Live Lucky

I wear a lot of clothing and hats that have two little yet very powerful words written on them: Live Lucky.  How I came across the company Black Clover, I don't know but I'm grateful because their motto made me stop and think  and gave me something to cling to. Those who know my story the best would tell you that there’s a certain irony to that. I’ve been repeatedly told; if it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all. Even my former therapist would tell me that and in many respects he and others are correct but the difference between them and myself is the way in which we choose to view luck.

I don’t wear those shirts and hats for the irony. I wear them for the reminder. I wear them because I believe that while we don’t always get a choice about the things that happen in our lives, sometimes, just sometimes, we do get to choose and make our own luck.

I have been an unlucky person quite often when it has come to my health and a few life circumstances and am the first to say that my life is to say the least, complicated. I lost my right leg, I’ve nearly died from recurring infections, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis - a progressive and debilitating disease for which there is no cure, and I have had more casts and surgeries than I can count. I am in my 30’s and have no choice but to continue to live at home with my parents due to my health. I haven’t been able to finish college, I’ve been badly burned by people who are meant to help both in the physical health sense and mental health sense, I have developed severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the worst and hardest hit off all is that I lost my oldest sister to brain cancer in the fall of 2014 just two short months after her diagnosis.

It may seem inconceivable that I would consider myself a lucky but I do consider myself lucky and it’s not because I’m delusional. Yes, some days have brought nothing but tremendous pain for which I’ve been so doped up on painkillers that I can barely remember my own name. Yes, far too many days have brought the realization that another infection has struck and any and all plans I’ve made for the next few weeks or months have been obliterated in an instant. Yes, some days have brought trips to the hospital including finding myself in the Emergency Room, a doctor’s office or admitted straight to one of the floors. Yes, some days have even brought the need to call 911 and be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgeries. There have been days when I’ve been lucky to make it out alive at all.

Of course, some days have brought nothing but heartbreak. The day that I was diagnosed with MS was a day like any other that ended up shattering like glass. The day that I realized that something was very seriously wrong with my right knee a week after a routine surgery and learned that had we waited any longer the odds of my having survived the emergency surgery to battle the raging infection were slim to none. Barely making it out of the OR and discovering that a friend who’d been visiting at the time couldn’t handle it was incredibly painful though eventually we talked it out and realized that it was a scary situation for everyone and more than a 20 something year old could handle. The most heartbreaking days of all time for my family and for myself will always consist of the day my oldest sister was diagnosed with brain cancer, the day she was brought home for hospice care, and the day that she eventually was taken from us. As horrible as all of that sounds, however, that’s not the only luck I’ve had.

I have been a very lucky person in good ways as well. I was born into a family that is loving and caring and supportive. I have made lifelong friends who have my back no matter what is happening in my life or in theirs that I can call at 4 in the morning and know they’ll answer the phone. I have been blessed with friends who I call family – sisters and brothers and even a second mother and second father. I was blessed with two incredible older sisters who have always loved, supported, protected and been there for me through all of the ups and downs in my life. I was blessed with over 30 years with my oldest sister who from the day I was born saw me as her baby and looked after me not only like a big sister should but also in many ways like a parent should.

I was lucky enough to have been forced to attend an incredible high school with incredible teachers, though I was admittedly unhappy at first to have been taken out of public school and sent to a small Catholic High School. The lessons I learned there about life have stayed with me and to this day I am still in contact with several of the adults there who helped turn my life around and make me the person I am today. I met and people there and made friends there who will be in my life forever.

I have been lucky enough to have an incredible medical team in my corner whom I credit with my still being alive. They are there at the drop of a hat as more than just my physicians and nurses but as my friends who see my potential and see the fight within me and will go the extra mile for me as often as they need to. There have been problems with various members of my medical team getting far too close to me and ties have had to be severed and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t found myself hurt but regardless of the events that have passed between myself and those people I still consider myself lucky to have had them as a part of my life. It is true what they say about people coming into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime and that each person you meet gives you an opportunity to learn. Yes, despite some horrible things, I have been lucky.

I have lost my hair more times than I can count at this point to various medications trying to treat my health problems and while I have collected MANY hats over the last 13+ years, odds are most days (with or without hair - especially without it) you'll find me in a Black Clover Live Lucky hat. Not only are they comfortable, they are a reminder to myself and those around me to live lucky. I've bucked the tide and beaten the odds for over 13 years now and have unfortunately added a new chapter with osteomyelitis bone infection literally taking my right ulna. I know eventually that my good luck, my beating the odds, will run out but until that day I will live lucky to the best of my ability and this brand reminds me to make my own luck and to live lucky every single day because today is all that we have.

My advice to you is that when it’s all hitting the fan and you feel like you can’t keep going, o stop and take stock of your life. Look at the people around you. Find the humor. Find the good luck. To live lucky doesn’t mean that you leave it all to chance and it doesn’t mean that you won’t have bad things happen. To live lucky is to see the good luck and the good things that have happened and to hold onto them tightly when things are going sideways. It will ground you. It will keep you going.