Four years ago I couldn’t move. Today I’m building the thing I needed when I was lying in that bed. If you’re in the middle of your own fight with a system that won’t see you — I see you. And MB is for you.

SUBJECT LINE

Four years ago today, I couldn’t move. Today I’m building.

That question is why Melanin Bliss Media exists. Not as a pivot. As a blueprint I was handed in the worst way. MB treats information as care — because the information I had is the only reason I’m here to write this. What you know about hospitals, billing, bias, and policy can decide whether you live, recover, or go broke trying. So we investigate the systems, we translate what they’re doing in plain terms, and we never leave you without a next step.

Four years ago I couldn’t move. Today I’m building the thing I needed when I was lying in that bed. If you’re in the middle of your own fight with a system that won’t see you — I see you. And MB is for you.

Four years ago today, I couldn’t move. Today I’m building.

Four years ago, May 29, 2022 — I was returning home from a girls’ trip. I fell asleep in the back seat of a car, and forty-five minutes later I woke up paralyzed. There had been an accident. I was the only person seriously hurt. The following day, after yelling, crying, being transferred to a more equipped hospital in Maryland, and several rounds of aggressive intravenous antibiotics hoping the inflammation and swelling would subsides. the paralysis begin to travel into my lower extremities and I went into surgery that night. I had a ACDF performed at C6-C7.

this experience changed the way i see life. i literally went to sleep woke up paralyzed I didnt see it coming i couldnt do anything to stop it or brace myself… I always think and it’s I didn’t , and I couldn’t have stopped it. I went to sleep, and I woke up unable to move my body.

What followed was an intense, complicated surgery — my only option — and then the harder part: the recovery. I was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a rare nerve condition with a poor prognosis. Most people who hear that diagnosis do not beat it. I had a period of paralysis, spontaneous neurological deficits, and agonizing nerve pain. I had spent fifteen years inside the U.S. healthcare system as an administrator — I knew these institutions from the inside, I had served them, I had been proud of them. And then I was the Black woman in the bed, and I learned what too many of us already know: the knowledge, the credentials, the years — none of it guaranteed I’d be believed.

I was dismissed. My pain was minimized. Errors were made. And I had to do the one thing the system never expects the patient to be able to do — I had to take over my own care. I used every piece of clinical and operational knowledge I had ever earned. I reached back into the relationships I’d built over a career and assembled my own team — a pain specialist, a physiatrist, the people I now call my heroes. Between us, I found my way back. I recovered from something the data said I shouldn’t have.

And here is the thing I can’t stop thinking about, four years later: I only made it because I knew the system from the inside. Most people don’t. Most people walk into those rooms without an administrator’s vocabulary, without the relationships, without knowing what they’re owed — and the system treats them accordingly. At one point in my recovery I had a coordinated team, all on the same page, all communicating. And I thought: why doesn’t everyone have this? Why is coordinated, respectful, competent care the exception for people who look like me, instead of the floor?

That question is why Melanin Bliss Media exists. Not as a pivot. As a blueprint I was handed in a humbling way. MB treats information as care — because the information I had is the only reason I’m here to write this. What you know about hospitals, billing, bias, and policy can decide whether you live, recover, or go broke trying. So we investigate the systems, we translate what they’re doing in plain terms, and we never leave you without a next step.

Four years ago I couldn’t move. I honestly felt my life was over and the last four years seemed everything feel apart. My prognosis was poor, My relationship was in challenging, I was very depressed, in severe nerve pain, navigating spontaneous neurologic deficits, suffered a stroke, having palpitations, i feared driving, felt alone, my career was over, was having financial troubles, That question is why Melanin Bliss Media exists. Not as a pivot. As a blueprint I was handed in the worst way. MB treats information as care — because the information I had is the only reason I’m here to write this. What you know about hospitals, billing, bias, and policy can decide whether you live, recover, or go broke trying. So we investigate the systems, we translate what they’re doing in plain terms, and we never leave you without a next step.

Four years ago I couldn’t move. Today I’m building the thing I needed when I was lying in that bed. If you’re in the middle of your own fight with a system that won’t see you — I see you and MB is for you. .

“If you’re navigating care and don’t know what to ask, sign up for our Newsletter. You don’t have to know the system from the inside to deserve to be treated like you do.”

Subscribe now