Mirror Mirror

Mirrors can be the worst and they can be the best.  They are great when you need to get food out of your teeth or when you have a crazy hair sticking up that you need to tame.  If you're into talking to yourself, then they are especially great for that as well.  Over the years, mirrors have even provided the inspiration to the metaphor for reflecting on oneself.  Everyone should take the opportunity to reflect on their life at many stages of life.  This provides a chance to look at where your life is and where it is going.  Is it going down the path you want it to go or do you need to make a change and alter the direction you are headed?  It is true, taking time to reflect on oneself is beneficial, but what if you find in your time of reflection that you cannot change what lies ahead of you?  What if your reflection blatantly reveals that you have no control?  What you see is what you get.

I was looking, but I didn't like what I seeing.  The reflection staring back was not me.  It was some moon shaped, pizza face.  It wasn't the heart shaped, clear skinned girl I had known for years.  The chin that was once chiseled and reminded me of a family trait was hidden in the middle of my chipmunk cheeks.  The face that was so often compared to my sisters as twin like was not recognizable.  I didn't even look related to her anymore.  If the face wasn't bad enough there was my shoulders and my back.  The puffiness of them was so strange.  The weight was abnormal and disproportioned to my stick arms.  The first time I tried on my mother's wedding gown that I would wear for my wedding, I couldn't even get it zipped over my fat back and shoulders.  How devastating...Then there was my stomach.  I was so bloated it looked like I was pregnant.  It didn't matter how many miles I ran or how many crunches I did, I couldn't get it as flat as it was in high school.  The dancers body I once knew was gone.  Who was this stranger staring back at me? 

This stranger was created with only 60mg a day.  The Prednisone had consumed me.  It's mark was left on every inch.  This drug that was slowing down the death eating away my intestine was also transforming me.  The once beauty had turned into the beast.   Not only was I a monster on the outside, but it also gave me a rage on the inside.  A rage I could not control.  Without even meaning to, I could be Jekyll one minute and Hide the next.  My entire being was out of control.  A new cream or workout could not remove the acne on my face or the weight on my bones.  Nothing I could do would be enough to overcome this 60mg dose of hell.  Who was I with this new form? 

I quit looking in mirrors.  I didn't want to see my reflection anymore.  It wasn't real.  It didn't reflect the true me.  What I thought and felt of myself on the inside was rudely interrupted when face to face with a mirror.  In my mind's eye I saw this:

 But in reality...I looked like this.

This isn't even the worst picture.  Do you know what it's like meeting people and explaining that this isn't your real face?  It's embarrassing....Hey I'm not really this ugly, please don't judge me.  Please see what's on the inside and not this mask I am forced to wear.

Somehow, they did.  Somehow, people did see the real me.  Somehow, I was blessed to be dating a wonderful man who made sure to let me know how I beautiful I was, even if I didn't always believe him.  Somehow, my friends were still there for me and didn't shun me for not looking up to code.  Somehow, God gave me what I needed when I needed it the most.  He showed me what it meant to truly love myself and see myself through his eyes.  I am wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).  He taught me that it is more important to be there than to look good there.  The only person who had to believe it was me. 

It took time to accept my new form and to accept my circumstances.  It was difficult to turn away from the lies the Devil was feeding me and be open to the loving words that God was sharing through those that loved and believed in me.  Looks are fleeting. Who I am as an individual is forever, and that is the reflection I choose to see.


                                          Pre Crohn's Diagnosis

 

                                          Post Crohn's Diagnosis

Mini Marathon training didn't change me

                                     

 

                    After Ileostomy surgery.  Best day of my life!

                                                Healthy Me Today!!

The Woman Behind The Badge

This post is dedicated to the women who are married to a police officer.

The woman behind the badge serves in her own quiet way. 
The uniform she wears is not adorned with insignia of rank and honor.
Instead of a commissioned gun at her hip, she holsters a child.

The woman behind the badge serves in her own quiet way.
Dispatched to calls here and there, she completes tasks at a moment's notice.
She plans days, meals, events, and more around odd hours of sleep.

The woman behind the badge serves in her own quiet way.
When called to protect and serve she is there with a hug and a kiss.
She works dutifully behind the scenes, often without recognition.

The woman behind the badge serves in her own quiet way.
Honor, loyalty, and integrity are the characteristics she has sworn to uphold.
The officer she stands behind leaves each shift with the confidence of love.

The woman behind the badge serves in her own quiet way.
Though she may not have chosen this sometimes lonely life, she chose the one who wears the badge.


Police officers are special people.  They are called to this honorable career.  Most people cannot do what they do day in and day out.  Police officers put their lives on the line each time they put on their uniform and call in 10-41 to Dispatch.  They work odd hours and miss family events of their own, all so your family can safely enjoy the events you have planned.  The blessed officers have families who are willing to make the sacrifices necessary so their officers can do what they love.  The blessed officers have women who stand behind them with love, support, and no regrets so their officers can go out into the streets of the world and focus on the task at hand.    

Commuting With Crohn's

I have been commuting from Terre Haute to Indianapolis for about a month and a half now.  Several times I have been asked, “How is your drive?” or “How are you doing this, I couldn’t do this?”  These questions have got me thinking about how am I able to do this every day? 

While I’m driving, of course, I am mulling this question over and over in my mind.  What has brought me this far to allow me to handle the stresses of driving a long distance?  Several answers to this question have I come up with. 

It’s all about perspective.  It’s a choice you have to make to make the best of your circumstances.  It’s mental toughness.  I believe dealing with the ups and downs of having Crohn’s disease has provided me the ability to choose my attitude.  I can choose to view driving as a pest or I can choose to view it as an opportunity for growth.  One cannot achieve the skill of maintaining a positive attitude without first honing their mental toughness.  In my darkest moments with Crohn’s, I had to mentally tell myself to be strong when my body no longer was.  Each bad morning, I had to train my thoughts to focus on the hope for a better tomorrow.  I could not give up.  Focusing on the blessings that were in front of me, I allowed myself to choose a positive perspective. 

I could have sat around and moped all day, but self pity would not get me anywhere.  Besides, how could I feel sorry about myself when people were dying of cancer or living in a third world country without any medical help at all!  The same goes with driving.  I could be resentful about moving to Terre Haute and having to sacrifice my time each day to drive to work and back, but I’m not going to let myself think those kinds of thoughts.  I chose this.  I chose to move to Terre Haute so my husband and I could make a better life for us.  I chose to support my husband in accomplishing his dream.  I have no one to blame but myself.  By focusing on the blessing of this move, this commute cannot be allowed to bother me.

We have been blessed with our first home, a new job opportunity, and the closeness of family.  While driving, I have the opportunity to have quiet time to myself.  I can use that to jam to music, listen to a book, pray, or think about writing this blog.  It’s one place where no one can disturb me.  How can I look at my commute as a negative experience, when 3 years ago I was literally shitting my pants in the car!  I couldn’t go 5 minutes without having to go the bathroom, and I was wearing diapers to prevent shitting all over my car seat.  That alone is enough to see driving this commute as a blessing!  Plus, I just found an awesome relax driving playlist on Spotify!  Score!!

Disclaimer:  This article is not suggesting that there are not difficult days on the road.  That is not true.  In the road of life, there are good days and bad days.  There is traffic, construction, and stupid people.  Sometimes you might even be in the middle of a police car chase!  True Story.  The point is, perspective is everything.  How will you choose to view your difficult circumstances?  Will it be through eyes of hope or bleakness?

Ch. 4 Shock

Choking.  Gasping.  Darkness.  My world turns black and I cannot breathe.  I try to speak but nothing comes out.  “NURSE!!”  I hear someone scream.  Pressure.  So much pressure!  My head feels like it’s about to explode.    Suddenly, I hear the sound of tennis shoes moving quickly.  “Get the IV out.”  “EpiPen!”  Light.  Things are starting to come back into focus.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Jesus.  I see him staring at me above the door, hanging on a cross with his arms spread out.  Breath in.  Breathe out.  Just keep breathing, I tell myself.  I pray. 

“My head!  There is so much pressure!” I hear myself tell one of the nurses.  “We have to get her blood pressure down,” one of the nurses says.  I feel the burn of the medicine flow through my veins.  Finally, release.  A man in a white coat sits in the corner, watching.  Why is he just sitting there looking at me?  Why isn’t he doing anything?  The nurses continue to monitor me.  “Her face isn’t as red anymore.  How is your head sweetie?” One of the nurses asks.    “It is getting better,” I somehow get out.  “You went into Anaphylactic Shock.”

Time passes and my breathing seems to be normalizing.  The anxiety and panic slowly leave me.  My grandma explains that as soon as the Remicade went through the IV and into my veins my face turned bright red.  The Nurse Call button was within reach, but I could not press it with my fumbling fingers.  She ran out and in turn saved my life.  Thankfulness and relief fill me.  My nurse puts a cold compress on my head.  I look at her.  “I just need to cry,” I say.  Placing the rag over my eyes to hide my insecurity, I let them release.  The fear of not breathing was gone.  I was safe.  I could let go.  I didn’t have to keep it together anymore.

The silent tears continue on the ride home.  Still trying to maintain a strong front, I couldn’t let my grandma see me cry.  I didn’t want her to worry, to be burdened.  I had to carry it all.  A couple hours later, I finally return to the safety of my home.  My mother and father rush toward me and wrap me up in their hugs.  “I’m ok.  Don’t worry.  I’m fine.  It’s not a big deal.”  I tell them.  My eyes betray me as they release another flow of tears.  Safe in my father’s arms, I cry.  Those would not be my only tears.  The trauma would continue to haunt me. 

Choking.  Gasping.  Darkness.  My world turns black and I cannot breathe.  I try to speak but nothing comes out.  “NURSE!!”  I hear someone scream.  Pressure.  So much pressure!  My head feels like it’s about to explode.  Jesus! 

My eyes open to darkness as tears stream down my cheeks.  Realizing I’m in the safety of my bed, my breathing begins to calm.  I curl into the fetal position and cry.  I pray to God to please make these nightmares stop.  Take them away, I beg!  Alone and afraid, I cry myself to sleep once again.                 

The Fight

Health is so fleeting.  One minute you can be enjoying life and the next minute you are clinging to it.  It is a mystery.  People go through hours upon hours of workouts and eat the strangest combinations of food to achieve great health.  Only, those hours and diets mean nothing when your immune system turns against you.  When something beyond your control threatens your being, it is devastating.  Everything you once knew and were no longer matter.  They cannot help you.  They will not save you.  The body you once took care of and treated like a temple will betray you.  When you try to help it, it will reject your help.  No matter how much you try to eat healthy, workout, take your medicine, it will not matter.  Your body no longer belongs to you.  It now belongs to the evil that possesses you.  The only thing you can do is fight.  Fight against the evil.  Fight for your life. 

This will be the most difficult battle you will ever wage.  Not only will you be fighting for your own right to live, but you will be fighting for your soul.  If you can’t fight for your will to live, then having health means nothing.  Those suffering from the betrayal of their auto immune are forced to make a choice.  They must choose between good and evil.  They must choose to fight for the good side or the bad side.      

If you choose the dark side, you are choosing defeat.   You are letting the evilness inside you rule.  Instead of taking charge of your circumstances, you are bowing before them.  Your world becomes darkness.  There is no more light.  No more joy.  No more fight.  Death is your only option.  Death will knock on your door and you will welcome it. 

If you choose the good side, you at least have a fighting chance.  You are choosing to fight against your immune system and possibly save what you have left of your mind and soul.  Your mind and soul may be the only entities that can truly save your body.  The mind is a powerful tool.  The mind can bring logic and perspective.  If you can bring your mind to focus on what you do have instead of what you don’t have, that in itself is a powerful force.  Having a positive perspective can do nothing but add to your life.  By focusing on your blessings you will not be so overwhelmed with the failings of your personal “temple.”  You will choose to spend your time concentrating on what brings happiness and joy into your life.  Whether it is with family, friends, lover, books, or music, spending your time on anything other than what’s causing you pain, will only lighten the pain within.   If only for a brief moment, you will experience happiness.

Perspective is a major part of outplaying your evil opponent within, but spirituality is also equally, if not more important.  Without belief in some higher power, there is no point.  Seriously?  What is the point of living or doing anything, if at the end of the day you’re at a dead end?  That seems unacceptable, logically and soulfully.  If there is no spiritual hope, how does one suffer through life’s unbearable moments?  How does one have the will to live, fight, or breath?  It is difficult to press on when spiritual hope is lacking and questions clutter the mind.  When dealing with the betrayals of your own body, the question “Why?” will always come up.  Having a spiritual belief will answer that question or at least bring you peace and hope that one day it will all make sense.  The will to fight comes easier when you have the power of a higher being on your side. 

We are all going to die one day.  That’s a fact, Jack.  The only thing that really matters is how you’re going to get there.  Are you going to fight your way there or just give up and be owned by death?    

Top 10 Activities to do on the Toilet.

10.  Read a book
I can’t tell you how many books I have read on the toilet.  No, really.  I can’t tell you.  I honestly don’t remember.  I chalk that up to suppressing memories.

9.  Text or talk on your phone

Now, this one I remember doing.  I was texting or talking on the phone probably the majority of my visits.  The text usually involved…  “I’m pooping. J”  Sometimes, if they were lucky, I would even send a picture.  Don’t worry folks.  I only sent pictures of my best poops.  I’m talking the 6 inch solid stool.  This “log” was a rarity.  When 99.9% of my stools were coming out…well, I don’t want to ruin the food you’re eating right now.  Oh, too late?  Sorry!      

8.  Play Sudoku or any other games

I’m not really a game person, but when you are were making as many long visits as I was, you’ll stoop to anything to entertain yourself.  The only time I found myself playing Sudoku was at my in-laws house.  They always had games and books lying around the toilet.  There are too many numbers involved in Sudoku, so if there was a book or magazine, I usually chose that.  My favorite book of theirs was called “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.”  Books made for reading while pooping…Genius!

7.  Pray for your life

I spent a lot of time praying on the toilet.  Most of the time, my prayers were for healing and strength to get me through the next agonizing moments of my life.  There were even times when I prayed for death.  Clearly, missing the middle of a story, a date night, or a joke on the toilet was not what I would call living.  Life was filled with more pain than peace.  There were times when I just wanted it all to end, Lord willing of course.  Apparently, God answered my prayers in a different way.     

6.  Think about your life

Plenty of moments were spent thinking about what was the purpose of my life?  Why me?  Why am I going through this?  What is the point of having a disease that makes me shit uncontrollably?  Is this real life?  Seriously, I really have a disease that makes me shit uncontrollably!  My life was like a cruel joke.  All that time, spent shitting uncontrollably, gave the time to come up with my theory on why this was happening to me.

It’s the Devil!  Pretty much it is his entire fault.  Yes, God did allow the Devil to slowly kill me from the inside out, but he was using my disease for good. 

5.  Study

Who am I kidding?  I didn’t study on the toilet.  If I tried to study on the toilet, not only would that add to my misery, but I’d probably have toilet seat butt from falling asleep sitting down.  It would not surprise me if someone in a similar position as me would study while dropping a bomb.  When you spend as much time on the toilet as we IBDers do, you find ways to make that time productive.  Sometimes that means being creative.  Hence, we have the chapter of the Top Ten Things to do on the Toilet.

4. Watch a movie

Now, I don’t really remember watching a movie on the toilet.  I do remember sitting my laptop outside of my bathroom door and watching Lost on DVD.  I was blessed enough to have my own bathroom being a Resident Assistant (RA) in a dorm with suites.  Huge BLESSING!  Trust me.  No one wanted to use the same toilet as me when I was done with it.  Anyway, back to the movie thing. Two and half seasons of Lost were watched in one summer RA session.  I couldn’t get into the third season so I moved on to other ways of occupying my poopy time.

3.  Singing

I find myself singing on the toilet all the time…in the comfort of my home bathroom anyway.  When I’m in a public restroom, I generally sing in my head.  I actually have a theme song.  “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” by the Gap Band, is generally the song the pops into my head.  Other favorites include, “You are my Sunshine, anything from the hymnal, and “Call Me Maybe.”  I just can’t get it out of my head.

I thought I'd include the music video for your viewing pleasure.  Enjoy!

2.  Facebook

You don’t have to have a chronic disease that makes you poop uncontrollably to Facebook while you ‘drop a bomb’.  I’m pretty sure this is a cultural norm these days.  I just hope that people are not touching their technical devices once they have started the wiping process and have washed their hands.  Gross!  As long as you don’t touch anything and are just sitting, then my OCD and I are on good terms.

1.  Play Catchphrase with your friends on the other side of the door.

This is by far the best thing to do on the toilet…especially if you have awesome friends like I do.  In preparation for my Ileostomy surgery, my dear friends Amber, Leanne, and of course Jeremy kept me company while the gallon of Miralax was working its magic.  We had played a few games while I was drinking the mixture of lime Gatorade and Miralax.  When the magic started happening, I sat on the toilet while they gave clues to the Catchphrase word.  This is my favorite game!  If I was going down in this bomb fight, at least I was going down playing a game I love. 

In all of this murky water, I was so thankful to have people supporting me!

Part 2: Depends

Hope, pride, and any modesty I had left were lost that day.  It triggered a change inside of me.  I was another step closer to a life changing decision.  Before, I could drastically change my life; I had more fighting to do.  With my pride already down the toilet, I decided it was time to depend on something more reliable than my elegant Victoria Secret underwear.  It was time for Depends.

Standing in line at the Walmart with my first package of size Small women’s Depends, my mind reminisced on the days I used to buy these for my grandma.  I hoped that’s what the cashier thought I was buying them for when the package came rolling up to the scanner.  Maybe the bottles of ensure along with the diapers would throw any thoughts that I was buying them for myself out by the wayside.  As I looked at my purchase, acting as nonchalant as possible, I couldn’t help but think that I was a 21 year old trapped in a sexy 70 year olds body.  This is my life now.  It’s official.  I’m a 21 year old, who wears diapers, trapped in a damn sexy 70 year olds body.

Once I returned my 70 year old intestines to the refuge that was my dorm room, I had to see the damage for myself.  As I exchanged my old life for my new life, I was surprised to feel how comfortable it was.  The commercials were right!  They look, fit, and feel just like real underwear!  Hahaha…Almost!  It actually wasn’t that bad.  No, they didn’t look, fit, or feel just like real underwear.  They looked like a diaper.  They fit like a diaper.  They felt like a diaper.  It really wasn’t that bad after a while, though, I told myself.  They were pretty comfortable, and I appreciated the extra junk in the trunk, since mine was quickly depleting from my drastic weight loss.  I could pull this off.  Besides, I didn’t buy them for their look, fit, or feel.  I bought them so I didn’t have to panic anymore.  I was covered.  Though wearing a diaper didn’t make me feel like the 21 year old I so desperately wanted to be, it did give me some of my life back.  They spared me from feeling warmth slither down my leg. I couldn’t help but depend on my depends.  I didn’t know it yet, but they were going to save me more than I expected.        

 

 

 

This video is hilarious! Pretty much sums it up.  :D

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20l6hujKvV0