I have been sick for about three weeks now, loosing feeling in my feet and my legs. Discovered I had a birth defect (Spina Bifida Occulta) on my 27th birthday (yay!...not) and a few days later found out I had a 1.9cm lesion on my spinal cord around T 7 (this is most likely the cause of the numbness). So, now that I have had 3 rounds of IV Solumedrol, I am only feeling slightly better in one leg and amazingly better in the other. Compared to how I was when this weirdness all started, that's not bad I guess.
Alright, now that I have gotten that out of the way and gone parentheses happy, lemme get to it. Nothing like a serious illness to not only knock you on your ass, but also put things into perspective a bit. I have realized yet again that I spend way to much freaking time worrying about, taking care of and being there, for EVERYONE. Even though I am seriously sick, I am still trying to take care of everything like nothing is wrong. How is that normal?!
When am I gonna stop putting everybody, their needs, and what they want before my own, when I'm dead? Cause at the rate my body is going, who knows just how close that possibility really is. I firmly believe that part of the reason I got sick is because my body just had enough of the worry, the stress, taking care of everyone else and not myself, that it fucking quit. I'd apologize for cursing, but I just don't care right now.
I have always been a planner and here I find myself once again in a position of extreme uncertainty. I honestly have no idea if I will regain full feeling again, even if the Neurologist is optimistic. I don't know what this means for my future as a midwife and that terrifies me. I will literally fall to even more pieces if I have to give up that dream. I don't even know what this birth defect means for me in terms of being a midwife either or having children. I thought I had come to some sort of peace with the possibility that I might be infertile thanks to the troubles my ex and I had, but obviously I have not, because thinking about this possibility devastates me on a level I didn't know I had.
This crap has once again forced me to completely change....almost everything. To take a long hard look at, well...me. I don't like this feeling very much. Being "selfish" is so against my nature that I feel guilty to do it. It obviously needs to be done, because how can one concentrate on healing themselves if they aren't just a little selfish?? I feel like such an idiot because this has been a...theme, so to speak throughout my adult life.
What do I do now?? Well, I've been thinking a lot lately (another of my faults lol) because let's face it, I have had A LOT of time on my hands. So much time in fact, that I am going crazy. You'd think with all these books laying around that I would just sit here and read nonstop. That's difficult to do when you can't get your mind to shut the hell up. I am reading one book finally. Eat, Pray, Love and that has probably been the inspiration for this post.
This illness has made me realize that nothing is more important than doing what one loves, all the time, no matter what. Follow your bliss, every moment that you can. Even if that means eating ice cream for breakfast and yes, I have done that recently. I felt like I needed to drown my sorrows in ice cream and it was awesome :)
We all spend so much time worrying what other people think, do, or say, that we are not focusing on ourselves...even a little bit. How are people supposed to be happy if they don't realize their divine right to do what they love?? I guess what I am trying to say is that I now have an opportunity with being home sick, to at least come up with a plan to get closer to my goals. Am I going to waste this opportunity or embrace it?? I have a feeling that I will have days where I just want to do nothing but lay here, but that's to be expected. What I am going through is pretty tough shit. Uncertainty about the future is always like that and some days you just need to curl up in bed and hide from the world.
I have the start of a plan brewing in my head right now. It starts with finally getting the hell out of this town when our lease is up. I cannot stand living here anymore. I want to move to a smaller town, closer to the country, but not so far away that it takes me 1.5 hours to go to the grocery store. Been there, done that. While I enjoyed it at the time, its just too difficult for me at this time in my life. I think I need a place to have a bit of a starting over. The other part of my plan is to do everything I can to bust through school. That's about as far as I have gotten with the school aspect of my plan. I am in still in the beginning stages after all.
First and foremost though, I need to get better. I am so thankful for all the support I have gotten, from Aaron, my family and my amazing friends. I don't know what I would do without each and every one of you! The phone calls, the texts, etc have meant so much and have helped me stay relatively sane.
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