Camping gone chaos…

Scroll all the way down to the bottom to watch my vlog talking about this, or feel free to read the way I written it (I’m better at writing with words than talking) also, enjoy a video of me sewing my red carpet look in a Walmart parking lot for a fashion show in DC.

After working a fashion show while living out of my car in Maryland, I’m pooped and missing nature.I can’t wait to go back to hiking the mountains. I even decided to go camping at a camping spot and actually pitch a tent. I knew there was a storm coming, but my tent says it’s “weatherproof & storm tested” so I thought, let’s put it to the test!

Mind you I do not usually go tent camping alone, I prefer to be in the safety of my car. Especially during storms…but I wanted to wake up by the river and be closer to nature. Looking back, I think it must have been food poisoning, it was hot and my cooked rice had been sitting in the car and this was before I had a working fridge. It didn’t smell terrible, but I realised when rice starts to go bad in a rice cooker it’ll get liquidy. It was starting to get liquidy. I didn’t know this at the time. I ate my food and everything was fine, so I started setting up camp. I excitedly brought my tent, and struggled pitching it. A couple who was also camping nearby actually came to help (embarrassing lol).

I left my stuff in my car since it was parked so close, I thought if I need anything I can just go back and forth my car. This left absolutely no weight inside my tent (harmless for a few seconds right? no.) and the wind started picking up and my tent flew away LOL. The couple caught it for me and pitched it into the ground deeper and much better than I did. 

At this point the storm was really starting. So I hurriedly ran to my car to get the absolute bare minimum, my hiking bag with water & portable battery, sleeping bag, and 1 lantern. I didn’t even change my clothes and was wearing a tube top and booty shorts with sandals. I didn’t want to run back to my car now that the storm was fully rolling. I laid down peacefully, a lil cold, in my tent and fell asleep around 5pm. By 8pm the storm seems to have lightened up and I realise I had fallen asleep at a rather inconvenient time so I try to force myself back to sleep. I wasn’t sleeping well, I was having nightmares and my shoulders, back, arms, legs, everything, absolutely every single part of my body was in fledging pain. Even my elbows and fingers, I’ve never felt this kind of pain before. It’s one thing if one part of your body is in pain, like it sucks but you can still function. My cheeks, ears, my butt, my entire body and when I say entire I mean ENTIRE body, was in the most intense sharp shooting pain in my life. I tried playing healing frequencies and falling asleep to sleep it off. I couldn’t sleep with pain in literally every centimeter of my body. I was trying not to cry all night, I couldn’t even move. Everything hurt. My mind and head is spinning and I feel absolutely delirious. A raging headache, a full body ache and pain, it’s dark and storming and I’m on the fucking ground outside lol. I muster up enough energy and strength through the pain to unzip my tent so I can throwup right outside. There goes all my food! Now I’m hungry AND experiencing a strange full body pain like no other.

I honestly didn’t sleep that night, and by morning there’s local joggers and people coming in and out of the park. I was crying all night, dehydrated, hyperventilating, and trying to throw up the rest of my organs. My toes still hurt, my face, my back, everything my whole body is still radiating immense pain. When the sun comes up I tell myself, I’m going to get to my car. At the very least. I had no strength to clean up my belongings or tent and I barely dragged myself to the car. I laid down in my bed in the backseat and tried not to scream in pain. You know, I never understood why people scream loudly when they’re in pain, like, I was always able to suppress it and just cry but not scream at the top of my lungs. Now I understand. I didn’t want to disturb the peace here. Oh and there’s also no reception at the campsite so I couldn’t contact anyone if I tried. 

Now I’m crying my eyes out in the backseat of my car, it’s hot and everything hurts. Literally everything. Like I can’t express it enough, things I didn’t even think could feel pain or hurt were hurting. For fucks sake the back of my elbows was hurting. My eyebrows. My nose. My mouth. It was insane. Anyway people passing by heard and saw me crying in my car. I was so tired. Tired from no sleep, tired from dealing with the pain all night, tired from crying. I wasn’t sure if even an ambulance would be able to help, and at this time I wasn’t sure if I had insurance and didn’t want to pay an expensive ambulance bill. Still, part of me hoped someone would call it for me.

I managed to get a very short amount of rest, I wouldn’t even call it a nap, but I was able to close my eyes a little after rubbing Tiger Balm all over my body. Yes, my entire body. I put that shit on my face, neck, back, arms, legs, stomach, chest, tits, cooch/ groin area, butt, feet, toes, elbows, armpits, bruh I put that shit EVERYWHERE. I was practically out of Tiger Balm after reapplying it everywhere multiple times just to get some “sleep” (rest…ish).

There was nothing shady or strange going on at the park except for some young girl (me) crying her eyes out laying in the backseat with her head out the open door for fresh air- hyperventilating and bawling. So when the police arrive and ask the locals what’s the issue, I actually hurl myself out the car and onto the ground and crawl over begging them to help me. I probably look like a fucking crackhead! Of course for some reason, I by default suddenly can speak normally and appear fine when around the presence of serious individuals like police (or teachers, parents, doctors, or medical practitioners). So I was able to stand up hunched over and calmly (somehow) explain that I was in such dire pain and that “I know it doesn’t look like it but this is definitely far over 10/10 scale of pain like probably 20 I was just crying and have no idea how I’m keeping my cool right now.” 

The police offered me a water bottle. Lmao, well they did offer to call an ambulance for me. I told them I didn’t have insurance and I can’t afford it, and they tried to convince me. I was actually hoping they would just drive me there for free in the cop car. But all they could do was either call an ambulance which would cost me money, or give me directions to the nearest urgent care. Seeing my options, my body went in fight or flight mode and I grew the strength to drive myself to the urgent care. The police were very concerned and also saw my car asking if I was okay and if I had any friends nearby. I didn’t. The closest friend was an hour and a half away in Baltimore.

As I’m driving to urgent care, I call my mom even though it’s like 5am where she lives. I had to ask her what the insurance options were since I was pretty sure I needed medical help. Before that though, as soon as I closed the car door I started screaming at the top of my lungs and just crying so hard that my throat was numb. I’m pretty sure the cops heard me screaming. I’m pretty sure the whole park and neighbourhood did. I continued to belligerently scream as loud as I could as I drove through blurry tears and spinning traffic lights. I finally called my mom and it turns out I did have insurance and she told me to call them. I spoke to a phone nurse, who told me it was “no big deal, just get some pain medication.” Upset, like she really didn’t understand the pain I was in, I took her advice since it’s probably cheaper than going to urgent care. So instead I just drive to a pharmacy and purchase the highest strength pain meds, some icyhot/salonpas patches, more tiger balm, and then walk over to the bathroom to apply and take the painkillers. I couldn’t really walk, so I was hunched over, half naked, sweaty, and probably yellow from all the tiger balm I had already spread all over my body multiple times. My face was puffy and tearstained, and well I went to the bathroom once and tried to go again because I actually had to pee, and they locked the bathroom after me so that I couldn’t go back in. How rude, I’m literally in pain and dying. I mean yes I look like a mess, half naked and covered in icyhot patches, crying, sweating, and malnourished, but hey isn’t that all the more reason to help me?? Lol. jeez. 

My mom calls me again and urges me to get a hotel for a few nights. Being frugal, I only get it for one night even though she offered to pay for it. My brother ended up buying me a plane ticket home so I can rest, but I had a hair appointment with my friend in Baltimore the next day so I somehow managed to survive the night in a hotel with just eating ramen and laying on the bed downing painkillers. The next day I was still quite unwell but I made it to my appointment and tell my friend everything. She was really concerned and saw the pain and agony I was in and even the smell of the bleach was making me woozy. Her coworker heard the story and offered me a canned cocktail and surprisingly, it totally helped my headache and cleared my head enough to feel normal and have conversation! It didn’t completely rid me of the pain, but it at least helped me feel normal again.

Later on I flew back to California and left my car with a trusted friend in Maryland. At home, I was able to drink tea and my family helped me recover. Well, I don’t know if it was food poisoning or what, some of my friends think it was angry evil spirits living on cursed land that didn’t want me camping on their land. Who knows! Obviously I’m okay now, but man I have never felt such pain in my life. I am grateful for every second I live and breathe without a headache and body aches like that. I am SO SO grateful for when my body is functioning right. Don’t ever take your default settings for granted, you never know when you might just, I don’t know, die!