Hiccups and knockouts

Chaos comes in waves. It seemingly ebbs and flows, only occasionally allowing you the time to recuperate between blows. And the scariest part is that there isn't anything you can do to stop it from happening. That's right, let that sink in for a minute. You can't stop it, especially if you're a one-legged cancer survivor or a person living with a chronic illness or disability. Uninvited, messy moments will come as they please, and the only thing you can control is how you deal with it all.

I used to think once I was cancer-free, life would be a piece of cake. Then it came back, and I thought, once I have my amputation, everything will be normal again. No more messy emotions and super stressful situations. But that's not how any of it actually works. Things do get better, much better. But that's only if you make it so. Just this week, after two failed prosthetic socket molds, a full-face allergic rash, and a fall that broke my very adorable gold prosthetic cover worth $500, I had to re-learn the very lesson I've helped many other people with. Breathe, and remember that you can decide how to react and how much of your peace you will allow this inconvenience to take from you. So, I'm working on that today and getting there slowly but surely. This isn't even a tenth of the roughest week I've survived. This is nothing more than a hiccup. And limb loss comes with lots of built-in hiccups, the kind that none of those silly hacks like sipping from the wrong side of the cup actually work on, so you have to get creative. Creative has become my middle name.

It's so easy to cry over proverbial spilled milk. It takes learned grit to get back up after back-to-back knockouts and a few straight-face slaps. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you will look back at this moment in a year and laugh. You will shake your head, wondering why you let it get you so worked up, and the other one percent of the time, you will look back from a place of new coping skills, more wisdom, and a bit of badass.