At every turn this year we have been hit with so many different life obstacles, I’ll apologize in advance if you’re sick of hearing the vagueness that I’ve eluded to a few times about our challenging year, some things are not my story to tell or will be told in due time. While trying to remain positive and look for the silver lining I’ve tried to see that everything has worked out and things could always be worse. While I feel that intuition is telling me to release control, detach from emotion, learn what is mine to carry, and stay grounded, my logical brain has continued to resist and mentally I’ve tossed up everything and am currently trying to the sort the pieces of life as they fall back down around me. I’ve had an odd peace and I currently can’t help but feel like all of this we’ve endured is for a reason, time will surely tell.
At the start of this year I had an intuitive feeling that health was going to need to be priority for me. Why? I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I was getting older, that it had been about 14yrs since I had been to a doctor or that Quetta has faced her share of health issues recently that smacked me in the face with the reality that I needed a body “tune up”.
I had started prioritizing Chiropractic care towards the end of last year to help get my body back in alignment after multiple car accidents through the years, the havoc early sports wreaked on my body, and just overall posture in my career. This was where I started, but something in my gut said that overall physical and mental health needed to be focus this year.
Backing up a bit, I have a 16yo and a 14yo and since having them, I admit, that I have put myself completely on the back burner in regards to health. I’ve prioritized their needs and neglected my own maintenance. Truthfully, I’ve not had any major issues or causes for concern and therefore just avoided going to the Dr. (I can’t even tell you the last time I’ve been sick, I think it was strep throat like 9-10yrs ago). So see, justified, there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken, or so I thought.
The unfortunate thing about health is you can’t judge a book by its cover. You can’t look at a persons build and determine if they’re healthy or not. You can’t assume that since you have no signs or symptoms that nothing is wrong or needs attention. This was my fallacy.
So this year I sought out a few different doctors for different needs. An OBGYN just happened to be one of those via some other doctors and testing. My results for my Pap came back abnormal and sucker punched me in the gut. Google yielded many results and panic ensued. We’ve all been there right, trust the Internet first before even talking to the doctor about deciphering these weird codes that are now in MyChart…ugh what a blessing and a curse.
The day comes for my followup procedure to check the abnormalities found in my cervix. The result of the biopsy shows high grade, high risk precancerous cells. We discussed the procedure that would be needed to remove the cells effectively and scheduled the surgery, cold knife conization. At this point I made the phone calls to my parents to loop them in on the news because at this point I had not mentioned anything. I didn’t want to cause unnecessary anxiety before knowing all the details first.
I’m not at all worried as I enter surgery Monday of Thanksgiving week. I’m actually incredibly grateful that we found it when we did and the events leading up to this discovery were by mere coincidence, otherwise, I would’ve probably put that particular dr visit on hold even longer. I’m under the mindset of this is where we are, I can not control any outcomes and we will cross the bridges of life as we come to them, but truly what is meant for us will be for us.
I’m writing to say, don’t forget to take care of yourself. Listen to your body if It’s giving you clues. Look for resources and assistance if financial insecurity is holding you back. And please be cautious when googling because you’ll self diagnose and convince yourself you’re dying.
