November 25, 2024 • 44 mins
It was during her teenage years that Kiana’s life changed dramatically due to pain. She wanted to be an actor and a singer but her condition put that dream on hold. Instead of attending a prestigious performing arts program, she spent her early 20s confined to her bed.
I met Kiana doing theater in high school, but didn’t know everything she was going through. More than a decade after graduating, it was a privilege to reconnect. We talked about her diagnosis and how it’s affected her relationships, responsibilities, and art. Everything in her life is still impacted by an unseen battle, but as she has received better treatment Kiana is grateful to be expanding her horizons and showing up for her Minneapolis community in new ways.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's an invisible disability you can't tell from the outside.
And so many people who we see walking around are
going through these things that we have no idea, And
I feel like just giving people like a blank slate
and never judging them in that way. Why would I
be making this up? Why would I be spending such
(00:22):
so much energy like trying to get help.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to When You're Invisible. My name is Maria Fernanda Diez,
and I know not everyone can roll there are so
it's fine to call me Maria. When You're Invisible is
my love letter to the working class and others who
are seemingly invisible in our society. I hope to build
a community here that will inspire you to have generous
conversations with others that are different from you, conversations that
(00:48):
might help you see life in an entirely different way.
It was in ragtime you could do these bait like
these beautiful like twists and whatnot, and you would do
that in rehearsal, and it's just like, how do you
move your body?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
That was the last performance where I felt where I
felt like I could use one hundred percent of my
body and my energy. That was like the last time
I could really perform, and I remember it being exhilarating.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
This is Keana. We first got to know each other
during Ragtime the Musical, which was a show that we
were both a part of. Our sophomore year of high school.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We went to an arts high school and we were
both in the same acting track.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Our high school was in downtown Saint Paul. There are
different kinds of arts you could focus on, whether it
was visual art, dance, music, musical feeder. I transferred to
the school in tenth grade. Kids came from all over
the state, and we also got students who maybe didn't
care about the arts but had hated or been kicked
(01:54):
out of other schools. Overall, we were a group of outspoken, cool,
sweet and weird kids. Our school days were extra long,
partially because we had extra arts classes and it was
a small school, so we all got pretty close. Also,
it was a fairly new school, which meant students could
(02:17):
get away with some extra shenanigans, whether it was coming
in late, bringing in Starbucks. Oh, and it was normal
to see students stretching in the back of class and
doing pure wets down the hallway. There were parts of
my high school experience that actually was high school musical.
When music came on in the hallway or in a
(02:37):
classroom right before class started, it was normal for people
to break out in choreography and harmonies. High school is
always weird, but looking back at this time, there's a
lot of good memories and I was happy to reconnect
with Kana. Can you introduce yourself? Let's start it off
with that.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yes, my name is Keana Adams, thirty years old. What
else should I say to introduce myself?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Where are you from?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm from Minneapolis. I lived in Paul growing up and
then moved to Minneapolis. But yeah, I've been in Minnesota
my whole life.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Being a lifelong Minnesota was true of almost everyone I
met in Minnesota. It was something I noticed a lot
as an outsider and as a teenager. It really seemed
like Yanna had this deep sense of community in her life.
She was one of the cool girls. She always was
dressed in leggings and a scarf with a cool haircut.
She was edgy, talented, a badass, and unafraid to express
(03:36):
her emotions, whether it was to other students or to teachers.
She came from artist's parents, so discipline and art were
second nature to her. And then we sang in the
Minnesota Opera together.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
And we sang in Minnesota Opera together that I love
Pussure Joffre.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That was so fun.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It was one of my favorite experiences, and I'm so
glad that I got to do that. I don't know
if I could have done something like that like later
in life. So it was really special experience. I hold
it very dear to my heart.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, you are and were an incredible singer.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Keana's voice ugh has its own flexibility and unique tambre.
From what I can remember, she could go from a
classical operatic sound to pop belt within the same breath.
Keana and I wanted theater to be something that wasn't
just confined to high school. But unfortunately, the reason that
(04:31):
Ragtime performance that we were both in when we were
sixteen was one of her last is because Keana has
a chronic illness and things took a turn for the
worse around that time.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And it just it's so hard for me to go
on stage and not be one hundred percent. You know,
I can't go on stage and be fifty percent.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I just can't. And so then I hurt myself.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I would hurt myself often on stage, and so I
had to stop.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Eventually, I was just starting to sing again.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Actually, it's been about fifteen years since Ragtime, and I'm
so happy to hear she's finally singing again. The reason
it took such a long time to come back is
something called EDS. First, can you tell us what EDS is?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Of course, yes, Taylor's Donlo syndrome is a genetic connective
tissue disorder. Connective tissue is everywhere in your body. It's
the glue that holds you together. So when that glue
isn't there, you have to manually do it. You have
to manually scrunch up all of your muscles so much
that it stretches out the ligaments enough to keep you
(05:36):
in place.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And that is just.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So tiring in itself. Yeah, that I don't have any
any room for anything else.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We don't think about connective tissue very much, but it's
everything from our ligaments to the cartilage and our joints,
our skin, even our blood is considered connective tissue. Everything
that helps holds us together into the human shape that
you see can play a part in connective tissue. And
(06:05):
if that system isn't working properly. Suddenly, gravity and your
muscles are in this war with each other. Because your
muscles aren't getting extra help from the rest of your
system to uphold you. It takes a lot of effort
to keep your body in place.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I have the hypermobile type three, which is often recognized
by stretchy skin and just hyper mobile.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I have dislocations daily.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
That hyper flexibility makes me highly aware of that fact
that throughout the entire interview, she's actually wearing a brace
on her neck to help her.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And like, when I'm not wearing my neck brace, like my.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Head feels just so heavy.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It feels like a bibble hit and it's so hard
to keep.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It upright and to use all these muscles.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It feels like gravity's turned up like ten times, like
you're on a different planet, the g forces. If I'm
not really holding tight, move the vertebrae, and wow, it's
just scary and my whole I just you know, all
my muscles over, you know, trying to just keep things
in place, and like say, you're.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Okay, You're okay, You're not gonna move.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And like I hate the way I look with it on,
Like I like it so much. I don't have a
double chin when I don't wear my neck brace. But
I have to just let that go and like let
that superficial part of it go. And see now I'm
talking with my neck too much and it's it's dangerous
for me. I have to put my neck brace back
because oh it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
This is one of those things that isn't worth pushing
because it could just make things worse.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's not a degenerative disease, but it is in the
way that like when my ligaments stretch, they don't stretch back,
they will only continue to stretch, Like when you get
a new sock and it's elasticity is really good at first,
but eventually it's going to stretch and it's never going
to get back to that original elasticity.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Can you describe what you experience physically, like, how would
you describe it?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's I'd say sometime when it's really bad, it feels
like a migraine in your whole body. And so much
of it is like when you have a really bad
knot in your shoulder, except it's in every muscle, like
it's in all of the muscles. It's often just like
this feeling of malaise. But it's just like this nausea
(08:23):
from be from over exerting and not being able to
hold your body together, but your brain is literally forcing
you to you can't relax.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This is why I wanted to interview Kana. She's dealing
with this thing that's not visible and the only thing
that is is the neck brace. But I think, in
all honesty, I think a lot of us would assume
that it was a temporary injury or accident. This takes
a toll on the person's body, mind, energy, and relationships.
(08:55):
Everything is being affected by a battle that no one
else can really see.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We call it the spoon theory and chronic illness. So
if you get so many spoons per day, and each
thing that you do cost a spoon. When I shower,
that costs a spoon. When I empty the dishwasher, that
costs a spoon. When I'm sitting up for an hour
class that costs a spoon, and even small things like
in between they cost spoons when you wouldn't really think
(09:21):
that they would. But for somebody who's chronically ill, Yeah,
we're called spoonies, and we call it the spoon theory.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You know, It has kind of a silly name, but
this concept really clicks for me. It isn't an easy
experience to describe or to get across to people, and
I know that from personal experience. My mom has had
rheumatoid arthritis since I was a freshman in college, and
this means a lot of the time she needs naps
through it the day when she walks far, her feet
(09:51):
will swell for the rest of the day. Preparing for
a gathering at her house used to take a day
or two, and now it requires three to four days
or else she's going to lose days after the event
from exhaustion and pain. Every day looks different, so help
and emotions shift around daily and personally, the learning curve
(10:13):
for communication was hard, and so I love this spoon
theory because I think it's a way I can understand
how my mom might be going through the day in
a way that maybe she doesn't have the language to
talk about yet. It's like, this is like a lovely
analogy of spoons, but you're like, oh, every spoon that
(10:35):
it costs is built on a lot of like pain, fatigue, focus.
I'm sure like so much buttuy energy goes to that
just managing that.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And even like when I wake up in the morning,
they don't always start with the same amount of spoons.
They don't sleep well because of pain and because of how.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Comfortable I can get at night.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I can only lay in one position that can keep
me safe, so that's.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Not comfortable a lot of the time.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So I wake up not having slept, and I never
can sleep in because my body is so afraid to
shut down that it's so used to getting injured that
it won't completely shut down.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And just let you know, trust gravity.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, okay, let's start at the beginning of this story
real quick. Keana was diagnosed when she was eight. Her
dad was actually diagnosed at the same time, after retiring
from a full career as a violinist with the Minnesota Orchestra.
So Keana was showing signs earlier, but at first her
(11:34):
symptoms were just being hyper mobile.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Some people have DS and don't have any pain and
they're fine do many different things. We thought it was
a plus because I was very flexible. I did circus,
they put me into contortion.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
We just thought of it as it was a superhero trait.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
It was when Keana hit puberty that the condition developed.
Into something more painful.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And with the female horn, you know, estrogen, it gives
you mix, you more lax in the joints and in
your college in itself. And so every month when in
my cycle, yeah, I get more discilocations because your hips
have to be able to trage God be able to
have a baby.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right. So it got really.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Bad during the time of when I was growing to
be a young woman. Yeah, and then it evened out,
and once I got the right medication regimen, can I
can live.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I can work with my symptoms.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I'm so happy that Keana's on the right meds and
in a good place today. But there were some hard
years in there. I didn't know everything that was going
on in high school, but even I remember standout moments
when she was starting to experience more painful symptoms. I
remember in school one time, like when I feel like
(12:45):
it was Paul who was teaching class, and you were
in a lot of pain that day, and you were
laying on the ground and you're like I don't You're
like I can't get up, like I'm not feeling well.
And I remember Paul being like, Keana, it's fine, just
get up, and like completely disregarding you for a minute.
That's like part of the thing that I was like,
(13:06):
Oh my gosh. This stayed with me so vividly that
this young girl like woman growing up was not believed
or heard by her teacher.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
In high school up until sophomore year. Even the beginning
of junior year, you couldn't tell, and even my friends,
there was no I didn't have big enough symptoms that
they were really impacting my life, so I would never
talk about it. I never talked about the fact that
I had the EDS diagnosis and I was just flexible
and I was weak, but I try to keep up
(13:37):
with everybody else, And when then I started showing symptoms,
I was labeled as a lot of different things, attention seeker,
drug seeker. Sometimes I got a member being accused of
having an eating disorder because they didn't think that I
really had this and that it was impacting my eating
(13:57):
because I was nauseous all the time. I felt that
people were labeling me, especially because I was smoking a
lot of weed my senior year, and honestly, I felt
like I would do anything to escape what I was
going through.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I remember hearing whispers of the speculation of what people
thought she was going through the way people were viewing
her was shifting, and sometimes she was seen as a
problem kid. I'm really sad that I didn't understand fully
what was happening in the moment, and how lonely it
must have been.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I wasn't getting help from any doctors. I was too young.
No one was going to help me by putting me
on painkillers. For so long, doctors would just say this
is too much, I can't take your case, too difficult, whatever,
and I'll get passed on to another referral and.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Referral, referral, referral.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Later they're like, why haven't you had a doctor and
so long? Why are you doctor shopping? Nobody was going
to take that leap, especially with somebody who had substance
use issues, to give me the medicine that I've needed.
Like yeah, when I in my junior especially senior year,
just sitting up was so difficult. It was like my
(15:06):
middle could not hold me up and I would get
this ring of pain that like then my ribs would
come dislocated a lot of the time, and so I
had to lay flat on my back and I was
stuck on my back for like four years of my adulthood.
Holy cow, I had a TV installed in my ceiling
because I couldn't even turn my neck to like look
(15:27):
at the TV on the wall.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Like it was that bad.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
This period in Keana's life is four years of her adulthood,
of her young adulthood. The years you think about where
you're going to bars, partying, meeting random people. Were years
Kiana spent immobile.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And it was only five years ago that I finally
got on the right medication. And once that started, I
started to be able to work. I went back to school.
I can do the things and that's all I was
asking for before. It just blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
This is an amazing moment, literally changed her life after
dealing with years of red tape disbelief, doctors being hesitant
to work with her. But I wish that this didn't
have to be exceptional, that it didn't feel miraculous or magical.
(16:19):
This is something that she and so many others deserve,
but not everyone gets. It's hard to find the right
treatment or diagnosis still today, and it's a journey. Not
everyone is afforded.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Aayler Donald's syndrome is just starting to be known more
about in the medical community and that it, and patients
are now believed that when they say that, it causes
extreme pain and extreme disability.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Right in many people.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And it's just crazy how much success I've had since
I've gotten on the right regimen of medications.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Over time, Keana has found relief and she's found a
sense of freedom through art. She's also found supportive, loving relationships.
But that delay and care came at a cost, feeling
like her friends were slipping away and her childhood dreams
were no longer reachable. That's coming after the break, welcome back.
(17:20):
When I think back to senior year of high school,
it was buzzing as our whole class was figuring out
what our futures would look like, going into the professional world,
going to college, going to performing art school. All of
us were busy with applications, interviews, auditions, and so was Keana.
But eventually she would have to face a shadow that
(17:41):
was hanging over her.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
The biggest thing about the EDS for me was that
I really lost my sense of I mean, before I
was a performer, I was an actor. I knew that's
what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
And I lost my instrument, I lost my ability to
express myself in that way.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, Keana got into an amazing school, but realized it
wouldn't be possible for her to go.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
It felt like I wouldn't have that chance again to
go to a college like that and get that kind
of an education.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I really grieved the life that I wanted, the girl
that I had always seen growing into the future, and
then what was actually happening and how they were not
fitting together, and I was really angry and I had
some bad depression for a while.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
On top of all of this, the people she'd always
surrounded herself with turned out to be people she couldn't
really rely on. It was just too much for them
to have to deal with. Once I wasn't fun anymore.
Once all I was was bad news. Once they had
to come visit me and do work and I wouldn't
give anything back. They just left and I didn't really
(18:50):
see them much again. I won't name specific names, but
it broke my heart because I thought those people were
my rock, but then as soon as I needed to
ask anything of them, it was too much to ask.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I can feel that heartbreak of being like, hey, I'm
not funny anymore, or I'm going through something and I
can't and I don't feel like people are supportive. What
did you feel like was the threshold?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
At first, it was like there was like a little
bit of tolerance.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
They would show up a little bit, but it was
like small things.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
When we were like out and about, I was always
in the passenger seat, or if we were out somewhere
at a house and there was the choice between a
chair and sitting on the ground, I would always need
the comfy chair, or the fact that I wouldn't share
my reed with them, or I was like, this is
my medicine now. My parents started providing it for me
after a while, once they saw how much it helped me.
(19:55):
And it really keeps eating. Yeah, and so it's like
really important. And once I couldn't give it away anymore,
people stopped showing up.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Wow, And it was.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
It was It was the worst. My heart goes out
to Kana in this moment because I can relate to that,
and I think all of us can in some way,
shape or form. I think we've all been through time
where we're going through a lot and we want the
people we love to be able to support us and
to be able to go through it with us, and
(20:31):
not everybody can, and the difficulty of understanding and going
through that reality it becomes a new layer of heartbreak.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I was in denial about it for a really long time.
I didn't want to to see it. I didn't want
to think that I was real and I was calling,
leaving voicemails, crying.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Like where are you?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Like they were like the only people in my life
and I just wasn't ready to give that up. And
I didn't and think that I was that different, just
my body was. And it's really sad that I wasn't
more honest with myself because I think I would have
been able to get over it faster and be like,
why do I care about these people if they don't
(21:15):
care about me.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I'm like, that's it's hard one. When you're young and
you feel connected to people. I feel like there's an
element of like in kindness, in our humanity and our
desire to connect. Of course we try hard. There must
be a way to fix it, And I think, how
could you know to let go sooner? To me, it
(21:37):
speaks to the beauty of you in your ability to
be like, I want to connect, I want to give
this a chance.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Of so many chances, and I was suddenly in this
box and I felt like I couldn't live up to
like the person I used to be anymore. And even
though I feel like I've found myself again and I've
found my personality again, for a long time like things
were just law because I felt such a big part
of my identity was lost.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, and yeah, it took wild to find it again.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Especially when we're young, we define ourselves based off the
friendships that we form. As we get older, we ground
ourselves in a lot of different aspects, and our friendships,
while important, become just a piece of who we are.
I think when we're young, it's all encompassing, but no
matter what stage and life we're in, that grief and
(22:29):
loss of a friend is something we should hold space
for and we don't often do. And I think heartbreak, pain, fear, sadness,
and disappointment can be things that keep people from connecting
and reaching out. And Keana doesn't let this happen to her.
She's willing to open herself back up eventually, whether she
(22:51):
realized it or not while it was happening. I think
it's something that's beautiful about Keana's resilient spirits. What was
a moment where you're like, oh, this person is in
it from the long haul. This is something and someone
I can trust.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
I do have one friend that when things got really bad,
like when I was during that time that I could
barely sit up and I was using substances and I
was depressed and I was even My parents sent me
to the psych board a couple of times, and when
I was there, the doctors wouldn't believe my pain. I mean,
(23:24):
it was ridiculous because I was in a psych ward.
Of course, they thought I was not being serious about
it and that it was exaggerated, but it wasn't and
that sucked. But there's where I met one of my
best friends to this day. And it's crazy that we
met each other in one of the lowest lows of
our life and we have both grown, allowed each other
(23:48):
to grow together and been there to like push each
other up. And it's ten years later and she is
my person, like my one friend that I do trust,
And if it weren't for her, I probably still wouldn't
trust people.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Wow. Yeah, Trusting this one friend and expanding this friendship
allowed Keana to look at how she wanted to build
relationships in the rest of her life, and that includes romantically.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Even trusting my boyfriend was really it took a long
time for me to like even be able to fall
asleep next to him, because I was scared he was,
I don't know, going to wrestle through my things or
find some way to find me less than or not
enough or inadequate. But he didn't think that, and that
(24:39):
was all just internalized from past experiences, and he was
so accepting of the fact that I had to lay
down for a lot of it, and that I couldn't
physically engage as much as I used to be able to,
or other girls could, or things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
How long have you been with your boo?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh uh, I think it's almost it's like seven years.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
WHOA. What was like the first date or the first
realization of hey, I like you?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Oh my gosh. Our families knew each other growing up,
and like his family's from Finland, and his dad got
a job in the Minnesota Orchestra when they were he and
I were three years old. He's an orchestra baby too,
and we had them over for their very first American Thanksgiving. Yes,
and I remember that and we walked down the street
holding hands and he kissed my arm. There was just
(25:30):
always a little kid crush, you know. And then once
we once we grew up, and it was this is
actually funny. My dad was looking for a place to
get marijuana for me, like back in the day when
they were supplying it for me. Yeah, is when I
lived with them still one of Yona that's my boyfriend's name,
his roommates. We were getting it from his roommates, and
(25:51):
so I would go over there and bother him and
then we would just we just started flirting and then
we just started hanging out and watching ceiling TV together
and it was like that was enough for him. Oh
my god, that's amazing, and like it just ugh and
I was enough And I still feel like I'm enough.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I think in this specific American society, the concept of
being enough and being worthy is something we are constantly
fighting with. And this is a moment where I am
in awe of how Keana accepted it. Learning how to
accept that you can be and you are enough for
(26:32):
yourself and for a partner, no matter what version of
yourself that is is so beautiful and like a beautiful
example of how simple and uncomplicated. Just being present with
another human.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Being is where I feel like a lot of people
would resent the fact that I can't do as much physically,
like cleaning the house, in doing things like they'll always
have to carry the heavy groceries.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, where other people would.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Resent that, I feel like he has taken responsibility and
shown me that he is not going to leave for
those reasons.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That sounds beautiful. I love him.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
This relationship has helped Kiana relate to herself in a
new way. And there's other ways that Keana has learned
to express herself, accept herself, and redefine who she is.
Art has played a huge role in that, and we'll
hear more after this break. Welcome back. As Keana has
(27:39):
grown and gotten to a better place, there's a lot
she's navigating and looking forward to today. Keana lived with
her parents for a long time and is so thankful
for the support. She moved out when she was twenty
five and has established her own routines and a new
chapter in her adulthood. She works part time as a
(28:00):
receptionist at a church and is in school getting a
bachelor's degree.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I think I want to teach art, so wow, you know,
and have a studio career on the side, and so
that's like what I'm going to school for right now,
to get my bachelor's degree and then an education minor
at the same time, so that I can at least
teach elementary school or maybe high school. What brought you
to teaching, I guess it changed my life so much
(28:28):
when I started to understand how to express myself through art,
and it gave me such an outlet that I just
I never got that teaching from schools, from art class
and schools, and so I guess that's where it came from.
Is I just want people to be able to have
(28:48):
the same experience that I had, having an outlet and
a place for my emotions to go when I didn't
know how else to let it out.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Keana has been an art artist as long as I've
known her. Of course, in high school her focus was
singing in theater, but when she lost the ability to sing,
she turned to visual art. I've been following Keana's art
on Instagram, and I really love how her art is
very human, colorful, pensive, and always honest to what she
(29:23):
needs and is going through. I think she has such
a beautiful, clear perspective of self. And I think it's
the sense of freedom to be your full, flawed self.
When do you feel seen people look at my art?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I feel totally seen when I look at all of
my artworks up on a wall or like pictures of
them together, and I'm just like, this is my story,
this is the inside of my brain. And it feels
so good to not have to say any words and
to just be ab to show people, and people can
just exist in this painting and understand kind of a
(30:05):
flash of where I was at some point.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Honestly, I think of your journey reminds me of free
to Gallo such an inspiration for me. Really love. I
love whether it's her crown of braids or her famous unibrow.
I think a lot of us would recognize Mexican painter
Frieda Gailo because of her portraits. There are a couple
things we don't often hear about in terms of FREEDA
(30:27):
one is that at a young age she had polio,
which affected her legs throughout the rest of her life,
and then when she was older, unfortunately, she got in
a really bad accident and broke her spinal column, her collarbone,
her ribs and fractured her legs, and yet the whole time,
even through the pain, even being bedridden, she was still painting.
(30:50):
And that force of will and process reminded me of
Kiana and her strength. Listening to Kiana's story, I made
the connection immediately because both of them painted despite their circumstances,
but they also were painting as a way to process
their circumstances. I was like, this, Kana keeps bringing this
(31:10):
vibe to me the way she paints in bed flat
on her back, yep, using a mirror.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
If she can do that, yeah, I can do I
can use this shit. Like if she did this with
all these broken bones, I can do that too.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And like, the ability to find a way and to
have the will to discover and to create is huge
and so beautiful and like often creates some of the
most incredible and depths of art, like to.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Me, totally yeah, yeah. Her portraits are just absolutely stunning.
They tell such amazing stories in the way that she's
comfortable with herself. That's another reason I love painting myself
is it's made me really be comfortable and love myself
because I have to paint every insecurity, I have to
paint every wrinkle.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
That I see, even if I may not like.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
It, but yeah, looking and being able to see those
flaws and still being able to put them on the
page and say, this is a part of me, and
I still am amazing no matter the flaw, these flaws
right I see in quotations.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Although Keana now has visual arts, music still holds a
special magic for her. So it's extra special that she
found her way back to singing. Now she sings in
the chamber choir at the church where she works part time.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
It gives me endorphins.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It is like taking a xanax literally, when I'm have anxiety,
it just it grounds me and it makes all of
those feelings go away. And so sometimes when I was
in the worst of the worst places and I couldn't
get my mind to settle my body to sell, I
would just I would sing.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
That feeling that singing is like taking a xanax or
grounding yourself as thing I highly relate to. For me,
singing has always been a way of self soothing and
connecting with myself, whether it's because I'd gotten anxious because
of my own life uncertainty, trying to figure out what's next,
or going through a loss or a breakup. One of
(33:18):
the ways I've always processed is through singing, and I
used to do it as a kid on the swings
at Recess processing my day. That's how it started. When
music and performance have such a profound effect on you,
it's really hard not to be able to do that often.
It's hard to want to hold back, and yet it's
(33:38):
something that Keana has to constantly think about as she sings.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Now, I just know what parameters I need to be
able to be safe, especially like what I'm singing now,
and I have to take my neck brace off and write.
It's good in the sense that it makes me gain
more muscle. But I also just have to make sure
that I'm sitting in a chair that it has armrests
because or else my shoulders just locate very easily during
a lot of things, and that when people are standing,
(34:03):
I don't have to be standing. I can be sitting
and you can just do it at my pace, but
don't have to keep up with anyone else.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
People with chronic illness are always having to listen to
their bodies to know how many spoons they have, what
their limitations are on any given day. And being able
to do that is something I really admire. It's not
always easy to be in touch with yourself or listen
to yourself, no matter where your body is at, because
you're always going to come up against our society's expectations
around productivity, work, and capitalism. People with chronic illness are
(34:37):
always dealing with being underestimated because we don't see how
much work they're already putting in to the day every day.
Guilt and shame around all of this is so real.
No matter how much self compassion she has, Kean is
still not immune from feeling that. One way we can
start redefining these expectations is by thinking about how we
(35:01):
take care of each other and ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
I'm just happy being able to be in a community,
being able to show up, and because for so long,
even in the things that like in my responsibilities in
my jobs, I couldn't always be there, I couldn't always
do it, and I felt like people saw me as.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Such a slacker.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
So just being able to show up when I say
I'm going to show up and knowing the pace, knowing
how much I can show up without doing it, like
it's taken ten years to get here, but man, the
stability is all I've wanted Right now.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
She has enough spoons to go to school and work
fifteen hours a week. One trip to go out of
the house a day works well for her. Luckily, there's
grocery deliveries and things like that that can help save
her some extra spoons to let her paint and sing.
One thing I want to acknowledge is that Keana used
a spoon to sit upright and do this interview for
(36:00):
close to two hours. Even though Keana does and has
done so much to navigate and establish emotional and physical
stability in her life, there are still things out of
her control. One of those things are the financial aspects
of her condition. This is something that her and her
boyfriend Yona have been juggling together.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
We've always been like stuck under the poverty line. We
can't get married because if we got married, I would
lose my disability benefits.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Wait elaborate on that place. How does that work.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I can't have more than two thousand dollars in my
bank account or else I can't get monthly disability benefits,
so I have not There's no way for me to
have any savings. So that is in the process of
being changed to ten thousand dollars right now, and we're
trying to like push it through the court system right now.
But it's been like that for a very long time.
And if we got married, then our incomes then both
(36:59):
then it turns to three thousand dollars, three thousand dollars
in both of.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Our accounts at one time.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
And because of his income, I wouldn't then qualify anymore
because he makes a normal amount and I wouldn't qualify
it anymore. There's no way to set up someone for
success in this program because you can't save. And I'm
trying to get my de grease so that I can
eventually get off of this and then save some money
(37:27):
and get a retirement account and all those things.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
But it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
It's they won't let you succeed.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
It's crazy that we're linked to give someone benefits to
help them because we know they need it, and yet
it's only enough, like only just enough, and it keeps
you under the poverty line. We all have these beautiful
hopes and dreams, and it's hard when you're like, oh,
I can't plan for the future. I can't save any money,
whether it's for a medical emergency, a rainy day, if
(37:56):
you lose your job, or if you want to move,
any additional life cost you can't prepare for if you
want to claim these benefits, And that's a catch twenty
two that feels like we're not actually helping people out
and ends up creating a crazy burden on people who
shouldn't have to deal with that. It's one way to
make people's needs invisible. I know we've talked about the
(38:19):
topic like a little bit, but just to ask the
question out right, when do you feel invisible?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
I felt invisible for a long time before really trusting
my own instincts and believing myself first and then having
the courage to tell other people what I needed and
things like that. And for a while I wasn't seen
and I wasn't heard by my friends, people around me,
(38:51):
by my parents, by the medical system, and that hurt
a lot.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
It really made me.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Very discouraged for a very long time because I felt
so desperate and there was nothing I could do about it,
and it just felt like my desperation was just invisible,
Like no matter how much I kicked and screamed, no
matter how much I cried, I would get gro out
to the emergency room and then get sent home without
anything having been done. And I finally found an amazing
(39:19):
general practitioner and I've been with her ever since. If
it weren't for somebody taking that chance on me and
that doctor saying you should try this option, like, I
don't know where I would be today without it, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
So much of this conversation has been about Keana's personal
journey and her inner strength, and this moment reminds me
that the people around us, our community, can help us
be seen and to be strong. What would you tell
someone who's just starting off or experiencing the beginning of
chronic illness or pain.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Don't give up on yourself, and there's always a way
to still do what you like and to incorporate you
into your new body. My body, I was so I
used my body all the time. I talked with my hands,
I fling my head around. I'm flamboyant as hell, But
all of a sudden I had to bring it in
(40:15):
and I couldn't move when I talked, and I felt
like fifty percent of my personality was gone.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
But that's just not true.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
It's all in here and the people who are patient
enough to sit with you and see it are the
people that you want to stick with you. And I
would say, don't conquertize on anything. You do not know
what's going to happen, and something that happens that is
seemingly negative may end up being something that is a
(40:44):
positive later in life. And I would say that I'm
a better person because of all of this. I feel
like there's more.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Meaning now in my life.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I have a higher power that I've found through all
of this. I like the person who I am and
like because of all these things that I've been through.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
And who do you feel like you are or who
is this person you've come to really like?
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I'm empathetic, I'm kind, I'm charismatic, I'm silly, and I
am the best version and the happiest version of my
childhood self. Feels like I've finally been able to bring
all the things that I used to feel self conscious
about and the person that I would try to be
(41:30):
that I really wasn't. And it feels really good to
be able to be an adult that I really like
and that I respect and that I know that I'm
doing the best that I can.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
That's why I like myself.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I know for a fact that I am doing the
best that I can, and I'm pushing myself in places
that other people would probably not. Who knows, I don't
know that, but I work hard, and though it may
not look like that on the outside, with how much
work I make or how much my schedule is filled,
(42:04):
I know how much I'm putting my body through and
how much willpower I have, and I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of it, and I'm proud of the fact
that I'm bringing that. I'm singing again, even though I
have to take my neck brace off and it's scary.
So I'm proud of doing the things that are scary
(42:27):
and trudging forward even though I don't know if I'll
be able to have a career, a successful career. I
don't know if my body will hold up, but right
now it's doing it, so I'm going to do as
much as I can to get there.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Keiana's light and kindness have always been a part of her,
and it's so beautiful to see how she's carried herself
through dark times and how she's vulnerable about sharing her
experience to help others in so many ways. Dealing with
something so massive yet invisible, Kiana still is able to
shape a life that she wants for herself, something that's
(43:00):
based in community. I think it reminded me that I
need to lead with grace and kindness and try and
be as understanding as possible, and that the only way
I'm going to know how to treat someone better is
by asking. Next week, we'll meet a teacher in Baltimore
(43:21):
who shows up for black young people in his community
every single day. Mister j teaches at the high school
he once went to, and I wanted to know what
it's really like to be in the classroom day in
and day out.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
It's rare to have black male teachers. Every lesson doesn't
have to be on a front board.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Sometimes I am the lesson and I'm also the testament.
More on mister Jay's journey next week. Thank you so
much for listening to When You're Invisible. Please leave us
a rating and a review to let us know what
you think. You can find this episode and future ones
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get
(43:59):
your podcasts. When You're Invisible is a production of iHeart
Podcasts and Mike Purdura Podcast Network. I'm Your creator and
host Maria Fernanda Vies. Our story editor is Dylan Hoyer.
This season was produced by Me with additional production from
Dylan Hoyer. Sound designed by Laurence Stump and Me with
(44:19):
additional support from Dylan Hoyer, Mixing and mastering by Laurence Stump.
Original theme music by Tony Bruno. Our executive producers are
Anna Stump and Gisell Banzes, and special thanks to our
Lean Santana
It's an invisible disability you can't tell from the outside.
And so many people who we see walking around are
going through these things that we have no idea, And
I feel like just giving people like a blank slate
and never judging them in that way. Why would I
be making this up? Why would I be spending such
(00:22):
so much energy like trying to get help.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to When You're Invisible. My name is Maria Fernanda Diez,
and I know not everyone can roll there are so
it's fine to call me Maria. When You're Invisible is
my love letter to the working class and others who
are seemingly invisible in our society. I hope to build
a community here that will inspire you to have generous
conversations with others that are different from you, conversations that
(00:48):
might help you see life in an entirely different way.
It was in ragtime you could do these bait like
these beautiful like twists and whatnot, and you would do
that in rehearsal, and it's just like, how do you
move your body?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
That was the last performance where I felt where I
felt like I could use one hundred percent of my
body and my energy. That was like the last time
I could really perform, and I remember it being exhilarating.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
This is Keana. We first got to know each other
during Ragtime the Musical, which was a show that we
were both a part of. Our sophomore year of high school.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We went to an arts high school and we were
both in the same acting track.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Our high school was in downtown Saint Paul. There are
different kinds of arts you could focus on, whether it
was visual art, dance, music, musical feeder. I transferred to
the school in tenth grade. Kids came from all over
the state, and we also got students who maybe didn't
care about the arts but had hated or been kicked
(01:54):
out of other schools. Overall, we were a group of outspoken, cool,
sweet and weird kids. Our school days were extra long,
partially because we had extra arts classes and it was
a small school, so we all got pretty close. Also,
it was a fairly new school, which meant students could
(02:17):
get away with some extra shenanigans, whether it was coming
in late, bringing in Starbucks. Oh, and it was normal
to see students stretching in the back of class and
doing pure wets down the hallway. There were parts of
my high school experience that actually was high school musical.
When music came on in the hallway or in a
(02:37):
classroom right before class started, it was normal for people
to break out in choreography and harmonies. High school is
always weird, but looking back at this time, there's a
lot of good memories and I was happy to reconnect
with Kana. Can you introduce yourself? Let's start it off
with that.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yes, my name is Keana Adams, thirty years old. What
else should I say to introduce myself?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Where are you from?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm from Minneapolis. I lived in Paul growing up and
then moved to Minneapolis. But yeah, I've been in Minnesota
my whole life.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Being a lifelong Minnesota was true of almost everyone I
met in Minnesota. It was something I noticed a lot
as an outsider and as a teenager. It really seemed
like Yanna had this deep sense of community in her life.
She was one of the cool girls. She always was
dressed in leggings and a scarf with a cool haircut.
She was edgy, talented, a badass, and unafraid to express
(03:36):
her emotions, whether it was to other students or to teachers.
She came from artist's parents, so discipline and art were
second nature to her. And then we sang in the
Minnesota Opera together.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
And we sang in Minnesota Opera together that I love
Pussure Joffre.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That was so fun.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It was one of my favorite experiences, and I'm so
glad that I got to do that. I don't know
if I could have done something like that like later
in life. So it was really special experience. I hold
it very dear to my heart.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, you are and were an incredible singer.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Keana's voice ugh has its own flexibility and unique tambre.
From what I can remember, she could go from a
classical operatic sound to pop belt within the same breath.
Keana and I wanted theater to be something that wasn't
just confined to high school. But unfortunately, the reason that
(04:31):
Ragtime performance that we were both in when we were
sixteen was one of her last is because Keana has
a chronic illness and things took a turn for the
worse around that time.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And it just it's so hard for me to go
on stage and not be one hundred percent. You know,
I can't go on stage and be fifty percent.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I just can't. And so then I hurt myself.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I would hurt myself often on stage, and so I
had to stop.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Eventually, I was just starting to sing again.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Actually, it's been about fifteen years since Ragtime, and I'm
so happy to hear she's finally singing again. The reason
it took such a long time to come back is
something called EDS. First, can you tell us what EDS is?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Of course, yes, Taylor's Donlo syndrome is a genetic connective
tissue disorder. Connective tissue is everywhere in your body. It's
the glue that holds you together. So when that glue
isn't there, you have to manually do it. You have
to manually scrunch up all of your muscles so much
that it stretches out the ligaments enough to keep you
(05:36):
in place.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And that is just.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So tiring in itself. Yeah, that I don't have any
any room for anything else.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We don't think about connective tissue very much, but it's
everything from our ligaments to the cartilage and our joints,
our skin, even our blood is considered connective tissue. Everything
that helps holds us together into the human shape that
you see can play a part in connective tissue. And
(06:05):
if that system isn't working properly. Suddenly, gravity and your
muscles are in this war with each other. Because your
muscles aren't getting extra help from the rest of your
system to uphold you. It takes a lot of effort
to keep your body in place.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I have the hypermobile type three, which is often recognized
by stretchy skin and just hyper mobile.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I have dislocations daily.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
That hyper flexibility makes me highly aware of that fact
that throughout the entire interview, she's actually wearing a brace
on her neck to help her.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And like, when I'm not wearing my neck brace, like my.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Head feels just so heavy.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It feels like a bibble hit and it's so hard
to keep.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It upright and to use all these muscles.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It feels like gravity's turned up like ten times, like
you're on a different planet, the g forces. If I'm
not really holding tight, move the vertebrae, and wow, it's
just scary and my whole I just you know, all
my muscles over, you know, trying to just keep things
in place, and like say, you're.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Okay, You're okay, You're not gonna move.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And like I hate the way I look with it on,
Like I like it so much. I don't have a
double chin when I don't wear my neck brace. But
I have to just let that go and like let
that superficial part of it go. And see now I'm
talking with my neck too much and it's it's dangerous
for me. I have to put my neck brace back
because oh it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
This is one of those things that isn't worth pushing
because it could just make things worse.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's not a degenerative disease, but it is in the
way that like when my ligaments stretch, they don't stretch back,
they will only continue to stretch, Like when you get
a new sock and it's elasticity is really good at first,
but eventually it's going to stretch and it's never going
to get back to that original elasticity.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Can you describe what you experience physically, like, how would
you describe it?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's I'd say sometime when it's really bad, it feels
like a migraine in your whole body. And so much
of it is like when you have a really bad
knot in your shoulder, except it's in every muscle, like
it's in all of the muscles. It's often just like
this feeling of malaise. But it's just like this nausea
(08:23):
from be from over exerting and not being able to
hold your body together, but your brain is literally forcing
you to you can't relax.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This is why I wanted to interview Kana. She's dealing
with this thing that's not visible and the only thing
that is is the neck brace. But I think, in
all honesty, I think a lot of us would assume
that it was a temporary injury or accident. This takes
a toll on the person's body, mind, energy, and relationships.
(08:55):
Everything is being affected by a battle that no one
else can really see.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We call it the spoon theory and chronic illness. So
if you get so many spoons per day, and each
thing that you do cost a spoon. When I shower,
that costs a spoon. When I empty the dishwasher, that
costs a spoon. When I'm sitting up for an hour
class that costs a spoon, and even small things like
in between they cost spoons when you wouldn't really think
(09:21):
that they would. But for somebody who's chronically ill, Yeah,
we're called spoonies, and we call it the spoon theory.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You know, It has kind of a silly name, but
this concept really clicks for me. It isn't an easy
experience to describe or to get across to people, and
I know that from personal experience. My mom has had
rheumatoid arthritis since I was a freshman in college, and
this means a lot of the time she needs naps
through it the day when she walks far, her feet
(09:51):
will swell for the rest of the day. Preparing for
a gathering at her house used to take a day
or two, and now it requires three to four days
or else she's going to lose days after the event
from exhaustion and pain. Every day looks different, so help
and emotions shift around daily and personally, the learning curve
(10:13):
for communication was hard, and so I love this spoon
theory because I think it's a way I can understand
how my mom might be going through the day in
a way that maybe she doesn't have the language to
talk about yet. It's like, this is like a lovely
analogy of spoons, but you're like, oh, every spoon that
(10:35):
it costs is built on a lot of like pain, fatigue, focus.
I'm sure like so much buttuy energy goes to that
just managing that.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And even like when I wake up in the morning,
they don't always start with the same amount of spoons.
They don't sleep well because of pain and because of how.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Comfortable I can get at night.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I can only lay in one position that can keep
me safe, so that's.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Not comfortable a lot of the time.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So I wake up not having slept, and I never
can sleep in because my body is so afraid to
shut down that it's so used to getting injured that
it won't completely shut down.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And just let you know, trust gravity.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, okay, let's start at the beginning of this story
real quick. Keana was diagnosed when she was eight. Her
dad was actually diagnosed at the same time, after retiring
from a full career as a violinist with the Minnesota Orchestra.
So Keana was showing signs earlier, but at first her
(11:34):
symptoms were just being hyper mobile.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Some people have DS and don't have any pain and
they're fine do many different things. We thought it was
a plus because I was very flexible. I did circus,
they put me into contortion.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
We just thought of it as it was a superhero trait.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
It was when Keana hit puberty that the condition developed.
Into something more painful.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And with the female horn, you know, estrogen, it gives
you mix, you more lax in the joints and in
your college in itself. And so every month when in
my cycle, yeah, I get more discilocations because your hips
have to be able to trage God be able to
have a baby.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right. So it got really.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Bad during the time of when I was growing to
be a young woman. Yeah, and then it evened out,
and once I got the right medication regimen, can I
can live.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I can work with my symptoms.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I'm so happy that Keana's on the right meds and
in a good place today. But there were some hard
years in there. I didn't know everything that was going
on in high school, but even I remember standout moments
when she was starting to experience more painful symptoms. I
remember in school one time, like when I feel like
(12:45):
it was Paul who was teaching class, and you were
in a lot of pain that day, and you were
laying on the ground and you're like I don't You're
like I can't get up, like I'm not feeling well.
And I remember Paul being like, Keana, it's fine, just
get up, and like completely disregarding you for a minute.
That's like part of the thing that I was like,
(13:06):
Oh my gosh. This stayed with me so vividly that
this young girl like woman growing up was not believed
or heard by her teacher.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
In high school up until sophomore year. Even the beginning
of junior year, you couldn't tell, and even my friends,
there was no I didn't have big enough symptoms that
they were really impacting my life, so I would never
talk about it. I never talked about the fact that
I had the EDS diagnosis and I was just flexible
and I was weak, but I try to keep up
(13:37):
with everybody else, And when then I started showing symptoms,
I was labeled as a lot of different things, attention seeker,
drug seeker. Sometimes I got a member being accused of
having an eating disorder because they didn't think that I
really had this and that it was impacting my eating
(13:57):
because I was nauseous all the time. I felt that
people were labeling me, especially because I was smoking a
lot of weed my senior year, and honestly, I felt
like I would do anything to escape what I was
going through.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I remember hearing whispers of the speculation of what people
thought she was going through the way people were viewing
her was shifting, and sometimes she was seen as a
problem kid. I'm really sad that I didn't understand fully
what was happening in the moment, and how lonely it
must have been.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I wasn't getting help from any doctors. I was too young.
No one was going to help me by putting me
on painkillers. For so long, doctors would just say this
is too much, I can't take your case, too difficult, whatever,
and I'll get passed on to another referral and.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Referral, referral, referral.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Later they're like, why haven't you had a doctor and
so long? Why are you doctor shopping? Nobody was going
to take that leap, especially with somebody who had substance
use issues, to give me the medicine that I've needed.
Like yeah, when I in my junior especially senior year,
just sitting up was so difficult. It was like my
(15:06):
middle could not hold me up and I would get
this ring of pain that like then my ribs would
come dislocated a lot of the time, and so I
had to lay flat on my back and I was
stuck on my back for like four years of my adulthood.
Holy cow, I had a TV installed in my ceiling
because I couldn't even turn my neck to like look
(15:27):
at the TV on the wall.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Like it was that bad.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
This period in Keana's life is four years of her adulthood,
of her young adulthood. The years you think about where
you're going to bars, partying, meeting random people. Were years
Kiana spent immobile.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And it was only five years ago that I finally
got on the right medication. And once that started, I
started to be able to work. I went back to school.
I can do the things and that's all I was
asking for before. It just blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
This is an amazing moment, literally changed her life after
dealing with years of red tape disbelief, doctors being hesitant
to work with her. But I wish that this didn't
have to be exceptional, that it didn't feel miraculous or magical.
(16:19):
This is something that she and so many others deserve,
but not everyone gets. It's hard to find the right
treatment or diagnosis still today, and it's a journey. Not
everyone is afforded.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Aayler Donald's syndrome is just starting to be known more
about in the medical community and that it, and patients
are now believed that when they say that, it causes
extreme pain and extreme disability.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Right in many people.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And it's just crazy how much success I've had since
I've gotten on the right regimen of medications.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Over time, Keana has found relief and she's found a
sense of freedom through art. She's also found supportive, loving relationships.
But that delay and care came at a cost, feeling
like her friends were slipping away and her childhood dreams
were no longer reachable. That's coming after the break, welcome back.
(17:20):
When I think back to senior year of high school,
it was buzzing as our whole class was figuring out
what our futures would look like, going into the professional world,
going to college, going to performing art school. All of
us were busy with applications, interviews, auditions, and so was Keana.
But eventually she would have to face a shadow that
(17:41):
was hanging over her.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
The biggest thing about the EDS for me was that
I really lost my sense of I mean, before I
was a performer, I was an actor. I knew that's
what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
And I lost my instrument, I lost my ability to
express myself in that way.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, Keana got into an amazing school, but realized it
wouldn't be possible for her to go.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
It felt like I wouldn't have that chance again to
go to a college like that and get that kind
of an education.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I really grieved the life that I wanted, the girl
that I had always seen growing into the future, and
then what was actually happening and how they were not
fitting together, and I was really angry and I had
some bad depression for a while.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
On top of all of this, the people she'd always
surrounded herself with turned out to be people she couldn't
really rely on. It was just too much for them
to have to deal with. Once I wasn't fun anymore.
Once all I was was bad news. Once they had
to come visit me and do work and I wouldn't
give anything back. They just left and I didn't really
(18:50):
see them much again. I won't name specific names, but
it broke my heart because I thought those people were
my rock, but then as soon as I needed to
ask anything of them, it was too much to ask.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I can feel that heartbreak of being like, hey, I'm
not funny anymore, or I'm going through something and I
can't and I don't feel like people are supportive. What
did you feel like was the threshold?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
At first, it was like there was like a little
bit of tolerance.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
They would show up a little bit, but it was
like small things.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
When we were like out and about, I was always
in the passenger seat, or if we were out somewhere
at a house and there was the choice between a
chair and sitting on the ground, I would always need
the comfy chair, or the fact that I wouldn't share
my reed with them, or I was like, this is
my medicine now. My parents started providing it for me
after a while, once they saw how much it helped me.
(19:55):
And it really keeps eating. Yeah, and so it's like
really important. And once I couldn't give it away anymore,
people stopped showing up.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Wow, And it was.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
It was It was the worst. My heart goes out
to Kana in this moment because I can relate to that,
and I think all of us can in some way,
shape or form. I think we've all been through time
where we're going through a lot and we want the
people we love to be able to support us and
to be able to go through it with us, and
(20:31):
not everybody can, and the difficulty of understanding and going
through that reality it becomes a new layer of heartbreak.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I was in denial about it for a really long time.
I didn't want to to see it. I didn't want
to think that I was real and I was calling,
leaving voicemails, crying.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Like where are you?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Like they were like the only people in my life
and I just wasn't ready to give that up. And
I didn't and think that I was that different, just
my body was. And it's really sad that I wasn't
more honest with myself because I think I would have
been able to get over it faster and be like,
why do I care about these people if they don't
(21:15):
care about me.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I'm like, that's it's hard one. When you're young and
you feel connected to people. I feel like there's an
element of like in kindness, in our humanity and our
desire to connect. Of course we try hard. There must
be a way to fix it, And I think, how
could you know to let go sooner? To me, it
(21:37):
speaks to the beauty of you in your ability to
be like, I want to connect, I want to give
this a chance.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Of so many chances, and I was suddenly in this
box and I felt like I couldn't live up to
like the person I used to be anymore. And even
though I feel like I've found myself again and I've
found my personality again, for a long time like things
were just law because I felt such a big part
of my identity was lost.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, and yeah, it took wild to find it again.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Especially when we're young, we define ourselves based off the
friendships that we form. As we get older, we ground
ourselves in a lot of different aspects, and our friendships,
while important, become just a piece of who we are.
I think when we're young, it's all encompassing, but no
matter what stage and life we're in, that grief and
(22:29):
loss of a friend is something we should hold space
for and we don't often do. And I think heartbreak, pain, fear, sadness,
and disappointment can be things that keep people from connecting
and reaching out. And Keana doesn't let this happen to her.
She's willing to open herself back up eventually, whether she
(22:51):
realized it or not while it was happening. I think
it's something that's beautiful about Keana's resilient spirits. What was
a moment where you're like, oh, this person is in
it from the long haul. This is something and someone
I can trust.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
I do have one friend that when things got really bad,
like when I was during that time that I could
barely sit up and I was using substances and I
was depressed and I was even My parents sent me
to the psych board a couple of times, and when
I was there, the doctors wouldn't believe my pain. I mean,
(23:24):
it was ridiculous because I was in a psych ward.
Of course, they thought I was not being serious about
it and that it was exaggerated, but it wasn't and
that sucked. But there's where I met one of my
best friends to this day. And it's crazy that we
met each other in one of the lowest lows of
our life and we have both grown, allowed each other
(23:48):
to grow together and been there to like push each
other up. And it's ten years later and she is
my person, like my one friend that I do trust,
And if it weren't for her, I probably still wouldn't
trust people.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Wow. Yeah, Trusting this one friend and expanding this friendship
allowed Keana to look at how she wanted to build
relationships in the rest of her life, and that includes romantically.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Even trusting my boyfriend was really it took a long
time for me to like even be able to fall
asleep next to him, because I was scared he was,
I don't know, going to wrestle through my things or
find some way to find me less than or not
enough or inadequate. But he didn't think that, and that
(24:39):
was all just internalized from past experiences, and he was
so accepting of the fact that I had to lay
down for a lot of it, and that I couldn't
physically engage as much as I used to be able to,
or other girls could, or things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
How long have you been with your boo?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh uh, I think it's almost it's like seven years.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
WHOA. What was like the first date or the first
realization of hey, I like you?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Oh my gosh. Our families knew each other growing up,
and like his family's from Finland, and his dad got
a job in the Minnesota Orchestra when they were he and
I were three years old. He's an orchestra baby too,
and we had them over for their very first American Thanksgiving. Yes,
and I remember that and we walked down the street
holding hands and he kissed my arm. There was just
(25:30):
always a little kid crush, you know. And then once
we once we grew up, and it was this is
actually funny. My dad was looking for a place to
get marijuana for me, like back in the day when
they were supplying it for me. Yeah, is when I
lived with them still one of Yona that's my boyfriend's name,
his roommates. We were getting it from his roommates, and
(25:51):
so I would go over there and bother him and
then we would just we just started flirting and then
we just started hanging out and watching ceiling TV together
and it was like that was enough for him. Oh
my god, that's amazing, and like it just ugh and
I was enough And I still feel like I'm enough.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I think in this specific American society, the concept of
being enough and being worthy is something we are constantly
fighting with. And this is a moment where I am
in awe of how Keana accepted it. Learning how to
accept that you can be and you are enough for
(26:32):
yourself and for a partner, no matter what version of
yourself that is is so beautiful and like a beautiful
example of how simple and uncomplicated. Just being present with
another human.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Being is where I feel like a lot of people
would resent the fact that I can't do as much physically,
like cleaning the house, in doing things like they'll always
have to carry the heavy groceries.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, where other people would.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Resent that, I feel like he has taken responsibility and
shown me that he is not going to leave for
those reasons.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That sounds beautiful. I love him.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
This relationship has helped Kiana relate to herself in a
new way. And there's other ways that Keana has learned
to express herself, accept herself, and redefine who she is.
Art has played a huge role in that, and we'll
hear more after this break. Welcome back. As Keana has
(27:39):
grown and gotten to a better place, there's a lot
she's navigating and looking forward to today. Keana lived with
her parents for a long time and is so thankful
for the support. She moved out when she was twenty
five and has established her own routines and a new
chapter in her adulthood. She works part time as a
(28:00):
receptionist at a church and is in school getting a
bachelor's degree.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I think I want to teach art, so wow, you know,
and have a studio career on the side, and so
that's like what I'm going to school for right now,
to get my bachelor's degree and then an education minor
at the same time, so that I can at least
teach elementary school or maybe high school. What brought you
to teaching, I guess it changed my life so much
(28:28):
when I started to understand how to express myself through art,
and it gave me such an outlet that I just
I never got that teaching from schools, from art class
and schools, and so I guess that's where it came from.
Is I just want people to be able to have
(28:48):
the same experience that I had, having an outlet and
a place for my emotions to go when I didn't
know how else to let it out.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Keana has been an art artist as long as I've
known her. Of course, in high school her focus was
singing in theater, but when she lost the ability to sing,
she turned to visual art. I've been following Keana's art
on Instagram, and I really love how her art is
very human, colorful, pensive, and always honest to what she
(29:23):
needs and is going through. I think she has such
a beautiful, clear perspective of self. And I think it's
the sense of freedom to be your full, flawed self.
When do you feel seen people look at my art?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I feel totally seen when I look at all of
my artworks up on a wall or like pictures of
them together, and I'm just like, this is my story,
this is the inside of my brain. And it feels
so good to not have to say any words and
to just be ab to show people, and people can
just exist in this painting and understand kind of a
(30:05):
flash of where I was at some point.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Honestly, I think of your journey reminds me of free
to Gallo such an inspiration for me. Really love. I
love whether it's her crown of braids or her famous unibrow.
I think a lot of us would recognize Mexican painter
Frieda Gailo because of her portraits. There are a couple
things we don't often hear about in terms of FREEDA
(30:27):
one is that at a young age she had polio,
which affected her legs throughout the rest of her life,
and then when she was older, unfortunately, she got in
a really bad accident and broke her spinal column, her collarbone,
her ribs and fractured her legs, and yet the whole time,
even through the pain, even being bedridden, she was still painting.
(30:50):
And that force of will and process reminded me of
Kiana and her strength. Listening to Kiana's story, I made
the connection immediately because both of them painted despite their circumstances,
but they also were painting as a way to process
their circumstances. I was like, this, Kana keeps bringing this
(31:10):
vibe to me the way she paints in bed flat
on her back, yep, using a mirror.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
If she can do that, yeah, I can do I
can use this shit. Like if she did this with
all these broken bones, I can do that too.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And like, the ability to find a way and to
have the will to discover and to create is huge
and so beautiful and like often creates some of the
most incredible and depths of art, like to.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Me, totally yeah, yeah. Her portraits are just absolutely stunning.
They tell such amazing stories in the way that she's
comfortable with herself. That's another reason I love painting myself
is it's made me really be comfortable and love myself
because I have to paint every insecurity, I have to
paint every wrinkle.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
That I see, even if I may not like.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
It, but yeah, looking and being able to see those
flaws and still being able to put them on the
page and say, this is a part of me, and
I still am amazing no matter the flaw, these flaws
right I see in quotations.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Although Keana now has visual arts, music still holds a
special magic for her. So it's extra special that she
found her way back to singing. Now she sings in
the chamber choir at the church where she works part time.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
It gives me endorphins.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It is like taking a xanax literally, when I'm have anxiety,
it just it grounds me and it makes all of
those feelings go away. And so sometimes when I was
in the worst of the worst places and I couldn't
get my mind to settle my body to sell, I
would just I would sing.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
That feeling that singing is like taking a xanax or
grounding yourself as thing I highly relate to. For me,
singing has always been a way of self soothing and
connecting with myself, whether it's because I'd gotten anxious because
of my own life uncertainty, trying to figure out what's next,
or going through a loss or a breakup. One of
(33:18):
the ways I've always processed is through singing, and I
used to do it as a kid on the swings
at Recess processing my day. That's how it started. When
music and performance have such a profound effect on you,
it's really hard not to be able to do that often.
It's hard to want to hold back, and yet it's
(33:38):
something that Keana has to constantly think about as she sings.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Now, I just know what parameters I need to be
able to be safe, especially like what I'm singing now,
and I have to take my neck brace off and write.
It's good in the sense that it makes me gain
more muscle. But I also just have to make sure
that I'm sitting in a chair that it has armrests
because or else my shoulders just locate very easily during
a lot of things, and that when people are standing,
(34:03):
I don't have to be standing. I can be sitting
and you can just do it at my pace, but
don't have to keep up with anyone else.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
People with chronic illness are always having to listen to
their bodies to know how many spoons they have, what
their limitations are on any given day. And being able
to do that is something I really admire. It's not
always easy to be in touch with yourself or listen
to yourself, no matter where your body is at, because
you're always going to come up against our society's expectations
around productivity, work, and capitalism. People with chronic illness are
(34:37):
always dealing with being underestimated because we don't see how
much work they're already putting in to the day every day.
Guilt and shame around all of this is so real.
No matter how much self compassion she has, Kean is
still not immune from feeling that. One way we can
start redefining these expectations is by thinking about how we
(35:01):
take care of each other and ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
I'm just happy being able to be in a community,
being able to show up, and because for so long,
even in the things that like in my responsibilities in
my jobs, I couldn't always be there, I couldn't always
do it, and I felt like people saw me as.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Such a slacker.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
So just being able to show up when I say
I'm going to show up and knowing the pace, knowing
how much I can show up without doing it, like
it's taken ten years to get here, but man, the
stability is all I've wanted Right now.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
She has enough spoons to go to school and work
fifteen hours a week. One trip to go out of
the house a day works well for her. Luckily, there's
grocery deliveries and things like that that can help save
her some extra spoons to let her paint and sing.
One thing I want to acknowledge is that Keana used
a spoon to sit upright and do this interview for
(36:00):
close to two hours. Even though Keana does and has
done so much to navigate and establish emotional and physical
stability in her life, there are still things out of
her control. One of those things are the financial aspects
of her condition. This is something that her and her
boyfriend Yona have been juggling together.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
We've always been like stuck under the poverty line. We
can't get married because if we got married, I would
lose my disability benefits.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Wait elaborate on that place. How does that work.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I can't have more than two thousand dollars in my
bank account or else I can't get monthly disability benefits,
so I have not There's no way for me to
have any savings. So that is in the process of
being changed to ten thousand dollars right now, and we're
trying to like push it through the court system right now.
But it's been like that for a very long time.
And if we got married, then our incomes then both
(36:59):
then it turns to three thousand dollars, three thousand dollars
in both of.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Our accounts at one time.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
And because of his income, I wouldn't then qualify anymore
because he makes a normal amount and I wouldn't qualify
it anymore. There's no way to set up someone for
success in this program because you can't save. And I'm
trying to get my de grease so that I can
eventually get off of this and then save some money
(37:27):
and get a retirement account and all those things.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
But it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
It's they won't let you succeed.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
It's crazy that we're linked to give someone benefits to
help them because we know they need it, and yet
it's only enough, like only just enough, and it keeps
you under the poverty line. We all have these beautiful
hopes and dreams, and it's hard when you're like, oh,
I can't plan for the future. I can't save any money,
whether it's for a medical emergency, a rainy day, if
(37:56):
you lose your job, or if you want to move,
any additional life cost you can't prepare for if you
want to claim these benefits, And that's a catch twenty
two that feels like we're not actually helping people out
and ends up creating a crazy burden on people who
shouldn't have to deal with that. It's one way to
make people's needs invisible. I know we've talked about the
(38:19):
topic like a little bit, but just to ask the
question out right, when do you feel invisible?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
I felt invisible for a long time before really trusting
my own instincts and believing myself first and then having
the courage to tell other people what I needed and
things like that. And for a while I wasn't seen
and I wasn't heard by my friends, people around me,
(38:51):
by my parents, by the medical system, and that hurt
a lot.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
It really made me.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Very discouraged for a very long time because I felt
so desperate and there was nothing I could do about it,
and it just felt like my desperation was just invisible,
Like no matter how much I kicked and screamed, no
matter how much I cried, I would get gro out
to the emergency room and then get sent home without
anything having been done. And I finally found an amazing
(39:19):
general practitioner and I've been with her ever since. If
it weren't for somebody taking that chance on me and
that doctor saying you should try this option, like, I
don't know where I would be today without it, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
So much of this conversation has been about Keana's personal
journey and her inner strength, and this moment reminds me
that the people around us, our community, can help us
be seen and to be strong. What would you tell
someone who's just starting off or experiencing the beginning of
chronic illness or pain.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Don't give up on yourself, and there's always a way
to still do what you like and to incorporate you
into your new body. My body, I was so I
used my body all the time. I talked with my hands,
I fling my head around. I'm flamboyant as hell, But
all of a sudden I had to bring it in
(40:15):
and I couldn't move when I talked, and I felt
like fifty percent of my personality was gone.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
But that's just not true.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
It's all in here and the people who are patient
enough to sit with you and see it are the
people that you want to stick with you. And I
would say, don't conquertize on anything. You do not know
what's going to happen, and something that happens that is
seemingly negative may end up being something that is a
(40:44):
positive later in life. And I would say that I'm
a better person because of all of this. I feel
like there's more.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Meaning now in my life.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I have a higher power that I've found through all
of this. I like the person who I am and
like because of all these things that I've been through.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
And who do you feel like you are or who
is this person you've come to really like?
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I'm empathetic, I'm kind, I'm charismatic, I'm silly, and I
am the best version and the happiest version of my
childhood self. Feels like I've finally been able to bring
all the things that I used to feel self conscious
about and the person that I would try to be
(41:30):
that I really wasn't. And it feels really good to
be able to be an adult that I really like
and that I respect and that I know that I'm
doing the best that I can.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
That's why I like myself.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I know for a fact that I am doing the
best that I can, and I'm pushing myself in places
that other people would probably not. Who knows, I don't
know that, but I work hard, and though it may
not look like that on the outside, with how much
work I make or how much my schedule is filled,
(42:04):
I know how much I'm putting my body through and
how much willpower I have, and I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of it, and I'm proud of the fact
that I'm bringing that. I'm singing again, even though I
have to take my neck brace off and it's scary.
So I'm proud of doing the things that are scary
(42:27):
and trudging forward even though I don't know if I'll
be able to have a career, a successful career. I
don't know if my body will hold up, but right
now it's doing it, so I'm going to do as
much as I can to get there.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Keiana's light and kindness have always been a part of her,
and it's so beautiful to see how she's carried herself
through dark times and how she's vulnerable about sharing her
experience to help others in so many ways. Dealing with
something so massive yet invisible, Kiana still is able to
shape a life that she wants for herself, something that's
(43:00):
based in community. I think it reminded me that I
need to lead with grace and kindness and try and
be as understanding as possible, and that the only way
I'm going to know how to treat someone better is
by asking. Next week, we'll meet a teacher in Baltimore
(43:21):
who shows up for black young people in his community
every single day. Mister j teaches at the high school
he once went to, and I wanted to know what
it's really like to be in the classroom day in
and day out.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
It's rare to have black male teachers. Every lesson doesn't
have to be on a front board.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Sometimes I am the lesson and I'm also the testament.
More on mister Jay's journey next week. Thank you so
much for listening to When You're Invisible. Please leave us
a rating and a review to let us know what
you think. You can find this episode and future ones
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get
(43:59):
your podcasts. When You're Invisible is a production of iHeart
Podcasts and Mike Purdura Podcast Network. I'm Your creator and
host Maria Fernanda Vies. Our story editor is Dylan Hoyer.
This season was produced by Me with additional production from
Dylan Hoyer. Sound designed by Laurence Stump and Me with
(44:19):
additional support from Dylan Hoyer, Mixing and mastering by Laurence Stump.
Original theme music by Tony Bruno. Our executive producers are
Anna Stump and Gisell Banzes, and special thanks to our
Lean Santana
Host
Maria Fernanda Diez
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.