I had to switch insurance plans a second time, so my August appointments have been moved to September. I’m trying to take everything one day at a time, and being gentle with myself each time I come up against a roadblock that takes me on another detour to surgery.

Meanwhile, my pain levels have stayed consistent, so I’m grateful for that. My sister-in-law and I have seen 2 awesome Broadway shows- Buena Vista Social Club and Cabaret. Cabaret is one of my all-time favorites, so that was an extra special treat. Next on my list is Death Becomes Her.

Being here has reignited my passion for dance, but I am still nervous about increasing my pain and risk for injury. So I enrolled in an adult beginners ballet intensive with Brooklyn Ballet the weekend after next. I think that will give me support in reintroducing ballet to my body as it is now, and a better understanding of the range of motion I want to have long-term.

I’ve been able to reconnect with former coworkers from my Broadway bartending days, which has been great. I’ve also made more connections at another artist workshop I attended (pic above), and I am forming some new friendships.

I’ve been spending a lot of time and attention on my pets, which has been wonderful. In my last update I mentioned my snake Kaa’s spinal infection, so I want to share more about that for those who are interested. If you are afraid of or squeamish about snakes, you may want to stop here, cause there are pics incoming 🐍

Kaa came into my life in 2013. I was producing a show through my dance company, Broken Mirror Productions, based on Dante’s Inferno (“Seven Deadly Sins.”) I wanted to dance with a snake for the opening and closing numbers. When I booked Eiffel as the venue for the show, one of the owners told me he had a snake I could dance with. His name was Bob, and he was a Colombian red-tail boa constrictor. So I went over and met him.

Bob and I hit it off, and he was the real star of the show.

Just after I decided to move to NYC to focus on dance, Bob’s owner asked if I would adopt him. We did a pet swap- he adopted my cat, Toulouse, who was an inside/outside cat, so that he could stay in the Irish Channel neighborhood he was used to. I’ve missed Toulouse terribly, but I know he wouldn’t have wanted to spend his last few years cooped up in an NYC apartment. His new home even had a fish pond for him to explore, and I know he loved that!

After I adopted Bob, I changed his name to Kaa because I just did not think Bob was special enough for such a beautiful snake. Kaa and I have been through a lot. He was in the car when I had my accident—during my move from NOLA to NYC, the U-haul trailer I was towing all my belongings in fishtailed and I flipped over three times. Luckily my pets were uninjured, and my injuries were minor.

Kaa was a trooper for all 9 moves within Brooklyn during the 3 years we lived here (#subletlife).

He was also my co-star for many go-go gigs throughout the city.

I never planned on owning a pet snake, but now I can’t imagine my life without him. A lot of people don’t understand loving reptiles, but I promise the connection I have with Kaa is just as meaningful as the connections I’ve had with my dogs and cats. He knows I’m his mama, and he knows my other pets are his siblings. He is happy to be held by other people but prefers to be able to see me for a sense of security. He snuggles with me and expresses affection with little kisses and squeezes and snorts. He fascinates, entertains, and comforts me.

When the vet showed me his X-ray in May, I felt even more connected to Kaa. Snakes don’t experience pain the same way that humans do, but to know that my dance-loving pet is also experiencing changes in his spine and limitations in his mobility breaks my heart.

The image on the left is a healthy part of his spine, and the image on the right is where the osteomyelitis is. It’s unclear what the exact cause is. In 2018, Kaa laid on top of his hide and was burned by his heat lamp. He was treated him with antibiotic injections and silver sulfadiazine cream right away, but it’s possible that the infection didn’t fully resolve.

The vet in New Orleans and the vet here in Brooklyn both agreed that at this time, antibiotic injections are unlikely to stop the progression of the osteomyelitis. So his treatment plan is to keep him as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. He wouldn’t accept food for the first month after the move, which really had me worried. He has eaten twice since July 17 (I feed him frozen rats), and he acts like his normal self. He did bite me once when I was trying to give him oral pain medication, so I am holding off on that for now. He doesn’t seem to be in much pain- he doesn’t hiss or strike at me, doesn’t recoil to touch, and does explore and move mostly like normal. But as the osteomyelitis spreads, he will lose more mobility and likely stop eating. So there will be a time when I will have to make the call to euthanize him. I don’t know how quickly that time will come. Kaa is about 5’5” long, which is on the smaller side for an adult male boa. As you can imagine, handling him requires bending and twisting with him. Now with his condition, I am extra careful in how I handle him. I will be in a hard back brace and unable to bend or twist for several months following spinal fusion surgery, whether I have 1 level fused or 15. Not being able to handle him during what might be his last months with me is definitely a deterrent for having surgery right now. I’m trying to get in as much snuggle time, sunshine, and tail-handholding with him as I can, for as long as I can. 💚

To my former clients: Kaa has made a few cameos in teletherapy sessions, and hopefully he will be able to do so again once I reopen my practice. I’m still hoping that by October I will have a more definite plan for surgery and a timeline of when I can reopen my practice. In the meantime, please know I love and miss you all so very much, and I am rooting for each of you. I receive every message you send with love and appreciation, and I look forward to being able to respond once my practice reopens. A heartfelt thank you for letting me know Kaa is in your thoughts, too. He feels the love!

Pet ownership can truly transform our mental health. Pets fulfill our needs for touch and companionship, bring us joy and comfort, offer unconditional love, inspire us to care for ourselves as we care for them, and connect us to other pet lovers. Please give all your pets extra hugs and kisses, and remember to look at yourselves the way your pets look at you. We all deserve that unconditional love and adoration, always.

Love, Renée

I’m safe and settled in Brooklyn! Thank you for all the well wishes on my journey here. The space my brother and sister-in-law have created is beautiful and welcoming, and it’s already feeling like home.

I am still in the process of getting a NY health plan and searching for the right surgeon, so I don’t have a surgery date set yet. In the mean time, I am enjoying being back in Brooklyn. Since the reason for my move back here is spinal surgery, the process has been wrapped in a lot of fear. It was nice to let go of that at the theme parks and focus on joy. My brother and sister-in-law have helped me make time for joy since I’ve arrived here, too. Here are some moments of joy from my first week back in Brooklyn.

My brother and I went to a NY Liberty game last Tuesday, and we beat the Atlanta Dream 86:81 🏀

Their mascot, Ellie the Elephant, is a riot 🐘

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This past Sunday, we went to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade 🧜‍♀️

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Coney Island is such a special place, and it definitely has similar vibes to New Orleans.

My sister-in-law made oyster headdresses for the 3 of us, which were a big hit. She also lent me some essential costume pieces.

It rained most of the week, but the sky was clear and sunny for the parade. It was perfect weather for sipping Coney Island Brewery’s Mermaid Pilsner.

I am grateful to be here with loving, supportive family, and feeling hopeful for the future. My fear is still here, but I am committed to allowing joy to take up more space. I hope you are finding joy in your summer, too!

💙 Renée

Just checking in from the road!

My brother and I had a blast at all the theme parks! Bella and Rex got to go to Dog Daycare at Disney and made lots of new friends. I recently found this photo of what must be my first theme park ride with my brother, so we recreated it at Magic Kingdom. Had to share!

All the activity definitely wore me out but it doesn’t seem like any of the rides aggravated my back! It was really wonderful to spend time with my brother, reliving childhood magical moments and making new memories together. Space Mountain was just as fun as we remember, and Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind was our new favorite. The very first ride we went on was the Velocicoaster and that was also the fastest! I uploaded pics here if you’d like to check them out.

I am anxious to get to Brooklyn and get settled, but trying to honor what my body tells me and not drive too many hours each day. Looks like I’ll arrive in Brooklyn on Friday and will post another update soon! In the meantime, we are enjoying some time in nature. Xoxo

Stopped in Tallahassee for the night. Rex, Bella, Ryan and I enjoyed dining al fresco at Outback Steakhouse 🐨

Today we’ll arrive in Orlando where we’ll be for the rest of the week:

Universal Studios Islands of Adventure on Tuesday 🦖

Hollywood Studios on Wednesday 🪐

Epcot on Thursday 🚀

Magic Kingdom on Friday 🏰

Animal Kingdom on Saturday 🦁

I’ve found some manual therapy tools that have really helped decrease my hip and back pain and increased my mobility, so I’ve been able to decrease my pain medication and have more activity the past few weeks. So I’m feeling relieved, excited, and hopeful for the week ahead! 🎢

My last few days in Nola, I was able to eat some of my favorite meals, go to a crawfish boil, visit the zoo, and watch the sunset at the fly.

Thank you for all your words of encouragement, and I hope your summers are filled with adventure too!

Love, Renée ✨

P.S. In case any of y’all are also going on summer road trips, here’s my driving playlist. I made it a few years back en route to NY, just by adding all the songs I could think of that had words like “drive,” “road,” and “car” in the lyrics. Enjoy! 🎶

As a therapist, I have emphasized the importance of honoring our needs and asking for help meeting them. I always say the goal is neither independence nor dependence, but interdependence. Planning for my surgery has been a great opportunity for me to practice this myself. I asked for help from friends and family before leaving for Ireland, but ended up preparing my condo to list for sale largely by myself. After returning from Ireland, it became clear I needed even more help packing to get on the road. So I asked again. My best friend flew in from SC last weekend to help me, and took the pic above on one of our walks. My brother is going to fly in on May 30th and help me load up the car, then drive with me to Orlando so we can go to Disney World and Universal Studios together. I’m really excited to get to have some sibling-fun-time (Renée ™️) before the surgery!

So I wanted to update y’all that I’ll now be getting on the road on June 1 instead of tomorrow, and also share that sometimes we need to ask for help more than once. I felt really vulnerable and uncomfortable sharing just how much difficulty I am having both physically and emotionally, going through all my possessions and those of my now-deceased parents, and deciding what to take with me. This condo is where I lived when Katrina hit, and while I feel ready to leave New Orleans, closing this door for good is really hard. Bending, lifting, and walking are also really hard! So I am having to grieve the body I had even just a month ago, and accept that my capabilities are more limited now. But with the support of my therapist and my wise mind, I was able to tolerate that discomfort and ask for help more desperately. Even typing the word “desperately” still feels uncomfortable, but it’s accurate!

Unfortunately, one of my closest friends has not shown up for me even after I made the ask several times and shared how hurt I was by her absence. I think it’s important to share that here too, because when we honor our needs and ask others to meet them, it doesn’t always turn out like we hoped. Some people are not able to meet those needs, and that is disappointing. One of the thoughts I uncovered was, “If I ask for help, and I don’t get it, it will hurt worse than if I didn’t ask.” But it clarifies the dynamic of the relationship and ultimately allows us to better meet our needs elsewhere. So while asking for help has led to grieving the friend who has not shown up, it has also deepened my relationships with the people who have. The connection, gratitude, and hope I feel now is greater than before I asked for help. I hope this inspires you to honor your needs, especially when they change, and ask for help. We all deserve support!

P.S. If you’re ready to ask a therapist for help, click below for my updated referral list. I’ve added clinicians licensed in AZ and CA as well.

Here are some photos from Ireland. We had beautiful weather, and I got to ride a horse!

And as always, Bella and Rex were at Camp Bow Wow having a great time.

It was a great honor to be invited to stand in one of my best friend’s wedding and I didn’t want to miss it. So I planned to have the spinal fusion surgery after this trip. I am grateful I made that decision, but the traveling was really hard on my body and has further limited my mobility. I am taking my time packing up my belongings before getting on the road to NY. I am trying to pare down my possessions to the essentials, which is surprisingly difficult. I have accumulated a lot stuff over the years!

I’m hoping to get on the road by May 15. I’ll be driving 3 hours a day so it will take me at least a week to make the 20ish hour drive. I am hoping to make a detour to Disney World and Universal Studios to get in some roller coaster rides before the surgery. Like the horseback ride, I think it will be worth some additional discomfort pre-surgery to do the fun things I won’t be able to post-surgery. I am having lots of opportunities to practice cost/benefit analysis lately!

I think about my former clients every day. Please continue to email me if and when it feels helpful for you. Any message you send me is read with care. I am struggling with not responding, but I know it’s necessary to protect our boundaries. Remember you are always loved and never alone. My referral list and crisis resource list are also available on this site if you need extra support. 💕

I’ve just arrived in a small town in Ireland called Dingle, where I will be standing in a friend’s wedding on Wednesday. I wanted to take a moment to say hello to all my former clients. It’s been sad and strange not seeing any of you for 2 weeks now! I’ve received and read all your emails, and I am grateful to feel our connection even as we are apart. I miss being right there with you, but I know your journeys are continuing exactly as they are meant to. May the road rise to meet you. ☘️

Here are a couple pics I snapped on the drive from Shannon:

More to come!

Dear Clients,

We have 8 remaining weeks together before I close my psychotherapy practice on March 31, so I put some information to help us plan to make the best use of our time. I know “terminating” our therapy relationship sounds intense, and it is! It is normal to feel a mix of emotions during this time. Please practice self-compassion, pace yourself, and make space to process your emotions in your journal and in our sessions. You can also reach out to me between sessions for extra support.

1. Book our remaining sessions. Take a look at your calendar to confirm the number of sessions we are able to have between now and March 31, and book them now (if we haven’t already). 

2. Decide if you’d like to stop therapy for now, or transition to working with another therapist. To help you clarify what has worked well for you in therapy with me, and help you decide if you’d like to continue therapy long-term or stop therapy for now, I encourage you to journal. This will be helpful either way. I know it can be overwhelming to think of starting with a new therapist, but writing out your answers to these questions will help you find a great starting point if and when you do decide to work with someone new. 

I create a Termination Note for each client that remains in your electronic health record. I would like this document to be collaborative, so I want to incorporate your words into it as much as possible. If you’d like to share your journal entries, I can incorporate them into your treatment summary. Then you will get a signed copy from me that you can share with your future therapist if you would like. 

3. Plan our remaining sessions. You might like to write out an agenda for each of our sessions. We can start with a check-in like always, spending about the first 10 minutes of the session on your week, and then move on to what we’ve planned. 

Here are some things you may like to do in/between our remaining sessions

• Journal (see prompts)
• Complete worksheets or workbooks
• Review initial goals for treatment and reflect on achievements
• Re-take assessment questionnaires and reflect on changes
• Set a new/continued goal to focus on with the next therapist
• Clarify search criteria for the next therapist
• Contact referrals and set up consultation calls
• Review Treatment Summary and records, if requested
• Develop Mental Health Maintenance Plan

4. Complete a Mental Health Maintenance Plan if you plan to stop therapy, or book consultations with therapists you might like to work with. I have a list of referrals below.

5. Review my record keeping policies and submit any record requests. From now through March 31, I am waiving my administrative fees. Please re-read your Consent for Treatment form to make sure you understand your rights as my client, even after we terminate. It is also posted on my website if you’d like to review it there (click here). If you have any questions, please let me know. 

The termination process is hard, and can feel overwhelming. Please know I am right here with you, and will always support you however I can. 

Here is an article you might find helpful to read as well.

Referrals and Journal Prompts are linked below.