Navigating a Health Crisis: The Unexpected Start of My Business

The beginning of a storm...

If you had told me a year ago that I’d be running my own business at 22, I wouldn’t have believed you. Truth is, Green Gallery Gifts was born during one of the most difficult times of my life. It wasn’t just about jewelry. It was about surviving and somehow finding a way to keep going when everything felt like it was crumbling. It was about helping others feel less alone, spreading awareness, and doing everything in my power to spare others the pain, misery, and turmoil I had endured. So how did it all begin? Let’s rewind to December 2023.

December started like any other month, but it wasn’t long before everything started to change. At first, the symptoms were small—almost too small to notice. Trouble sleeping here, fatigue there, some issues with getting through basic tasks like organizing my day or managing my time. That’s what we call “executive functioning,” and mine was going haywire. With a recent diagnosis of ADHD and changes in my medications/ titration doses, I didn’t have a reason to suspect there was something larger at play. 

I had been doing well from May through October. Sure, there were ups and downs, but nothing too out of the ordinary. But as December rolled in, it all felt different. My mental health started to slip, and physically, I just couldn’t keep up. Little things became big things. I’d go to bed exhausted, yet sleep would evade me, leaving me even more drained when morning came.

Then came the pounding headaches, the excruciating tooth pain, and the emergency root canal. It was just another bizarre event in what was turning into a string of strange and unsettling symptoms. Symptoms that I didn't know were even related.

My mom and I didn’t question it at first. You know how sometimes you feel like something’s wrong but you push it aside because it doesn’t seem like a big deal? That’s where we were. But deep down, we both knew something larger was at play. We just weren’t ready to face it yet, or at least I definitely wasn’t. 

After the root canal, the dentist prescribed a standard course of antibiotics. No big deal, right? Except for me, it was. And with an upcoming swim training trip to Puerto Rico, we asked about extending the antibiotics, thinking it’d be better to be safe than sorry.

For most people, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But I’m not most people.

As someone who never fully recovered from my first diagnosis of lyme disease at the age of 6, my relationship with antibiotics was more complex than anyone realized. And as it turned out, the antibiotics would be the spark that set everything in motion, and by everything, I mean my downward spiral. 

I wish I could say that things got better from here, but they didn’t. In fact, this was just the beginning of what would become another long and painful journey. A journey with immense physical and mental exhaustion, intensifying psychiatric symptoms, immense suicidal ideation, and a non-existent quality of life.

Stay tuned for my next post where I’ll share how quickly things spiraled—and how I found myself struggling to hold onto my life.