I would be remiss if I pretended that my recent medical
news hasn't been somewhat life changing. Maybe life changing isn’t the right
wording. Perhaps attitude changing is a better statement. I’ve have
always been a generally high energy and intensely passionate person. When
I’m in a great mood everyone knows it. And on the flip side of the coin,
when I’m sad or upset, it’s easy to tell. I don’t wear my heart on my
sleeve for show. It’s just part of who I am.
Throughout my life, I’ve also been notorious for having a
zero to sixty anger switch. The smallest of things trip it. It’s hard to
know that you do something but feel like you can’t control it. The worst
part is the aftermath; that feeling of shame and embarrassment that comes with
knowing that I just wasted perfectly good energy on useless reactionary
madness. I have spent my life struggling to fix this character flaw but
have felt powerless to change it. It’s amazing how having your life put
into prospective suddenly eases your ability to adapt. The little things
just don’t seem like that big of a deal.
Today has been hard. I received some news that just
added more onto my heaping plate. My landlord hit us with doozie. In
order to help out a family member in need, he is terminating our lease in July.
True, it’s not a huge deal, but moving wasn’t in our plans. Neither was
the added financial strain of a moving truck and security deposit and first/last
month’s rent or packing our stuff. I have two music festivals and
two nights of Phish this summer that have been planned for months woven around
my already hectic two job work schedule. I sat at my desk this morning and I
just started crying. It was too much. What else could get piled on to
this heaping pile sitting at my feet?
And that is when I realized what I was doing. I was
letting myself get buried under the pile. You have to be quick. If
you are not careful, you will get buried under the weight of what life is
handing you. And I was there; buried and covered in it. I could continue to let
it pile on top of me. Here’s the thing. More is coming. That
is not a pessimistic approach, it’s realistic. The medical bills haven’t
started to hit my mail box yet; more doctor’s appointments, physical pain, discomfort,
and medical procedures are looming. On my lunch break, I called my fiancé
David to tell him the news. His voice softened. He calmed me. We hashed out a quick plan but despite his
unwavering strength, I was sinking.
I drove to grab something to eat and tried to soak in the sun
and find my inner peace. And then in some moment of musical enlightenment, a
voice pacified me. The volume on my stereo was low. The songs
timing was perfect. “Listen to the words I’m saying in this line, life will be
just fine. Troubles do not stay; they get replaced with good times…” And in a
flash I knew that in order to get out from under the weight of the pile, I had
to get on top of it. To allow myself to become controlled and suffocated
by my life isn’t going to help. I have to climb on top of the pile and
survey it. I have to control it.
I have a hard time understanding that I am not
superwoman. I have a hard time asking for help. I’m pretty positive
that we have a place to stay with family once we have to vacate the apartment.
That will be helpful and eliminate some of the financial strain associated with
moving. And it also will be helpful to eliminate some of the unnecessary
first world cost we have accrued. But I’ve never been one to show weakness.
It’s taken me years to understand that the correlation between asking for help
and weakness is a societal stigma. There is no shame in asking others to
hold you up. We would all do ourselves proud by learning that self worth
springs faster from helping others then it does by belittling someone.
Maybe we will seize this moment to start executing our
bigger plans. We’ve thought about moving out west to Colorado or maybe
closer to friends in Michigan. We want to surround ourselves with good
people and love. Not that Buffalo doesn’t offer that, but even if we stay
here, we’ve got to figure out how to turn this situation around. Whatever
we decide, I know that I can’t prosper if I allow the weight of the challenge to
suffocate me.
On a physical level, I am managing. The level of pain
and numbness varies. We have tried steroids to help with the inflammation.
It helps until they wean me off of them and then the intensity starts to creep
back up again. The Gabapentin, which was helping with the icy coldness
associated with the numbness, has become useless after just a few weeks of
use. My body has quickly acquired a tolerance for it. I refuse to
utilize any opiate based pain reliever, but the constant coldness in my hand is
irritating. Imagine that feeling you get when you stick your hand in ice
and it becomes painfully cold. My left hand feels like it’s stuck in a constant
polar vortex. It’s some kind of sick reminder of this brutal Buffalo
winter.
I really shouldn’t complain. It could and should be
worse. My neurosurgeons are fascinated by the fact that I am as
functional as I am. Based on my MRI, I should be much worse. Evidence, I
believe, that I have been dealing with this mass in my spine my whole
life. It’s a testament to the body’s ability to evolve with mutation.
I have conceded that I don’t have control over my body. It’s going to do
what it’s going to do. But I do have control over my life and my
mind.
I hold my own personal but eclectic spiritual beliefs.
I find it hard to verbalize how my faith centers me in all of this. But
currently there is a cloudy, mucky force that is haunting me. I think
it’s the culmination of various life decisions complicated by the medical
degeneration of my body. But I take solace in knowing that none of it is
permanent. My white light is waiting at the end of this trail. My glow is
waiting for me. I will continue to exude good karma not because I expect
a return on my investment but rather because it is the right thing to do.
And when the time is right, that karma will find its way to me. That is how I
get by.
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