Look at me growing up...

Something I finally learned last week that I wish I’d figured out years before. 

You do not have to be liked by everyone.

You do not have to be “the best”

Person in any number of situations

Patient

Customer

Neighbor

Friend

Communicator

Saint

Woman

Human

Etc...

And I figured this out as I was compliantly drinking 48 ounces of water to take a urine test I’d been unable to perform minutes earlier... so much water that I threw up! I thought, oh fuck no. Being 51 yrs old has to come in handy in some way and why not use it to say... I’m fucking 51 years old and you’re not the boss of me! You know, I’ll work on that last part a bit....

I can say:

Not today 

Can’t do your thing this way

Won’t put myself in this situation

I’m uncomfortable 

don’t speak to me like that

I don’t want to

I just can’t bend over backwards to do this thing so that you’ll like me better.

If my needs or boundaries upset you, I’m ok with that and I won’t feel guilty, embarrassed, sad etc... 

I felt as though a load, more that 45 ounces, was taken off my back and boy, did I use this new found freedom in the hospital! 

Advocate for yourself. That’s why God gave you a mouth. Yes, my husband can absolutely step in to advocate if all else has gone into the ditch. And if that happens, I won’t feel badly about that either.... but I most certainly won’t allow much to ever go off the ditch. This I do know!

I had a good hospital experience overall. 

I agreed that I was in no shape to leave the hospital as scheduled or the next day or the next.....

My doctor is very good. My anesthesiologist was the most thorough, intelligent, calming, empathic, doctor who needed to make sure that not only myself, but my family, understood what he was going to do. That he saw things that were concerning enough to tell me that I needed to know that he was going to be prepared just in case. As an example, my throat is very small and I easily choke. He made note to not use his go to tube size. Told me that he can see by looking at my pallet that I stop breathing when sleeping. It’s formed slightly incorrectly. It slopes where it should not. He said that he’d never leave me, make it his sole responsibility to see that I lived through the surgery and god damn, if he didn’t! My surgery took seven hours. I needed 2.5 hours in recovery just to be brought out of the anesthesia. I told everyone to not give me morphine because I could not come out of another surgery screaming for help.

He promised that he wouldn’t let me wake up mid surgery and I hadn’t even asked my burning question! I knew we were soul mates!

I came out slowly and increasingly aware that he was still with me. When I tried to say... “im drowning” and the nurse snapped at me to say “ I heard you the first time” ( had I said it more than once?) and I snapped back WITH a tube down my throat, “ then Help me!” he told her to get off her “fucking ass”and suction me

soul mates. 

And I didn’t even know at that point that I’d died... although I did have knowledge that something... some thing.... had gone very bad.

Until next time,

Tracy