I have admittedly been in a slight rut lately. At the expense of being cryptic, because I don't want to get into it, I've been dealing with stuff at school that I've never had to do deal with on this level before. And it took its toll. I found myself listening to the negativity and doubt and the nonbelievers and allowed their thoughts to take a home in my mind.
It has been taxing to me on multiple levels, but mostly because I don't like being unhappy and negative and angry and pissed off and sad and scared and frustrated. I choose to be happy and full of hope and life every day because I don't understand why you wouldn't. What is the point of looking at a rain storm and only seeing the misery and loss of a sunny day? One time during the summer I walked to a park with my dog so we could hang out and I could read. There were clouds accumulating when we got there, but I wanted to stick it out and read outside with Iorek for awhile. Then when the clouds started to really look ominous, I figured we should probably leave. Not even two steps out of the park it started POURING. I didn't have an umbrella. All I was wearing was a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and it was dumping rain, within 30 seconds we were soaking wet. I couldn't really see because of the immense amount of water that was flooding my face and my mascara was running, blinding me with pain. But it was kind of fun? I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous we must look to the cars whizzing past us as we shlepped home. I'm pretty sure I only took one step into my apartment before throwing off all of my wet clothes to get into a nice warm robe.
I could have been really pissed that whole 10-15 minute walk home in the literal downpour, but what would have been the point of that? It does no use to dwell on the negativity when you can always find some part of your situation to make you laugh. I have forgotten that. I have accidentally let everyone else's thoughts and opinions of me stamp out that part of my personality.
Right before I went in for my scoliosis spinal fusion surgery the nurse came in to give me drugs or do something, I can't remember now, but she very specifically said something along the lines of how I was going to be lucky to survive the surgery. I was the opposite of pleased. Literally five minutes before I'm about to be put under and you tell me that I'll be lucky to wake up? I was livid. I told my mom something along the lines of I never wanted to see that nurse again. But she lit something of a fire in me, because I did not just go sixteen years on this earth with a spine the shape of a question mark to bite it while trying to get it straightened out. I let the drugs wash me into oblivion while constantly thinking, "I'm going to wake up. I'm going to wake up. I'm going to wake up." And I did.
That is my problem with medicine. Medical people like to make a lot of assumptions, as if they have any idea of what they are really talking about. Don't tell me I'm not going to survive a surgery because I might look like a weird case to you. Who cares if I was born with tetrology of fallot, two left lungs, had a curve of over 70 degrees, and was mildly underweight? Who are you to say that my body probably won't be able to handle it? I literally do not care what your statistics say or what your science wisdom tells you, there is more to health than the workings of my cells, there is the soul and fire inside of me that holds me all together and that can make or break your diagnosis. There is so much of the body we have yet to understand, don't act like you know why and how everything will play out.
I actually attribute the fact that I woke up to my little mantra I spoke as I was falling asleep, because it was an admittedly hard surgery. That is what I decided tonight that I'm going to take back. I don't care what you think about my stutter. I don't care what you think is happening inside of me when I'm stuck in a stutter, because you don't know. I don't know and I'm in me. How anyone can act like they have any clue is beyond me. I am done caring about your concern over my speaking ability. I am done listening to your ignorance masked as confusion, and I am done being seen as only a stutter. I am also done with the notion that putting someone in an impossible situation breeds success. I don't bow down to fear.
I had a preceptorship with a family physician a few weeks ago and I asked him what his advice was for my stutter. He told me to not apologize for stuttering and to be brave with it. Tonight I decided to get back to my happy self. Tonight I decided to love whatever comes out of my mouth. From now on I don't apologize if the words tumble out as a stutter. We have choices in this world. I choose to focus on being the best that is me, and get back to the happy "I love med school!" Mia that I was first semester.
