything got uploaded once I got home from Nova Scotia.

My, my, how things change.

[The tests for the infection that changed my life]

You see, on my way home from Nova Scotia, I popped positive for COVID. And then…oh, and then. In the last few months, I have had the following harrowing medical adventure:

Had a massive, near-anaphylactic reaction to an unknown trigger at a convention

Slowly became “allergic to everything” including: all food, literal water, and my own house

Went to the ER…twice

Lost 20 pounds in two weeks because I was unable to eat for four days straight

Discovered my house was infested with mold

Had to temporarily move out of said home and back in with my father

Had 30+ vials of blood drawn (with very little answers out of that)

Been to 20+ doctors appointments across 5+ doctors of various specialties

Was medically gas lit, refused treatment, and nearly killed by one of those said doctors

Loaded up with enough antihistamines and steroids to tranquilize an elephant

Finally (finally!) found a specialist who started treating me properly at the end of Decmeber

[Views from my 1st ER visit, before things got Really Bad] "You're too young to be having chest pain. [...] Just take some Tylenol or antacid." [deadpan] "I did. It didn't work. That's why I'm here." "...oh."

As it turns out, when COVID spontaneously triggers a disease that flips your immune system upside down, sends your autonomic nervous system spiraling, and turns your mast cells into a trembling, neurotic, over-reactive little chihuahua of a guard dog… well, you lose the ability to function.

It is hard to describe my slide into hell quantitatively for those who didn’t witness it firsthand, but I went from writing a book in 4.5 months, cycling 30 miles once a week, and voraciously reading at least one book a week to… not. I tested positive for COVID the same day Charlie Kirk was shot. By the end of December, I was unable to stand for more than 5 minutes at a time, engage in any socialization/hobbies, or even idly scroll through social media. All of my energy went to attempting to feed myself what little I could and trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with me.

[Traveling with spontaneous allergic reactions/mast cell degranulation at random environmental triggers includes all of the fun emergency supplies. And a cute capybara nightlight. For balance.]

It was here where my fandom connections "saved" me once again.

I use saved in the loosest term, because I wish I hadn't had it. You see, I was on tumblr for @joydemorra's slide into MCAS hell. Watching a friend go through that sort of thing, especially when you’re thousands of miles away and there is absolutely nothing you can do, is one of those things that sears itself behind your retinas and haunts you at night. So when my symptoms started up, I recognized what was going on immediately.

It took a little bit (or a lot bit) longer to convince my medical team of what I knew. By the time they finally got on board/I fired my first allergist, I had slid so far and so fast that I had become a shell of my former self.

[The author at their sickest/gauntest during the last 3 months]

I am, frankly, extremely lucky. I have decent health care and a day job that is (so far) invested in keeping me around despite [gestures at the last 3 months]. I had a place to go to escape the mold making everything worse, and amazing friends and family who are helping me weather the storm. I am extremely type A, organized, manage construction projects for a living, so I was able to apply those skills to managing my newly developed and rapidly degrading chronic illness.

[One of my Spreadsheets of Doom, which track my daily medications, symptoms, menstrual cycle, and more!]

I didn’t know that testing positive for COVID on September 10, 2025 would turn my entire life upside down, but here we are. It is only now, about 2.5 weeks into starting treatment—treatment I begged and pleaded for over a month before I found a doctor who would listen—that I am starting to recognize myself again.

[Glass of water in an Addams Family cup, and silver packet of Cromolyn Sodium medication, a mass cell stabilizer and the first step of my new treatment]

Answers are starting to come into sharper focus as I respond to medication and get the scans I should have been given weeks ago. The exhaustion and brain fog are slowly starting to lift and I am able to start considering things other than survival. I’m starting to daydream about my characters again, and have scribbled ideas down for a new story or two now that I am no longer “disassociating and dragging my corpse along behind me.” Some day soon I might even have the energy to sit down and write them!

As we continue to trial drugs that stabilize my condition and get me back on my feet, I’ll continue to be a little less active on social media but don’t worry! I’m still here and I’m still kickin’! My misbehaving mast cells can get in line with all the government entities and assholes who want people like me and mine dead.

even more tights

Some are based on anna sui brand designs (but changed up to be more Evil), others are miscellaneous things I put together. no fishnets this time. set 1 / set 2.

base game compatible

m&f - teen thru elder

enabled for random

custom cas thumbnail