So, yesterday I said something about knowing that God has a purpose and I just need to show up for it. Sometimes I wonder if God can use me. If He even wants to but then I remember a particularly challenging time in my life and I have to acknowledge that I don't think God would put me through all that if He didn't have a plan. On the other hand, I have to ask myself if what I went through was the consequences of my own choices. Or, was I meant to make those stupid choices so that the story would play out as it did? I have pondered that question for years and just when I think when I think I have answered that question I start wondering agian. Here's what I mean..
When I was a kid wearing a seatbeat was an option and it's an option I rarely ever chose. I continued not wearing a seatbelt into my 20's. 1 day Steven and I were in the car and I wasn't paying attention and before I knew it my head hit his windshield. He avoided an accident but his windshield had a crack in it and my head and face were the only word I can put to it is numb. I believe I started wearing a seatbelt after that, at least most of the time. LOL Anyway, life went on.
  I had been experiencing these wierd symptoms for several years and no one really took it seriously. I got so tired of hearing "you are just depressed" or "you just don't want to take care of Heather by yourself".  I didn't really think much about my head hitting the windshield until a few years later when I was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation Type 2 on a fluke. I had a regularly scheduled appointment with my doctor and he looked at my eyes and told me that my eyes were bouncing. He said "that's called Nystagmus. I'm ordering an MRI" That was in February of 2001. I got a diagnosis and the phone number to a brain surgeon. I got on the internet and started researching Chiari and it all started making sense. The dizziness, the fatigue, the headaches, the ringing in my ears, the not being able to come up with a word to finish a sentence. So, surgery was scheduled for May 23, 2001. There was no guarantee that I would be cured. There wasn't even a guarantee that the surgery would alleviate my symptoms. So why have brain surgery on a bunch of "maybe's"? I had to try. I had been miserable for the last few years and if I didn't have the surgery then no one was going to realize let alone acknowledge that I really had been sick. Looking back, I guess that wasn't a real solid reason to let someone cut into my head. I mean, the goal was to get better not to receive validation for the existence I had been living. Right? Hindsight is 20/20 and from where I sit now I realize my motives were misguided. I guess I am not very proud of that. If I had it to do over again would I make the same choice? I don't know because the 28 days after surgery were hell.
 I woke up to being in the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. I remember the tears welling up in my eyes. All I could say was "I hurt." To this day I wouldn't wish that pain on someone I do not like. Having gone through the same surgery a year later with virtually no pain I am left to wonder if the pain didn't come from having gone to sleep completely stressed out. I will leave those reasons to another blog LOL This one is about physical struggles, So, after surgery, things went from bad to worse. My Oxygen Saturation level went down to 54. It is supposed to be in the 90's. They put me on a ventilator not knowing if I was going to pull through. Obviously I did :) You're familliar with that adage, "if it's not 1 thing it's anothe, right?" Well, that ended up being true in this case. After my levels straightened out then I contracted MRSA. My doctor knowing that MRSA anywhere in the body is not a good thing but especially so close to my brain, put me on the most powerful antibiotic he had. Vancomyacin. Problem solved, right? No, problem gets more complicated because I have an allergic reaction to the Vancomyacin. Not just an itchy skin reaction either. No, I have to do it up right! LOL I quit breathing. So, again I have to be ventilated and they have to figure out how to eradicate a staph infection before it causes permanent damage to my brain with drugs that aren't all that powerful. Thus the 28 days..it took forever...
 I wanted to have that surgery because I wanted acknowledgement that I was really sick and so I did and I spent next 28 days fighting for my life. I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted to be noticed. I knew I wanted to survive but I'm not sure that getting better was even on my radar because at the time I thought that if I were healthy and not needy then I would be forgotten. Maybe that's why I still had 2 more brain surgeries and a stroke in my future. You think?