The Dreaded Weed Pulling Saturday

The Saturday that changed it all started off as a normal Saturday. I got up later than normal, went down the stairs to have breakfast, showered, and got dressed into comfortable clothes. I had prepared myself for a relaxing day. That did not happen however.

Dad gathered all us kids in the lounge and told us that instead of cleaning like we usually do on Saturdays (yes, my parents often make us clean the house on Saturday mornings) we were going to tackle the weeds in the front garden instead. So we got some gardening gloves, a couple of spades (both big and small), some gardening shears and eventually, when we realized how tough the weeds/vines were, an axe. 

We got to work splitting up and trying different methods for pulling the weeds out. We pulled at them, hacked at them with the spades, dug around their bases, trying to release them from the dirt. We even had the boys chopping at them with the axe (dad didn't let us girls try much). The weeds were stubborn and often refused to let go of the ground they were in. We made progress but it was minimal and it felt like this job would take forever to complete. It was difficult work and finally, when dad saw that we were getting to the point of having very little energy left, he told us we could go in for lunch once is had pulled all the normal weeds out of the only portion of the small garden that didn't have these tough weeds in it. And he meant every single tiny little weed. So I got to work and after a short while, Holly (my sister aged 9) came to help me. A little while later we asked for dad to check it. He pointed out a few more weeds and once we had pulled those out he finally let us go and get some lunch. 

I was so happy to be free. Unfortunately that weed pulling experience didn't just get me out of breath and tired.

The next day, we went to church and after worship, I headed to my youth class. As I sat there listening to the preacher speak and, if I remember correctly, eating a donut that they had brought (they sometimes did bring donuts), I moved my hand slightly and felt a burst of pain in the area below my thumb. At first I ignored it and continued to listen to the leader. But the pain didn't go away and it flared up again when I moved my wrist again. It was awful. When I got back to mum I told her and sometime in the next couple of days she took me to the doctor who gave me a diagnosis. I had tendonitis. He gave me a brace and told me to wear it for 4-6 weeks. Let's just say that brace didn't work. And that was the start of a painful yearlong journey.

Time Travel

If you could go back in time and change something would you? I've been asked this question many times about many different things. Although no one's ever asked me this question about my journey this past year, I have thought about it. When you are answering this question, you don't usually think about it for very long before answering and for most people the answer is yes, no matter what it is you are talking about. Sure in romantic movies we see someone saying they wouldn't want to change anything because it brought them to each other but in real life that's not usually the case. At the beginning of my journey when I first got tendonitis, I would have been very excited to go back and not pull those weeds had I been given the choice. However, now that I can step back and look at everything that's happened since last March, I'm not sure my answer would be the same. Sometimes what happens is best left happening. I'm not saying everything happens for a reason, I'm saying that there are usually good things that come from the bad things and sometimes it's worth going through the pain to get the reward at the end. For example, while in New Zealand getting therapy for my complex regional pain syndrome, the doctor who was head of my therapy team wanted to prescribe a medicine that can sometimes slow down your heart. To make sure this was safe for me he sent me to have an ECG taken of my heart. For most people, the medicine slowing down your heart would be fine but for some people who have a slower heart already, it can be dangerous. When he first checked the ECG he said I was fine but he called us back the next day and told me to stop taking the meds and to schedule a cardiologist appointment just to check that I was fine. It was during this appointment that they found out that my aorta is severely enlarged. While this is obviously not a good thing, knowing about it is. Many people die from this unknowingly. Because your aorta is your main artery, when it pops you die extremely fast, so if you don't know that you have an enlarged aorta you don't know to be careful or to have surgery. Since there isn't any symptoms it often isn't discovered. Fortunately for me, the problems in my shoulder eventually lead them to finding it. This means when my aorta grows to an unsafe level, I will be able to get surgery and have it fixed. Them finding my enlarged aorta means I can be aware of what's going on in my body and stay in control about it. So while having my shoulder pain was horrible, I wouldn't go back and change what happened. And maybe next time someone asks me whether or not I would go back and change something I'll say no. It might not mean anything yet but you never know what will happen in the future so you might as well start changing your mindset now. Next time someone asks you that, think about the good things that have happened since the time in question. Would they have happened if that time had been changed? Are they worth all the bad things? Maybe you'll find that your answer will change.

Project Reflection

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on my project, I have discovered 3 things. First of all I have discovered what it is like to write about my experience. I was not expecting to enjoy this part of the project. I have hard a really hard time going through what I have been through and I in no way thought that going over it would be a good idea for me. I thought going over it would bring back all the horrible times and make me go through it again. I thought by writing about my situation I might be helping others but I would be put back through torture. However, this was not the case. While I’m not specifically enjoying writing about my experiences, I’m not hating them either. While there’s not a huge relief at sharing them it’s not horrible to be able to share them with someone who isn’t going to immediately start saying how horrible their life is. So there’s that.

Another thing I have found while doing this project is that it’s not as hard as I thought to run a website. Although my website isn’t exactly a popular one, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so easy to create and run a website of my own. While doing this project I have also started up three other websites which are fake news websites for my favorite book series, The Lunar Chronicles, Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus, and The Land of Stories. It’s been fun to play around with both these and my project site making them look how I want them to. Although having them on a free website builder means I don’t have as much freedom, it’s been nice to see what I can do without having to pay a penny. I would suggest that other people try making websites too, whether it be a blog or something else. It’s a great way to spend your time.

The final thing I’ve learned is that sometimes, when you’ve got something to offer, it’s best to offer it, even if it’s not something you want to do. When I first started this project it wasn’t what I wanted to do. My original idea had been to create a site where I suggested books to readers and nonreaders. I had some ideas on how to make it more original and how to make it something you couldn’t find anywhere else. I started this project early because I was so excited about it. But I quickly found out that it wasn’t the right project for me because none of the suggestions were really all that good. Part of the idea was to suggest books to read if they had already read the book at the bottom of the page describing that book. This wasn’t working either because I didn’t have enough knowledge of books to suggest books similar to the book in question. I would always have a couple of suggestions but never enough.

So that’s what I’ve learned about my project so far. To see my actual site click the link on the side of the page.

Interview With My Mentor

My mentor is my mother. She has been with me through my whole medical and personal journey (in fact, she's been with me my whole life). Throughout my journey, she collected all my records and dealt with our offshore insurance. This meant paying for my doctor's visits, collecting all of the receipts, scanning the receipts onto the computer and emailing them through to the insurance. It also involved many long phone calls to the insurance company and a lot of bad music. Mum also dealt with my personal problems (things such as the loss of friends, the stress of trying to manage pain, school, and doctors appointments, and frustration at missing multiple days of AP World History [basically a college level class UPrep students take in sophomore year]). She did all this and still found time to volunteer at Bethel Christian School and Bethel Church, run her own Kingdom in the Classroom conference, cook for her family, and tend to the problems of three other kids. If this doesn't qualify her to be a mentor for this project, I don't know what does.

Here's the interveiw (my questions are in bold Mum's answers are italicized):

Do you think you are the best choice to be my mentor? Why or why not?

"Yes, because I have been intimately involved with your journey and can remind you of some of the things that happened along the way that you might have forgotten. And I know the medical stuff."

How much medical background do you have?

"I have a degree in physiology and anatomy and I spent a year in medical school so I have a pretty good understanding. I find the human body and how it works fascinating so I have a pretty good understanding of how things work inside the body."

How do you think you can best help me with this project?

"I think I can help you by encouraging you to tell your story, that you have got something to offer other people who are going through a similar journey. I can help you by asking you questions and reminding you of things that helped along the way and things that you discovered along the way."

What are you willing or going to do to help me with this project?

"I think the biggest thing is to encourage you that telling your story can turn the pain into something that is of benefit to others and of benefit to you so I think encouragement is the biggest thing. You know how to write really well your dad's taught you some website stuff so I don't feel like I need to be involved with those pieces but the encouragement piece of this being a healthy thing for you and for others, I think that's where I fit in. I believe that we could go back through the medical records and see the timeline, the progress of what happened and track that down."

Tell me a bit about yourself...

"I'm a mother of four. I have a bit of a medical background, but now I, apart from being a mum, I work with teachers and enjoy helping them to be the best teacher they can be. I enjoy walking and hiking and reading and killing zombies...on plants vs. zombies."

Fun Question: If you were to do the 20% project, what would you do?

"That's a pretty hard question (bark bark from the dog as I unlock the door for my younger sister). I guess in some ways I am already doing my 20% project because I'm doing something in my work with teachers that's unpaid that's a project, hopefully, that helps them, that encourages them to see themselves as I believe they are, as powerful people, people who have the power to influence (unlock the door as you go out so we won't have to unlock it again [said to my sister]). So probably that. But there's all sorts of worthwhile causes and things that I could easily get involved with and be passionate about." 

So that's my interview with my mentor (my mum). My website is now set up on a free site builder called wix. Here's the link http://mystory2015.wix.com/myjourneythroughpain Enjoy!