But now I'm back to having more questions than there are answers. Plus more poking and prodding and testing trying to figure out exactly what IS going on with me. Can you say "high deductible met by April"? Say it with me...
Needless to say, I cling desperately to my weekly yoga sessions to reset my psyche. That overworked psyche that is trying her hardest to keep her chin up. The alternative is wallowing in self pity and self-induced panic about what the future holds which I've caught myself doing - very unlike me. I don't feel like myself, I don't look like myself, and some days I have little desire to be myself in this current unhealthy stage of the game. I've grown weary of all this crap and would kill for feeling good with all my energy back. It is a daily struggle to lift myself up and keep myself going. And my family is imploding because the force at the center that keeps it all a smoothly oiled machine is falling apart. But, it is what it is and at least I didn't die. (That's my mantra lately.) While it sucks right now and I'm not fine, I have high hopes that I will be soon.
You can read the whole post HERE. It was a dark time when I had more questions than answers and I was just learning that there was more insanity going on with my health. I hadn't even gotten my diagnosis yet.
Here's where the planets aligned...
This week, I sat in the exact same exam room as I sat the day I found out that literally I'd almost died. This time it was for my yearly physical with my doctor who has become what I think soldiers who face danger together become to each other. The same room. What are the odds? I could barely contain my joy as I recounted the remission details and what I'd been up to with my nephrologist since I'd seen him last. We laughed and at times sat in wonder as the facts I was sharing of this "nutty year" sank in.
I thought it was just going to be a happy day, had been looking forward to it all week in fact, until the part where he left so I could change into the snazzy gown for the exam part of the visit. I sat there alone waiting for him to return, in the same spot in the same gown as that first fateful day when I waited for an EKG and embarked on the scariest twenty four hours of my life to date. I also thought about all that I was going through a year ago when I thought I had put the pulmonary embolism and craziness behind me to find out everything was still frightening and unknown. Just like the first time I sat there, I was overcome with emotion. I know they were tears of relief and joy - the kind I still have in abundance whenever I think about how quickly I recovered - but they were still tears and they were streaming down my face when he returned with his medical assistant in tow. I blubbered like an idiot about how I didn't think I'd thanked him enough for saving my life. He got emotional too while he tried to listen to me trying to compose myself enough to take deep breaths for him.
I'm sure the MA thought we were both off our rockers. Can't blame her, she is new and not one of the regulars who still know me by sight, even after all this time. Then we were joking and laughing like old friends trying not to be awkward while avoiding admitting we'd just cried together during a routine physical. I left knowing I'm on the final stretch of this insanity that started what seems like forever ago, yet was only seventeen months ago.
This time last year I was also attempting to participate in CampNaNo to write my second novel. It didn't happen with everything else going on then which overshadowed my writing. But I still wrote that novel in November and I'm now editing it in hopes of publication someday - despite what else life threw at me. Because I'm not a quitter. But more importantly because almost dying gave me a greater perspective of what making each day count really means.
I'm still not sure I know how to be this happy. One thing is for certain, I'm glad I'm still here to figure it out. And I'm not wasting a single day because I know tomorrow is not guaranteed.What were you doing a year ago? And what are you doing to make every day count?
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