It’s crazy how quickly life can change. I went from being so incredibly sick a few Thanksgivings ago to then taking a few years to really try and get my body strong. Soon, I found myself having my days mostly free and filling them with doctors appointments, walks with friends and then slowly I began to travel as a way to test my body and see how my stamina was holding up. I would usually do pretty well after trips, but be good and tired for a few days and need some time to recover afterward.

It wasn’t until my second trip to Europe over the course of 1 year that I started really getting serious about my physical fitness. I actually put myself on training schedule so I could keep up with my best friend on our trip. I began walking every day and building muscle and my whole body transformed. It wasn’t long after that, I found myself getting a bit restless. The time I had once used to rest and heal, was no longer as necessary and I was feeling a need to be needed.

I wrote a blog post this summer called ”How Do You Enjoy Filling Your Days?” It was all about how my friend Sarah, a new friend at the time, had asked me that question one day when we met for coffee. Rather than ask “What do you do?” or “Where do you work?” I had loved that she asked me “How do you enjoy filling your days?” because while I didn’t have a traditional job, it still made me feel like I could contribute to the conversation and not feel awkward or embarrassed about my answer.

As fate, luck, or just life would have it, Sarah had her daughter, sweet little Alice, with her that day, who was only 8 weeks old at the time. Something really pulled me to Alice. She is an old soul and I have felt like since the moment I met her, we’ve been old friends. I started taking pictures of Alice that day and I haven’t stopped since. Alice has a warmth to her and a calmness that is just so special. I talk to her like I would an adult and she really seems to understand what I’m saying.

A couple of months ago, Sarah and her husband Will asked me if I would be interested in watching sweet Alice a couple of mornings during the week and it has become SUCH a bright spot in my life. Alice brings me so much joy and I try to give her as much love and support as I can for those few hours we spend together, growing and playing. I am very thankful for that little girl in my life as she warms my heart, makes me laugh and fills me with nothing but pure love and lots of really GOOD STUFF.

That same week I started watching Alice, another very cool thing happened to me. For the first time in 8 years, I went back to work. When I’m not with Alice, on the other days, I’m at the Writing Center at SUNY Canton and I couldn’t be more thankful for this opportunity either. The people I work with are smart, supportive and encouraging. They all want to help each other and most importantly they want to help the students. It is such a great feeling when you know you have really helped someone understand something better. The students are awesome and really smart, a lot of them just want some extra tools to add to their toolkit.

I’m constantly learning things myself and I’m realizing that I am a smart woman and I have a lot to offer these students. I have to give myself a break sometimes and remember that I was ”out of the game” for a long time and so now sometimes there’s a bit of a learning curve with some things. Generally, they’re just small adjustments and I’m getting used to them quickly but everyone has been overwhelmingly kind and supportive during this process and I couldn’t be happier there.

The quiet life I lived while I was healing was one I would not and could not change even if I had the choice. I learned so many lessons during it and it made me a much stronger person in the end. Like a caterpillar who goes into a chrysalis and comes out a butterfly, my time of transformation was a necessary one, but now, I feel like my basket is full, my blessings are many and my life is filled with abundance. And it is all so very GOOD. This butterfly is ready to take flight!!

#boogins

#sothankful

Today is an important day for me. One I celebrate every year. Today is the day I celebrate my life and the fact that it was saved. 11 years ago today I was hit by a drunk motorist who was traveling the wrong way on a one-way freeway. The physical damage I suffered as a result of the accident was severe but the psychological damage was pretty extensive too. It would take me years to recover from all of my injuries I sustained in the crash. I still have some lasting damage today.

Recently, I took a trip back out to San Diego, (where my accident happened), and while I was there, I had the opportunity to stop in and see both my maxillofacial plastic surgeon and my oculoplastic surgeon. It had been many years since I had seen either of them and I had decided it was an important part of cleaning up my past and moving forward with my future. It was also just a nice opportunity to say hello again. So I went back to see them and let them know that things had turned out alright for me throughout the years. It was an equally important part of the healing process for me emotionally.

When I first went to see Dr. Joel Berger, a week and a half after the crash back in 2007, I had already been operated on by a different surgeon (not Dr. Berger), immediately after the accident when I was first brought in to the hospital. That experience left me with more problems than progress as it would turn out and when Dr. Berger operated on me about two weeks after my initial surgery, he basically had to start from SCRATCH. My face was so infected it was rotting from the inside out. I had to be put on a PICC line in order to receive antibiotics and I was on a whole cocktail of other medications including steroids which we soon found out I had a problem with when I lifted my then 250lb father up from his chair and then set him down a few feet away. #roidrage

I also awoke to find myself with a wired jar. I had known from day one that I was missing 4 teeth and a bunch more were broken and would need to be fixed, but it didn’t really sink in until after that surgery when the real healing finally began. Dr. Berger and I would see each many more times over the next few years, but he was the one to explain the process of dental implants to me and also about how it would be something that would take several years, much to my dismay, but he remained patient and kind with me always telling me how “we’ll get there soon, sweetie.”

The man who gave me my sight back is also pretty wonderful. Dr. Asa Morton is truly a wizard. Tall, handsome, confident and so talented. He walked into my hospital room and immediately knew I was seeing three of everything. I was terrified as I had always had perfect vision and didn’t know if I would ever be able to see properly again let alone close my eye completely. Fortunately, with a few surgeries and a little magic from a donor graft from the roof of my mouth, I was able to not only regain my 20/20 vision, but I can completely close my eye again and you can barely notice the difference in the droop of my eyelid on my right side.

It was so therapeutic to visit the offices of both these doctors when I was out there in October and like always, Dr. Berger insisted on seeing my teeth and my dental bite. I was able to share pictures with patients in the office of what I looked like before and now hopefully anyone else who might be going through a similar journey can take comfort in the fact of knowing that it takes patience but it will happen for them too. You can get through anything. Sometimes you just need to clean up the past before you can start celebrating the future. And what a GOOD future it is. Celebrate with me today, won’t you?