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WT Meadows

@wtmeadowsauthor

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Author of YA & New Adult novels: Introduction Events and The Shaman States of America: The Mantle. Fibromyalgia & FND Disability Advocate he/him/his

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Heya folk, minor update that’ll probably stick around. As a few of you have seen from my stories, I yet live and breathe. I even talk a little bit here and there.

If you don’t know for whatever reason, in May of 2024, I started experiencing facial paralysis along with migraines and an evolving array of issues that we eventually figured out to be Fibromyalgia and FND. The nerve ablation will be *far* from a complete, or even permanent, resolution…even for the thing it’s meant to fix. The goal, even with burning the nerves in my spine, will be pain reduction overall for a *matter of months*, but it is BY FAR the most relief I’ve felt in years.

Getting to visit @piranharecords has been a goal of mine for months, and I cannot begin to describe how happy I am to have both survived the trip, but then come home to hang out with my family afterwards. Still having ANY kind of spoons after both a procedure AND walking around a store is its own massive achievement, and especially so for the fact that I was then able to put my youngest to bed just before filming this.

Spoonies and chronically ill folk know how scary it can be to have hope, given how often it is snatched from our outstretched hands, but I truly hope the light at the end of this tunnel doesn’t turn out to be a train.

#fibromyalgia #fnd #disability #disabledauthor by @wtmeadowsauthor

Over the summer, I was diagnosed with Functional Neurologic Disorder. In my case, I am extremely light-sensitive, so you’ll probably see me wearing an eyepatch much of the time. It also presents in some other adventures through my head and body, so I spend most of my time lying down in a mostly-dark room. This may sound familiar to a previous experience I’ve had…except now I ALSO can’t be around light.

Additionally, talking has gotten significantly harder as I struggle to get words out. Not only does that mean that conversations are slower, but also difficult to maintain for more than a few minutes. For the most part, I can still type things out, but sometimes that even takes longer if my hands start shaking. So, communication in general is going to be pretty limited, at least until things normalize. Yes, that means that even after a few months, new symptoms are still continuing to present, and I don’t know how much I’ll be able to engage with comments responding to things. #functionalneurologicaldisorder #fnd #fndawareness #author #authorsoftiktok #authorsofinstagram by @wtmeadowsauthor

Writing a book is a LOT of work, but it should never stop when you type The End. So much of what makes your favorite novels *work* in how they resonate with people comes after that first “ending.” Part of the reason why Introduction Events took me almost a decade is because I completely rewrote the whole thing. What you see here is my *outline* for that rewrite. A bunch of things changed even further in developmental and line edits.

And now, to dive back into the same notebook for the next stories…

#AuthorsOfInstagram #YoungAdult #YoungAdultBooks #LGBT #Superhero #NoSpandex by @wtmeadowsauthor

Definitely feeling Round Rock (home of the great @jamestalarico) Pride today. Vote like your disabled friends lives depend on it, because some do! #vote #fnd #fibromyalgie #dystonia #bluewave by @wtmeadowsauthor

My love for this song long predates me considering the things I’d be fighting against as such existential crises as laundry and brain fog. At first, it spoke to me as someone who was yet to publish my first novel. I’ve since published 6, but that doesn’t change the value of the message to continue working hard.

Someday I’ll get back to writing fiction, and I’ll just keep working until then. Granted, I’m no longer fighting against dragons made of words. Now, they take the form of escaping the pressure inside my head and body from an oncoming storm. Or, it might amount to writing notes or drawing for the people I love to work on dexterity and push past the fog.

It also means these song art pieces to translate songs that vibe for me in some way.

What’re the weird things that you work for/against?

#disability #fibromyalgia #fnd #waksy #songart by @wtmeadowsauthor

Social media can be a trap to pull us in at the best of times. It seems doubly so when you’re stuck on a couch in a dark room. Even, or potentially especially, because my actions and movement are so limited, there’s a constant push and pull from so many different angle at all times.

The screens in front of my face are one of the few things I can generally rely on for distraction because it’s generally too dim to see things that aren’t lit up on their own.

It feels especially important to sift through the noise of the social internet right now.

#fibromyalgia #fnd #disability #daughter #junkmail by @wtmeadowsauthor

Much of my chronic pain stems from an old old injury near the base of my spine. For years I’ve described part of the sensation emanating from that area as like a piece of metal being bent and weakened to the point where it may one day snap.

Another accurate descriptor could be for an oak tree about to break from its veins freezing overnight. If you’ve heard the sound of ice breaking branches, that’s the sound inside my mind when I envision what might happen someday as my back finally gives out and I am fully forced onto my back as opposed to the limited movement I currently have.

The first time I heard “Sudden Oak Death” by The Mountain Goats, it resonated with me on a molecular level.

#themountaingoats #songart #chronicpain #fibromyalgia #fnd disabledartist by @wtmeadowsauthor

Music from The Mountain Goats has been formative and meaningful to me for a while, but it’s really hit home while reading through John Darnielle’s This Year, which collects 365 of his annotated songs and poems.

This song resonated with me for myriad reasons I felt difficult to quantify until I read the segment he pulled from C.S. Lewis’ ‘Mere Christianity’

“All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.”

For disabled people trapped in a body that has betrayed them, it helps to have an external reminder that there’s more to us than our suffering.

#themountaingoats #disability #fibromyalgia #fnd by @wtmeadowsauthor

Couple of thing going on here: first, my rx sunglasses arrived so I can try sitting outside at times when I normally would’ve had to put on at least my eyepatch…and, more likely, also probably contacts with sunglasses over them. So, it would just mean that I’d wait until later.

The other thing is probably obvious, but the history of this guitar is the thing that I love: not any particular special history to anyone else, but this was my favorite guitar to play as a child and now it lives with me as an adult. I’m nowhere close to good but, as my wife pointed out, this kind of thing certainly doesn’t hurt for building dexterity in the hands and my PT sure won’t complain.

Anyway, I’m having fun noodling around and building up callouses that’ve gone long dormant. by @wtmeadowsauthor

Heya folk, minor update that’ll probably stick around. As a few of you have seen from my stories, I yet live and breathe. I even talk a little bit here and there.

If you don’t know for whatever reason, in May of 2024, I started experiencing facial paralysis along with migraines and an evolving array of issues that we eventually figured out to be Fibromyalgia and FND. The nerve ablation will be *far* from a complete, or even permanent, resolution…even for the thing it’s meant to fix. The goal, even with burning the nerves in my spine, will be pain reduction overall for a *matter of months*, but it is BY FAR the most relief I’ve felt in years.

Getting to visit @piranharecords has been a goal of mine for months, and I cannot begin to describe how happy I am to have both survived the trip, but then come home to hang out with my family afterwards. Still having ANY kind of spoons after both a procedure AND walking around a store is its own massive achievement, and especially so for the fact that I was then able to put my youngest to bed just before filming this.

Spoonies and chronically ill folk know how scary it can be to have hope, given how often it is snatched from our outstretched hands, but I truly hope the light at the end of this tunnel doesn’t turn out to be a train.

#fibromyalgia #fnd #disability #disabledauthor by @wtmeadowsauthor

This song *definitely* isn’t about listening to your body to ensure you’re actually taking the right amount of medication to stay functional, but it is about that to me.

I spend a lot of time tracking and managing pain meds. I have timers and pill bottles and various containers to keep things organized. As in Knives Out, I’ll shake the bottles and can tell the contents by the sound and movement within each one. This isn’t some special ability. It’s just experience and necessity: I don’t really turn on lights anymore due to my light sensitivity, so to be safe and accurate with medication, I have to be extremely careful and aware of what I’m doing.

Granted, that’s not simplified by fibro brain fog…

Disabled and chronically ill people do this every single day, and I raise my water bottle to you. Welcome home to your medicine cabinet, warriors. Everyone is proud of you.

#fibromyalgia #fnd #disabled #disability #disabledauthor disabledartist by @wtmeadowsauthor

I’m hoping to get back into illustrating more and there was one frame from the Mandalorian and Grogu that seemed to really jive with my appreciation for things in relief/shadow. Embo has always has such a cool vibe and I thought this would be fun. #mandalorian #grogu #embo #starwars by @wtmeadowsauthor