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Foreign. Hi there and welcome back to a really depressing bonus episode of Poppy Killed Mommy. My name is Nikki and I'm the daughter of a murdered woman. Before I trauma dump on you about what has been, without question, one of the most insane, intense three weeks of my life, I actually have a really beautiful update. So let's start with the good news, right? Last week, my mom's story absolutely exploded on Facebook and Instagram. I had, I think, three videos hit a million views between the two platforms. Thousands of people were suddenly seeing my mom's case. Thousands of new people found Poppy Killed Mommy. And somehow, for a third time, this little independent podcast climbed back onto the Apple top true crime charts. Oh, I love saying that. As I am recording this at 6:16 on August 10th. Monday, August 10th, Poppy Killed Mommy is currently sitting at number 162 in the US on Apple's top true crime. What's even more exciting is that my children's podcast for the little kids nanny Nikki's imagination station, where turning the page is just the beginning. It's charting at the exact same time on Apple in Kids Stories and Family Stories. I found that out yesterday and I have been on, like, Cloud 9. It's been really exciting for me. I don't have a network behind me. I don't have some giant production company pushing this show forward. This is literally me in my little bitty studio telling my mother's story and begging people not to forget her. So to every single person who has watched a video, followed, listened, rated, reviewed, shared the podcast, or told somebody else about my mother, Stacey, thank you, truly. Because while my personal life was absolutely falling apart behind the scenes, something incredible was happening with this podcast. I love charting. It makes me so excited. Like, makes me a little giddy, actually. Like a little schoolgirl. But then that brings me to today, because this bonus episode has absolutely nothing to do with my mom's case. I don't have any new case updates for you. What I do have is a story about the last three weeks that changed damn near everything for me, medically, financially, and honestly, mentally. If you follow me on my socials, then you already know what's been going on, man. I keep you up to date in real time, but let's fill in the rest of you that don't. This all started on July 24, two days before my 44th birthday, when I took my first double dose of a GLP1 injection. And within hours, my body basically declared war on me. I want this episode to be educational because three weeks ago, I knew Almost nothing about something called cannaboid hypermensis syndrome, also known as chs. And I also did not fully understand just how dramatically your body can respond when increasing AGLP1 medicine. I know both of these things now. Boy do I know them. And if telling you what happened to me stops even one person from making a medical decision without asking enough questions or helps one long term cannabis user recognize symptoms that they've been ignoring, then at least something useful has come out of what has been one of the worst three weeks I have had in a very long time. I was hospitalized last month, August, for roughly the same thing. Vomiting, nausea, and the ER could not tell me what was wrong at that time. But let's go back to July 24th. Two days before my 44th birthday. I got off of work that Friday. I came home and I took my GLP1 injection. I had been taking this medication for several weeks. This was actually my fifth week at that point. And, and this was the first time that my dose was doubled. I went from 0.2 units to 0.4 overnight. And within hours everything changed. I became incredibly nauseated. Then came the vomiting. And this wasn't normal. Oh shit. This medication upset my stomach a little bit. I was sick, really, really sick. And what I didn't understand at the time was that gastrointestinal symptoms are extremely common with GLP1 medic, particularly during dose escalation. These medications affect several systems in your body, including appetite and digestion. They slow gastric emptying, which is part of why you feel like fuller longer. But nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation and abdominal discomfort are known side effects. Up until that point, the only thing I was dealing with was a little bit of constipation. And according to FDA prescribing information for major GLP1 medications, a lot of those gastrointestinal reactions happen during dose escalation. Dude, that's something I really wish I had paid more attention to. And I want to be extremely clear, I'm not telling anybody. Don't take a G.L.P. one man. I lost eight pounds that first month. I was so on board. These medications have helped a tremendous number of people. What I'm saying is this. Do not treat a dose increase. Casually talk to your provider. Understand exactly what dose you're taking, understand what symptoms are expected, understand what symptoms mean. Call my doctor and understand what symptoms mean. This has gone beyond normal side effects and I need medical attention. Dude. I went through like Mochi health online. I talked to a nurse practitioner one time on a Video call. Then after that, all she did was message me and ask me if I was ready for an increase. I said, you're the doctor, you're the boss. Sure, if you think I'm ready, let's do it. That is literally all the contact I had with my provider being sick. I sent her several messages in that app and she did not respond to me and has yet to respond to me. And I just found out that Mochi Health has a class action lawsuit against them because they're pushing a non FDA approved GLP1, which is what she put me on. Semaglutide. Some FDA approved GLP1 dosing schedules intentionally increase gradually. Like when govee's prescribing information even says that when somebody can't tolerate a dose during escalation, delaying the escalation may be appropriate. My body clearly did not enjoy what happened at all. And then things got complicated. Because while I'm dealing with this horrendous vomiting and nausea, an RN says something to me that I had basically never heard before. Oh, chs. Cannaboid hypermensis syndrome. And here's where this story gets really important. Yes, I had used cannabis for more than 20 years. Long term, regular use for years after my mother's death. You know, I had been prescribed one antidepressant after another. They had shoved pills down my throat for years. And the only thing that I found that regulated my mood was cannabis. It's the only thing that made me feel like I could actually live a normal life. And like a lot of people, if you had told me that cannabis could cause uncontrollable vomiting after somebody had been using it for years, I probably would have looked at you like you had a third fucking head. Because cannabis is also something people commonly associate with reducing nausea. That's one of the reasons CHS feels so counterintuitive, but it's real. And one of the strangest hallmarks, hot water, hot showers, hot baths. People with CHS often report temporary relief from their symptoms when they're under very hot water. And guess what I was doing? Laying in hot showers over and over again, sometimes for hours. I would lay there and try to get a little bit of sleep because that's the only relief I was finding. Suddenly, this weird collection of symptoms started making a little bit more sense. And the more important thing I learned about CHS is that if cannabis is the cause, the treatment isn't simply switching strains. It isn't about vaping instead of smoking. It isn't necessarily switching to edibles. The American College of Gastroenterology says the most important thing for improving CHS is stopping marijuana use altogether. So that's what I did, cold turkey, immediately after the RN left my house after more than 20 years. And now imagine what that looked like. My body had already been through days of vomiting with the overdose of the GLP one. I wasn't eating normally. I was dehydrated, I was nauseated. I was exhausted. And now cannabis was suddenly completely gone, too. I went through withdrawals, bad sweating, chills, brain fog. One day, I couldn't remember if I left a fucking dog outside. I started panicking and blowing my dad's phone up. Cause we live in Arizona. If I left a dog outside, I would have killed him. I couldn't regulate my temperature. At one point, I had to get a blanket in the classroom and put a blanket around me. I want to remind you, we're in Arizona. It's 110 outside. My emotions were all over the place. Talk about a roller coaster. I wasn't sleeping normally. My stomach was an absolute disaster. At one point, I went a week without pooping. I was in so much pain. And this wasn't one miserable afternoon. I was sick for roughly 10 days. 10 days. During that period, I got so bad that I had to have the RN come to my house twice. The first time, I was so depleted that having somebody come give me fluids and help with the nausea. Felt like somebody had turned the lights back on inside my body. Man, it was fucking amazing. Then eight hours later, the symptoms came back. So he came back again that evening, and that's when he asked me if I was a smoker. He's like, do you smoke weed? And I was like, yeah, I'm nauseous. I keep smoking weed, trying to make the nausea to go away. I was honest. And that's when he told me, oh, no, no, no. He told me all about CHS. Those two visits cost me more than $500, and I paid it gladly because at that point, I didn't know what else to do. I was too sick to drive myself to the hospital. And I was terrified of ending up with a giant emergency room bill because I had been dropped from Access in April. And eventually, very slowly, things started changing. Several days later, I stopped vomiting. The nausea started to go away. I started to be able to eat little bits, soup, toast, small things. My stomach slowly began working again. The sweating and the chills, they gradually became less intense. The brain fog has started to lift. And I went back to work. On that first day of School sick. Still, Absolutely still sick and sweating and kind of withdrawing. But I was well enough to get out of bed and get there. And trust me, I couldn't wait to get there. Being sick in bed for 10 days, you are going stir crazy. You can't wait to get out of the house at that point. And that's where we get to today. Because there is another side of getting sick that nobody talks about. Enough money. I'm a pre K teacher. I absolutely love what I do. I do not say that casually. I love my classroom. I love these kids. I love teaching them. There are plenty of days when the reason I'm willing to do this job for what I make is because the actual work means so much to me. And I've grown so attached to watching these children grow. But I make 1650 an hour. I am 44 years old and I live paycheck to paycheck. Dude, that's so uncomfortable for me to say, but that's my reality, and I don't think I'm remotely alone in this reality. I also want to clear up something that I think people understandably assume when they see the size of my social media platform or hear me talk about having two podcasts. Podcasting is not paying the bills, guys. Poppy Killed Mommy generally makes me somewhere between 60 and $100 a month in advertising revenue. A month. Not a week, not a day. A month. There have been occasional periods when the podcast is actively charting and the numbers are better, but there is absolutely zero consistency to that income, and it's nothing I can depend on when rent is due. I can have videos, reach millions of people. I can have hundreds of thousands of podcast downloads. I can. I can chart on Apple. And none of that automatically means that there is a paycheck attached to it. And then I have the children's podcast, Nanny Nikki's Imagination Station. I am not monetizing that podcast at all. I started that show because I'm a pre K teacher and I love telling stories to my children. It came out of what I already do with my kids in the classroom. I wanted to create something whimsical and safe that families could listen to when they're together at home. I am not putting advertising into it. I am not making money from it. I do it because I love it. So when somebody looks at me and thinks, well, she has two podcasts. She has all these followers. She has viral videos. Surely she has another source of income. I really don't, though. My dependability comes from my job, my 9 to 5 job, my 40 hours a week job that I depend on, $16.50 an hour. And that is why losing 45 hours of pay is not a small inconvenience for me. It's a financial emergency. It's an absolute catastrophe. I was kicked off access for making too much in April. I mean, that's a fucking joke. So now I have to pay for my own health insurance. My rent is $1,000. And before somebody says the but Nikki, you live with your dad. Surely your dad is going to understand. Surely he's going to give you a pass this month. No, bro, that is not how my relationship with my father works. Yes, I live with my old man, but I am also 44 years old, which believe me, my father has absolutely no problem reminding me of daily. I am a tenant in his house. I pay $1,000 a month in rent, and that is an obligation he expects me to meet. My dad has always been extremely big on responsibility and accountability. And if anything, I think he's actually harder on me because I'm his daughter and not easier. He's not the kind of father where I can just walk into the other room and say, dad, I don't have rent this month. And he says, oh, sweetheart, don't worry about it, dude, that's not my dad. My dad is much more likely to say, you're 44 years old, Nicky. You have responsibilities. Figure it out. And I know some people may hear that and think that's harsh, what a dick. But that is how he has always raised me. He has spent my entire life trying to teach me that when you make a commitment, you meet it. You pay your bills, you take care of your responsibilities. You don't expect somebody else to absorb them just because they're family. And he still holds me to that standard today. Even more so, if not so. Technically, yes. I live with my father. That does not mean my housing is free. It does not mean my rent is optional. And it doesn't mean I have $1,000 safety net sitting in the next room. I owe my rent just like anybody else owes their landlord. And right now that rent is already a week late. And trust me, he's already reminded me of that. It needs to be paid on Friday. I asked him if he wanted me to pay like an extra like surcharge too. I don't have enough money to pay him and he doesn't even know that yet. I have not told him that's the situation. And I'm not blaming my dad for that. I'm explaining it because I know how it looks from the outside. My father loves me in his way, but his version of loving me has always never been rescuing me from every consequence. His version has always been, I raise you to be responsible now. Be fucking responsible. And believe me, I'm trying. I have six dogs. They're all old. They've been with me forever. I have two cats, again, seniors. They've been with me forever. I have animals who need food, veterinary care, medication when something happens. Flea and tick prevention, all the normal things that come with being responsible for living creatures. I have a car. I have gas. I have car insurance. I have groceries. And ironically, I'm trying to lose weight and take better care of myself, which means I'm also trying to buy healthier food, which isn't exactly cheaper. Everything costs money. And when you're living paycheck to paycheck, there isn't much margin for disaster. The timing of my illness was terrible. This happened at the end of summer school. I missed the last day because I was legitimately medically ill. I have a doctor's note for missing Monday. And then there was the Meet the Teacher event that Friday that was roughly two hours long. I was still sick in bed. I personally called my boss, crying to her. I explained what was going on and she told me I didn't have to go. Today I learned that because I missed those pieces, I am losing an entire week's pay. I am not getting paid for summer break money. I was depending on 45 hours at 1650 an hour, that's $742.50 when I heard that today. When I signed my timesheet, my stomach dropped because I did not understand what was going to happen. And I need to say this very clearly. Had I known missing that roughly two hour Meet the Teacher event could contribute to me losing an entire week's paycheck, I would have been there. I don't care how nauseated I was. I don't care if I looked awful. I don't care if I had to sit in a corner with a bottle of water. I would have dragged myself there because I cannot afford to lose $742.50. I literally cannot afford it. And then there's this strange contradiction that I think a lot of Americans understand. I'm incredibly lucky to have my job. For example, I get paid through school breaks when I don't have to work. That's huge. You know, that's the reason why I put up with $16.50 an hour. I know a lot of hourly workers don't have that. And I do consider myself lucky. But because my finances are already so tight, if one unexpected thing happens, a medical emergency, a missed paycheck, a car repair, a sick pet, anything, my entire house of cards can come down. And that's what happened here. Right now on this Monday, I have around $355 in my bank account. My next check on Friday I just signed my pay stub will probably be around 450 to $500. After taxes, that's around $800. If I don't spend a dollar in the next five days, it makes me $200 short on rent. My rent is 1,000 due Friday. It's already a week late. And that's before groceries, before gas, before pet food, before insurance, before everything else. I don't have 742dol just sitting somewhere waiting to replace the paycheck that I just lost. And I think there's something really Sad about being 44, working full time, loving. I absolutely love what I do. And still being one illness away from not being able to make rent. It fucking sucks. It, you know, it makes me think about do I need to get another job? But I don't want to get another job. That's where I am and I'm sure that's where millions of people are. So yes, in desperation today, after I signed my time card and I realized I was going to be so short for three weeks, I ate some humble pie and I started a GoFundMe and I am asking for help, but I don't want this entire episode to just be a commercial about me asking people for money. This sucks. I hate doing this. That's why I wanted to tell the entire story because there are things I want people to take away from this experience that I'm going through. If you're taking a GLP1 Med, respect the medication. Don't assume that because you tolerated one dose, the next dose is automatically going to feel the same and go up gradually. I cannot stress that enough. Do not double doses. Ask questions about the dose escalation. If your body is telling you something is seriously wrong, call your medical provider. And if you're vomiting repeatedly, can't keep fluids down, become severely dehydrated or otherwise feel dangerously ill and you smoke weed, seek medical care. If you are a long term cannabis user and you are experiencing these strange cycles of nausea and vomiting, particularly if you're discovering that standing under scalding hot water is somehow the only thing that gives you temporary relief, you need to educate yourself about chs Talk to a medical professional. Fuck Google it. ChatGPT it. I had used cannabis for more than 20 years and basically didn't understand that this could happen. I wish I had. I wish somebody had told me sooner. I wish I knew and then there's the financial lesson. Emergency savings sound wonderful until you're making 1650 an hour and trying to pay $1,000 in rent, health insurance, groceries, gas, phone bill, and care for eight animals that you have loved for decades. My oldest one is 17. Like I'm ever going to rehome them because I'm financially strapped. No, I will sell my fucking kidney in order to keep my animals alive. Sometimes there simply isn't money left to build your emergency fund. Sometimes you're just trying to get from Friday to Friday, which is how I've spent pretty much my whole life working paycheck to paycheck. So here is where I am now. Physically, I'm doing much better. I'm working, I'm eating again, I'm pooping again, I'm functioning again, and I'm Cannabis free for 13 days today. That makes me want to cry. I have been sober for 13 teen days. I'm learning what my body feels like without something that had been part of my life for more than two decades. And I'm trying to make healthier decisions about going forward. Financially, I'm in trouble. I set the GoFundMe goal at 600 because I'm not trying to raise some enormous amount of money, but I need $742.50. I am trying to cover the immediate gap so I can pay my rent and get through until I'm receiving normal paycheck again. If you're listening and you have $5 and it doesn't hurt you, $5 helps me. If $10 doesn't hurt you, $10 helps me. And if donating anything would put you in a bad situation, just please don't. Instead, Share this Episode Share the gofundme the link is in the show notes. That helps too. And if there's one thing I want you to remember after listening today, it isn't my bank balance and that I'm a broke fucking bitch. It's this Pay attention to your body medication that is helping. You can still have serious side effects. Something you've used for 20 years can suddenly become something your body no longer tolerates. And being responsible and employed does not necessarily protect you from financial catastrophe when you get sick. Three weeks ago on July 24, I took that injection having absolutely no idea what the next 10 days was going to look like today. I'm sitting here feeling much healthier, much more educated, and about $742.50 poorer. So I'm sharing what I learned. And yes, I'm asking my community to help me get through the final part of it. If you can help me, thank you. If you can share, thank you. This episode makes you call your doctor and ask more questions about your meds. Fuck, I'm glad I made it. And if somebody listening, and this is even more important, hears the CHS symptoms I just described and thinks, holy shit, that's me, then I'm really glad I made it. The moral of this episode is take care of yourselves. Ask questions. I didn't. Don't ignore what your body is telling you. And if you smoke a lot of weed and you're throwing up, it's the weed doing it to you. I can't believe it. Something I thought was helping me for years has been hurting me. There are so many new people here who are just discovering Poppy killed Mommy. And somehow, while I've been laying in my bed sick as hell, you guys helped me chart this podcast back on Apple Top True Crime. Fucking amazing. That means more to me than you can know. And if you're listening and you haven't rated or reviewed the podcast yet, please do. Ratings and reviews are one of the biggest ways you can help keep us climbing and help more people find. My mom's story. And being sick definitely hasn't stopped me from fighting. Dude, like, my fingers have still been working from bed. I have been doing another massive media push, man. I had to keep myself busy somehow, right? I reached out to the Arizona Republic, the Phoenix New times, to channel three, to channel five, to channel 10, to channel 12, channel 15. Man, I went fucking nuts one day. I even called these newsrooms and left messages, man. Channel 12 told me an investigative reporter would be reaching out. I'm still waiting on that. They said they're short staff, but I have talked to somebody at their studio twice. And today Justin Lum, who had actually already covered my mom's case in 2022, emailed me back. He's looking at what has happened since the original reporting and thinking about how he can move the story forward. Trust me, I wrote him back. And so no, I am not stopping. And if you may happen to know anybody in any kind of media outlet in Phoenix or in any city nationally for I don't care any anybody, if you know anybody in media, please help us connect. My email is poppykillmommymail.com man, throw me an email. And as soon as I have something substantial to tell you, there will be another episode. And hopefully next time I sit behind this microphone, I'll have some really fucking good news to share. And not like massive trauma, but right now, I'm alive, I am sober. Makes me want to cry. I made it through one of the most brutal few weeks I have had in a long time. Financially, though, I am scared. I have never been this broke before, and I'm asking people for help. This is incredibly difficult for me. But right now, I genuinely, I need my community. I need you guys to rally. And maybe that's the one good thing that has come from all of this. I don't feel like I'm doing this alone anymore. So, to every person who has followed, shared a video, listened to an episode, rated the show, reviewed it, donated, sent me a message, or simply just gives a shit about me and my mom, thank you. Thank you for helping me get through this. Thank you for helping Poppy Killed Mommy climb the charts again. Oh, my God. Thank you for helping me keep my mom's name alive. And thank you for reminding me that even after everything, I'm still here and I'm still fighting. Thank you for listening.