Fearless?
The night of December 16th, 2019 was spent indulging in fried cheese balls, tacos, parmesan truffle fries, and strawberry cheesecake. I ate as much as I could before the midnight fasting deadline. I hugged my best friend Sarah tight in front of her Christmas Tree and prayed with my Mom and Husband before bed. When I woke up the next morning, I took one more long look at all ten toes at the edge of the bed. My surgery was scheduled for the afternoon and food and drinks were a no-no, so I tried my hardest not to sniff my Mom's soy latte as she sat next to me in the waiting room. It felt like an eternity before they finally called me back for pre-op.
I knew going into this surgery that I have a tendency to get extremely nauseous after anesthesia and when taking narcotics, so when the anesthesia team came by I was very vocal about my past issues from prior procedures and to my surprise, they actually listened, asked questions and offered real solutions. Under a mild twilight sedation, they put in two nerve blocks to dull pain post-surgery and gave me an epidural with additional numbing medication in the OR. This allowed them to use minimal propofol and therefore substantially reduce the risk of nausea. Shands anesthesia team is the real MVP guys!
When I woke up from surgery, through sleepy eyes, I lifted my head up just enough to look down to make sure I still had some of my right thigh under the hospital blanket. I let out a deep sigh and quickly asked for some apple juice, since coffee was still out of the question. I was so alert within minutes and pain-free that I was up for visitors, TV and a sandwich (or shandwich as they call them) while still in the recovery area. PT came to see me the next morning to get me standing with a walker and see if I could take a few steps in my room. I was walking all over that floor, past the nurse's station and back again as quickly as they would let me. A couple of days later I was learning to climb stairs. Why? Because I knew my mental health was on the line. I NEEDED to be active again and I needed to do it as quickly as my body would allow me to. My girl squad was there in the meantime for moral support and casseroles because hospital food... I did not allow the Doctors to discharge me until I felt ready to go home. Again, they listened!
I was home in time for Christmas. We lit the fireplace, laid around in our PJ's and built a gingerbread house. We watched all the Christmas classics and it was everything. When Life seems impossible, what else is there but the little things? Appreciate all of them.
Fearless is a word I have grown fond of recently and it's because I see it differently now. It's not the absence of fear. To me, fearless is taking a deep breath and accepting the fact that you have no idea how this will turn out, but refusing to let it fully consume you anyway. Fearless means speaking up for yourself and for others when it's needed. Fearless is allowing yourself to feel happy because you will not allow fear to win. Jump in fearlessly and watch the magic happen in your soul.
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