Hope Returns: An Update Post

 Hope... It's a strange concept to me, as a pessimist, to believe that things are going to be okay, yet that is precisely the feeling I have been left with lately.  Hope scares me because all too often, the good things in life have been taken away from me.  I'm afraid to grow accustomed to the good things existing in my life for fear that they may be taken away from me.  I have lived this way all my life.  I don't know why I'm like this or why I look at the world the way that I do.  It's just me and I can't help it.  

Two weeks ago, I had an appointment with my new rheumatologist, and she informed me that my former diagnosis was not correct.  She corrected it to show Systemic Sclerosis Sine Scleroderma and told me that I would need more frequent testing.  The thought of more frequent testing, quite frankly, makes me sick to my stomach.  I have severe medical anxiety and test days are almost always the worst ones for me.  I just hate everything about it.  The doctor didn't bother to tell me that this diagnosis has a better prognosis.  I discovered that through my research during the last two weeks.  

Now that my diagnosis is no longer the terminal form that my original rheumatologist thought that I had, I am allowing hope to creep back into my life.  It's scary to let it happen, but I will never grow if I don't allow it, so here I am, trying my best to accept that maybe the world is not as dark and dreary as it has seemed for my entire life.  Maybe there is room for a little bit of light in my life.  Surely, allowing just a bit in won't hurt me, and maybe, I'll discover that I like it and stay that way more often.  

I was talking with one of my best friends in the whole world this morning, and I was telling them that I am thinking about going to college to become a SUD counselor (substance use disorder).  I desperately want to work with drug addicts in recovery.  I feel a spiritual calling of sorts to go into that field.  I, myself, am a recovering drug addict.  I have almost ten years clean from my drug of choice and I feel that I am finally ready, willing and able to give back to that community.  I was blessed to have a mother and stepmother save me from the grips of addiction.  I want to pass that on to others, and having a milder form of my autoimmune diseases just might mean living long enough that I can go back to school and have a career.  

I do plan to finish out my therapy with Lori before I go back to school.  I don't think that I could handle schooling on top of my tight therapy schedule.  I'm already at therapy four days per week.  I don't have enough days in the week to take on schooling, too, but once my therapy is over, I think that I will be able to handle it.  I also know that with my current mental state, I would crumble under the pressure of going to school on top of therapy.  I already have my husband running all over the county on his days off, just to go with me to my appointments.  I don't think that he could handle much more than I'm already doing.  It helps that I have recently been able to go some places alone.  This is huge for me.  Lori and I worked toward that goal from September of last year until May of this year, when I was finally able to do some things alone.  It's not much yet, but I am getting there slowly.  The fact that I have been able to go places alone has added to the feeling of hope returning to my life.

Last January, my gastroenterologist laughed at me when she told me that I won't qualify for a liver transplant due to the Scleroderma.  PBC can end up with the need for a liver transplant.  That was the purpose of the conversation.  It's not a current need for me - thank Gods!  When she laughed at me about it, the last of my hope went right out the window.  I never thought that I would get it back after what she put me through.  I've had a resentment with that provider ever since, but no other gastroenterologist will see me right now.  I'm just grateful that despite her laughing at me, I still found a way to get hope back.  It makes all the difference on the healing journey, both mentally and medically.  

Hope has also returned to my mental health and my outlook on it.  I have made some huge leaps and strides in therapy over the last few months and that deserves some recognition, as well.  Regaining hope surrounding my mental state has been extremely difficult and it has taken a lot of work... much more work than I thought it would require.  I've been with Revive for a year next month and I'm honestly a whole different person now than I was when I started with them.  I started with Lori in September, and she said that when I first started coming to her office, I would tremble any time I had to talk about what has happened to me.  Now, I'm telling these stories in front of the ladies in group and not having as much difficulty with it as I have in the past.  I'm definitely not trembling as often!  

Reprocessing the Naked City shooting made the biggest difference in my healing journey, so far.  That's the moment I knew for certain that hope was coming back.  When I enjoyed the fireworks for the first time in over a decade, I knew hope was back.  I cried and for once, it wasn't because of anxiety, fear, panic or flashbacks.  I cried because for the first time in a very long time, I felt free!  It was tears of joy and tears of liberation from the monster my trauma caused me to become.  I felt like some of the weight came off my shoulders and that I could breathe again.  In fact, during the reprocessing session, when I got to that point, I exclaimed, "I can breathe again!"  Lori smiled because she knew better than me in that moment that it was working.  That's when hope really returned.  Now, I just have to decide what I'm going to do with it.  I don't want to waste this precious commodity, now that I know how easily it can be taken away from me.  It's time to start living my life again.  I am ready now.

Until later...