What a difference a
year makes.
When I first started this blog it was December 2011. I
started the blog after a terrible bout with shingles. I was bedridden and when
not crippled over in pain it gave me time to think. I was actually forced to
think because I couldn’t really do anything else. I got shingles on the left
side of my face and top of my head. There was no real reason for it as it tends
to typically affect older people or people with weakened immune systems. I was
34 years old and pretty healthy. The third reason the doctor and various other
websites listed was…stress. I never fancied myself a stress-case but I did have
to allow myself to give this reason some weight mainly because I had so much
time to think about it. When I’m confused or muddled or stressed I always turn
to my pen and diary. I have stacks of them, dating back to middle school, which
is around the time I first came to Canada. And all that writing somehow brought
me to this blog and the idea to start one seemed only natural.
However, sharing the blog (which is the whole point of a
blog isn’t it?) I still wasn’t comfortable doing. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted
to because I know that sharing experiences is therapeutic for the writer and
entertainment for the reader. If the article is really good, it obviously
offers more than just a cheap thrill. My
problem was that I was skeptical about how much I would expose and how
vulnerable that would make me. So for all of last year, I wrote my usual stuff,
posted some stuff but told no one about the stuff! How crazy is that?? With
that being said, it’s time to fight my insecurity and tell people about this
blog, hoping that it is the start of some dialogue between me and any reader. I
suppose that because I’m a year older I should act a year wiser ;)
And this year I have learned 3 very valuable lessons. I’ve
learned that pain, no matter how painful won’t kill you. I’ve learned that
faith, will and action are the triple threat when you want to achieve
something. And I’ve learned that dreaming big is not for the faint of heart.
Lesson 1
I had two really big headaches between December 2011 and
December 2012. Almost exactly to the date.
The first one was…you guessed it…Shingles. This felt like a constant
stabbing of a hundred daggers into the side of my head and forehead. Or better
yet, it felt like maggots or some flesh eating critters penetrated the inside
of my head and was eating me alive from the inside out. It was really that
horrific but after a couple of weeks of this cruelty, the clouds finally parted
and I was as good as new. Actually even better because now I had a fresh
perspective on my life and how I wanted to live it.
The second time was in December 2012 where I suffered from a
post-diural headache from my epidural which I got when I was delivering my son.
The post diural headache occurs when the anaesthesiologist screws up the
epidural and accidentally punctures something near your spine that they
shouldn’t. Some liquid leaks out and travels upwards into your brain and messes
with it and gives you these massive crushing headaches. As is evident, I’m no
doctor so for a more clinical explanation feel free to look up Wikipedia or
something but what I will tell you is that whenever you lift your head from a
lying flat position you feel like there is a heavy weight on the top of your
head and it is just pushing down on your head. And if you try to fight this
pain by continuing to sit up (which I did a few times since I was trying to
breastfeed my baby) the pain is so bad that it makes you throw up. But again,
after 10 days of advil, coffee and water I was back to normal. In trying to figure out what lesson was I supposed
to learn from this God awful 10 days what I’ve come up with is that whatever
hell you’re going through, keep going and it too will pass. It’s like that
saying, “Tough times don’t last, tough people do.” Now, I’m not calling myself tough or anything
but definitely tougher now than I was before.
I’ll discuss lesson 2 and 3 in the next couple of entries.
funny that you mentioned about writing in a diary. I still have a little booklet where you and I worked on some poem... rather sad when you read them, but I guess we were sad at the time and we got our feelings out on paper. Sometimes I think back at how I also used to do that and perhaps I should get back into writing a diary. I should really try and get Seth to write a dairy. I think It may help sort out his emotions.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog by the way. I am now a follower and can't wait for your next post.
not sure if you got my email so if you didn't sending it here. yes! I absolutely think a creative outlet of any sort be it writing, drawing, painting etc is a great way to sort out feelings, particularly in the adolescent years. Write that diary! if nothing, it will help you sleep better some nights. Tks for following! I will do my best to not let you down :)
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