WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER

 This week I’m taking a little break from my never ending story to talk about things that happened throughout my life that have made me either sink or swim. 

BROKEN BONES 

I have broken both my arms.  The first one was my right wrist.  Quite a few kids break their wrists where their growth plates haven’t grown together yet.  I broke mine while roller skating when I was about five.  

The second time I broke my left arm.  This one was a bad one.  We were at church and outside there were these metal bars that ran along the sides of the sidewalks.  Being kids we got bored so we went outside before going to Sunday school and decided to use the bars as balance beams.  (Close your mouths, I see the look of shock on your faces).  I was six years old and by darn the older kids weren’t going to be braver than me.  I get up there and start strutting my stuff when I fell.  Did I fall just right?  Ummm, no.  I fell, hit my arm on the metal bar, and broke it in two places as you can see in the above picture. I remember looking at my arm thinking it looked like a horseshoe.  Kids are screaming, parents are running outside.  This was before the 911 system.  One of my parents rushed me to the hospital, the other took all my siblings home.   Again, in the sixties the emergency room did all the “fixing” of things emergency.  The memory I have of that was them pulling my arm and pushing the bones back up in line.  Oh, and the pain.

SCARS

The photo on the bottom right is a scar I got when I was in the sixth grade.  It actually starts at my elbow and ends up by my wrist.  This was also a rolling skating accident.  I have to tell you that this was when Peggy Fleming was America’s sweetheart of the figure skating world.  By damn, I was going to be the roller skating sweetheart of the world.  In all my spare time I was “practicing” my moves.  One day I was doing my speed skating up and down the sidewalk.  Our driveway was such as it declined down to the garage.  It had these cute little windows on the door.  I would go down the driveway, swing around the car, and get back to the sidewalk to go up the street and back.  One of my brothers, who shall remain nameless but it sounds like John, decided to push me as I was on my decline.  All of the sudden I feel out of control and I’m headed towards the garage door.  Trying to stop myself I put out my arm to stop.  You guessed it, I hit the window, not the wood.  I look at my brother, and he has a look of terror on his face.  I run (skate) into the house straight to the kitchen where my mom is doing dishes in the sink.  She puts my arm over the sink and I see the drip, drip, drip of blood and the water turning red.  She screams for my dad who comes running in.  He takes his hands and wraps them around my arm above my elbow.  Has my mom call our doctor and has my mom drive us to the hospital while he keeps a hold of my arm.  We get to the hospital, rush in, the nurses put me in a wheelchair and put a pillow under my arm.  It proceeded to turn the whole pillow top red.  My mom comes in and pleads with the staff to let her see my arm.  My dad hadn’t allowed her to see it.  I watched the color drain from her face.  

At this point they take me into a room, lay me on my stomach, and start stitching me up.  One hundred thirty two stitches (132) later, they are done.  Apparently the original cut was in a Y shape but they had pulled it together to make one long scar.  They didn’t even put me out.  I remember looking at what they were doing and saw them pulling the thread out of my skin.  That was all the watching I would do.  Did this stop me from skating?  Heck no.  I also didn’t lose the use of my arm or have nerve damage.  The other scars are from a back surgery (ruptured disc) due to falling on ice, hip replacement and liver transplant.  

CANCER

Cancer.  The spawn of Satan.  Ok maybe not but it makes you feel that way.  Thankfully my uterine cancer was only stage one, so a total hysterectomy was how they took care of it.  I am finally down to once a year visits on that one.  You’ve all read about my lymphoma so I’ll just say is I’m a year and a half into remission.  I’m doing all I can to keep it that way.  

This is by far the biggest “trauma” in my life.  I was young when it happened.  I’m not sure how long it went on.  It’s one of those things that as you are growing up, you have it locked away in a file that you don’t have the key to open it up.  I have periods of time that are blocked from me remembering.  I know there are different ages that it must have happened.  Finally in my later fifties, I had a Rapid Eye Session.  It is a eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy that is an psychotherapy technique used to relieve psychological stress.  It is an effective treatment for trauma and PTSD.  Both my sister and sister-in-law have extensive training in this.  During my session, I finally released who the pedophile was.  I don’t call him an abuser.  I call him a pedophile.  I came out to my siblings about it.  I’ve never mentioned it to my mom or dad.  

But you know what.  HE DIDN’T BREAK ME!!!! I will not allow it.  It’s made me a much stronger person.  When he meets his maker, he’ll have to answer for it.  

So all of my life experiences have made me the woman I am today.  I truly feel like if we use our experiences to help others, we are being a good person.  I’m able to say to people “I have been through this, if I can do it, so can you”.  I will be an advocate for anyone that needs me.  

My hope with today’s post is, if you have trauma’s in your life.  Talk about them.  Don’t be silent.  You don’t ever know who needs your story to help them through this thing we call life.