My vegetarian benefits, and disadvantages

 

            I have been a vegetarian for a little over 6 years now. I guess people think it's difficult because people are always saying “oh, I could never do that. I love my steak to much”. It's a fun little joke I suppose, but in reality being a vegetarian is really not that hard. My brothers often rather eat my vegetarian meals because they look better than their meat filled meals. I think more people should try meatless Mondays more often because it's healthier, cheaper, and sometimes tastier! But I’m not here to try to convert people to vegetarianism. I just want to talk about my experience and shed some light on what it is like being a vegetarian.

 

I wanted to be a vegetarian since I was a child. My mother told me vegetarians ate chicken, so I failed as a child. However, a few years ago I seriously considered becoming a vegetarian. I then became one and never looked backed. I feel like I have been a vegetarian my whole life because when I smell people cooking meat it makes me gag. It used to be that I didn’t support the way slaughtering houses dealt with the animals they slaughtered. I believed if animals have to die because people want to eat them, that the poor creatures could at least be executed humanly. I still believe that today but I also look at the meat people eat as being bloody pieces of flesh and it grosses me out!

Growing up in an old fashioned Mexican family house hold I got a lot of questions and not many of my family members approved. They didn’t even know the facts about vegetarianism but it wasn’t long before they started telling things like “it's not healthy”, and “why do you think God put animals here for?”. My cousins even tried to sneak in meat into my dishes from time to time. I thought that was extremely rude of them to do, and this vegetarian diet wasn’t just a phase for me. Often I see people who are only vegetarians for a year or even a couple of weeks. Which isn’t a bad thing, but my family thought that was going to be me. This vegetarian diet was a lifestyle and not a phase. It was a strong belief system I now lived by, it really upset me that they tried to get me to eat meat by accident because they thought it was “funny”. However, as time passed my family forgot about the fact that I didn’t eat meat and life became easier.

Restaurants are becoming much more vegetarian friendly these days. Still, I have those times that I go out to eat with a group of friends and the restaurants have very little options for a vegetarian. I live in the El Paso TX area, so that means we have a lot of Mexican food, and southern steakhouses. I love Mexican food; I guess because I am Mexican. With Mexican food I have a lot of options in foods I can eat. However, when I have to go to steakhouses with people I am lucky if I find a salad or baked potato that’s not covered in bacon on the menu.

In talking to some male friends of mine, I also discovered something to put on my dating resume. I am a “cheap date”. My male friends said I would be a great date because I wouldn’t ask for expensive dishes like the steak and lobster. They were right, I am a cheap date, I don’t pay very much when I go to restaurants because my salads or French fries are much cheaper than everything else on the menu. Score! Meat is a little pricier, I guess that’s just another cool benefit about being a vegetarian!

Happy Birthday YouTube!

Some people prefer Twitter, some Facebook, others Tumblr. I however, prefer YouTube. Being the long time YouTube user, I have noticed that YouTube like any other social networks has changed dramatically over the years. And yes, YouTube is a social media site. Check out this article by Brafton’s marketing writer Alex Butzbach titled “YouTube overtakes Facebook as the web’s biggest social network”. While some people miss “the old YouTube”, I must say I think it has improved and love what it has become over the years. YouTube started on February 14th, 2005. So today is actually YouTube’s 11th birthday!  The site has come a long way from poor quality 3 minute viral videos. My favorite classic YouTube video was always "Charlie bit my finger".

https://toriitea.tumblr.com/post/139269487932/celebuzz-this-is-what-the-charlie-bit-my-finger

Although on occasion we still get some of those type of videos, YouTube has evolved into something much more advanced. YouTube has created this multimedia platform that is unlike any other of its kind. Unlike sites like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube has its users communicate via video. Although it is usually one person communicating with their viewers via video, the viewer also gets to comment, like, dislike, and share their videos. This makes a very interactive, yet unique social media platform. So instead of the short viral videos we used to get back in the day, we now have famous “Youtubers” or famous “Vloggers”. YouTube’s most popular videos and most subscribed channels belong to those of people who make YouTube videos for a living.

Some of the most famous Youtubers right now

 

Some Youtubers like Shane Dawson upload videos every day. Others upload a new videos every few weeks. Some of my favorite Youtubers are “AmazingPhil”, and “danisnotonfire” as they upload videos every few weeks and it drives me insane! I love their content so much that I get a little impatient waiting for a new video, but I adore them anyway. In their defense a LOT goes into making a YouTube video. Making a video includes brainstorming, the editing, the collaborations, emails, exc. Some of the top subscribed channels included JennaMarbles of the US with 15 million subscribers, and Smosh also from the US with 21 million subscribers. The second most subscribed person in the world is someone who goes by “HolaSoyGerman” with 26 million subscribers. To be honest I’ve only recently hear of this YouTube star HolaSoyGerman. I guess because he is from Chile and I wouldn’t understand what he is saying. However, he most certainly is popular amongst Spanish speaking countries. Of course if we are going to talk about Famous Youtubers we have to bring up the king of all Youtubers, Pewdiepie. Felix Kjellberg, Swedish Youtuber more commonly known as “Pewdiepie” is the most famous and subscribed Youtuber there is. He is most famous for doing "let's play", in which he plays horror games. Pewdiepie blows away his competitors with over 42 million subscribers, no one is even close to that amount of subscribers. I have a lot of favorite Youtubers, and Pewdiepie is one of them. I hardly watch television anymore, but Pewdiepie and the other Youtubers are something I watch on a daily basis.

https://toriitea.tumblr.com/post/139255222212

Pewdiepie doing his signature "Bro fist"

Now the latest thing YouTube has come up with is a thing called YouTube Red. YouTube allows our favorite youtubers to make better content, because of a higher budget and the help of Hollywood. However, YouTube Red must be paid for. In regard to this YouTube is connecting social media platforms with shows and movies. It's almost like Netflix meets Twitter.
Oh YouTube, you sure have changed in these past eleven years. I wonder what the next trend will be after YouTube Red? I have such high hopes for YouTube. I did grow up watching it after all.

YouTube in 2005

YouTube in 2016

On that note I want to leave you with the video that inspired me to do this quick blog. Matthew Patrick, also known as “MatPat” or the “Game Theorist” has made an incredible video describing YouTube then and YouTube now. He is one of my all-time favorite youtubers because he makes such smart videos in such an enjoyable way to watch them. I suggest you watch his video below to get a better understanding of how YouTube has changed over the past several years. He really does a much better job at explaining it than I do. Please watch it, it's amazing!

 

Again happy 11^th birthday YouTube! Thanks for all the great content.

 Check these out!

http://www.brafton.com/news/youtube-overtakes-facebook-webs-biggest-social-network/

https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo_IB5145EVNcf8hw1Kku7w

https://www.youtube.com/user/DanAndPhilGAMES

https://www.youtube.com/user/smosh

https://www.youtube.com/user/zoella280390

https://www.youtube.com/user/JennaMarbles

 

My Kidney Transplant Experience

 

First, I want to inform you that this blog is about my personal experience with dialysis and getting a kidney transplant. I really wanted to write about this so, that it might possibly help someone that is in the same situation. If you have recently been diagnosed with kidney failure and start dialysis soon, I don't mean to scare you on the journey that lays ahead. I just want to be honest about some of the things you might or you will experience. However, everyone is different so, your experience might be different as well.

 

A brief history about me

I am a 23-year-old college student studying education. I grew up generally healthy, or so I thought. So the day I went to the doctor for an annual check up my pressure was really high and I was sent to the hospital for observations. As, I got to the hospital I was put in ICU and after many tests I was told that both of my kidneys were functioning less than 5% percent. The news was a major shock to my life. I was a 16-year-old who went to the doctor for a checkup, one-day snow sledding with my family and the next getting a tube inserted to my chest. For the next few years I felt like a science experiment, tests after tests, scares after scares, bigger needles in my arm every visit. Finally, at 18 years old my mom got the call that there was a match for me and that I would be receiving my lifesaving transplant. 

A random piece of art that I created sums me up



Dialysis

My personal dialysis schedule was going to the center 3 times a week, for 4 hours. Dialysis itself was 4 hours, sometimes I waited at the center for one or two extra hours because the waiting line was so long. Honestly, I am some kind of a weird freak who enjoys needles so dialysis could have been worse for me. Still I got to the bigger sizes of the needles which were the width of a coffee stir, or the width of a headphone socket as before that I had a catheter in my chest. The catheter lead to my heart, and it had two smaller tubes that were length and width of crayons that stuck out of my chest. It was so ugly. When showing I had to cover the catheter to keep it from getting it infected with a gauze and medial tape covered it up. It was so ugly, there was no way I felt pretty or normal during this time period. When people saw the bandage and asked what happened I told them I was shot because I thought it was funny, people actually believed me so I egged them on. The tubes are gone and I no longer have to undergo dialyses. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful I’m alive but honestly I was stuck with the ugliest arm ever to this day and I hate it but the good news for it is a nurse told me recently we can have it flattened, yay! I still have to ask my doctor about this, stay tuned and ill let you know what she has to say about this.

Myself and my dialysis wacky arm

(above picture not my picture, using so you can see size of needles)



How to treat someone with kidney failure?

If you are the one with sucky kidneys surround yourself with friends and laugh as much as possible. That is what got me though everything. A friend once told me “Tori, I think you are faking it. Your awesome, your not sick. So don’t your dare be sad. Just smile okay? Because you are going to be okay”. His words were simple, but honestly they meant everything because he didn’t treat me like I was dying. Don’t give these people with kidney failure your pity because they don’t want it. What they want is to feel normal. So please make them smile and laugh whenever you can, distract them from the fact that they have dialysis the next day.

After the surgery

During the time I needed a transplant there were no transplant services in El Paso TX. So when I got the call that they found a match me and my mother were flown to San Antonio TX to receive my transplant. I was happy about getting a transplant. Then again, I would be lying if I didn’t mention it was one of the hardest moments I ever had to deal with. I thought that everything would go back to normal as soon as I received the kidney. I had to go through so many changes in such a short time. I was fairly thin weighing in at about 105lbs. However, within a week and a half I had gained 40 to 50 pounds. This was due to the amount of water I was required to drink. It was also due to the new medications I was taking. The medication made me extremely hungry and emotional, I was eating 5 times what I was used to. The medication made me grow hair on my face and arms. I had to take about 15 different medications, and I just didn’t feel normal. This was traumatizing for a self-conscious 18-year-old girl.

Just a few weeks after my kidney transplant.

 

Life after kidney transplant

Looking back at it I’m embarrassed at how I reacted back then. I probably also sound really spoiled for complaining about these issues. Believe me I was happy to be given this opportunity. I wasn’t told much about the young lady whose organ I received. I just know she was my age, and the person who received her other kidney was a cute 5-year-old boy. I think about the girl who gave me her organ often. My biggest mission in life is to make sure it doesn’t go to waste. I try to help everyone I can, form the homeless, to the kids I work with, to being the best person I can be. I feel like it's my duty to enjoy life and help people with this new shot at life I received. I wrote about the emotional struggles and physical change because although it is usual for younger people to have kidney failure, it does happen. I looked for a couple blogs on the subject and found out there isn’t much on the subject. I know when I was on dialysis I wondered what life after a kidney transplant would be like. And this is why I wrote this. I wanted to let young ladies who maybe going through the same thing know that even though the process is scary, it gets better. I lost all the weight in a week or two, the hair on face and arms went away too although I still have to take medication for life it's only 3 pills, life has gotten so much better. After your kidney transplant your quality of life will be so much better. For all of you who are awaiting an organ transplant, I am so excited by all of the things you are going to be able to do. You will be able to travel and not worry about dialysis, you will be able to eat a pickle and drink as much water as you’d like. You are going to be able to live the life you wanted once you get that transplant, so please don’t give up! You are going to make it, don’t be sad, please smile because you are going to be okay.




Went through dialysis for 3 years of high school, senior year received my transplant and graduated the same year.
 

What I am

I am nothing particularly interesting, although I am certainly different. I was that “dumb kid”, that “sick kid”, that “poor kid”. However, I was also that artistic, unique, free spirted, loving child as well. Life has a funny way of making you love the good and bad about yourself. As an adult I finally embrace it all and know who I am.