From one healing chapter to another

an outloud journal entry

I know every crack, every speck and every hole in the ceiling on the neurosurgery ward at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, IL. I studied them for almost two weeks and they are still fresh in my mind. It was only in October of last year I was there, in a cold hospital bed, staring at them, as my spine healed to the point I was no longer losing spinal fluid.

I was stuck.

I was healing.

I was in pain.

I had so many emotions playing out — coming out ; Anger, fear, hope, love, hate, regret, disappointment.

The physical pain did not dull the emotional.

I awoke from major surgery on my lumbar spine to find out it was worse than I had even thought — a twisted form of validation after being called a liar by so many, that somehow and for some mysterious reason I had enjoyed being in pain my entire life, reaching out to empty hearts and cold minds.

Yes, I was in pain taking all of that in after awaking to Hamas slaughtering innocent lives. It felt like the end of the world.

I felt guilty for thinking of myself as all of that played out.

Then the anger would swell. I had to fight for that surgery. I’ve been spending most of my life fighting to have the medical community listen to me and then when they finally did and after noticing a congenital defect I pointed out in the tests that they were skipping over, I had to fight with Meridian (Centene) , my Medicaid insurance who forced me to waste time and energy to jump their hoops of a step approach to managed care and then the outright denials of prior authorizations.

I had to fight for everything. It was a battle for my life, for my dignity and in the name of my worth. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and then for health insurance in a southern state after leaving a northern state where I had it but absolutely no healthy family support to keep me afloat. And, I had just had a surgery there, taking a tumor and a parotid gland.

To say I was weary wouldn’t even touch the exhaustion I awoke to after surgery in October. It still lingers as I am still healing.

I expect I will continue to heal for the rest of my life. Living creates wounds and scars, it is how you know you’re alive and then the growth comes into play on how you tend to those lessons. It gives me comfort in holding on to a belief like that —

Those two weeks of dissecting that ceiling as I kept my back straight in that uncomfortable hospital bed, as they poked and prodded — repositioning the cage of a corset forcing me into patience and grace — — those two weeks forced me to take in all my lessons of life at once.

What I always felt was a gift to come out of my childhood filled with trauma actually turned into a weapon I had been using against myself. A childhood of illness and pain, I taught myself to see a closet in my head where I would shove all the pain, and then lock the door. I utilized disassociation to my benefit, so I thought.

It threw me from a bad environment at home to a different toxic environment into the arms of someone I thought I loved and loved me, only to turn into a nightmare — my monster and almost two decades…two children later. I walked through those chapters storing away all the red flags in that closet of pain. I was too worried about everyone else to pay attention to myself.

I tried to hold on to everything happens for a reason — make lemonade out of lemons. So, rather than concentrate on myself, I decided to fix the world, having hope or trying to, that the domino effect would take care of me sooner or later.

My pain was so great and so deep I couldn’t imagine anyone else feeling it but before me everywhere I turned, it was playing out in others -everywhere.

So much so I couldn’t shut their pain out and ignored mine.

Hitting that wall in October and waking up from surgery, pretty much alone with my thoughts, my emotions — it all surged out. I’ve never felt so alone in my life.

Don’t get me wrong — my kids came when they could. It was an hour drive for them and they work different schedules. A few friends checked in and sent flowers -which I am truly grateful for but it was everyone else…

My other family…not word, not a care, not a concern.. minus one or two distant cousins.

My other so called friends — yeah, the majority who are all in when I fight a battle on their behalf or offer my support, but silence when it was my turn.

And then all those who sit back and watch, saying not a word..nothing, even though I’ve run out of my house at all hours to help them through a crisis…

It hurt. A lot.

Then knowing, actually accepting, that some of them have been there just to feed gossip to others — the ones who’ve literally labeled me a Witch, and meaning it in the twisted evil terms Puritans used to break one of the 10 commandments they say they held dear. To even utter saying that took place in today’s world is like living out an episode of the Outer Limits or Twilight Zone. But it did and they did.

That pain of disbelief still lingers.

And the saddest part of accepting all of this…all of that, was it has been my life..

Then knowing everyone touching it had a heart in need of healing — including myself.

I forgive

I don’t forget

I learned my lesson..

Turning the page now..

To new chapters…