Hands That Held Me Up

Some stories don’t end when you think they will. You think you’ve said it all, that the last chapter is done, locked, that the ink has dried.

But sometimes the universe has other plans.

I bathed two nights in a row with the medicines from Anishnawbe—Sunday night and Monday night. A friend asked me last night how often I do that—“Every month or few weeks?” I was like not even, I’ve done it maybe five times since April or May of last year, since I started going to Anishnawbe.

And every time I’ve done it, I’ve had an epiphany. I can’t pretend it doesn’t happen because it does every single time, and these are big things—spotlight moments—and this was one of them. 

I don’t give a fuck about what anyone says or thinks when it comes to the woo woo stuff that’s happening with me, that’s been happening with me—this is my fucking story— Hahaha! 

But know this— I am the thing, the real deal.

I woke up Wednesday morning with the innate gumption to rewrite the last three chapters, and I told the girl who is currently polishing my book—well, as polished as grit and grime could be anyway—and she asked why. 

All I knew at the time was that a lot has happened between now and July, and that I felt somewhat rushed and I don’t feel that way anymore. I felt a strong need to revisit those chapters. 

At the end of August and then again in mid-September, with the shit that went down with the “editors” on Fiverr, I was so confused, disappointed, and pissed. I couldn’t understand why that happened when I know this book is meant to be—it’s sacred. Now I know.

I started co-creating with Spirit last September, and I wanted to be caught up to the present day — in real time — before the next surgery. I wasn’t even sure I’d get that far… but I did.

I stopped writing in March/April because I was caught up, and well, I knew—or I thought—the book was going to end with the second surgery, and it hadn’t happened yet. That’s the ending I gave it.

But two months later, something happened that cracked me wide open yet again, and made me realize the story wasn’t even finished — not yet. I didn’t start or build this alone, and I don’t have full control over it.

Tuesday night, a woman in the hospital — who’s eventually going to have a sternotomy — started following me on IG. Her and who I thought was her daughter… but turns out, it was actually her two accounts that followed my page at the same time. I took a quick peek at one of them, and I was like — shit. I saw the reason why she needed the procedure and didn’t really pay much attention to anything else.

I could feel that she was there for a reason. I was tempted to reach out but something told me not to, and then well—there she was in my DMs. She politely introduced herself and told me that she would “love to connect with someone who has already been through this wild ride.” Me.

I told her straight — I was apprehensive to share my story with her. I felt this shit in my bones before it even happened. That my story was insane — almost.

I told her there’s a chunk of it in my blog— like, if you dare. I asked her point blank if they were cracking her chest open for her procedure. There was a pause. She said, “Yes, they will perform a sternotomy.” As she was prettifying my language, I proceeded to share some of my story with her. Blap— just like that. 

I told her straight out the gate— my story is raw, it’s gritty and grim. I told her about the mortality factor, that I had complications as well as an NDE. There was another pause. Then— “Oh man.”

Yea—oh man!

I decided to take another look at her Instagram. She’s surrounded by love. Has a GoFundMe with eighteen grand sitting in it. Family by her side. A team rallying for her. She’s being held in all the ways I wasn’t.

And she was asking me—the woman who went through it alone—for something she never had to bleed for. No GoFundMe page, no cheering section. No late-night texts from a “tribe.”

When I saw that, I can’t lie—it cracked something open in me. Because this was never just about heart surgery. It’s about a life where no one showed up when it mattered most. Including my own family.

It’s about watching someone be held in all the ways I needed to be and realizing that while they were building a team, I was building armour. 

Some people get rescued and some of us learn how to save ourselves.

It wasn’t jealousy. It was recognition. A reminder of what it costs to survive when no one shows up.

A reminder of the silence I lived through, the weight I carried by myself, the armor I had to build just to make it through. 

There’s a different kind of strength that comes from being nobody’s priority.

That kind of truth, recognition, changes you. It shifted something in me.

But here’s the fucked up part—I wanted to help her, send her some post-surgery tips—and I did in an email. Even with that pain still sitting in my chest, I was about to show up for someone who had it easy—everything I didn’t. 

Yea, I say “easy” because having people hold you, comfort you, and pay your bills while the world makes room for your pain is a privilege I never had. And trust me—it’s a hell of a lot fucking easier than what I went through.

I sent her an email the next day, Wednesday morning, with tips—shit she’d need for the six weeks following her sternotomy. The stuff that’s not in the Open-Heart Surgery Booklet, but the little things that actually make a big difference. The things I think a person going into this should know before the cut. 

It was actually a chunk pulled from one of my unpublished chapters in the book. I offered it, and she was like, “Yes, please.”

I never got a reply. I went back to our conversation on IG—asked how she was holding up, followed by “I bet you get that a lot eh? LOL.” She saw it and just left it there. Crickets. 

She read my blog, caught the wind of my story, and checked the fuck out. I laid in bed that night and thought— Wow, yup—she read some of my blog and fucking ghosted me.

Not because my story scared her but because it forced her to see something she didn’t want to face. People want the strength but not the truth behind it.

I am the thing people with money and support look at, frown upon, and look away from.

Not because my existence makes them uncomfortable. Because I am the reminder that not everyone gets rescued. Some of us have to claw our way through the dark alone. 

I am the face of what they pray never happens to them and that’s why they look away. That’s the poster child I am.

You can’t even imagine how fucking hard that was for me to swallow, to own. 

I realized that’s why I was embarrassed at the beginning of this story—not because I was getting cracked in half, but because the truth of how fucking solo I really am was about to be exposed to all—including me.

That truth is hard. It’s ugly— It’s mine. 

This feeling I’ve been carrying? It’s straight from the fucking core. And no, it’s not petty. It’s not selfish. It’s pain. The kind that comes from years of carrying way more than my share of the fucking weight.

When I see someone surrounded by love, money, support, community—it hits a nerve. Not because I want what they have, but because I’ve had to fight through hell alone.

It brings everything I’ve lived through to the surface—the nights I got through with no one showing up, the bills I handled on my own, the surgeries I survived without anyone in my corner. And this is why my voice matters so much.

You know, the next day I was still processing it, and I thought to myself—hmmmm… not even a fucking reply. And then it hit me. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t actually need the “tips” I gave her. She doesn’t need to know how to get around without using her arms, or how to prop herself up, or how to scratch her own back or dress—because she’s got a whole tribe to do it all for her.

As much as this sounds like comparison, it isn’t. It’s about a wound that never really got seen. That kind of unfairness leaves scar tissue, and sometimes a moment—just one moment—cracks it wide open again.

I’m allowed to feel the sting of this. But I refuse to twist it into proof that I don’t matter. If anything, this is proof that I’ve done the impossible without a team.

Yea, she knocked on the wrong fucking door—She was hoping for butterflies and flowers, and she got skeletons and goblins—the grim, ugly fucking truth. 

The website was right there in my bio with a huge disclaimer and a bunch of posts that make it pretty damn clear what’s going on over at @hearttoheartjaye’s Instagram.

Like, what the fuck did you think this was—Country Living magazine? This is the ugly truth.

My blog, my book, and my story are RAW. It’s real, it’s the most truthful fucked up thing you’ll ever read. My story is what survival actually looks like when there’s no safety net. 

That’s what my book is really about. Not just heart surgery. Not just PTSD. But what it means to claw your way through a world where some people are comforted—and some of us have to comfort ourselves. 

The woman who started this book isn’t the same woman standing here now. So yea—the book’s delayed. Not because it’s stuck. But because it’s not finished yet. Because — it is, written in real time. And because it’s becoming something deeper.

This story deserves truth, the whole story—not a timeline. And when it lands, it’s gonna hit the way it’s meant to.

Some people survive with a whole crew holding them up…

I survived with grit, scars, and determination.

That’s my story. 

And I’m done watering it down to make anyone comfortable.

— Jaye