Back to business! Return to my lifestyle journal: summer, birthday andhealth update!

Oh hey blogosphere dwellers!

I hope this post finds you smiling!!! I've been a hermit on this blog and on theravenousreport.blogspot.com.....moreso than here actually!!! *insert gulity, sad but shameless face* because I've had some good times, made memories and learnt more about myself during my hiatus. 

Productivity report 

I succeessfully finished my music course with a grade (DMM) that was better than half the people on my course despite being in hospital, missing half the course. I can only give the credit to the grace of God and an amazing tutor who believed in me, was patient and did everything above and beyond his role to make sure I get my grades. I'll forver be grateful to Dave for that! 

I also wrote a lot of songs and got a few llive performances and put my first rough demos on soundcloud of my original songs.....one step closer to them publishing cheques ;)!!!! For two of the performances I gave it my all and sang my butt off, ending up in hospital with breathing problems and a costochondritis flare up! To this day I still say I have ZERO regrets, you only live once and it may as well be musical and passionate! I also wrote an article for a women's magazine which will be coming out soon and I will share the experience with you guys on here. 

Memories I made 

My first post gives you my medical history and how I nearly lost my life but now I've got to a point of using those experiences to remind me to LIVE! Number one on my list was bring my friends closer and filling my days with memories and facilitating the fun so I can bring everyone together. 

In the first picture it had rained on the day of my friend's birthday, literally torrential downpour with thunder and lightening. This put a dampener on our picnic plans but in lieu of cancelling and letting his day get ruined I rearranged my bedroom, filled it with candles, flowers and set up an indoor picnic with music and cocktails. I made a yummy lunch and we chatted away for hours! An epic example of making limoncello when life throws you lemons! Or lemonade if you're under 18! 

The second picture is a beautiful night I shared with friends at a Vietnamese restaurant which I will do a review of soon on my food blog when eat there again! I reunited with friends I hadn't seen in here and brought new friends into my circle with old friends and it was a beautiful belated birthday blessing! 

Larger than life 

First came the exercise ban (well I couldn't work out even if I tried,) then came the stress/ comfort eating and it just got fluffy from there. I struggled to come to terms with my weight gain and was so disappointed with myself especially after losing weight and being vocal about it and proud of myself.

I was using my old pictures for promo and social media print work until one day something snapped. No it's want the button on my jeans! It was a sudden flashback to when I was at my skinniest and I stood in the mirror and promised to love myself at every size. At that point I didn't want to lose sight of why I was losing weight. It helped me lose weight from place of wholeness and self love with health in mind and not get caught up on dress sizes. It also silenced my insecurities from pushing me to go beyond what's healthy in pursuit of "body perfection." 

Back at my heaviest it helped me to remember that this body is a temporary earthly shell that houses my spirit and my soul. I have to take care of it and listen to what it's telling me be it, eat better, rest more or excercise. However what lives on is my soul and spirit and they also need to be taken care of just as much. This helped me not get too caught up in my fat, cut myself some slack and work on the inside till I'm healthy enough to work on the outside through excercise. Meanwhile I'm dressing my lovely lady humps in flattering fashions and appreciating every lump, bump and trying to control the only thing I actually can control which is my diet!  

Posting pictures from the shoot I took the above picture from with new music was liberating. I was no longer censored by the shame of weight gain and could show my whole body again. As sillyas this sounds, anyone who has had any body image issues would relate and would high give me right about now! 

 Five a day (fermented grapes included)

I waved goodbye to morphine and said hello to wine, cocktails and morning headaches! With side effects of mixing morphine and alcohol including severe motor skill impairment, addiction and increased likelihood of overdosing I steered cleared of all things booze for months. My doctor finally took me off  morphine and revised my prescription.  I now have a smaller stash of meds that include a dose of cocodamol that is classed as a controlled drug! I'm praying that one day I will be so healthy the only pills I have to take are vitamins! Till then I'm celebrating the small victories!

 I am also drinking with caution because my body is not fully recovered YET but will be one day! I don't allow myself to get drunk anyway (biblical and moral reasons) and I stay hydrated to minimise hangovers and feeling worse than what my body has to deal with already. 

Birthday blues 

There was an array of anticlimactic events surrounding my 21st birthday.  From fighting for my life and the weakness of having next to negative levels of haemoglobin in my blood I just couldn't do anything big.  So I built my 22nd up to be a re-do and something big. Leading up to it  though I felt better than I'd done last year considering I'm not set to have a heart surgery 12 days after my birthday, I got hit by the birthday blues. Nothing seemed worth it and things weren't going the way I wanted them to. I have to work hard at this because I struggle with this every year. I remember the night of my 20th birthday, bursting into tears when the clock struck midnight and feeling depressed about my birthday.

 It's a huge battle for me and since I was once treated for depression. Although I kicked depression's butt and sent it running, I have to look at triggers and patterns that may be remnants of a depression plagued mindset in my life and nip them in the bud before they get too far. I will actually do a blog post based on my experiences on how I daily work at keeping a depression free mind even when my body is shutting down and I feel out of my depth. 

I eventually got over myself, made plans and a list of birthday demands for my family to adhere to and it had a strong of fabulous birthday celebration lasting fortnight! 

A moment ceased.... 

This above picture was taken at Shaka Zulu Camden. There was an African band playing beautiful drums with a singer and dancer. The atmosphere was so infectious and I felt daring enough to edge up closer to the band and shake my temple to beat of the African drum! It was so liberating and my friend Nicole who is a photographer managed to capture the moment perfectly! 

Family time

The last few months including spring and summer have been full of changes for our family and we've been tested but it's brought us close together.....eventually. There have been times when I've wanted to just go away and leave everything behind, forget about it all.  I remembered I need my cardiologist on speed dial and I need my mummy so I should probably just take a nap and regain perspective of my problems and CHILL! My brother and my best friend Shanaz have been bombarded by social media tags to funny stuff I spend my down time watching and cheering myself up with and it's just been a way for us to bond more. My daddy is just daddy! A complex human being I appreciate more and more as time passes but still perplexes me with his nuances and tendencies. However I love him more than even he knows. 

As time goes on I'm learning to hold what's most important closest to my heart and letting go of what's fickle and fleeting including relationships, friendships, insecurities and certain ideals pertaining to my career. At the end of the day if I have God, my family, music and my close friends I'm good! Everything else will fall into place.  

Bonus!!! 

Here are some pictures I took upon my return to fitness albeit light walking, it's something!!!! I took pictures to resist the temptation of running and making my heart leap out of my chest!!! Wolff Parkinson White sufferers can relate....the change in heart rate from sudden movement or strain can only be felt to be believed! Add an irregular heart beat and a chance of cardiac arrest....running is something I'm slowly easing into with caution, doctor supervision and prayer!  I managed to catch a sunset or two....here they are! 

I'm sorry about the irregularity in my posts but some of this time off has been needed to regroup, regain my health and build life experience for me to share on this, my lifestyle journal! Thanks for bearing with me!

Wet kisses and bear hugs!!!

Kymmiisha

Xo 

The fact that you're reading this means that I have beatenprocrastination!!!

Hello internet users! I'm Kymmiisha and in true AA fashion and as aforementioned....I'm a huge procrastinator!!!! However as a believer in breaking habits irrespective of time and season (not waiting for the New Year) I am going ahead and posting my very first blog post!!! 

Let me assure you that whatever you're procrastinating against in your own life couldn't not be as bad as mine because I secured this domain a long time ago and downloaded the app months ago so 1) you are not alone and 2) please join me in breaking the habit and get off your butt too!!!

Blogging has become the new black and anyone who has as much as an opinion and the aptitude to use the internet to express it in a way more coothed and acceptable than trolling and social media ranting has taken to the the keyboard. I too felt the need to share my vast array of passions (yes passions I don't just have hobbies I do fall deeply in love and obsess over everything I do or have an interest in!!) 

So I'm sure you're wondering what this blog will be about, who I am and what gives me the right to blabber on the World Wide Web and demand an audience.....here's a brief introduction!!!

My name is Kymmiisha and I'm 21 years old. I'm keeping my precise location undisclosed in lieu of over sharing but I live near London, England. I do most of my interactions, business and pleasure in and around London and haven't travelled in the last year for reasons I will explain later. 

I am obsessed with fashion in every form and I'm that girl who sits, stares and drools at fashion editorials and takes clippings of inspiring things and I also save pictures of all my favourite things. Part of this is because I'm a very visual person in learning and in dreaming and I also love to capture moments and take pictures of EVERYTHING!!! Sooooo this is an example of my obsession. I'm sure some tweeted this picture, I gasped and I saved it on my phone!!

I was mostly raised by my grandmother who was a beautiful woman of Botwsanian and South African heritage and lived in Zimbabwe where I was born and lived during some of my childhood. As a result my world came crushing down when she died on May the 7th 2011. Though it was hard and I never got closure after she passed. With time and counselling I have gained so much peace about it and find inspiration in all she taught me and I'm grateful for the times I spent with her.  I am also grateful for times spent with my grandad (another dearly departed soul who left a big imprint on my life and played a key part in raising me.) 

Pictured above is my piano Ms Brown Sugar who was first called "Tinkerbell" derived from the saying "having a tinker on the piano." I bought her when I was 18 as a quarter life crisis instead of buying my first car like other normal teens with a grasp of reality as I had little training but fell in love with her whilst browsing a vintage warehouse. The fact that she only had one previous owner and at that point she was a hundred and ten years old and had been sold by the old lady who owned her from charity proved too good a history to pass. Also the thrill of bargaining with the owner was my first ever experience of a thrift high!  All those year later she adorns my dining room and is an aid for my vocal excercising, composing when song writing and as a guide when I give vocal lessons. 

The best thing about it all is that I put pictures of family, both dearly departed and living, which feels like motivation to work hard as they are looking down at me. 

I was unfortunately born with a fairly rare heart condition called Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome with which I have suffered symptoms from the age of ten and was diagnosed on the 17th of May 2013. I passed out during a rehearsal with my  then band, suffering from chest pains and breathing difficulties. To cut a long story short I felt like my life had come to a screeching halt and my whole world was upside down. As my birthday is in July, this meant planning a surgery to fix this and I was becoming increasingly weak and tired and worst of all my surprise 21st birthday was cancelled and couldn't have a party at all. I had the procedure done 12 days after I turned 21. I felt like my life was over, little did I know the journey was about to get rougher. The procedure I had was called a catheter ablation and not only was it unsuccessful I also found myself fighting for my life twice that day. First it was a reaction to the general anaesthetic and the second time my blood pressure was dangerously low and I was dehydrated. Again, the fight wasn't over because ten days after the procedure I was in a so much pain I was crying. Was taken back to hospital only to find out I had some nerve damage in my right leg as the procedure involved sticking 7 catheters into my groin through arteries that led to the heart and when effective, the catherters are used to apply heat and burn off the extra connections in my heart that caused dodgy heart rhythm and fast heart beat. I was then to go on for almost eight weeks in a lot of pain half the time and drugged up on medication and unable to walk for the rest of the time. So yeah, that was my 21st birthday summer!!! 

Not all hope was lost however, and as a believing and practising Christian, I and so many amazing family and friends were fervent in praying for me to get better and my prayer was answered in one service when a pastor asked to lay hands on my leg since he had seen my limping. Lo and behold after months of prayer and in a room full of brothers and sister who compassionately cried out on my behalf the pain on my right side ceased. It took a couple of days and I was walking again like my old self and the pain was fading away. 

I have been able to inspire many through my faith God and my story from adults to young people as I would share it with anyone who cares to listen and had the privilege speaking at a youth conference in November!!! 

The story of my health is still being written and every day I fave new challenges and have to adapt my lifestyle with my new found knowledge of the condition up until I'm completely cured of it (yes my faith is big and crazy but I know one day it will just be a name!!)

Meanwhile I'm often in hospital if not for tests (I've had an MRI, Tilt table, Treadmill test, Echocardiogram, Ultrasound, Many ECGs and Blood Pressure tests just to name a few and cardiologist appointments) I have been rushed there and stayed due to atrial fibrillation and  tachycardia attacks, chest pains....the lot!!! I always find that many junior doctors have either never seen a case like mine since medical school or they have only dealt with one or two patients like me. Most nurses can't pronounce it and have often never heard of it. I have been asked for my ECG to teach people about the disease as it's rare and most staff at my local hospital know me on a first name basis! Google WPW and educate yourselves and please remember me in your prayers :). I have had to have faith in God because the doctors often use trial and error, for which I don't blame them, it's been a heavy road but it would be nice to know that they know what they're doing!! 

My most recent hospital stint was due to a virus that most people bounce back from within a week or so but due to having WPW and frequent Vasovagal Syncope attacks among the list of ailments I'm fighting against including Chronic Anaemia I was wiped out. I had to spend a gruelling four days in hospital including ambulance transfers to other hospitals nd am still not back to my old self. 

I say all this to tell my colourful story that has had a lot of trials (and I still am dealing with a lot) but I choose to be open and wear a smile but also don't wear a mask on the rainy days and often use the torch of my faith as a light to not only light up the end of the tunnel but to light up my surroundings. In all this I also hope to inspire anyone going through similar or worse to love, live, dream and to know that they're not alone because I spent a lot of time feeling alone in my journey! 

Phew I need a drink after all that heart pouring and seriousness!! Right, on a more hopeful and happy note, I am a songwriter and I also sing (in that order!) Although l love performing and come alive on stage but it's something I'm not always able to do due to breathing problems and other complications. On the plus side I can always write a song anywhere and and any time and get that pleasure even at times I can't perform. My goals and dreams are one in the same and at the forefront of it all is to have a Publishing Deal. This will allow me to bring my music to the masses one way or another, and one voice or another and as long as I can create, I will grow, inspire and be fulfilled so this is at the top of my goal list! I hope one day those of you who are reading this post will be able to recall this moment when it was all a dream and my songs are being played on a global basis!  Trust and believe! All of this is not to take away from the pleasure I get from pouring out my soul through song and connecting with an audience and finding new dimensions to my voice. Since we're on this topic here are my top musical influences:

Patti LaBelle

Chaka Khan

Aretha Franklin 

Jenni Rivera 

Erykah Badu

Corinne Bailey Rae

Chrisette Michele 

Ledisi

Tamela Mann

Luciano Pavarotti 

Qtip 

Earth Wind and Fire 

Whitney Houston 

Luke James

The Clark Sisters 

Just to name a few!!! The list really does go on, I get inspiration from so many other artists. The Neo Soul, Rhythm and Blues sound with a Gospel influence is what my natural instincts produce and I feel most at peace singing and listening to it. Though I have had the chance as a writer to my words to Dance, Hip Hop, Reggae and so many other genres for other artists.

As I've mentioned before I have a great passion for fashion and have had the privilege of being a plus size model for a couple of designers, campaigns and more recently fashion week. It's something that is a source of inspiration for myself and other little girls and young teenage girls I meet who don't necessarily look like what they see on tv or in the media and find it hard to find what they see in the mirror beautiful. I'm in a position (and gratefully so) to encourage them on the basis that beautiful and healthy comes in different shapes and sizes. That they were fearfully and wonderfully made and in order for them to love others they need to healthily love themselves, and take care of their minds, bodies and souls so that they have both inner and outer beauty. Funny enough I've spent less time and at shoots and fashion shows and more time speaking to ladies of all ages and sizes and encouraging them that it can be done and find the modelling work that I do as proof and a tangible example that it can be done more than anything really. 

I myself have had my own struggles with my weight and despite all the attacks and obstacles felt that this summer was the first summer I truly and wholely felt beautiful, complete and content on the inside and out. I had gone on a life cleanse since February that included unhealthy relationships and unproductivity and took up excercising as a way of dealing with problems in life. Instead of replacing inner work with excercising I did both and started taking prayer walks, jogged listening to my gospel music and would find myself so isolated in the country side far away from home and anyone for that matter and in a matter of months was able to shed 33 pounds and go down up to 4 dress sizes. 

Although it's been a struggle to stay healthy and maintain my size due to health issues and found some medication side effects to include weight gain etc, I found a formula that works. Your body, soul and mind must be healthy. Whereas dieting may be the quick fix you need but a healthy lifestyle is better than a quick fix because food is medicine and exercise is for the mind as much as it is for the body! 

 As time goes by I want to be able to share recipes and pictures of food etc. What qualifies me, you may ask....well!!! The picture above was taken in September 2012 when was a Commis chef at Brasserie Blanc (one of Chef Raymond Blanc's restaurants) and the bottom is my winning entry for "Young Chef 2012" whilst in chef school! Yup I'm a trained chef!!! Some may be mind boggled because it has nothing to do with glamor (hours spent in a hot sweaty kitchen making food in bulk and carrying heavy things at the helm of a vulgar and loud head chef for insanely long hours and pay that doesn't really equate to the ulcer giving stress you're subjected to on a daily basis) but I fell in love with cooking when I was 16 and for a while whilst training and working as a chef found, purpose and expression through cooking and making food art. Though for previously mentioned health reasons and a loss of my passion for restaurant work I still find myself writing recipes, food and restaurant reviews and have dreams of one day being a published cook book author, getting to travel and write about food and making merchandise as part of my business empire which stems in my love for writing and creating be it music or food. 

This is much as I had on my heart to express and introduce myself to you all!!! Please stay tuned as I will be conquering procrastination and posting on this blog on a fortnightly basis!!! Please do spread the word to your friends, family, colleges, enemies, heck even strangers let them know there's a new music, food and lifestyle blog in town!!! 

Lots of love and God bless

Kymmiisha

Xo