Welcome to Digest This! My name is Walker Vreeland and I’m a producer, actor and writer. I also happen to suffer from chronic illnesses, and after 43 years, I’m finally ready to talk about it publicly. This blog, and podcast are my own personal account of how it feels to be confronted with unrelenting sickness, how I emotionally process the uncertainty, and get through the day-to day. They are both “works in progress.” For the first time, I’m giving myself the opportunity to answer the questions: what’s it really like to face illness? And: how do you, for better or worse, respond to it?
Mostly, I’m doing this for myself, because I find that revealing my own inner life, as it pertains to the disfunction of my own body, allows me to take back control of my own story, transforming it from raw chaos into order and meaning on the page. Already, this experiment has proven to be a salve to my psyche, even if my body feels like it’s breaking down. My attempt to see myself without a filter in these particular circumstances is life-giving. Even when it causes me to cringe in embarrassment, there is a release and a new, deeper understanding of self.
For those of you who have not experienced chronic illness, perhaps this will help open your eyes to the strange and surreal world we live in, making you a better friend to others and also to yourself. For those of you out there who do know what it’s like to live with this wild animal inside of you, I hope that my perspective resonates and helps you feel less crazy. We are all members of a tribe, living in our own matrix, trying to determine which way is up, which way to turn, how to keep moving through without losing hope and calling it quits.
And so if this speaks to you in any way, I would love to hear from you and welcome your story. The more we can connect and share our experiences, the more we can turn our poison into medicine. Until we meet, may our hope burn bright.
DIGEST THIS is now a podcast as well!
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The Small Comforts
Not a terrible view from the hospital. I’m grateful for the small comforts.
• The sunshine.
• That I’m allowed to wear my own socks and underwear instead of a gown. Open-backed gowns? Who the F thought of such a thing?
Not a terrible view from the hospital. I’m grateful for the small comforts.
• The sunshine.
• That I’m allowed to wear my own socks and underwear instead of a gown. Open-backed gowns? Who the F thought of such a thing?
• Tripping balls on Ketamine until the pain became manageable.
• That I’m lying in the most beautiful hospital room I’ve ever seen in my life..on the 9th floor of one of the Penn Hospital buildings in University City, and have the room to myself. I am so goddamn lucky.
• For the beds! Forget Sloan Kettering— these beds are amazing. They’re super wide and like sleep number beds where you can adjust the softness, firmness, bring your head up, bring your feet up, bring your head AND your feet up, fold yourself into a pretzel, shoot yourself out of it like a cannonball, use it as a raft.
• That maybe I’m still tripping on Ketamine?
• I ordered the lasagna for lunch and it was hot and good!
• Watching The Golden Girls on my iPhone.
• For all of your comments and messages that make me feel so special, and so lifted and loved up. (Not a small comfort, a big one.)
• Also a big comfort: Evan. Who is the sweetest, cutest, funniest, most steady and stable, loving partner I could ever hope for. Just sitting next to him relaxes my breathing and strengthens my heartbeat. I could be lying on the street, poisoned, and if a doctor passed by and offered me an antidote, Evan would probably say something like: “he’ll only take it if there’s an anal option and you’re willing to administer it.” Which would make me start laughing so hard, I’d eject the poison naturally and be healed.