A New Year and a Few Deep Breaths

You probably have noticed, or maybe not, that I have been missing over the past month and a half. The cancellation of my surgery was a blow to my desire to get better now attitude and the holidays were not necessarily those a girl dreams of or remotely close to what I wanted them to be this year. But, this time of year is always hard for me…December 1^st marks my official disability date, then I grow a year older and go through another holiday wondering if I will be better for the next and finding the strength to make it happen…and of course, some people’s favorite, New Year’s Day. All of these mark another year of hoping for answers and my stubborn search for them. Each year it gets harder, not just health wise, but emotionally and physically to boot.

The past three months I have been taking writing classes trying to figure out how to tell my story, and it isn’t just about being sick…there is a whole lot to tell as some of you know in painstaking detail and others haven’t a clue as to where I came from and who I am today. In December many emotions overtake me and I fall into the helpless mode without even trying. But writing my story seems to help, even if no one ever sees it but my plans and hopes are to make a new career for myself if my old won’t take me back after being ill so long…the search so far has been full of rejection and in my heart I feel there is a new path and reason to my life. I am not sure what it is yet and how I am supposed to do it in this shape but it will come, of that I am sure.

Someone told me that I have learned my lessons about being sick and that “God” would not give me this if there was no reason for it. My illness is here to help me teach someone else a lesson and to make them understand. In my writing class one man understood. He is a doctor and he has traveled the world with a very blessed yet hard life. I admire this man though I know little of him except his words – our class was memoir writing so I got some insight to his real person. He told me that after reading many of my words and seeing some people like me all around the world he would never look at us or at patients as a whole the same ever again. My words had made him see what it is like to be a person in my condition. It makes me cry to know this and touched but I don’t know I deserve such praise. Lately it seems to come from odd places and people, a friend I barely know, a receptionist at my physical therapist, and a bunch of unknown faces I have never seen. I still am in touch and am so close to many of those who I met through my illness yet have never seen.

The month of December had me seeing specialists and getting more tests in the past month than I did pre-op…and that’s a lot with all my complications. There are still no answers and only more questions as there are more lesions in my body (I am not sure which they are since they are all referred to differently so we will call them lesions). I currently have more, one in my right lung, left ovary, a few in my cervix and a vascular one in my main vein from my liver to my kidneys. These are on top of the ones I already have and add to the complications in my life. This is why I cannot have surgery. Oh and I may have lymphoma that starts in the skin. More questions without answers, requiring more deep breaths. My doctors have no answers and no clue what to do next so I wait and continue checkups until we find the next path. My pain doctor gave me additional meds that seem to help but make me more tired than functional and I hate to be less functional than I already am, it steals the life out of you. I have been told that I look like a vampire came and sucked the life out of me, damn, too bad I can’t at least look a lil better. But I do feel like I have been bitten so my daily goals are small and I look to increase them as the days go one and the war refuses to be over.

For 2008 I am trying to focus on getting better, a battle I seem to be losing but refuse to stop. I also plan to write my life, my past and my future. Maybe someone will get that lesson and I will find the cure to what ails me so I can do what I am here to do. Whatever the universe decides it is although I have a strange feeling that I am already being used and don’t realize it. Will I publish is unknown to me and where is even a harder question. I may start another blog to post my writings there and to write about my life outside illness, all of this talk about being sick is not healthy to do 24/7. I need a break, a deep breath. This too I am working on by trying to improve my diet even more and to try and do what little exercise I am allowed, mainly stretching and light walks.

I hope to find a way to pay my medical bills which have now put me in more debt than college and I had just finished paying off the past years medical bills when the past couple of months surpassed the whole year combined. Somehow, some way, I have to take care of it with less than I earn in a year. I am not one to ignore my obligations so the abusive debt collectors hurt me more than usual, probably because I am not one of their usual loser clients and actually try but it isn’t enough to appease the greedy medical community. I have no clue how I will buy my meds this month as I am expected to pay two months Medicare out of my measly SSDI pay.

I think that’s enough for 2008 and will require many deep breaths…hopefully I can tell a whole different story in 2009. My goal this year is to prepare for a normal life (whatever that is) in 2009, so I can enjoy the life I was given and rebuild the one I lost. To mourn and to recover are hard things that do require time…that’s one saying I can stand-by in the past few years.

With that said I hope you all have a good year and keep reading and if you have any answers to my prayers it would make my day. Even if it is just a letter or knowledge about a foundation that can help as I am at a loss and need help more than ever.

And, finally, thank you to my few good friends who have helped prop me up when I beat myself down. Now take a deep breath and dive in, I have a lot of work to do…