2014: Seeing The Good Despite The Devastation

People always seem amazed that with everything I’ve been through in my 30 years (Multiple Sclerosis, recurring infections, amputation, the death of my friend and Lil Sister, the death of my biological big sister, PTSD and more) that I can still see the good in the world and in my life. I guess it’s just the way I’m made. I wish I had a better answer for it than that but that is the only way I can explain it.

I’ve always said that I’m a realistic optimist. I attempt to find the good in things or at least the humor in it but I’m also realistic that some things are just plain bad. I’ll have been battling recurrent infections in my right leg for 11 years in February. I used to get my hopes up that THIS surgery would be the one that stopped it or THIS medication would be the one that killed it all off for good. Over the years, though, I found that I couldn’t keep thinking that way because my hope balloon never failed to be popped and the more times that happened the more disheartened and depressed I would get. I still hope that one of these days the infections will end with a surgery or a medication but I’m realistic that they may never end. This is what I mean by being a realistic optimist and this is how I generally look at things in my life.

2014 was a really rough year with some seriously devastating events. I spent time in the hospital almost every month for surgery on my nub due to infections. I was told I may never walk with a prosthesis again which I’m oddly OK about but was also told that I have some major decisions about my nub and further surgeries that I'm going to have to make sooner rather than later. I suffered 2 more hemorrhages from my nub (thankfully one was while I was at my PTSD therapist's office because my PTSD went into hyper-drive and he stayed with me every step of the way that day) and developed sepsis scaring the hell out of everyone. My old surgeon was truly afraid that that was the end for me. My chest port, which is vital to my existence because my veins blow after just an hour or two with an IV in them, became infected and had to be removed and later replaced. I switched hospitals and surgeons because the surgeon I’ve had for the last 10 years and I have become far too close and my time in the ICU with sepsis pushed him over the edge. As my sister told a friend, if Bobby ever had to come out and tell my folks that I had died on his OR table it would end him. It’s not like he’s never delivered that particular news before but because of how close we are it would be as though his own daughter had died on that table on his watch.

Of course the final and most devastating blow of 2014 was when that same sister was diagnosed with brain cancer. I’ll never forget September 4^th 2014 because it’s the day that my mom took her to the ER, the day she was diagnosed, and the day that on my drive home from the cardiologist I figured out what was wrong. I knew what they were going to find. I’d been putting the pieces together thanks to my knowing too much medically and having seen what happened when my Lil Sister’s bone cancer spread to her brain. My mom didn’t want to know, all she needed to know was that I was worried which scared her because I rarely show that I’m worried about something especially when it’s medical.  My oldest sister, a beautiful, brilliant, amazing, loving, artistic, quick-witted sister passed away not having even made it a full 2 months from the diagnosis.

Yes, a lot of very hard events took place in 2014 but it hasn’t all been bad. To counter the bad I can honestly say that 2014 has also been a year of good things as well. I was surprised for my 30th birthday by a party with some of the most incredible people I'm proud to call family and friends complete with a book of memories from friends from the past and the most influential people in my life. It is full of messages about life and about me as well as words of wisdom. My family reached out far and wide to create this book even getting in touch with my dear friend who lives in New Zealand. I made some amazing new friends. A friend I haven't seen since the day we graduated high school when I made him open my diploma case and make sure that there really was one in there was in town and knew I was in the hospital. He made a point of stopping to visit and share some laughs as he himself knows what it's like to be hospitalized and quite sick. I spent a lot of time with the unofficial 4^th Jones sister, her amazing husband and got a lot of toddler time in with their beautiful daughter Miss Maya (I even include getting the 1,2,3,4 song from Sesame Street stuck in my head as a good thing)! I had a great dinner with a FB friend and got some Sister From Another Mister time in too. I got to spend some great days with an aunt and uncle we don't see nearly enough and reconnected with an uncle from the other side of the family.

I’ve had a lot of hard years in my 30 years but 2014 takes the cake as the worst and I’m not sad to see it go. I do keep in mind, however, the good things that happened. Why? Because we all get lost in the darkness sometimes and remembering the good times in the light we need to find our way out.