Two Steps Forward - One Step Back

August 31, 2016

Two steps forward - One Step Back!   I am learning more and more that for every peak, there's been a valley.  For every leap forward, there been a stumble backward --- sometimes just an inch, and other times, what seems like miles.  I am starting to realize that progress isn't always what I pictured of being a steady, constant ascent of perfection, but that true progress isn't always linear.  Just like a muscle needs to tear to grow stronger, sometimes we need to wade into our own darkness to find a brighter light.  Here I am in the darkness, and trying to read my blog right now makes me nauseous and angry especially the post I have been working on which I have pasted below.  I wrote this about a month ago, and I keep not wanting to post it, perhaps out of fear, or feeling like I haven't fully experienced the lesson I am suppose to be learning, or how to even write about it. So here I go, I am surrendering and sharing it regardless and continuing to be vulnerable.  In this moment I feel frustrated, I feel scared, I feel alone, I feel lost, I feel confused, I feel tired, and thats okay!!

August 9, 2016

33 years old!  About a month ago was my birthday.  WOW! What a beautiful life thus far.  Iv'e been wanting to write for a while, but the words have not had the ability to come forward.  The past few times I tried, my hand froze and would not move.  The movement that I was feeling instead were the tears streaming down my cheeks from my eyes.

This morning the phrase came to my mind "fight or flight," which I just looked up the definition of this term, which is:

"The instinctive psychological response of the nervous system to a threatening situation, preparing the body to fight or flee, associated with the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and characterized by an increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the brain and muscles, raised sugar levels, sweaty palms and soles, dilated pupils, and erect hairs.  This situation is readying the body to either resist forcibly or to run away."

I have realized now that throughout the past couple months this body I live in has experienced full on fight or flight, attempting to run-away as well to resist forcibly. Neither route has seemed to work at all, and here I am exhausted.  The aura that is felt right before a seizure comes on, interestingly, feels very similar to the definition above as well. As I was looking up the definition of "fight or flight" a song by artist Jose Gonzalez began to play.  The words began to give me goosebumps as I took them in.  I looked at the title of the song which by no coincidence is called "Stay Alive."  As the lyrics unfolded they defined for me perfectly what has unraveled for me in the past couple months.

Theres a rhythm in rush these days

Where the lights don't move and the colors don't fade

Leaves you empty with nothing but dreams

In a world gone shallow

In a world gone lean

Sometimes theres things a man cannot know

Gears won't turn and the leaves won't grow

Theres no place to run and no gasoline

Engine won't turn 

And the train won't leave

Engines won't turn and the train won't leave

I will stay with you tonight

Hold you close 'til the morning light

In the morning watch a new day rise

We'll do whatever just to stay alive

We'll do whatever just to stay alive

Well the way I feel is the way I write

It isn't like the thoughts of the man who lies

There is a truth and its on our side

Dawn is coming

Open your eyes

Look into the sun as the new days rise

And I will wait for you tonight

You're here forever and you're by my side

I've been waiting all my life

To feel your heart as its keeping time

We'll do whatever just to stay alive

Dawn is coming open your eyes...

Today, I look into the sun as a new days rise.  The months of April and May were the first months in the past few years since the biopsy that I did not experience any auras, headaches, or brain/head activity and my body felt the healthiest it had felt in a long time.  And then, the very end of May was the beginning of a series of grand-mal and petite-mal black out seizures, as well as some auras. 

The first one occurred when I was on my way home from a long day at school.  I went to put my key in the mailbox to get my mail and then who knows how long later I woke up laying comfortably in my bed, with my mail at my side.  Somehow during that time my body had blacked out but was still able to function and move.  Somehow my brain knew what to do, like a robot subconsciously but consciously I was not aware of what was going on. As I woke up in bed, instinctively I knew what had happened, and I lay there exhausted and a bit numb.  The only similar experience I can relate this to is like taking too many shots of whiskey and instantly blacking out and waking up the next day wondering what happened.

Another frightening one occurred about a week later.  I was on my bicycle, carrying a small package in my purse to the post office.  I had my head phones in my ears, listening to music and had almost made it to the post office, when I felt a strange sensation of an aura coming on, like a slight feeling of being removed from my body.  I ripped the headphones out of my ears took a big breath and had the thought to stop my bike and get off when BAM, I blacked out.  I emerged fully out of the blackout while riding my bike home, suddenly thinking to myself, "what am I doing? what is happening?" I dismounted my bike and noticed my bike was completely bent and tore up and then I suddenly started feeling pain in my left knee and looked down to find it tore up and blood running down my leg.  As I became more and more aware of my surroundings, I began to remember that I had gone to the post office and remembered a conversation with the woman that worked there. My tongue hurt and was swollen.  I realized I had bitten it.  I still am not fully aware of what happened that day but know that I had a seizure while riding my bike and possibly a grand-mal (shaking seizure) since my tongue had been bitten.

A week or so later another seizure occurred while in clinic at school.  This one was the most frustrating, as I was near my final leg of finishing my acupuncture program and had been studying immensely for the first section of my grad exam.  After this seizure occurred, the emotion that rose out of me, that seemed to push fear away, was ANGER! I felt as if balls of fire were flaming out of my skin.  The conversation that came to my mind was "Come on universe!! I am in my final stages of studying and preparing to be able to fully help and heal others in the world and you are bringing me these seizures during the worst possible time!  I have been doing my work to help and heal myself for a while now, how much more do you want me to do?? UNFAIR!  I have been patient and I have worked through a lot of shadows and now this? Could it have at least come after I took the exam, or after I finished my grad program?"

August 31, 2016

I believe that I have been waiting and waiting to write, hoping that after I did an MRI I would be able to unravel and shift and have beautiful words of wisdom, or that the seizures would go away. Then I did an MRI which revealed NO CHANGE, NO GROWTH and that the tumor was exactly the same as its been since the first MRI.  As beautiful as this information was I still felt lost, afraid, and confused, but my hands were ready to write.

So I wrote what is written above, but I have been waiting and waiting to finish it, because perhaps I was hoping I would not be experiencing seizures anymore and would have worked through all this shit.  But here I am still having seizures and still in the shit. HELLO SHIT! You smell bad, but you are here, and so am I, so how can we accept each other? The quote comes to mind right now: "I'll see it when I believe it", instead of "I'll believe it when I see it." No more fighting, no more flighting.  And no more waiting and waiting. And my good friend Mark England says, "With my words, I create."  So here it goes, my mantra is in this moment is:

I surrender. I accept. I feel. I love. I live. 

I feel frustration.  Hello frustration! I surrender to you. I accept you.  I feel you. But I am here and I am alive and I love.  A good shouting and yelling and screaming and punching and letting it out, and then reciting this mantra and loving all of it, even the shouting and yelling, is keeping a smile on my face.

I am currently researching treatment centers world wide, not just in the U.S. that have had a large success in healing brain tumors as well as seizures.  I will keep you all updated as that unfolds, as I will need help creating a wonderful experience. If anyone has any knowledge and research of such places please feel free to contact me and send my way.  I am reaching out as well and asking for your vibration, love, and prayers.  I have always been an independent, confident, do it myself gal, but I am learning more and more the beauty and power of asking for help and fully receiving.  So thank all of you.  I love you.