No, I Just Wear This Sling As A Fashion Statement

To give you all a gauge of time in this everlasting story, this was now around October of 2012. I was in my most favourite class, Human Computer Interaction 2, this semester. It was great because I could work on such interesting and new technologies, and it was also so fast paced with so much work that I cried from it a couple times. That's how you know if it's a good class: it breaks your soul.

I was still in my sling at this time, but mostly just while I walked around so that no one decided to body check me into the lockers or something. You really never know with people. When I got to class or work, I'd sit down and take it off so I could type and pretend to be a normal person.

At this point, I was thinking about the poster that I had seen. There was an information session coming up about a very fantastic company that I'd always wanted to work for. I'd talked to my parents about it and my Dad decided to come with me so he could write notes.

The day of the session rolled around and we went to the school together, then sat in a small classroom where it was taking place. There were a LOT of people. They had pizza and drinks on the table, and then proceeded to tell us about this place that they wanted us to apply at. It sounded amazing, though there were only 3 position types and none of them were exactly what I wanted to do. That wouldn't stop me though. I listened to a lot of people's questions, Dad and I made fun of a couple under our breaths. Then we were able to go, and discuss things with the presenters if we so chose. My dad went off and let me wait for people to finish asking their questions of one of the people. So I waited. This guy was in a Program Manager position, which I figured I would fit into the best, despite not having any business background. After a while, he looked at me and says "Wow! What did you do?", gesturing at my sling. I responded "Oh, nothing, I just wear it for fashion." Immediately after saying it, I decided I was an idiot, but thankfully he found it really funny. I told him what I actually had, and he looked a little blown away. I asked a couple of things, like how much my minor would help me and what the medical support from the company was, and that was that!

I honestly didn't think anything would happen from putting my resume in, but a short while later I got an email from Microsoft saying that I was chosen for an interview for the position of PM. I freaked, yelled at my parents to come read it, fist pumped, etc. And then I got really scared. I didn't have a job for after University yet, which was fast approaching, and I really wanted to work here! So I started getting prepared. I made a paper portfolio and practiced thinking about interfaces. And went shopping for interview clothes, of course. The day of the interview rolled around and I was strangely calm. I'd given myself lots of time between a class and the interview so I could be sitting in the seat early.  I won't give you too much insight into the interview itself. I'll just say it went pretty good. I left thinking it was one of the better interviews I've done, and left it at that in my mind. After that, I went home and told my parents and brother how it went.

About a week later, I got another email from Microsoft saying I'd been chosen for a second interview... in Seattle! I had to do so much for this, fill out forms, tell them when I was okay to go and how long I'd stay for. My mom decided to come with me for this because then I wouldn't be alone and she could shop.  The time flew by very quickly for this, and soon I was at the airport boarding the plane with my mom. We took off, and I immediately got a searing pain in my shoulder. Mom said "I guess she doesn't like flying", which we both found quite funny. We landed in Seattle and took a cab to the hotel. It took forever. I'm sure we didn't even go far, but it felt like we went from Calgary to Edmonton. Really, we went to Bellevue and got dropped off at this amazing hotel. I can't stress that enough... the hotel was beautiful. We had great views of the city and dogs in down coats and mini umbrellas. Yes, I'm serious. The dogs were dressed warmer than the people walking them.

The trip was a little whirlwind. We did a bunch of shopping and saw a friend, but the main part of the trip was obviously the interview itself. I won't tell you about the inner workings of the interview, because I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't appreciate that, but just know I met a really nice Masters student from my school who was also going for an interview in Bellevue. I'll save the stories from this too, though they were hilarious and involved tanning beds and snow sharks. It was one of the best experiences of my life, and solidified in my mind that at this point of my life, there was no place I'd rather be than Calgary. You know, I don't get Seasonal Depressive Disorder, but I felt very depressed from the minute we touched down. Calgary is a very sunny place, and apparently Seattle can too, but it sure wasn't while we were there. I'm also so happy Mom was with me, because she was with me from the second I joined the other interviewees (it was kinda like the first day of school) to when I got back and texted her. She jumped in a cab (who she'd made wait for her while she was outlet shopping) and came back as fast as she could. It made me realize that with all the big moments in my life, my family had been there for me. Whether it was my health problems, getting into University, or going for an interview in Seattle, they were always there. And I'm not ready to give that up. I've had a lot of people come and go in my life, and no matter what, they're still there.

So after Mom and I went to the Microsoft store (it's like heaven for me) and got our matching Surfaces, we got back in the cab and got back on our plane. My donor seemed to have gotten over her fear of flying because my shoulder didn't hurt. On the way home, I tried to make a plan in my head about what I was going to do for a job when I graduated. I had four months left to get a job. And I was in for quite a surprise when I got back.

Aaaaaahhh-Choo-ooowwwwwwwww!

I have heard that bone grafts are the most painful surgery you can get. I'd always assumed that only applied to people who had the bone removed from elsewhere on their body.  I was wrong. Here's a list of things you should never do after getting a bone graft:
1) Sneeze
2) Cough
3) Laugh
4) Shrug
5) Think about your shoulder enough to make it twitch a bit
6) Drop something in front of you and try to catch it with the graft-arm
7) Move, ever
8) Breathe
9) Cry from the pain of the aforementioned motions
I'm pretty sure I did all these things when I woke up from the surgery. It takes time to figure out you don't have an arm to use, so you keep trying to use it until you feel the pain.

I woke up in recovery with the feeling that the bone disease was gone. It was incredible. I could instantly tell the difference. But man was I out of it. I slept a TON and eventually a nurse came over and told me they didn't have a room for me yet, which was why I was still chilling in recovery. I realized it had been a couple hours since surgery already.  Eventually my surgeon came in and was livid that I didn't have a room yet. He basically went out and called the nurses station of where I was headed, demanding a room. He's awesome.

Eventually I started rolling towards my room. It had taken a long time, but I was on my way to a nice, peaceful rest. I'm kind of making this sound like death... I didn't die, I swear. I got to my room with my family in tow. They told me it had been six hours since I rolled into my surgery, and that they were happy I was okay. Apparently they weren't told anything, though how could they be? Recovery wasn't about to call them, or let them in. Oh well. The acute pain services people came in and hooked up a morphine drip. This is the first time I've had one of these, where you hit the button if you're feeling pain. I was super hesitant to use it, but they told me I should because soon I was going to be in a TON more pain. So I did.

It didn't take long to get back to sleep. My family left relatively soon because I was exhausted. So I slept the night away, waking up occasionally to wonder why an older lady kept coming to my door. The next day I woke up and went home early, with a bunch of pills in my pocket.

I was in a sling for a long, long time. I have issues wearing that sling because it hurts my elbow, but I had the block this time so I got to wait a few blissful days until the feeling came back to my arm. I say arm because a couple fingers still had pins and needles or no feeling at all for about a week, which wasn't much help except that it made me think about them all the time on top of thinking about the shoulder. My family was extremely helpful. My boyfriend came in a couple times but he was quite hesitant about the whole thing. He wanted to go to a music store about a week after my surgery and I went because I figured he'd driven all that way to come and see me, so I should make him happy. Things like that were super tiring.

I went back to work relatively quickly.. I think it was a week. My boss told me I could so long as I didn't tell people that they beat me up. Work made me happy, it made me feel normal again. I had so many people in the building tell me about their surgeries, specifically the ones they thought I'd gotten (rotator cuff, dislocated shoulder, etc). I had one professor calling me Gimpy. It was great.

I went back to school about a week after that. School was just starting, and it was my last year. I didn't expect the workload of one of the classes, but to be honest, it was completely worth it. I remember them being so scared when I was able to start taking off my sling for comfort reasons, and to type. But I did that quickly, because I hate typing with one hand.

The worst part of this recovery was the fact that I couldn't drive for six weeks. My cab driver neighbour would take me home after school, and my dad would take me there every morning. This meant that I couldn't stay at school late or go early, and also made me hate needing to depend on other people. But really, who likes having to depend on people, right?

One final thing happened during this time was my ex-boyfriend that kept texting me decided to email me. He told me that the reason he'd been trying to get a hold of me was that he had gotten a diagnosis for asperger's, and that he'd finally realized because of it that he'd treated me badly and wanted to apologize. I read it a few times and realized I could take two paths with this. I could ignore it, just like his texts and attempts to chat, as he'd told me he would be fine with me doing in the email. Or I could respond and talk to him about it. I thought about a lot of things with this, but mostly my mind was stuck on how people treated me when they found out about my health problems. I imagined how I would feel had I sent an equivalent email, and how I would feel if a person ignored me. And finally, I thought about the support system that I was aware of him having and how I thought they would react to this news. In the end, the decision was quite easy. I emailed him back and told him that all was forgiven, and then did my best to give him a few pointers about being diagnosed with a major health issue that I had learned along the way. There are people that I know that still refuse to forgive him and don't understand why I did, but in my opinion there was no question about what needed to be done. I could continue on this thread, but just know that I feel there is no fault in what he did, and I hope that he is able to find help, support, and peace with his own health problems. The rest of his story is his story to tell.

After this happened, I went downstairs to head towards my awaiting neighbour. On my way down, I passed a sign for an information session about a potential employer. Naturally, I tore down every sign I could find and stashed it in my bag... no just kidding. I took a picture of it with my phone and made a mental note to discuss this with my parents. I had no idea about the series events this picture would lead to, but I now know that it was likely one of the most important pictures of my life.

How's It Going? Why Is Your Face So White? Did He Hit My Jugular?

So August 28th rolled around. I made sure to get a lot of sleep before and hang out with my cat as much as I could. I threw balls left handed, juggled left handed, cooked with only my left hand... no, wait, I didn't do those things. I just thought I should try it while I had it. I was very prepared for this surgery in my mind.

We strolled into the hospital at the balmy hour of 2am (more like 6am, but there's not really a difference) and got checked in.  Sitting in bed waiting for the surgery to start, I was so excited. It's hard to explain how you can be excited for a surgery. Most people in that room are sitting there being scared out of their minds, but not me. I was about to have my shoulder stop being a bitch. It was finally time!

The holding room nurse starting giving me an IV. I hate IV's. Not because I find them painful, but because my veins tend to decide they won't get an IV before surgery. So this guy tried to give me one and succeeded! But shortly after, my vein blew. My arm started swelling up and hurting and I was like "um, sir?" He ripped it out of me and said the anesthetist would do it. Poor guy. I really am a dream killer.

They wheeled me into the holding area to go into surgery, and Mom and Dad were both beside me. We talked to the anesthetist and he decided that the best thing to do for pain relief during and after the surgery was a block. It would freeze my entire left arm for a few days and I wouldn't feel a thing.  In order to do it, they had to put a needle in my neck and there was a chance of them accidentally nicking my jugular and killing me.  As much as I'm making this sound not very appetizing, the block sounded perfect, so we said yes.  Then the surgeons walked in. I don't know if you've ever met surgeons, and maybe it's just my surgeons, but I've never met a group of more excited, happy people in my life. The two that were doing this one were hilarious. My usual shoulder surgeon is just great, a barrel of laughs really, and the other one really made an impression this day.  He came in, having driven from the city that his practice is in, and show us the instructions he would be using to do the graft surgery. The paper was all wet and crinkled, and he told us that was because he'd had the papers in his back seat with his dog, who was wet. But we needn't worry, because he could still read them quite well.  This cracked up all of us. There's a reason I let these people work on my joints, and part of it is because I just like them so much.  So they signed my left shoulder and told me it was time for the block.

They wheeled me behind a curtain, then told me to look to the right. I could only see Dad, who stood there for moral support, but I could hear Mom's voice behind me, as she was standing within the curtain. I also heard the voice of my anesthetist and two more doctors.  They had to ultrasound my neck as they did it to make sure they didn't kill me.  I could see my Dad's face and it was going whiter and whiter. I could also hear the doctors talking about how not to hit important parts of my body with the needle. After what seemed like twenty minutes but I'm pretty sure was only 5, I heard "we're done!" and I started not feeling my arm. Voila! I'd give a thumbs up at the point but my had was frozen so it was more of a thumb-play-dead. Surgery time.

My nurse rolled me down the hall and near the OR, and I jumped off the trolley. We walked into the room, making sure to bring my trusty sling, and I approached the "bed". I put it into quotations because the bed for my shoulder surgeries is actually more of a chair. Once you jump on onto it and they strap you down and put everything into you and onto you, they lay it back and it's more of a bed. It's just better to get you in position for the surgery. So I got positioned and got all ready to go.  Sometimes I find those surgeries a little uncomfortable in that chair because there's people putting things all over your body and you just kinda have to take it.  Gravity likes to give you a hard time with the gown too.  But eventually everything was in position, and they started giving me the drugs. I remember up to the forgetting drug again, but not to where I got to count. That guy is pretty good.

I feel a bit awkward about giving the gory details of this surgery on my blog. If I do succeed in making this a book, I will enhance it and put them in there, at least as much as I know. Just know that someone else's shoulder magically became mine! With the help of some very talented people.

When I woke up, I was shocked. I could immediately feel no bone disease pain. I knew it was a success.  It was a good thing we had done it. They ended up replacing 70% of my humeral head. All that bone was either gone or ruined from my bone disease. I woke up with the graft in, the sling on, and a massive, wet/dry bandage stuck to my arm. I couldn't even peek. All I could do was snuggle back down into my hospital bed and await the 6 weeks of pain and sling-ness that I had coming for me.

That's What My Gall Bladder Looks Like? Are They Always That Happy?

So this is a little embarrassing, but I messed up the timing a little bit in my last post. I removed the last paragraph of the last one. Forget what I said about heading towards February... I got the timing of the gall bladder surgery wrong! It's embarrassing when you have so many surgeries that you get them mixed around. Oops!

So I went into the new year quite happily! My school schedule wasn't too challenging, I was learning about how to make robots take over the world, and I was heading back and forth to Hanna every other weekend.  I figured out that not only does lengthy highway driving put a lot of strain on my joints, Hanna in general puts a lot of strain on my migraines. But I decided it was okay, because I was pretty into this guy, so I'd just live with it. So, zoom zoom.  School was pretty fantastic, I was in a lot of art classes, and I was starting to get grades that were high enough that I was thinking of going to grad school in a few years after University.  I was still taking a few group things at the pain clinic and I was doing one on one stuff with my doctor now, and they were helping in ways I'd never dreamed! So my first semester of my first year motored on quite smoothly, and I hit summer pretty quickly.  And summer is where everything blew up.

I started out by seeing my gall bladder surgeon. He told me that I did indeed have stones, and it was likely from the steroids I had from the brain surgery. My daily attacks would likely be cured by a gall bladder removal, he said, so we should definitely take it out. Then he drew a little picture for me on the bed that looked like a smiley face. I said "okay."  So I walked out and texted my parents, saying "woot, surgery number 5." Someday we hope to remove the sarcastic bone in my body, but that wouldn't be this surgery. I now had a solid date to take this baby out of me! I was pumped! I told them to put me in line to get the surgery, and if it came up before I got my call for my shoulder, then I'd get this.  Sounds perfect! Right?  I mean, I'd been waiting so long for my shoulder and I hadn't got my call, so why would I get it now?

Of course, when you're thinking something won't happen, it happens.

So a little while later, in the summer of 2012, I got my call. I was so excited. They told me that a shoulder became available and that I should get prepared. They said there was still more tests to do on it and they would tell me in a week if it was good, but I should be ready to get surgery within a month. I can't even explain how I felt. I called my parents, then I called my brother, and we were all just ecstatic. I got everything ready for work so they'd know I was away. I was ready. I couldn't have been more ready. And when they didn't call after a week I started telling myself it just meant good news, that they'd forgotten to call because they were busy getting it ready for surgery. My parents weren't so optimistic. They started telling me to not be too excited. There would be another time.  I shouldn't be heartbroken if it didn't work out this time

I already was.

They called a week and a half after that first call, and told me the bone didn't pass it's tests. I was sitting at the top of my stairs, and all I could say was "okay. Thank you."  I cried for a long, long time. It wasn't just me that didn't get a donor that day, it was a lot of people. I'm sure all of us were crushed. I understand the process, but it was like they handed me the world and then said "oops, that's not good enough for you, sorry. No replacements." Eventually I called Mom and told her. She could tell how terrible I felt, and she felt terrible for me. Poor Mom. She's really always been the cushion I fall on, every time.

Over the next month or so, I took some time to just calm down from the whole thing. I still had this gall bladder to look forward too (right? That's what you do for surgery, right? Look forward to it?) so I couldn't be totally dismayed.

At the end of July, something extremely unexpected happened... I got another call! I went through the whole cycle again, calling everyone, being excited. After waiting so long for the first call, what were the odds that the second call would happen after only a month? I got everything ready, and I was optimistic. For some reason I just felt that this time, it was going to work out. I have bad luck, but I don't have THAT much bad luck.  Mom was cautious like a deer in front of all the headlights in the world. She said she just didn't want to see me hurt again. I totally got that, but I just didn't want to be scared and hurt anymore.  We started looking through the obituaries and watching the news to see if we could maybe find who it was that my graft came from. For bone grafts, the donor could only be in Southern Alberta, which is why it's so important to sign your donor card. We think we found her, because (assuming she was from Calgary) there could really only be one person that could have been a donor for me.  The situation of the woman that we found was eerie in a way that made even Mom think it was maybe meant to be.

A week later, I got the second call. It was a go! I was to get the surgery August 28th. Both my regular shoulder surgeon and the surgeon in charge of the graft clinic was to do the surgery. I was ready! I put only healthy things into my body for the next few weeks. The Chronic Pain Center told me that they would assist for pain control after the surgery.  I called my gall bladder surgeon and told him that I'd have to hold off for a bit. There was really nothing that could go wrong!  I should stop thinking those words!

No matter how prepared I thought I was, I wasn't prepared. But I was definitely ready to have my shoulder stop dislocating and have my life back in order. All I could think was: bring it on!

If I'm An Artist Now, Does That Mean I Need To Wear A Beret And A Turtleneck? Because I Look Awesome In Berets.

So, getting back to the story, I'll actually let you back in on the timeline.  In my mind, the times get a bit muddled around this part because the depression part of my life seemed to stretch out for years.  In reality, it had only been eight months.  Once I started getting back on my feet (quite literally) and getting into my life again, I had some fun things happen.

I met a new guy, for one. He's not super important on the boyfriend scale, but he did become a really awesome friend and a really supportive person.  There have been a few people in my life like this (my nurse friend, my friend from computer science, my work husband from the uni, my Seattle friend, some family friends who are ALWAYS supportive and there for me, and of course, my own family, immediate and extended), but to be honest, people like this are just so few and far between that it's worth it to mention.  He made me feel normal, and still does. When I told him about my health stuff, he nodded and said "everyone has stuff." But then he was also the first person to text when I had surgeries. He made me realize how bad I'd had it with Josh, so he came in at a good time in my life.  I'm not going to say a lot about him in this, but he'll show up in the future briefly.

Another awesome thing that happened was I decided to add an art minor to my school.  This is a huge thing in my life because I'm not very artistic.  I wanted to better myself and step out of my element. A lot of amazing people that I know are artists, and I really respect them, so I did feel like I had a lot of hard work to do to get anywhere near the realm that they were in.  The title of this post is symbolic of what people think before they do anything artistic. Artists are some of the most creative and hard working people. It's only the one's that are obsessed with their image that wear the beret's and turtlenecks. Josh had previously wanted me to finish school asap so we could work on paying off his debt and he could go to school again, but now I was ready to add on to my degree.

One thing I did that I never thought I'd do is I got a tattoo on my left inner wrist. It says Fight.  I used to write this on my wrist all the time because it gave me strength when I needed it, and I needed it a lot. One day I decided I was wasting a lot of ink, and I may as well just waste a little and get it put on permanently.  I've never regretted it, and I don't think I ever will. I look at it several times a day and feel a bit stronger.

On top of all this, I got a wicked new Smart car, Smarti.

Despite having so many great things going on, my life felt like a constant battle. I felt like I was trying to roll sideways up a steep hill because there was cheese at the top (I love cheese).  I had so many appointments at the pain clinic. They were all massively helpful but doing them between school and work and life was draining. I kept with it though because I knew I had to.  I didn't want to slide back down that hill and away from the cheese.

Around October or something, I got back in line for my left shoulder bone graft.  My parents were very hesitant about this, saying that I should just have some time to be me without surgeries, which I understood. However, my shoulder was still dislocating several times a day, so I was pretty ready to have that fixed.  Just as I respected their opinion, they respected my decision, so I jumped back in line and got ready for it. There was a hitch though: I also needed to get out my gall bladder now. Apparently the steroids I'd taken for my brain surgery and meningitis all those years ago had also given me gall stones. So I went and talked to my shoulder surgeon about timing, because I needed to know what would happen if I got my gall bladder out and my shoulder came in.  He assured me that they would do it after a minimal amount of recovery time, so I decided to go ahead with the gall bladder surgery.

For New Years of 2012, I decided to go to Hanna to hang out with my cousin one last time before she moved away.  I went to this big Hanna dance with them all, and I wore this tight, tiny blue dress.  I hardly hung out with her at all, because there was a lot of people she knew there and she was everywhere at once.  So I ended up hanging out with my other cousin and his friends. One of the people I hung out with was this guy that he'd known for a long time. I'd always heard stories about him but hadn't really talked to him. He was pretty shy and kept bringing me coke's all night (I wasn't drinking). At the end of the night I drove him home, even though you can walk anywhere in Hanna in about five minutes. It was cute.  I contacted him on Facebook a bit later (I realize now he was too shy to contact me) and we ended up hanging out in Calgary again. Then we started dating. I though it would be great to date someone long distance because there would be the added bonus of having no pressure to hang out all the time instead of focusing on school. I didn't account for all the driving time, mind you. That's fine though. So we started dating, and he and I started alternating driving back and forth from where he was, which was Red Deer for a couple months, and then Hanna for a long, long time. But you'll hear more about that in the future.

It was around this time that I got a text message from an ex, the one I dated for 2 years and a bit. He told me he wanted to talk to me and that he was sorry for everything that happened. This stressed me out terribly. I told him not to talk to me again, and even considered changing my phone number. It had taken me a long time to get to where I was in my confidence, and I just wasn't ready to have him bring it down again. In hindsight, I should have been more willing to listen.  You'll hear about that soon too.

So the clock ticked towards the new year, and I stared into my future with apprehensive but excited eyes.  I had a lot of stuff that was going to get done in 2012 whether I liked it or not.

Yeah, You'll Probably Just Be Alone For The Rest Of Your Life... High Five!

I had a lot of potential coming out of this time of my life, and for good reason.  It is extremely hard coming out of a deep depression, and you need a lot of things to look forward to.  I vividly remember being in my kitchen, leaning again my cupboard, having my family telling me I have a problem with my pills and with being depressed. My eyes stung with tears, my chest hurt, and I just felt helpless.  What was I supposed to do?  Well, I had a little ways still that I could go down, but I had a long ways that I could go up.  Luckily, I'd gotten rid of two big parts that were weighing me down, so it was time to swim.

I've had this happen a couple times in my life, though never to that extreme. One thing I've learned is to never let myself not work or not do things with my mind again.  Apparently I always need to be thinking or I get upset.  Some people need to exercise their body; I need to exercise my mind.  I'm interested to see where that will take me in life, but I guess that's likely going to be a different story.  Another thing I've learned from it is to nip it in the bud and start fixing things early.  This chapter will center around how I did that.

The first step I took wasn't actually under my control.  I got rid of Josh. I didn't realize it at the time but he was like the black hole of my happiness. Every time he came home he was just whining about his job and stuff, and he just made me so freaking miserable. I'd have to work to keep him happy, and then try to defend him to people. It was exhausting. So when he left, I was instantly several magnitudes happier, because I only had to focus on my own happiness and not his.

The next step I took was going to a psychologist. This was a very familiar step for me, I've gone to quite a few of these over the years. A lot of people call psychologist shrinks, which is stupid because they're very normal sized people, and they're quite helpful.  This guy specialized in trauma.  He talked through everything I'd gone through and everything I was going through with me and did some trauma techniques with me.  It was very helpful.  One thing we talked about was relationships and about whether or not I would find a husband that I would be with for the rest of my life. He told me most people divorce nowadays, and so it wasn't a bad thing to find a man for the now instead of for the forever. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with him, but it's definitely something I've kept in mind.  Not everyone can handle my health stuff, but that doesn't mean I can't be with them.

The next step I took is one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life, and if you're in chronic pain I strongly suggest taking this step.  I went to my family doctor (who is a complete hero in this story, she is the person who got everything in motion from the get go and essentially saved my life many times because of it).  I told her about my difficulties with the pain and the pills (which I'd now gotten control of) and how I just needed some help.  She immediately suggested the Chronic Pain Center, saying she'd refer me to it.  This is one of those things that I get emotional about when I mention it.  They're amazing! They give you group sessions so you can discuss techniques with other people to deal with your pain, such as sleep sessions, figuring out your triggers, meditation sessions, yoga, swimming even! And once you go through a bunch give you a team of doctors, physiotherapists, kinesiologists, occupational therapists, nutritionists, psychologists, nurses, etc. and all of them, ALL of them, specialize in PAIN!  I walked into that place a wounded animal and walked out a confident person.  The only issue I had with the place is I found a lot of people, mostly the ones who were a lot older than me, were extremely negative.  That's fine though, I tried to spread a little positivity wherever I went.  I have stories galore from this place, not about other people because I feel their stories are not mine to tell, but about me.  Unfortunately, you guys only have so much time to read this, so someday, if I ever make this blog a book, I'll delete this sentence and tell you a bunch of awesome stories.  The current outcome of the CPC, however, is that my pain has gone down and I'm able to manage it. I do have flare ups, of course, but I can deal with them better. That's absolutely amazing, and apparently a pretty rare outcome of this place (that the pain goes down).

One thing I should note about my time with the CPC: while here I saw the psychologist about my issue with relationships. She told me the exact opposite of the other psychologist, that there are men out there that can deal with health problems and there are men that can't, and there are also men that will target women that have them (eg. creeps).  I should be looking for the men that can deal with them and can make me feel normal.  I totally agree with this. I need to think about this long and hard though because there's apparently not a lot of guys in the world who can do that.

Another step I took was starting my charity, Team Kelli. I raise money for the Alberta Children's Hospital by selling wristbands (hopefully doing more in the future) and telling my story. I've raised almost $2 000 to date. The hospital has done so much for me in the past, and now I want to give back.

Finally the last step I took was writing this blog. I decided I'd gone through a lot in my life, and people have always told me I've been really positive and done really well.  After seeing things like people in hospitals and hearing stories of other people in similar situations, I decided to write this to hopefully help people see that you can be positive no matter what the circumstance, and that it will help you to push through and get to the greener side of the fence.  Nothing in life is easy, but if it was we wouldn't appreciate it. That's what makes life fun! So I hope by reading what I've written here, you've realized this for yourself and taken more risks, found more positives, and had your life become a bit better.  Or, missing that, you've at least found this an interesting read thus far.

I say thus far for a reason... one thing about my life that the only things that seem to be constants are bad luck, pain, and health problems.  I don't so much mind that, it gives me something to depend on.  Don't take that as a negative statement, please! More just as a statement that you'd only understand if you were in the situation.  I view pain as a level system. First it's excruciating and you just want to get rid of it. Then it's annoying, then tolerable. Eventually you don't notice it. Finally you're so used to it that it's one of your closest friends, always there with you, never leaving your side.  You get a bad grade? At least you can depend on your pain still being there. Friends ditch you? Pain didn't! It is weird, but that's what happens.

Anyway, I digress, as usual.  Back to my usual, happy self, I was back in school, back to work, and back to life! I could now focus on getting some of the things fixed in my messed up body.  And boy, was I going to get them fixed...

My Cat Doesn't Respond To Her Name, But She Does Respond To Smurf Face

Once we got home from the surgeon's appointment, I settled into the couch to await the surgery.  And when I say I settled in, I mean I settled the heck in.  There was a permanent imprint of my body shape on that couch.  I figured I'd be there for a while, so I may as well get used to it.

I had a pretty major revelation at this time: when things are really bad for you, that doesn't mean it can't get worse, and it definitely doesn't mean that you can't have other things happen to you.  This is something that should have been pretty obvious to me in the past, for so many reasons, but I decided that nothing more could touch me while I was sitting on that couch, so I was good.  And thus, when I got a kidney infection and started running super high fevers and hallucinating, I didn't really care or even pay attention to it.  This was right around New Years, about January 2nd, and for obvious reasons I don't have a huge amount of memories of it.  At the time, we were getting a railing attached to the wall going up the stairs so that I wouldn't fall down them if I was alone, and we were also getting the guest bedroom repainted so that we could use it as my living room (it's right beside my bedroom).  I remember Mom and Dad standing in the guest bedroom and me sitting against the wall.  They were talking about something, and I was looking up at Mom, thinking about how pretty the shapes were that were floating around her head.  She was watching me looking extremely worried and eventually got my attention, telling me that I was going to the doctor the next day.

So I went to the doctor the next day.  Whoever said the Canadian healthcare system sucks is a fool, they get you in when you need it.  I've had an awful lot of times where I've been extremely sick and needed healthcare, and they always get me in immediately in those cases.  Anyway, I digress. They sent me to get blood work, and they took pretty much all of my blood (not really, but it felt like it, they had to take it from both arms because I was so dehydrated, and I needed a cookie after).  Once I got home and settled back into the couch, they called me and told me to go to the hospital.  I remember Josh looked annoyed and I couldn't figure out why, but once he saw that I was looking at him, he looked worried.  Right, actor.  So we called my Mom and she came home, then her, Josh, and I went to the Peter Lougheed Emergency.  They took my name, gave me some orange juice and basically told me to drink as much as I could before I went in.  I feel like I waited a while, but it was only a couple of hours.  Mom and I were quite used to this.  Eventually I got to go in, where they pumped me full of antibiotics and fluids to get me hydrated and not infected any more.  Good times.  They kept sending Josh in to keep me company but he was such a downer and so bitter about being there the whole time that I kind of just wanted him to go home and just be there with Mom instead.  I'm pretty sure he felt the same thing.

I felt much better after this. They gave me more antibiotics to take at home, so we went back, I tucked into bed, and pretty much stayed there for the next five or so months.  I remember very few things about this because time started quickly blurring together and I wasn't doing much at all.  I really like watching people play video games, and Josh really liked playing them, so there was quite a few nights when he'd get home and I'd be on the couch or bed writhing in pain and he'd be playing the game, asking me if I was okay every few minutes.  I felt bad always because we both knew there wasn't anything that could be done; I wasn't okay but it's not like saying "No" was going to help anything, so I just gave the normal thumbs-up.  Painkillers didn't work well at all any more because I was in so much pain, so I started having to take 12 hour oxycontin pills a lot of the time. That was a huge hit on me because I basically took the dive into bigger pills and allowed my body to get hooked on them by necessity. I really started to hate myself because of that, because of the pain, and because of my relationship.  But I stuck with it, because really, what else could I do?

About two weeks before my surgery, I had a chat with my parents and Josh about talking to my doctor and maybe a psychologist about the depression I'd delved into. They were positive that once I was able to work and go back to school I'd be fine, but it would probably help. I was willing to try anything.  It's really hard to be helpless.

I finally went into my surgery in March. This sounds weird, but going in for surgery is one of the most familiar things in the world for me now, and it's almost calming.  It's interesting how they do it differently for different types as well, and I always notice these things before the surgery.  For this, they brought me in on the bed, as normal, and the pulled me over on the sheets so that I wouldn't need to do anything myself. This is so that I don't have to put my weight on my hip.  The bed is quite thin for this but it's a full bed, not a chair like it is for the shoulder.  They take you in, put you on the bed, and pull your arms out to the sides, putting on the blood pressure cuff on one and strapping down the other.  They told me once that they have to do this when you're awake now.  They ask you some questions to make sure you're you, and then the surgeon comes in, says hi, and starts talking into his recorder to take his pre-surgery notes.  You can hear your heartbeat going.  It's interesting, because as I type this I'm getting the feeling that I do when I lay on the bed, where my heart starts pumping and my headache gets light and to the top of my head.  I usually at this point start breathing in for four seconds and out for eight to slow down my heartbeat because it's going pretty quick.  Then the anaesthesiologist gives me the drug that will "calm me down" and everything goes a bit fuzzy and calm.  I remember thinking everything was going to be okay at this point because my surgeon (who is a giant, by the way, he's over 6 feet tall) was joking around with the other doctors and the nurses. He knew what he was doing. The nurse beside me said "See you in a few hours." I said "See you in a couple of minutes." I was out.

I hate waking up from hip surgeries. At least with this one I could feel my feet.  I always want to know what kind of dressing is on my wound, immediately, but with hip surgeries you can't feel that because they won't let you throw back the sheets and start poking around.  I got to find out how it went quite quickly, they must have told my surgeon I was awake, because he just about immediately came over to me.  He was so happy and excited, and told me it went the best it could have gone.  The arthroscopy completely fixed the tear.  I wouldn't need a replacement.  I was so excited!  All I had to do was recover, and I could move on with my life!

So we went home.  I was going to be sleeping on the air mattress in the office downstairs because I couldn't get upstairs.  Mom slept on it with me (it's a huge great air mattress, seriously, I'm taking that thing with me when I move out instead of my bed) in case I needed anything during the night.  Venus, one of our stupid cats, also decided that she wanted to help out in the middle of the night and jumped onto my chest.  I screamed, Mom screamed, Venus fled, my hip hurt. Good times. The next few nights I slept on the couch because I still couldn't get upstairs.  Eventually I started healing more and more and could see that I was going to get better... it was awesome.  Around this time my cousin moved into our house for the summer.  This isn't super important to the story, but she's super important to me and I love her.  She's one of those awesome people who make me feel normal no matter what happens to me.

As I was going on this upwards track and starting to get into my life again, Josh broke up with me again.  This time, however, it was for real.  He told me he just couldn't handle my health problems. This was in June.  I was so confused, I was getting better from my hip and he couldn't handle it now?  I had been honest with him from the start about what I'd gone through and about what I would go through.  He told me he thought I was overstating it.  I was so hurt that he'd use something I couldn't control as the reason for him leaving me.  There was no question over who got to keep the cat: me.  Lola was mine.

Weirdly enough, it didn't take me long to get over him.  I've mentioned this before, but because of the way my life is it doesn't take me long to get over things.  I need to be like this because otherwise I'd spend much too much time mourning the loss of everything that's left me and spend no time celebrating what I have.  It took me about two weeks to fully get over Josh.  One of the main reasons was my awesome family, like my cousin.  I think the fact that it took so little time tells me it was clearly for the best; I have a bad habit of trying to stick with things when I shouldn't because I think it can be fixed or because I don't want to hurt someone. Luckily this situation ended for me.  The way he did it didn't do me any favours though.  It left me with a fear that any person I met would leave me because of my health problems.

For the next few weeks I healed extremely fast.  I hung out with my cousin a ton.  She moved into the room next door to me that was previously my living room, so Lola ran back and forth between us.  We were laughing all the time.  It was great.

With my labral tear out of the way, I now had the ability to focus on my school, my work, my shoulder, and my state of mind.  I had finally had a truly successful surgery, and I was going to grasp this bright part of my life and run with it for as long as I could.