This is my Stop...

It was a choice anybody would have made.

When you’re faced with a crisis and the cold hard light of day reality brings you to the knees of realization that life is falling apart, then you take the only real option you have left and do what you need to do to stay alive.

And I am one of those people who has always believed everything happens for a reason, that even the most difficult and impossible things put in our path, are meant to teach us something about ourselves.

My husband was strong. But not strong enough to keep up the six year battle he waged against the myriad of diseases and conditions that seemed, at times, never ending. He lost the fight in November of 2013,Thanksgiving Day to be exact.

But for the six years prior to his death, I was his 24/7 caregiver, his transportation, his coach, his patient advocate. I learned more about Parkinson’s disease, Atrial Fibrillation, Atrial flutter, Acid Reflux disease, gerd, Mersa (methicllin-resistant staphylococcus) a six week pic line adventure on vancomycin (with a heprin flush) and yes, Cancer (Testicular, bladder and lung) than anyone I know short of a medical degree.

There were countless ambulance rides to the ER in the middle of the night. Twenty one cardiac conversions, two cardiac catheter ablations, pacemakers, more than one twelve hour deep brain stimulation surgery with monthly follow up visits to the programing technician for adjustments to his stimulator. There were hundreds of doctor’s visits, tests and a test of my brain power just to stay on top of his ever-changing med schedule…and i might add, two dogs, one with a heart condition that was taking the same heart meds as my husband… so throw in some monthly emergency vet hospital visits…

I found myself taking charge of something I had no experience in. I was handed a crises of life or death proportions that controlled my every waking minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There was no such thing anymore as time to myself. Taking a shower became a luxury.

As months went by, then years, the realization of going back to my full time job life was no longer an option for me. I had been forced to get off the career train.

I was standing at the crossroads of a life altering moment, having to let go of the world I knew and loved, while trying to come to grips with circumstances that were unreal, heartbreaking and inevitable.

Sometimes to get away from it all and not wanting to upset my husband anymore than he already was, I would escape to the privacy my car and cry. I had no where to go and no one to talk to.

I was on my own.

So In 2014, determined to crawl out of the hole I had been in and realizing my “given” freelance opportunities had pretty much disappeared, I swallowed hard and took the only job that was offered to me as a MET Associate with the Home Depot.

It was a job that paid and I took it. When life puts your back against the wall, you find yourself making decisions to do things you never believed you would ever do. And I had just come off a six year tour of duty doing just that.

It’s been a humbling 5 year culture shock, learning experience…physically, psychologically and emotionally. Looking back on it now, it was a decision that got me through and has taught me a great deal about myself.

A job that has given me the confidence and responsibility to become more self reliant. How fixing something now isn’t as impossible as I once thought. And if you can take what you are handed and find the hope in any of it, you will find life can and does eventually return to normal at it’s own pace. It just requires patience, faith, love and an understanding that the life you want is still out there for you, one needs only to have faith in the belief in who you are and that opportunities still abound.

I can honestly say, i am truly, a better person now for the life experience.