The air is cool and crisp in my tiny uptown apartment, I shiver a little as I put my feet on the floor. Rubbing cullen’s fuzzy little head, grabbing my phone I look at the date it’s October 22nd, 2010. I grab the bottle of baby aspirin, pop one and chase it down with water, looking in my fridge I grab an apple and head out to Calhoun with Cullen. Today is the one year anniversary of my Pulmonary Embolism and infarction. A day to be thankful for, so many doctors have told me I shouldn’t be alive, but here I am. I’m not sure why God chose me to save that day, but he did.
As I walked around the lake the memories of that day started rolling across my mind. I remember driving to work the pain was bare able at first, I just ignored it, and kept on driving. Soon the pain went from annoying to extreme, still I didn’t worry, and kept driving. Then my arm felt numb, it felt like someone was choking me, I could barely breath. I made it to Lexington parkway and decided to head back to wood bury. I do not remember that drive to woodwinds some how by the grace of God I made it. Once there I collapsed in the security guards arms, next thing I knew I came to with a nurse telling me he was going to cut my clothes off. I had wires coming from everywhere and heard the beep beep if the monitors. They were sending me to CT, and there it was a blood clot in my lung blocking the main valve to my heart. I was in serious trouble. They went to work, surgery wasn’t an option, as it may push the clot through my heart and into my brain. I was given a high dose of Heprin via iv, clot busters were injected, pain meds were given at my command, and I would be staying for a while. This would mark the first day of the worst year of my life. God he really through me for a loop this year. Yet I am thankful that it happened because with out the pain, I would have never of danced.
One would think having your wife almost die on you would strengthen your marriage. In away it did, yet Scott wouldn’t give up his “life style” for me. He never learned to cherish me and the time we had. He finally decided that we should have a baby, yup he decided it was time, when the clot was gone from my lung, we would start trying. We found out after Christmas that the clot had dissolved and started trying for a little bear if our own.
In April we found out we were expecting, I was over joyed and thought this was my calm after the storm. Yet this was another storm that I would weather with strength and grace, little bear died in May. I had created life, yet god took it away. This took some soul searching on my part. I blamed myself for the longest time, I thought I wasn’t good enough or fit enough to be a mom in gods eyes. Yet one day it dawned on me, there was nothing I could do to prevent it, I can’t change it, and nothing no matter how much I prayed and wished would bring little bear back. I am still a mom, my baby is just in heaven and one day I’ll see him.
Blood clots, child loss what else could god chuck at me. I had a few car accidents and the prius got broken into. I felt like this cloud was hovering over me, that god had a personal vendetta against me. I thought I was on his official “shit list” because bad stuff kept on occurring. On top of this bad luck my marriage was fading, I was in love with a man who would never love me or want me. Some would tell you my marriage was over before we said I do.
I met a new friend and we were talking one night, he was telling me about his failed marriage and that it went on and on because no one wanted to make the call. He looked at me and said “it all comes down to a judgement call” that’s all I needed to hear. A week later I walked out of my marriage and never looked back. It was hard at first but with each passing day it gets easier.
So in the summer I closed the door on my marriage and ended a friendship. I am glad that I ended both, without doing so I wouldn’t be the woman that I am today. I have reveled in my new found independence, traveled, and got a new dog. Constant chest pain reminds me that this life is a gift worth living.
With the fall came change, I walked away from a job I hated and never looked back. It’s funny every time I face a decision I think of what he said ” it all comes down to a judgement call”, who is gonna call it first. I’ve decided to finish what I started and head to law school. Hey some people buy hummers, others take trips to celebrate their new found freedom after divorce, and well I am applying to law school.
So today closes the door on the worst yet most amazing year of my life. I pray that the next year is filled with blessings and a ton of good luck. No bad thing allowed. I am a survivor, a survivor of a pulmonary embolism with infarction, a mama to a baby in heaven, and a young divorce. I am closing this chapter toasting it with a glass of wine and never looking back, as I have a new chapter to write.
Have Bear Will Travel 