To date I have never met one person in my life that hasn’t been through some kind of ordeal or that doesn’t have a bad story to tell. Not one. I do believe though that the choice is ours in how we deal with our stories. Do we let them define the rest of our lives? Do we let them break us down or do we simply just let them go?
This last summer was beyond a real doozy. My daughter had spinal surgery due to scoliosis and was basically bedridden the entire summer. My mother-in-law passed away from cancer and my twenty-five year old nephew passed away as well. Then my dog died. All in the span of 4 months. During the same time I was going through my own medical trauma and oddly enough, I’ve been through so many I can’t even remember what it was exactly, but they thought I might need a bone marrow transplant. Did this give me a mini-meltdown? Absofuckinglutely. There were a couple of days I spent in bed crying. There were days I drank entirely too much and made an asshole out of myself and there were days I just could not talk because I was having my own pity party. I shut down. Am I proud of any of that? Absolutely not. Am I ashamed of it? A little. I definitely wish I would of handled things better, but did I let it define me? Hell no. It just made me stronger.
I have to mention though, I am no newbie to having family losses or tragedy happen in my life. They’ve been happening since my late teens. I’m also not a newbie to being “sick”. I’ve been sick a very long time and have been doing weekly infusions for my Primary Immune Deficiency since I was 37.
Me at 37 when I first started doing the infusions at home. I was doing a contest called One Portrait A Day For 365 Days. It didn’t last. I got sick of looking at my own face.
I am now 45 and will be doing them for the rest of my life. There is no cure. Now the point of this story isn’t to round up sympathy or any “I’m sorry’s”. The point of it is to help other people going through the same thing. To let them know you can still have a life. It’s up to you whether or not you are going to let your sickness or tragedy consume you and take over or whether you are going to consume your sickness or tragedy and take it over.
The main thing that made me post about this was yesterday I was at my doctor’s office getting my infusion done. There was a woman in her late 60’s in the room with me getting her’s done as well.
She complained the entire time. (Two and a half hours to be exact). Her body hurt. She was always tired. She had arthritis, etc., etc. I just let her talk but she said one thing that really bothered me. She wouldn’t leave the house. She wouldn’t go to the mall, the movies, or anywhere else where other people were because she was afraid of catching something. Isn’t that what people with an autoimmune deficiency are suppose to do? Maybe. Is that anyway live? HELL NO! To me, that’s not living.
Now listen, this is not an easier said than done thing for me. I have to be honest. Since all that stuff happened over the summer I now have Hashimoto’s disease, two torn rotator cuff’s which I will be getting surgery for and a couple other things not even worth mentioning. Am I happy about this? No. Am I letting this stop me from being happy? No. I stay as happy as I can in between all the bullshit. Do I say, “why me”? No. I remember what Roger Ebert said when he was dying of cancer. He said, “why not me”? I think the same way. What I will do is get it while I can. I will do as much as I can, as often as I can and be as happy as I can. I take it day by day. In all honesty, being this way has probably giving me much more of an appreciation for things in life, for things on this earth. In many ways I appreciate the beauty in all the little things that surround me more than many who are completely healthy.
Appreciation for everything is now my mind set. It’s the way I live. It’s what works for me and what I’m sticking to. At least I can say I tried. I didn’t give up, because like I said in the title, Giving up is not an option.
Have a beautiful weekend.
Gia J.
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