Pushing myself a little harder

Growing up my parents were always adamant about a few things. 1-Participating in church, 2-No eating in the parlor, and 3-The biannual trips to the dentist.

I was fine with the first two, but that last one...well, let's just say I don't like going to the dentist. Never have, and probably never will. There was a plaque on the wall of my dentists office that said "We cater to cowards". I was fairly convinced that at one point I would walk in and the sign would have an additional sentence that read "This means YOU, Crystal!".

I have a small mouth so it should have really come as no surprise to hear the dentist tell me that I would need to have my wisdom teeth removed. I was 17 and they were starting to grow in and would cause many, many problems so it was best to have them taken out. I kind of pride myself on remaining calm in difficult situations. However, when they told my mom that, I immediately began to tear up. The receptionist was in the middle of giving my mom the name of a dentist they recommended when I interrupted and said "I'm sorry, but would you excuse us for a minute? Mom, can I speak to you outside, please?" We stepped outside and right there in the walkway I proceeded to beg my mom to not let me have this procedure done. I remember my mom's expression turning soft, her own eyes beginning to brim with tears, and patting my shoulder, assuring me that it had to be done. I can imagine the scene from the receptionist's window with me flailing my arms about in heightened panic, and my mom trying to console a shockingly scared child. After a few minutes I realized it was not something I was going to get out of, and a little pain and difficulty now would surely be better than a lifetime trying to make up what was damaged for ignoring it. So, I told my mom that if it had to be done, I wanted to be knocked out. I did not want to remember the procedure at all. She said that could definitely be arranged. We went back inside and made all the necessary preparations to have the surgery.

Flash forward a few weeks later to the day of the surgery. The procedure went fine, everything worked out well, until I started to come out from under the anesthesia after it was done. I was sobbing and crying uncontrollably and they thought it was a little odd, but chalked it up to my first time ever being under anesthesia and said it would wear off soon enough. They gave me a prescription for Vicodin and sent me home with my parents. I slept for hours. That night, I got up to use the bathroom but one of my brothers was in there so I decided to wait by the door. Suddenly, I didn't feel too good and I thought I was going to throw up. The room started to spin, a nasty feeling began to creep its way up from my stomach, and I knew that something was not right. I began frantically pounding on the door telling my brother that I was going to be sick. 

The next thing I remember was waking up on the kitchen floor. Yep, I had passed out and fell backwards onto the ceramic tile in the kitchen. I hit my head so hard my parents came running from their bedroom on the other side of the house to see what the noise was. I've been told it sounded like a watermelon dropping from the roof onto the ground...only worse. Comforting. I thought there had been an earthquake and the electricity went out so my dad had to drag me into the kitchen. I don't know where that came from, but it was clearly not the case. So when my parents came into the kitchen and found me lying there, looking as ghostly as the tile itself, you can understand them being worried. My parents called 911, an ambulance came, and four extremely attractive paramedics tried to woo me as they assessed my injury and took me to the hospital. Turns out I hit my head so hard there was a huge bump on the back of my head that was four inches long, two inches wide, two inches raised off the back of my head and the force of the hit had caused my head to crack open and bleed. Not fun. But all was well! I had a CAT scan, which came back normal, and was ultimately sent home to rest.

I remember feeling so sick for a good couple of weeks. My teeth hurt, my mouth hurt, and my head definitely hurt. I really couldn't do much because I was still woozy from the fall and the whole wisdom teeth removal process to begin with. I remember watching my family go through their normal routines and being so envious that I was physically not able to do that yet.

One Sunday, after my family came home from church, someone noticed that the carpet was wet in the dining/family room. Turns out, a pipe had burst underneath the carpet and drenched everything. We had no idea how long it had been spilling water, but the dining/family room was about two regular room lengths long and the entire carpet, and most of the furniture and boxes were damaged. My parents called their insurance company and decided that rather than wait for them to come out the following day, they would pull up the carpet themselves. Ultimately it saved my family some serious money and was actually a turning point in my healing process.

I had reached a point in my sickness when I was sick of being sick and I couldn't stand it any longer. As a result, I decided I would help out with the carpet removal and help my family out. I got up, took a shower, changed into some jeans and a t-shirt and started ripping out the carpet like my life depended on it. It was a good experience, really, because from that day forward I started to feel better and it was only a couple more days after that when I felt like my old self again.

A few days ago, this experience came back to my mind and I realized that I was feeling the same way now. I'm sick of being sick. I'm tired of being tired, and I'm not going to do it anymore. When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I think I was naive in thinking that I would be able to jump right back into my normal routine. The surgery, the radiation, the medicine, the appointment, and the general (and almost overwhelming) crappy feeling I had was so difficult. I had to let go of pretty much everything I was doing at the time and take time to heal. That was a long process.

I'm still in the process of healing, but I'm at that point now where I feel I need to push myself a little harder. I've decided that I need to choose one thing to focus on and work at to get back up to where I was before, and then slowly - ever so slowly - incorporate the other activities I was doing before so that at some point in the future I will be back to my normal self. I know this is a work in progress, but I already feel so much better. Today I felt more like myself than I have in a really long time. And that's such a good feeling. :)