compassion

Solo Journey…

/ Lynne / Leave a comment

My journey is mine alone. We may often share some joys and heartaches but, for the most part the path I am on I must travel those trials alone. This does not mean that I am truly alone in the sense of not having anyone to share it with. It just means that the trials and tribulation, the ups and the downs, the good and the bad are all something that I have to experience as myself. Not as a woman, wife, sister, daughter but as just lil ole me.

I feel there are two types of alone. There is the type of alone where I have no friends, no family no one to share my life with and the alone where it is just me. Where I exist as just me and my feelings and experiences. See we can share experiences with others but what they personally experience and the feelings they have after are totally different from yours. There is a nuance here that makes it so different.

This path I am on this year has been a struggle. While my husband was there with me every step of the way his pain and grief were of a different sort.  Where he had accepted some time ago that we would not bear children, I, on the other hand was still holding out hope and desire. Not to say he didn’t grieve as well. That happens when the hope or potential is gone.

We have each been dealing with the loss at the same time but in much different ways we are solo.

There have been many things and people that have loved and cried and helped us along the way. There have been many changes in our lives since February  2015 and I’m sure there will be more yet to come.

One of the positive changes we have made in our journeys is our path to better health and well-being. We starting going to a boxing club three times a week. There is something so gratifying after totally putting all of yourself into a workout, sweating it out leaving it all on the heavy bag, punching out the frustration, pushing yourself to do more, hit harder, move faster. Just be. Because when you are in front of that heavy bag, it’s just you gloved up throwing punches, focusing on hand and foot placement, moving your hips as you hit, all the little tiny things that go into such a large overall movement.

That is how a solo journey is, little tiny moments that make up one big change. We are barely two weeks into our boxing journey but each and every class 3 times a week I learn something more about myself. I learn I can push myself just a little bit harder each time, punch a little bit faster, do more crunches and butterfly kicks and do a knee plank just a little bit longer. AND if I can survive all that and come back for more than life gets just a little easier to deal with.

It’s all about small movements and changes that make the big things so much better.

title

Flex Friday Feature Title Boxing Club Green Hills

The Other side….

/ Lynne / Leave a comment

Well, it’s been a month and six days since surgery. I’ve still continued with my therapist working on tearing it all down and now we are building it back up. I started a therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) it is used quite often with people who have PTSD. It is a light, sound and thought exercise therapy. I had my first session yesterday and I’m actually feeling better, lighter and more in control of my emotions. The trauma we worked on doesn’t seem to carry the weight it previously did.

On the other side of surgery has been emotional and hard. While I still had all my “parts” there was always hope that we would get pregnant. With that comes a loss, a loss of hope and that is the hardest thing to deal with. You don’t realize just how much the loss of hope will hurt. It is wrenching and painful and crowds your mind with negative thoughts and ideas about who you are and your perceived worth as a woman.

Before you even say it I know that adoption is an option, it has always been an option on the table. It was really hard to think about it in the first couple of weeks after surgery when the mental and physically pain is so present. Again working on things with my therapist has helped immensely.

I feel as if I am starting to let go of the loss of my uterus. The nice 70-degree spring days have helped as well.

Two more weeks and I will be going back to work. I’ve started back working on my classes today so I am slowly moving back to the center of my life. I am probably more centered that I have ever been.

There is finally a lightness within that is such a different feeling than the weight of infertility. I know I’m basically in the same spot as before but this is different, and I’m not going to lie not having to wear a pad and tampon every day of my life has been pretty great for the last month. So I guess that is positive, and I’m focusing on the positives of this entire situation.

I have grown and learned so much in the last few weeks that I’m sure I am a different person with a different outlook on everyday things.

I will come to a place where I am ready to look at adoption and foster care again, for right now I am rediscovering me.

The Fear of Death…

/ Lynne / Leave a comment

For as long as I can remember I never expected to live to see old age. I’m not sure if it was losing my grandfather when I was 10 or so that triggered my fascination with how long I would live or just what it was.

I was surprised when I turned 25 that I was still alive, then again ten years later, and living to 40 what a shock as well. See deep down I never thought I would live a long life. I never expected to honestly and truly. If you have been reading the last couple of weeks you will know that I am now 41 and at the age my mother was when she started showing signs and symptoms of having cancer, and that I have pre cancerous cells and major surgery coming in just over a week.

My ob oncologist is very thorough. See I have liver disease and there is an increased risk of my liver failing during surgery due to the way the body reacts to anesthesia.  So I’ve had to have extra blood tests and doctors visits and ultra sounds. Each time with the warning of the risk of my life during surgery.

I know I shouldn’t panic. I’ve already had one surgery and came out just fine but it was not as serious as this coming surgery. I am afraid I won’t make it to recovery, I’m afraid that my life will end on the operating table.

See after all these years of feeling like I wouldn’t live to be old I’m afraid now I won’t make it.  People keep telling me it’s a rational fear and that it will be okay and the doctors are just taking extra precautions but I’m afraid.

I’m afraid when I hug and kiss my husband just before they wheel me off that it will be the last time I see him. I wonder how it will feel to just not be anymore.

These are the fears that can eat you alive, these are the not so rational, rational thoughts that plague you when you face your mortality. This is why I’m going to see a therapist on Thursday. This is why getting help when you have a mental illness is so important. I know I’m spiraling. I know i’m fixating. I know in the rational part of my brain that this will be fine, but there is that little voice that keeps saying what if? What if…….I guess I will deal with what if when it happens.