hannie’s spot. all hannie.

I’ve dealt with constant chronic pain for a few years now. I’ve been steady losing weight, losing parts here and there and well, about losing my mind. However, my history will tell you that it all started with a dream.

Ten years ago, I weighed 417 lbs. In fact, I was so heavy that I could not be weighed inside the hospital. I was taken out to the loading dock scale and weighed there, tears streaming down my face in embarrassment. How could I have let myself go to the point that I was not only “morbidly obese” but also proud owner of all sorts of co-morbidities that could kill me off as well? There are many reasons for this, but I won’t delve into those now. I’d rather tell you where I am now, where I am going and the idea that “what can go wrong can very possibly go wrong”.

Since having open-RNY surgery in January 2001, I’ve spent tons of time as either an inpatient having surgery to fix something or being in a wait status for this to happen. My children and my family and friends have been my greatest source of strength and love during all this. The husband decided to bail ship because he could not deal with this. Endless hours of being in and out of a hospital with every complication imaginable, well, it’s not for all. He was one of those who just stopped caring and felt that my medical issues were hindering him and what he wanted to accomplish in this lifetime.

After leaving Katrina (and him) I found out that I had trapped bowel and a destroyed abdominal wall. It was remeshed in the nick of time, basically reconstructed. One year later, that wall was giving way and I was patched. Another year and we discover that the entire wall is just failing. We tried to fix it. I almost died. So it was removed and I was given a year to get in the best health possible to replace it. Last September, it was replaced and again, in constant pain all of the time. I can barely eat but I can drink. Not a good place to be, yes, but at least I’m still here to see my children grow up, and see some beautiful grandbabies happen. I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with childhood friends who meant the world to me then and mean the world to me now. I found the one first love that I had in childhood and to this day, we still love one another dearly. I’ve had opportunity to make a difference and do the sort of political things that I dreamed of as a youngster. Those political people who gave me the motivation and inspiration as a young one in South Kitsap…I’ve reconnected with them and thanked them for giving me the idea that not only as a woman but a democrat as well…I can stand up and get my voice heard and do what I can in the name of giving those who follow me a better world in which to live. I’ve had opportunity to stand up and defend that playground in which I was so honored to have as a child and now, Puget Sound.

I’m blessed to have been able to take what I was given from birth and to pay it forward and I’m so proud to even say that.

Yesterday, I was with my doctor and I’m tired, frustrated, upset because I can’t seem to get the pain under control and I questioned if my current med regimen is even working. I lift my shirt up to show him where the pain is and he gasps. I look down and there’s the telltale sign of yes, another hernia. I feel defeated. I feel lost. All those years of surgeons and me coming together and trying to find a feasible solution has yes, yet again, failed. Back to calling the hospital and asking, begging for someone to see me and allow me a pain management solution and a surgeon who is bariatric knowledgeable to give me hope or an idea or something to fix me.

I get in this morning with the head of Internal Medicine and thankfully, he’s familiar with my case. He doesn’t have to weed through four sets of medical paperwork that are at least three inches thick. He’s been with me for at least a year of my medical hell. As he looks and feels he looks like he too wants to cry. We go through my pain regimen and he sees what has worked and what has failed. We go back with what I was doing before but at stronger strengths and he suggests that I am sent back to UW. I was there before, but I had to fight with the insurance company to even be seen there, because they weren’t in the know as to how bad off I truly was. I had to go into the insurance office and beg and plead for authorization for care there. My body gave out, gave up before I could have surgery there. I could not be airlifted to Seattle because I was that close to death, so NH Bremerton took over my care. Because it’s military, those original surgeons who saved me are in private practice now and out of the military system. I don’t want to be sent to Madigan for a revision surgery. I want the best bariatric surgeons to tell me how to stop this nightmare from recurring and how to stop the weight loss.

Currently, I stand at 197, which is the lowest I’ve been since high school. That’s about 22 years ago. My labs, although yes, the best we’ve seen in a few years, still scream on some serious vitamin/mineral deficiencies. I’m scared that the weight loss won’t stop, can’t stop. I’m scared that there’s no more fix left. And I’m scared that we can’t find a pain management treatment that will work for me.

Today with the doctor yes, it was confirmed that I have yet another hernia popping out. The doctor believes that the hernia is coming from an area that was not meshed out, somehow it’s gotten around the mesh. So I tell him that I want out of the military medical system. I’m not knocking it, but I’m saying that I want a specialized bariatric surgeon to evaluate my case, somehow come up with why I’m hernia princess and fix it one more time.

Must be on my way, but again, we play the waiting game. We wait for the referrals to go through, the paperwork to be approved, and the endless commutes back and forth between UW for more tests than I can shake a stick at. And this, my friends is why I beg for single payer/public option healthcare. My health history is a prime example of what can and will go wrong when you have too many cooks/doctors/surgeons/insurance companies in the mix. In the end, YOU pay with YOUR LIFE. It shouldn’t have to be that way. Never. Ever.

June 2000- 417 lbs
November 2009-197 lbs

Numbers scare me.

So tonight I was sitting around thinking I was going to go to bed. I strip off my shirt because I’m still going through the constant hot cold thing and I see it. It’s this lump of sorts and it’s up against my left rib cage. I don’t know how high up we did the mesh, but I’m fairly certain we did not venture into my ribcage.

It doesn’t really hurt, but it’s quite solid so I have to pause and wonder if this is more scar tissue forming (looking at my actual incision line, you would see that this bump is right at the top). I’m scared about it in a way, but not because you know, I’m still here. If it hurts tomorrow, I am going to hightail it to Gig Harbor. I will not let the jerks at Harrison touch me.

Honestly, I’m tired of hospitals, I’m tired of operating rooms, I’m tired of being in pain or sick all the time. So what keeps me alive and keeps me going, even in the darkest of hours?

It would have to be my friends and family who love me dearly no matter what I look like or what I’m going through this week. I am so blessed to have those people in my life who love me unconditionally as I do them.

Being in pain sucks. Being in pain and absolutely ill after doing your best to eat or drink something sucks too. I wish there was a magic button where that just disappeared and I felt awesome and could do anything my little heart imagined. Certainly I would be a winner in this respect, wouldn’t I? I think I win because I still have a certain determination in this lifetime to do something positive and give back to those who have been so wonderful to me.

I slept for a few hours and so far, things are not hurting. The sleep is good, I close my eyes and drift off to sleep thinking of those I dearly love and I do eventually drift off. That’s one of biggest things when I feel sick or in pain or need to sleep. I close my eyes and I think of people or events or times in my life where I felt really loved and secure in my surroundings and it sort of calms me down and allows me to drift into sleep. I also recommend playing Animal Crossing for either DS or Wii. You have to actually concentrate on the game instead of what ails you at the moment.

Tomorrow’s just another day. Today, I’m doing what I can to enjoy this.

it’s time to once again clean up the world around me and start seriously taking time for those who are deserving of my time. Manda has been trying for the good part of a week to get me to sleep on my bed. Last night, it was rather lucky I had ignored her and stayed on the recliner. I woke up, not only in pain but freezing, but with that all too familiar slime trail of ghastly stomach acid coming out of my mouth. Yuk.

I was over sleeping at a friend’s house…naturally drifting off in his arms and it was great. Waking up though, I felt where I had started the backlash of stomach acid coming up (please keep in mind, for me, stomach acid takes a long route to travel to come back and revisit me) and I was only slightly scared. I say that because those who are not exactly all knowing of my medical issues often get scared hearing about them, and sometimes it even can make them either walk from my life or treat me with kid gloves. If you can’t handle the weirdness I bring, then yes, walk because I have a specific living will that states that I will be a burden to no one. I try to uphold that in every situation possible.

The stomach acid thing, commonly known as GERD, that came back to me maybe six years out or so…and why, I don’t know…but this I do know. I tend to spit up more, often to the point of choking in my sleep at night (why I was glad to be on the recliner, I can’t choke in an upward position) when I am more stressed out about things. If there’s unrest in my world, it happens. Time to de-stress my world around me.

I used to care about everyone around me but not me. Not caring about my health and me has really taken a toll on me, mentally and physically. So now, when my body talks to me in such a way, I listen. I tell many wls patients or even those who are considering surgery, look, I know it’s been years since you cared about yourself. Seriously, look in the mirror. I can see it because I’ve been there too, but once you have surgery, you need to re-organize your list of importance. If you expect to succeed in any way, “you” needs to be moved to the top of the list and not the bottom where it’s been for years on end. It’s a hard thing to do because hey, we’ve all been out to please everyone else around us and not ourselves for so long, we forgot what it felt like. Success begins with you and your outlook. You’re worth it and you would not be looking at weight loss surgery if you weren’t. After undergoing 2-3 hours in an OR having the ginzu knife procedure done to you to save you, don’t you think that yes, now is your time and yes, you’re absolutely worth that? You are and then some. Don’t let anyone tell you any different, ever.

I have lots of them, too numerous to count, but here’s my problem of the morning.

My morning tweet…I once weighed 417. I currently weigh 203.5. I’m lumpy and have just as many scars as I do tattoos. And yes, I AM a real person.

I was watching GMA because I like to do that sometimes. There was a story about “large people” finding love and how the plus size type shows don’t truly represent how larger people are or feel. I’ve never watched any of the shows they mentioned except for “The Biggest Loser”.

Using that show as an example, I think it’s showing the challenges of trying to get the extra weight off. Yes, you need to eat better. Yes, you need to get exercise in. No, it’s not easy to make those changes in your life and yes, it gets frustrating as all get out and you want to cry.

So they’re speaking with this woman on “fat acceptance”. She’s livid because these shows tell people how much each contestant weighs. OMG GASP! Yes, people get touchy about the subject of weight and yes, some would rather it not be broadcast because well, in my case long ago, I was ashamed of how out of control my weight and health were. I tell my numbers to people all the time now, I don’t care, because you can surely under or over guestimate how much a person weighs. In my case, absolutely you can. Am I healthy right now? As healthy as I’m going to be.

So “fat acceptance” person goes on to talk about how large people have no concept of self esteem. Right on the money there. For me, gaining the weight meant that less people would pay attention to me. Of course, we all know I’m your favorite attention whore, but for a long time, I was under the belief that being fat would make me more non-descript. I was, and still am at times, an emotional eater. Happy? Let’s eat. Sad? Let’s eat. Depressed? Oh hell yea, we’re eating. Many of those food choices, pre-surgery ,were crappy ones. I won’t lie. I stopped caring about myself and threw myself into everything else but me.

I believe that even after you lose weight, you still have self-esteem issues. I weigh what, almost 200 lbs. But if you asked me what I envisioned myself at, weight wise, I would tell you 400 lbs. It’s a common perception problem.

There are some who just cannot deal with the attention that you get once you’ve dropped the weight. Sure, people look at me, but you know, keep looking and move along. Thank you for the compliments, sincerely, but more times often than not, I somehow tune it out. I have my own self esteem battles just like anyone else, and I can bring the criticism on myself from my head to my toes. Why shouldn’t we be addressing this sort of thing on any “large people” reality shows? This is reality. Be real. Don’t be hoppin on tv and crying foul on this because you feel it degrades the plus size. It’s part of the plus size that any one of us has had to deal with.

Enough. All I’m saying is, if you’re going to have a reality show based on plus sized people…make it that. As for “fat acceptance”, well you know what? I got news for you. Not everyone appreciates fat. Heck, some people don’t appreciate skinny either. If you’re looking for acceptance on looks alone, I don’t feel you’re going to get it. If the other person is judging you on looks alone, I swear they’re not worth your time. The true people are those who look beyond and see you for the beautiful person you are inside. They’re not hung up on your looks. Believe me, my weight has gone up and down repeatedly and I speak from personal experience on this. Be you and be the healthiest you that you can, because you’re absolutely worth it. To the world you may be but one person, but to one person you may mean the world to them. Learn it, live it.

So my cool new friend melting mama is doing the Walk From Obesity this year. You’re thinking hey, neither you nor Mama are no longer obese, why the heck should you care? We care because we were once really super obese and we know the physical and mental pain of being in this condition. So please donate to Melting Mama’s team if you can, because we’re all about working to make others happier and healthier. Get on it and thanks for your support.

Okay, so yes, I am in the hospital. I am about ready to scream from the pain of coughing up so much blood. One nurse told me that I need to see a surgeon because I have way too much scar tissue built up on the right side of me, right, interestingly is the same side that hurts like hell right now because I am coughing up so much blood. I feel like the doctors are stupid because one, he doesn’t tell me much of anything no matter how many times I ask. I need to know why we are coughing up so much blood and I am still in excruciating pain. Why haven’t we questioned this? No, he wants to sit around and talk about me smoking, legal or otherwise. Dude, shut up, the moment I felt pain and achy I stopped. I used to say that I smoked really to lessen the pain and it helped. In this case, no, just made things worse.

Let’s start from the beginning before I start going off and how this doctor sucks and I will so ask to be transfered in the prayers of better care. I think screaming whiny football watching girl gets better care, but she’s in worse condition than me. But shouldn’t someone care about me and how bad off I am doing? Apparently not. The doctor literally chased me off when I asked him when I was leaving, what was going on, and what we were going to do about the pain. “I said you’re getting a chest x-ray”. Oh goodie. Let’s do that some more. Why weren’t we doing this yesterday when I cried about the pain and the blood YESTERDAY? Needless to say, it just seems odd to me.

So yes, how did we get here. One of the tricks that my super old wls friends and I have is that if we know our potassium is low, we must eat hot sauce. You have this insane craving for it. I sat and ate hot sauce and jalapenos while my daughter just watched in horror. I don’t know if this is entirely true, but I can speak to at least three friends and me have this affliction. Don’t take it as medical advice but yea, know that you should probably be bumping up the potassium somewhere.

I get home and I ache and I’m so cold. Like cold enough I feel like my bones are frozen. Uh oh, let’s find that thermometer. I read at about 102. No biggie, I can take some tylenol and it’s gone tomorrow.

Here’s the thing though, I’m babbling incoherently. I’m either super hot or super cold. So we know that’s fever status. To someone like me, that means, carry myself into an ER straight away because I’m dehydrating. If I’m dehydrating then I’m losing what little potassium I have left. I get to the ER and they start in on me about losing the IV and I’m sleeping and bitch bitch bitch. Excuse me, I’m not there for a social visit. I’m there because I’m sick and thanks to all of you for poking me a million times over a few hours *before* doing that chest x ray to see how sick I really was. At one point, as I was originally coughing blood, they spoke of tamiflu. Personally, they should have handed that over straight away. WTH? Oh well.

Right now all I smell is waffles and french toast and I want to throw up. I got a tiny bit of cottage cheese and some fruit, and hopefully my body will like it. I think things I truly appreciate is being in ANY hospital and you pretty much have to educate your doctor as to what you can and can’t take, can and can’t eat. Don’t you think that as an internist, you’d want to take a little more interest in the care of bariatric patients because you know, that demographic is getting HUGER instead of smaller? Why am I educating you each time I walk in the door and for all you screaming republican idiots, I got a question. Just who do I receive my health care from? And how correct will that care be or am I just asking to die because no one is really clued into open or Lap RNY? I don’t want to spend a week educating you. I need you to know. Please.

Oh so yea, when you get hauled off to the ER for dehydration, pretty much you get the regular bag and then the cool bag with potassium and lidocaine. You want that lidocaine in there. It doesn’t burn your veins as bad. Every time they take an ounce of blood from you, you want to know what they’re doing. You don’t have to look, but be sure to ask.

I don’t know what’s going to happen or how long I am going to be here. Honestly, I don’t think the jackass assigned to me knows either and it really amazes me that he’d sit around and treat me like crap. I’m sorry, is it because I’m a poor person? (seriously I think I have found someone with worse smelling poo than me. It’s the lady next door. I thought my son or me had that contest in the bag. Nope.)

Oh, to explain the bad poo poo of wls, it’s because you’re no longer processing food the same way as before. So you can really stinky up a bathroom. I think I wrote about how I offended some older woman at Fred Meyer. Yea, well hey honey, I wish that they carried some small cans of air freshner that worked quickly. I just don’t feel good about lighting a sulfur match in any bathroom.

This has got to get better. Maybe I annoyed the doctor enough he’s actually going to do something. I’ll let you know.

Today I went back and found my old pages and sorta dug around. Generally, I don’t like looking at them because I feel that when I read back over those entries, I see some of the emotional pain now that I wasn’t seeing then. There’s entries that leave me bawling because I was just in a bad emotional state and I didn’t see it when I was writing. I see it now, years later. I didn’t see it back then. I guess really, I keep those pages up because it does, for the most part, hold true to what was going on then, good or bad, and honesty counts somewhere. I’m not sure where. I hope that it all helps someone in the end.

Let’s start with this. Yes, if you’ve previously lost your will to live and then you enter a marriage thinking you’re going to do better and you don’t, it’s a bummer. Life is one big emotional rollercoaster and some do better on it than others. I have more health education behind me than I ever dreamed of having. I wonder if I would make a good nurse somewhere.

I have become the ever so popular pain in the butt annoying person. Someone accused me of being single because I was a prude the other day. Nice, but I think you’re off base with that. I believe I am single because I am so medically complicated. I am an exhausting person to deal with. People tell me that oh yes, I am a wonderful person and no, they would never dare turn their back on me and yet they do. I get it. Living your life the way I have to mine, not knowing if I am going to be sick or not, not knowing if I can even leave the couch one day to the next, is emotionally draining. It can and will drag you down, as it has me. I want to be better, I want to achieve more and do more, but these days, it’s hard. I just don’t know.

Looking at pictures of me from a long time ago, it’s sad anyway I slice it.

Unabashedly, I will be the first to say that we are our own worst critics. I’m super guilty of this.

Today, I should be dishing out ice cream, meeting with fellow citizens of Kitsap County and getting what’s on THEIR mind. Much of the time when I write, believe it or not, that’s how I gain my greatest inspiration. What are you wanting to know and what are you questioning? How can we collectively come up with ideas to make our county the best in Washington state?

Many of you will say, “Oh but now Miss Hannie, NO ONE comments on your blog.” Sure, they won’t type anything in there, for many typing in my comments area is like asking to be shot in the foot…but finding me and telling me what they thought and their reaction, well, it’s done all the time. I think the personal feedback to my face actually does much more than just ploinking out something to the tune of “hannie you’re wrong, you suck and you should just roll over and die.” (Some people actually believe this. My response, “Please look in your own closet first. When you’re done, then come back with an actual credible complaint against me.”)

Even though I’m the healthiest I’ve been in about 3-4 years, I’m still sick. I’m ready to go, jump up and holler and do everything I haven’t been able to do for that past timeframe. However, I’ve discovered in doing so, I’m not as ready as I thought I was.

Long ago, I had a conversation with Doug Green who was, at the time, SKSD administrator. I had known him since I was little, as a teacher first. But here I was, maybe 17, in his office and fighting for my education and a high school diploma. We went back and forth for some time (we did this, we did.) and his best words of advice to me were, “You know Johanna, I understand how you want to conquer the world. But you have this insane tendency to put all your eggs in one basket and then you end up burning yourself in the end, and what the heck have you solved then?”

At 17, I thought Doug was full of it and knew nothing. At 40, I know that Doug was doing his best to teach me a valuable life lesson and I blew him off for some time on it. I thought I could step up and put all those eggs in one basket and make it all work, and as Doug can oh so well tell me, yea, it doesn’t quite work that way.

I want to do and see and achieve so many things and help as many as I can. But the bigger picture that I’m not quite seeing until this morning is that in having that sort of goal, I have to realize my physical limitations in doing that. I need to take some time and a few deep breaths for me. I have to be a little more demanding in asking my family for what will help me most. If they should decide to offer that help on their own, I should be willing to take it, appreciate them for it and not be so critical because they did it their way instead of my way. I whole heartedly admit that sometimes I truly believe my way is the best way, so I guess that Charlie can officially say I have an ego problem. Now if he could follow up with taking away a couple of my birthdays so that I’m less than 40, that would be cool.

I’ve learned some solutions that help me be a better person and not feel so stressed or mind whirring all the time. However, I think I need to learn to achieve a better balancing act and be able to stick to the commitments that mean the most to me. Sometimes, those commitments have the tendency to walk on me or detract me from what I really want to be doing. I don’t like being mean or downright nasty, I don’t, but somewhere there has to be a balance. Somehow, it will all come together like pieces to a puzzle. I’ll be all the smarter for that moment.

However, right about now, I feel about stressed, I’m not entirely sure that I can handle all of the complexities called my world and my self esteem is having a bad hair moment. I’ve weathered larger storms and done just fine. Sometimes though, I share my vision and how I got there with others and I think that they miss the boat, either on what I’ve said or what my goal strategy is. Shame how that is.

I guess I can really write to this as yet again, I wake up and find myself running for the bathroom. Although I can’t think of anything I ate that might have triggered this, anything could have. That’s just the thing.

I eat too much, I get sick. I eat the wrong thing, I get sick. That “wrong” thing could have been a “good” thing that stayed down a couple days ago, but now, my body says “oh HELL NO” and I’m sick. Funny how that works, but indeed that’s how it does. My best advice for anyone post-op RNY and eating would be..it may be okay for you to eat it today, tomorrow or the day after that. Later on down the road though, eat carefully and don’t count on any ONE food to be your best friend.

I still try to push forward and accomplish what I can, regardless. If I were to just give up and let this all win, you’d never see or hear from me. Literally I’d either be in one of two places, my bed or the bathroom. Speaking of bathroom, allow me to recall a fun story.

Mom and I were at a local store the other day. I told her I had to run, I was fixin to be sick. Mom said “yea fine” and rolled her eyes like she tends to do from time to time and I ran for the bathroom. Luckily, I got a stall, but the bathroom was crowded and I’m there for a bit. First off, Mom called and asks me where I am. Yea Mom hi, remember, told you I was sick and had to run to the bathroom, still there.

I finally exited the bathroom stall. An older lady looked me sternly in the eye and started berating me on how I made the bathroom stink and I should be ashamed of myself. I wasn’t going to argue with her, I said nothing and walked up to wash my hands.

What that woman didn’t know, is that if she had approached me with a little bit of an attitude change, she would have heard a story and understood that the “stink” is nothing I can control. Even with a million “courtesy flushes”, it’s going to be there. Gas pills don’t really help me, in fact, there’s something about them that, if taken, makes my abdominal region cramp and hurt more than it already does. Someone told me once about lighting a match to lighten the smell. However, I’d be afraid I’d blow the place up if I did that.

It makes me upset that we, as a society, instantly “assume” based on looks or medical conditions or the like. You know what? I’m lucky to be alive. Each day is a struggle but I do what I can for the most part. I don’t want to run around with a shirt that says “gastric bypass fail” because although yes, that’s a part of my life, it’s not my whole life.

Why even have a blog describing different aspects of my not so normal life as a post op gastric bypass patient? I do it because I want you to know, I want you to understand that surgery, any surgery, is not a perfect science. Sure, we’d all like that time to make us look like perfect barbie types but it doesn’t always happen that way.

I want you to hear my story because 1-2 years out, I thought I was doing fine. Although my iron and b-12 counts were fairly low and I resumed getting migraines, I was losing the weight and my labs (the rest of them) were fine.

Nine years later, name it, it’s low on the labs. I regained and lost the weight and lost past my original losing weight. Some people will flat out comment and ask where the “weight” went. I’d like to know where the weight went because I’d like maybe 5 lbs of it back. Honestly, it was an unhealthy weight drop. My body has been through so much that most any weight loss could be considered unhealthy anymore.

Constant illness of the digestive system, or any system that you’re supposed to rely on for function to keep you alive isn’t fun. This morning, I’ve visited the bathroom enough times that yes, I should be alert for dehydration. No more caffeine for me today, as caffeine will suck you dry not only of nutrients, but water as well. I have to keep pushing water at this point because if I don’t, I will be spending fun filled hours at the hospital with a IV drip with potassium. News flash, these hurt, so no, don’t want to be visiting soon for this reason. And it’s super boring to sit for hours on end with tubes running from your arm and you’re either lying or sitting on a bed.

What to do? I think my date this last Sunday put it best. “I think I’ve learned that we work on hannietime”. Yea, yea we do.

I’m one incredibly lucky person, that I am. I’ve had ten surgeries. In saying that, I have always told the surgeon that my wishes were that anyone who had cancer or was in an emergency went ahead of me in the books and even if it was my turn. I figured those people needed them more than me and I could wait a couple hours. No biggie.

One time, I was scheduled for surgery, already in PACU (the pre operating place where they fix you all up) and I was bumped for an accident victim who was in some serious bad shape. I got placed next to the ice chip machine of all places for about six hours. They gave me a brand new airman who had no experience in placing an O-line and he dumped tons of my blood on the floor and then slid and fell in it. I wanted to cry as his superior screamed at him and made him mop up the floor. His superior redid the line, and eventually that airman came back to me and apologized. You know, crap happens, but when you’re out on that field saving our wounded military, please remember this and don’t be making that mistake again, please.

Of those ten surgeries, my surgeons had to go against my wishes to save my life. I knew that they had to do that, and I could never thank them enough for making that call and making sure I made it through some scary stuff. One of those three times, my mother had to make life saving decisions for me because I could not make them myself, and I never ever wanted her to have to relive that horror with me after going through that with my own sister a few years back.

Truly, I am blessed, I am.