I’m trying to stop that from happening.
 

I’ve got a plan.

(Oooooooh, ominous, huh? It's launching...)

I love writing.

I wrote in a recent Writing on the Webb email that I love it with 7-bajillion fibers of my being. That was a rough estimate.

Some people even say I’m pretty good at it, which is part of what pushed me to quit a cushy-Corporate-American-ladder-climbing gig to start a business as a freelance writer. It helps to know that people would pay you money to do something before you decide to try to make money doing it. Contrary to many of the chase-your-dreams-turn-your-passion-to-cashin’ messages of modern business “coaching”. I’ve always dreamed of being the author.

Shockingly, writing copy about piano damper pedals and press releases for poorly executed discount business models wasn’t really as sexy as I originally anticipated. But a girl does what she has to do to make ends meet.

And I wasn’t prepared to do what some girls do to make ends meet.

Again and again I’ve thought back to what I love doing. It’s more than writing.

I love telling stories. Setting scenes. Endearing people to characters. Making them laugh. Making them cry. Threading ideas into words. Weaving tales that people remember and love sharing.

As I began telling the stories of my own adventures, at home and abroad, people were engaged.

I became resolute. The answer became clear: I wanted to write a book. A novel, cause I like to keep people guessing whether those stories are fact or fiction. And it would be a travel memoir. From a girl. Who is all about the blunt, sassy, direct commentary and writing style. And would likely include tales of struggle, adversity, sex, drinking, success, triumph, and cute outfits while being the author.
 

It would be the anti-Eat, Pray, Love.

 
Then, last week as I was knee-deep and thriving on creative flow and excitement, I clicked merrily on a link from Ash Ambirge at The Middle Finger Project about people peeing their pants. Prepared for some hilarity I was instead horrified.

I had totally forgotten that she was going to make writing a book  a priority in 2012. And it was going to be a travel memoir. From a girl. Who is all about the blunt, sassy, direct commentary and writing style. And would likely include tales of struggle, adversity, sex, drinking, success, triumph, and cute outfits while being the author. It will be the anti-Eat, Pray, Love.

From across the planet that bitch punched me in the stomach and knocked me to the ground.

Which is a horrible thing to say because Ash is a good friend who totally isn’t a bitch and if she were to punch me it would be accidental because we were jello-wrestling. Which we would obviously make with vodka. Which would then mean we wouldn’t be wrestling at all, we would be laying in a kiddie pool gorging ourselves on vodka jello.

WHICH IS SOMETHING ASH WOULD WRITE ABOUT MORE POETICALLY ON HER BLOG BECAUSE SHE IS BETTER THAN ME.

Interesting...Interesting...

This is about the time that the beautiful niceties come sweeping in. The people that tell us “Chin up young lady. Go frolic in the forest with your woodland friends while singing a little ditty about being the author because you are smart, talented, witty, and — gosh darn it — people like you.” Or “It doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t matter how you stack up to other people…what matters is that you are happy and enjoying what you do.” Most of these people are on my social payroll (friends, family, guys I occasionally hook up with, etc) and it’s part of their gig to have to say nice things.

Unfortunately my imaginary woodland friends don’t pay the bills. In the published literary world it mattesr VERY MUCH how you stack up against others.  And since those little bastard imaginary woodland friends aren’t paying the bills I certainly don’t have a ton of cash to keep enough people on my social payroll!

Writing a book is one of those big, hairy, scary goals that many folks have added to their bucket lists, but they never get it crossed off because:

• They don’t know where to start (“I just have so many ideas, I don’t know how to decide on one?” – “Do I have to write it from the beginning?” – “Should I write non-fiction or fiction?”)
• They don’t know how to do it (“I don’t have any experience writing an entire book!” – “Do I need an agent” – “What is a .mobi?”)
• They are haunted by their own ”Who The Fuck Do I Think I Am” demons (“I don’t have the authority/talent/knowledge/audacity/audience/etc to write something that people would actually want to read”)

These three obstacles come up constantly when I am talking to friends, colleagues, and clients who are working on their own drafts. Considering the people I am friends, colleagues, and contract with that is a LOT of conversations about writing books.

The final (and hardest) obstacle is that we are doing it alone.

Writing is a solitary process. You are sitting there staring at that evil little blinking cursor of…evil…as it mocks you:

You. Don’t. Have. Anything. Worth. Saying. Blink. Blink. Blink.

What if there was a place that you could see that there are others going through the same thing as you?

People who are struggling. Who are fighting these same demons and still trying to do something magical. Who are creating compelling content and making words sexy.

That's Right. I'm Making This Happen.

Launched today, www.BeingTheAuthor.com is a membership-based site that allows aspiring authors, struggling writers, and anyone in between to watch as up to five featured authors at a time share their journey from concept to publication.

The site will start with my process and book, and we will be quickly adding the other four authors over the course of the months of June and July. Each author will update at least twice-monthly. This may be a checklist. Or a How-To post. Or a raw and exposed tale of receiving their 38th rejection letter from a publishing house.

With 5 authors writing monthly, the content will criss-cross and vary the same way the subjects and genres will.

Being The Author is a great way for you to sneak a peek behind the scenes of the book writing and publication process. For some this will be the push you’ve needed to get started on your own book. For others this will serve as a road map in your quest for success in publication. And many just like peeking at things.

The site is launching with a heavy discount for members of this community, the folks who have supported me most. Consider it my birthday present to you (oh yeah, today is my birthday)

The price will increase at 3 authors and then again to full price at 5 authors.

If you sign up at the discounted rates, however, you are locked in a the lower price for the lifetime of your membership

Wanna just test it out and see what you think?

I’ve got your back – and have a 45-Day No-Overdue-Fee Guarantee.

Whatever gets you putting the pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) – giving it your best with the support of an entire community behind you will be more than enough.

Being The Author gives everyone the opportunity to live the glamorous life of a writer vicariously.

Imagine Hemingway and Fitzgerald in 1920′s Paris…with less cavorting and rye. Or maybe a little more.

It’s your story, after all. Make sure it is one worth telling!

I didn’t want to speak the honest truth
So I spit out lies that aimed to soothe
Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?
Just close your eyes and make believe

~ Paloma Faith, Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful

My mouth gets me in a lot of trouble.

Not like bar fight trouble (ok, sometimes it does that as well)

But the more subtle kind of trouble that tarnishes friendships and costs me jobs.

My mouth is far too honest for its own good.

For my freshman lit class we were all assigned the book Lies My Teacher Told Me. The book tore at my very sensibilities. It was important to learn the good and the bad parts of history. To understand how stories are framed for audiences. The parts that are required and the parts that are omitted.

Yet at the same time, I questioned some of the stories. Did I really care that Helen Keller was a Socialist, who supported many beliefs and candidates from the Communist party? Did that make the fact that she became a world famous speaker and advocate less important?

Did I even understand why being a Socialist and/or Communist was really a bad thing?

When we had to write our literary essays on the book, I invoked one of the most brilliant source of philosophy I knew: The Simpsons.

There’s an episode where Lisa, precocious little intellectual trouble-maker that she is, discovers the truth about her town’s founder – Jebediah Springfield. Turns out he was not the colonial pioneer that the whole town has built their heritage on. He was a murderous philandering pirate who used the people of Springfield. Lisa, armed with this iconoclastic knowledge, goes rushing to the center of town to declare the lies to the community during their Founders Day celebration.

Seeing the happiness on everyone’s face and the way that the dysfunctional town of Springfield is pulled together by the lie of a good man, Lisa realizes the beautiful lie does more for people than the ugly truth. She declares Jeb to be a good man, and let’s the town go on believing the fantasy.

The fantasy creates a better reality in her mind than reality.

We are conditioned to believe that we want the truth. We want the basics. We want the realities.

But people really don’t want to hear the truth most of the time. Even when they ask for it.

They want to hear a beautiful lie.

When we write a blog post that we pour our hearts into, we don’t want constructive comments. We want warm fuzzy internet hugs.

When we start a business we don’t want someone to honestly assess our potential for the future. We want them to buy a glass of lemonade from our stand and smile at our accomplishment.

And as most men can attest, when we ask “Do these jeans make me look fat” there is no possibly correct answer to give.

The truth can hurt.

No one likes to be sucker punched by reality.

So we suffer through a blissful ignorance. Clinging to anything that reinforces our beautiful lie. Forcibly renouncing anything that makes us aware of the tenuous grasp we have on our happiness.

Do you want the truth in your life? Can you handle the truth?

Or do you want something beautiful instead?

Looks fun, huh?

I love going to the beaches in Bali and watching surfers.

I mean, sure, there are lots of surfers who are pretty to look at. It takes a fair amount of physical prowess to haul yourself around the ocean by paddling and then balance yourself on a piece foam while riding along a curling wave.

But surfers are fascinating to watch in their process and execution. Having lived in Maine my whole life, my experience with surfers and the surfing culture is limited to stereotypes from the Valley movies of the late 80′s and most Saved By The Bell references.

In other words, meatheads or burnouts who laze about life focused only on getting to the beach to laze around on a surfboard and play in the ocean.

I’ve come to learn this is SO not the case.

Two days into our adventures together, Jenny and I were the ones lazing about while my friend Tommy (who took the insanely awesome surf photos on this post) was out tearing it up on his surfboard.

This adventure began after Tommy had pulled up a dashboard rivaling NASA’s simulators on his computers to explain the conditions he looks for before heading out, surfboard bungee corded to the rack on the side of his motorbike. Things like water temperature and wind and ocean swells and phases of the moon. Not in the weird “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah maaaaaaaaaaaan….just look at the charts. Today is gonna be gnarly, dude. Totally gnarly” way (told you I have a very limited experience) but in the “I could possibly give a dissertation on oceanic science and technology after I catch a couple waves today” way.

A total science geek myself, I was (of course) glued to the screen learning about the method to this madness.

Will This Be Perfect?

Which is how Jenny and I came to be sitting  in beach chairs at Balangan Beach on the Bukit in Bali (alliterate much?!) watching the legions of surfers a few thousand meters away. I turned to Jenny, fixated on a thought that emerged from watching them sit on their boards. “It’s funny the different ways you can look at those surfers sitting and waiting. You can either assume that they are wasting time bobbing along, constantly waiting for the perfect wave to come along. Or you can realize they are stringing a mass of computations about the current wave, the upcoming wave, the ebb & flow of tides, the surfers around them, and a bajillion other things…a congruence of factors that brings the perfect wave.”

Who would have thought surfers were so deep?

It is important to note that I know nothing about surfing nor was I even one smidge drunk at this point. If you come sit on a beach with me for an afternoon I will likely unleash these little nuggets of speculation on you as well.  And if I am interested in what you are doing I will likely grill you ad nauseam to understand more.

Some waves last just a few seconds before cresting, others are hundreds of meters long. Still people drop their boards into the waves every day. How do some succeed while others wipe out?

• They Know Their Shit – Sure, some people hit it lucky and catch a fantastic wave as a rookie on the fly. These people are exceptions not rules.
• They Do The Work - I’m fairly certain that Tommy has about 736 other things to do than monitor reports on ocean tides, but pulling all that data and making an educated plan at the best place to set down his board pays off in dividends.
• They Recognize The Opportunity - You don’t get the ride of your life by sitting on your board and waiting for some omnipotent voice to tell you when to pop up. See all the pieces coming together and go for it.
• They Make It Happen -  Ride that wave, baby!

That last point is the most important and what I observed sitting with Jenny on the beach. Looking out at what was happening it would be easy to assume that the surfers were just sitting there. Waiting. For the perfect opportunity to ride off into the sunset. Which happens maybe MAYBE once every session. That’s the thing that separates them.

The people who execute. Who stand up and ride their perfect wave.

Tommy told us before we left how cool it is to think that the perfect wave he was going to catch that day was already manifesting out in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

We all have perfect waves manifesting for us somewhere.

What are you going to do to catch yours?

Photo Credits – Tommy Schultz

This was the topic of conversation a couple nights ago over Italian pizza with some folks from the Dynamite Circle mastermind that I am a part of. We were discussing a recent post in which someone was telling the story of the risk they had taken and the happiness that they had found as a result of this risk.

The thing is, they left out a huge part of the story. They positioned their story of risk as an adventure that they had engaged in solo and persevered through by the grit of their own determination. We, however, knew that the part they were omitting was that a mentor had helped immensely by creating a process to aid the near seamless transition to their new life.

It can be hard when sharing stories to outline every single detail. We often end up telling little white lies by omission, merely because there isn’t enough time, space, attention span to share EVERY GORY DETAIL.

This was more though. This was someone altering the facts of their story to make themselves sound more impressive.

I often get emails from readers and friends saying things like (quoted):

I really wish I could be as brave as you.

There’s this fallacy in the world of non-conformed exceptional living that you have to take a deep breath, pull up your big girl panties, and leap off cliffs to make changes in your life that are worthy of being admired.

This is a total lie.

Sure, I took a big huge MASSIVE risk moving to Bali to life in a house with a couple dudes I totally didn’t know while writing and strategizing for their brand. Hell, I had to get my first passport ever to even get on the plane. I had never lived outside my home state (let alone my home country!)

Is my story somehow less exciting when you add that Dan and Ian (the boss men) put me up rent-free in a gorgeous villa with a killer backyard garden and pool for six months?  That they provide me with a monthly contractors check for the work I do for their companies? How my housemates had a full circle of people (both local and ex-pat) already living in Bali for me to become friends with?

Do these things make my risk less meaningful?

We come up against so many challenges in our lives.

Not everything has to be.

If you are able to live your story by accepting the help and support of others who believe in you…do it.

Great stories are not merely the stringing together of a series of events and facts. They are the journey that a hero takes. A great story is great because you yearn for the hero to succeed.

Who the fuck cares if they didn’t go it totally alone? Supporting characters are pivotal to most plots!

When I applied for this opportunity, I quoted Paulo Coehlo:

When you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. (The Alchemist)

People talk about how lucky someone is. Or how talented/smart/ambitious they must be. That an average person could never manifest the lifestyle and story that this extraordinary person managed to create for themselves. But often it is simply that those people are able to recognize and seize extraordinary opportunities when they present themselves.

More often those opportunities come with the aid and conspiracy of the universe and people around them.

Don’t be afraid to take your deepest darkest scariest risks out for a spin.

Even if the first few times you have to use training wheels to do it.

photo credit: hugojcardoso via photo pin cc

Admit it. Good grammar is sexy.

If I had to name the one love of my life, it would be language and literature.

I’m sure any future significant others will be slightly saddened to learn that tidbit of information

There are times that I simply eat/sleep/live words. The way that they sound, their meaning and etymology, their symbolism and value, their beautiful simplicity and complex constructs. Words tumble around my mind in a swirling symphony befitting a grand concert hall.

The street term for my particular affliction is “Word Nerd” and I’m more than comfortable with the title. Nerdery is not exactly something that is new to me, grammatical or otherwise.

The hair on the back of my neck prickles up and I have a physical reactive need to correct errors when I see them appear. It’s an affront to my lover’s purest character.

Knowing a lot about grammar and spelling and sentence structure might get you a job pushing paper as a copyeditor or mixed with some other skills might bank you a swank gig as a editor at a publishing house or publication.

Yet most people with this skillset either spend time curled up with books and manuscripts, creating the content that other word nerds devour, or being complete and utter pricks to those people without the skillset.

The thing is, especially in this online world of point-and-click-immediate publishing, it is easy to drop a typo or misplace a comma. Heck, with all my spouting off about words and writing, I guarantee most word nerds worth their weight in Webster’s can find at least 5 in this post alone. Furthermore, with the conversational tone of blogs and editorial articles, proper grammar is sometimes forsaken for sentences that make sense.

For example, who the eff uses the word FORSAKEN in actual blog posts?!

There are few things that bother me more than blatantly incorrect grammar. Yet one of those things is people being condescending jerk for the mere thrill of appearing smarter and thus, somehow better,  than someone else.

Does it make you feel special to prove you found a mistake someone else made?

Absolutely cannot stand seeing the English language mutilated?

• Email The Guilty Party Privately Or Post A Helpful Comment - In an articleon my column on Forbes I misspelled “pedestal”  - in a copy headline (the really big bold text in an article). Talk about YIKES! Fortunately a reader emailed me quickly to say “Loved the piece, wanted to give you a heads up that there’s a typo.”
   
  See, this is a USEFUL correction. “I cannot even stand to read your article because I saw your typo and now I want to go kick puppies” is not useful at all. (Yes, I have seen a similarly worded comment before…)

 

• Do Not Assume That A Misuse of Grammar Indicates a Person’s Intelligence - Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” This is from a man who spent the majority of his schooling being told he was lazy, insubordinate, and careless.
   
  Just because someone does not know the proper use of an Oxford Comma does not mean that their idea or opinion has no value.

 

• English Is Not Everyone’s First Language - Ah, privileged first world problems. We can get our rocks off pointing it out when someone stumbles a bit over the English language, but that person may have worked their ass off to be able to communicate with your mono-linguistic mind. As I spend more time with people who have taken the time to learn an ENTIRE SECOND LANGUAGE (I certainly can’t say that…I can barely say “I would like iced lemon tea, please” in most of my second language attempts!) it is obvious how much of an accomplishment that is.
   
  One of my FAVORITE bloggers out there is Carlos Miceli. He is an Argentinian guy who blogs in English, and started his first blog (Owl Sparks) as a way of getting more comfortable writing and communicating in this second language. Dude has great things to say, even if it sometimes gets me riled up and argumentative.

Finally…

If you still would like to get yourself worked up over the grammar mistakes and misspellings of another person, I have some suggestions for you. Please follow these steps carefully:

1. Close Your Eyes and Take a Deep Breath
2. Count SLOWLY to 27
3. Close Your Laptop/Turn Off Your Screen
4. Step Away From Your Computer
5. Go Outside And Experience Life (hug puppies, don’t kick them)

There’s way too much in life to care about. A few typos or mistakes should not be among them.

Being A Word Nerd Does Not Establish Your Credibility

But it sure can establish that you are a person no one really wants to hang out with anyways.

Note – If a piece of writing is laced with horrible grammar and typos and a general disregard for intelligent conversation, judge away. Those people are probably asking for it!

Ok, fine. Jeez. The guy I was dating was in love with the book and I wanted to impress him am always looking for new things to read.

ANYWAYS

It ended up being a great read, even if it was super science fictioney and kinda ridiculous. In the book, a really long time ago a bunch of wicked smart alien folk decided that they wanted to learn The Answer to The Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. So they built a super-computer (Deep Thought) that would be able to collect all the data and metrics and LOLZCATZ pictures of existence and schmush them together into one comprehensive absurdly intelligent algorithm that would finally give them The Answer.

It was so complicated that the most brilliant super computer ever created determined it would need 7 1/2 million years to figure it out.

Fast-forward 7 1/2 million years, and the uber-intelligent pan-dimensional descendants are ready to get  The Answer. The Answer to The Great Question. Crowds of people gather. The excitement throbs in the air palpably, as everyone will FINALLY have The Answer. That which they have been seeking for millions of years.

The pan-dimensi’s approach Deep Thought and ask it again for The Answer.
 

“The Answer to the Great Question… Of Life, the Universe and Everything… Is… Forty-two,’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.” (H2G2)

 
So there you have it.
 

The Answer is 42.

 
Doesn’t that make you feel better? Knowing The Answer to The Great Question. That which we as humans base our entire purpose and being on.

Your life, in the end, probably means 42.

Of course the pan-dimensional beings are obviously quite pissed and kind of embarrassed. I mean, this was THEIR super computer that screwed The Answer up so royally. They got angry at Deep Thought (mostly cause they were not really stoked to go share this answer with the throngs gathered outside) and questioned the computer’s process. Was this all they had to show for 7 1/2 million years of work?
 

“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything!” howled Loonquawl.

“Yes,” said Deep Thought with the air of one, who suffers fools gladly, “but what actually is it?” (H2G2)

 
The book spins out after that, with a new (better) super computer constructed to determine what The Great Question is/was. With The Great Question, perhaps The Answer will finally make sense. Then there’s an explosion, a galactic-highway project, bugs in ears, Hitchhiker’s Guides, and a whole lot more stories and adventures that both baffle and engage.

I’ve been noticing this trend cropping up more for my circles in the past few years. I suppose it has always been there (The original Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy radio show aired in 1978, and they were pondering this then) but somehow I’m experiencing it more now.

We are all desperately seeking out The Answer.

Not necessarily THE Answer, but we are constantly seeking out Answers. Somewhere along the way we stopped caring about what The Question was to begin with.

We become obsessed with The Answer.

The magic bullet that will help us shed pounds or make money quick. The 5 Easy Steps to achieve fame and success. The One who will swoop into our lives and somehow make us complete and whole.

Fixated on a stationary destination, we put our head down and hustle and shuffle to occupy ourselves until we find The Answer. We might even build our own Deep Thought that will figure it out for us. Or gather en masse outside the temple, waiting for someone else to get The Answer for us.

Give me The Answer and it will all finally make sense and I will finally be happy.

Sorry, cupcake, but that’s not how it works.

Even if you get The Answer (I just told you The Answer, in case you’ve already forgotten) what does that mean if you didn’t really know what you were questioning to begin with.
 

The Answer often isn’t The Answer.

 
Which is why often it feels shallow and confusing when we finally get The Answer.

It just leaves us with more Questions.

That now need their own Answers.

One person commented “Wow that is a HUGE smile!“

The thing is, I’ve gotten the “What a great smile – you must have been very happy” for as long as I can remember. In college, one of my friends used to tell that you knew it was going to be a good day in our little Student Government offices when you walked in to Lord Hall and could hear my signature laugh from down the hallway. Course this laugh almost cost me what I thought was going to be a dream job in public relations and tourism (in hindsight I should have realized that my boss’ hesitance to hire me based on a loud and hearty laugh was spoke volumes to the working environment in the organization).

I know as a girl this is not always the most flattering thing. When I smile my eyes seem to squish in to my face and get all crinkled around the edges. If my spine is not perfectly aligned the veins and muscles in my neck pop out to look all weird. Plus, my smile is crooked anyways. My lower lip does this weird pull dip thing that was probably a result of my many street fights (or, you know, my baby sister breaking my nose and face 7 times before I was 20).

I enjoy being happy and it usually shows.

Beach Day at Uluwatu (Went swimming in riptide, no surfing yet!)

We can waste so much of life scowling or rolling our eyes or languishing in the rough and tumble parts of human existence. Heck, in 2011 I spent a majority of the first 9 months of the year with a dark cloud hovering over the deepest parts of my personality and psyche, desperately struggling to get the sparkle back in my life. Sadness and frustration are not exactly easy emotions to simply overcome and fight past.

The past eight weeks I’ve talked to a lot of people about the importance of a good attitude and how it can make or break your spirit and recovery when fighting illness and injury, especially in a foreign country.

It sounds cruel, but survivors laugh and play, and even in the most horrible situations–perhaps especially in those situations–they continue to laugh and play – Deep Survival by Laurance Gonzales (h/t Carlos Miceli for the excerpt find)

I was not always this shining beacon of positive optimism. And it is important to admit that, because it is important for us to acknowledge and embrace those imperfections that make us human.

The past two months of my life have been hard.

The posts I’ve written, while being informative and super “let’s do this!!” motivated, have not been the whole story. In my illness, injury, surgery, and recovery I’ve also:

• Laid in bed at 2:30 AM pleading with any spirit available to just let me sleep through the night and wake up alive the next morning. If I didn’t, please let my sister remember where all the documents are for her to come in to a landslide of money
• Felt a complete turning off of all emotion and rational thought while I lay on a stretcher in the emergency room and let Dan & Ian take over making all decisions for me
• Woken up from a surgery to remove some gauze and drains from my first surgery (after I specifically asked not to be put under fully-sedated anesthesia) alone in a hallway with a tube sewn in to my leg and no one around to explain what was going on
• Looked down at my stitched-up knee (WARNING – don’t click that link if you aren’t prepared to see a pretty messed up knee!) after my doctor unwrapped my bandages and proceeded in simultaneously crying hysterically and hyperventilating, which scared the crap out of the nurses assisting him.
• Texted my boss at 8 PM asking him to come back to the hospital and keep my company because after crying my way through half a box of tissues I was exhausted, broken, and did not want to be alone in a hospital room after my knee’s grand unveiling
• Called my Dad after getting released from the hospital to let him know what happened. Then got transferred to my sister where I proceeded in sobbing to her for approximately 7 minutes straight. Later that night I Skyped with both my parents and begged them to let me come home. My Dad told me no, unless I was willing and wanted to give up
• Stood in the kitchen one night with my friend Tom as we examined my knee and infection and swelling to determine ‘how bad it was’ and if the yellow puss emerging from one of the wounds was something I should be be worried about. Note – I was really worried about the yellow puss.
• Skyped with my parents again and told them I was moving home in August, that I couldn’t stand being in SE Asia, and I was never going to get on a motorbke again because the thought made me want to throw up in fear. They told me I needed to wait until I wasn’t so emotional and for the love of god get back on a motorbike BUT BE CAREFUL.
• Got my stitches out and went through the entire procedure with my hands covering my eyes singing “lalalalalalala” like a 4 year old because I was so mentally squeamish about the idea of 40+ stiches being strung out of my body
• Checked my forehead obsessively for fever (the first sign of my infection returning and an immediate “Go To The Hospital – Do Not Pass Go – Do Not Collect $200) at the slightest indication of being tired or feeling pain in my knee
• Rode a motorbike with my housemate and cowered dangerously to the left (when you are a passenger you should NEVER react physically to the things you see) every time we approached on-coming traffic (re-creating the accident scene in my mind every time I saw a motorbike headlight) whimpering and apologizing for being such a wuss

I could probably go on and on and on but you get the point. At least I hope you get the point.

I haven’t been perfect in my attitude towards my injury, surgery, treatment, or recovery.

I’d say at least 25 % of the time I’ve been a whining, bitter, melancholy ball of excuses and irritation for those around me. In all honesty, I’ve wanted to pull my covers over my head and pretend that the entire thing had never happened while begging the world around me to just humor me in my foolish avoidance no less than 47 times.

But as my Mom would remind me, based on this nugget of wisdom from a childhood movie: “It’s in the past”

There was absolutely nothing that could be done to change the things that had already happened.

That the thing with the events of our past. They’ve gone by us now, memories and lessons implanted on our minds and hearts. The only thing we can control, the only thing we have power over, is the way that we react to them and the decisions we make moving forward.

It is not easy to choose being happy and pushing on when you want to give up and be miserable.

And I didn’t always execute on it well. My poor housemates, family, and friends have had to endure more stories, breakdowns, whining fits, and paranoid speculations from me than any human should have to sign on for in the friendship agreement.

Sometimes we need to let ourselves into the dark place to find the light.

Otherwise, we stop dead on the path, susceptible to the creepy-crawlies and terrors that dwell in the night.

I promise you it is not easy.

Sorry for anyone I gave that impression to. And to everyone who had to put up with me over the past 8 weeks.

I think part of the reason I get so angry, though, is not because I always disagree. The same way I think a lot of guys can be jerks sometimes, I find that women can be pretty bitchy. In fact, I often find myself nodding and agreeing that I don’t spend as much time with girls as guys because I had been too privy to mean-girl bullying (as grown ups, ladies, come on now!) in my years.

Take, for example, a recent project that a fashion designer reached out to me about on Kickstarter. Having seen a couple things I had Tweeted about my slightly more active lifestyle here in Bali (meaning not in a bar drinking bourbon Thursday-Sunday nights and eating White Cheddar Cheez-Its Monday-Wednesday nights) and my unfortunate near miss involving almost losing my swimsuit bottoms in the pool (best fad diet ever, this whole massive-leg-infection-emergency-knee-surgery-rack-body-with-antibiotics plan I went on), Christy reached out to me about a new bikini she had designed that was specifically made to stay in place.

Interested, and not trying to endorse anything at all since I hadn’t seen an actual product (though Christy did kindly offer to send me a pair of bikini bottoms so I would be able to dive into the pool or feel safe frolicking at the beach without loosing my briefs!), I posted the link a few places and said “Pretty cool idea, check it out.”

OT Surf - Wardrobe malfunctions be damned! (My guy friends were devastated)

With the link came the image above to the Kickstarter campaign video, and on the campaign page itself were more photos of 3 very different body typed models. One with an average body, one fit and big-busted, and one so toned she could probably hold her own in a Thai street fight.

With the link also came a few responses that raised the hairs on the back of my neck and re-affirmed my complete belief in the whole “girls can be so bitchy.”

Women questioned how the swimsuit could possibly do what it claimed, because the girls in the pictures were way too skinny to model anything that a “real woman” could wear. Completely bypassing the whole this-woman-designed-a-swimsuit-to-fulfill-a-need-she-saw-and-is-trying-to-build-a-business-now-to-help-other-active-women-what-the-eff-are-we-doing-with-our-lives aspect of my posting. Forgetting that women come in all shapes and sizes, even fit and skinny ones

I’ll admit, I used to be one of those mean girls. One of my signature phrases to “too skinny” women was “Someone feed that poor thing a Twinkie.”

The truth is, I used to do that shit because I was so insecure about the way *I* looked. How I looked , how I felt (tired, lethargic, sore when wearing pants that squashed my stomach at the waistband), how other people in society saw me (the 23-year-old I dated last summer (Ladies, special note, if you are over 30 and single, get to dating a 23-year-old who is a little more mature than my 23-year-old (you are welcome!)) asked me late one night why my arms were so toned on top and so “floppy” underneath). and how unhealthy I knew I was. Swimming against the current in a genetic pool that rivals the dirty water of the Charles River, being uber-fit is really my only hope against illness at a very young age.

Eating Cake and #Ogling - Different Worlds

I have not been so severely unhappy with myself since the summer of 2009, when I weighed nearly 100 pounds more than I do right now. That was probably when I was the bitchiest to other women. Somehow thinking that those skinny and fit girls were in the wrong made me feel more in the right.

Looking back, I wonder how that belief is any worse than a company thinking I’m lazy and will steal all the morning donuts if they hire me cause I’m too chunky to fit in to an office chair in my interview. Or guys always viewing me as the friend they have to endure to hit up the hot girl. Or shopping in completely different stores than everyone else because regular clothes don’t fit you.

It is almost funny to me, as I type this from my room in Bali, where all my girlfriends are tiny little adorable waifish Asian girls that make me look like a gargantuan albino Sasquatch with a Twinkie problem. If anything, I should be angrier and meaner now. There’s no way I fit in here. I’m not an idiot. I know I am the size of two of my friends put together. Maybe even two-and-a-half of them (where’s my sitcom, CBS?!). In reality, I should probably feel worse about myself. But I’m actually pretty happy.

If we have society, men’s sex dreams, magazines, advertising, Hollywood, and a plethora of other stresses tearing us apart at our stretch-mark laden seams, why are we further cutting each other down by hating other women?

As I said, I don’t know much about Christy or her product. Heck, she could be sitting on the beach pointing and laughing at every chubby woman in a one-piece while injecting ephedrine straight into her blood system.

But I don’t get that impression.

She seems like a sincere genuine girl who loves surfing and traveling and hates having to constantly adjust her bikini top every time she moves more than 2 inches from staid upright position. This suit probably isn’t for me. I haven’t owned a bikini since I was approximately 12 years old and my huge rack wouldn’t fit into those cups if they were goblets.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t admire the hell out of her for chasing a dream and doing what it takes to make that happen.

And it hurts my heart a little that anyone would rather focus on what a couple models on a page look like than the fact that this girl is trying to make something happen.

Ladies, let’s not give people a reason to think we’re bitchy.

Stereotypes exist for a reason, and there’s no need for us to reinforce that one.

Ok, it probably wasn't this bad...

As I lay in my Indonesian hospital bed fighting back tears post-surgery, after my doctor showed me my mangled knee for the first time, I did not think that there was any way I’d be able to bounce back.

I wanted to go home, curl up in my Dad’s lap while my Mom made me hot tea (most likely with honey & whiskey) and my sister braided my hair, and pretend that this whole bike-accident-leg-infection-emergency-surgery-hospitalization thing had never happened.

But it did happen.

Wishing it away was never gonna make it so. I had an important decision to make. I could either:

• Continue being all emotional and defeated, running away from SE Asia and giving up
• Decide to fight back and do whatever it took to get myself healed so that I could begin loving Balinese life again

When I took the time to stop being all mopey and weak, the decision was obviously quite easy to make. Between a bullish (and let’s face it, stubborn) nature and a resolve to get back the elated happiness I felt being here pre-motorbike-accident, I knew the time was coming for me to fight and recover.

In less than a month after a digestive surgeon (you get whatever you can take here…I figure if he can splice together intestinal tracts I’m good with him doing some superficial leg surgery) sliced into my knee four times with a scalpel and drained out all the infectious liquids, I was cleared from continued medical treatment.

As I sat in my final follow-up appointment, my doctor explained my recovery process. “I didn’t want to scare you that morning in the hospital, but you leg infection was…bad…” he said hanging his head and shaking it from side to side. That is universal doctor language for “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna make it out of surgery with a leg.”

“Yet in less than a month you are walking and no more infection and swelling down and skin shedding like snake. You have healed faster than any patient I have treated with this injury.”

Then he said what has become both a chuckle and badge of honor for me.

“You like to win at everything, don’t you?”

How does one bounce back with such ferocity?

• Attitude Is The Most Important Thing – You hear that all the time from people who accomplish great things or overcome serious adversity. That their spirit pulled them through it. I almost roll my eyes even doling this out as the first piece of advice. Yet as cliche as it may seem, it is vitally important to recovery. You must force yourself to be happy, see the positives in your situation, and push through when you you honestly don’t feel like you have anything more to push with. Otherwise a bad situation will chew you up and spit you out. I definitely felt myself get crunched by misery’s sharp pointy fangs multiple times during this process – but I never let her really crush me.
• Laugh - Is there a better medicine? Even when I was crying talking to family on Skype or laying flat on my back in excruciating pain, I tried to keep things light for the people around me. I didn’t want anyone else getting bummed out about my bum knee. In trying to make sure everyone else was ok, I made myself ok.
• Surround Yourself With A Great Support System – Being in a foreign country on the other side of the planet, I will admit that I was worried if I would have to go through this alone. That was a totally foolish assumption. Between the doting nature of my housemates (“the boys”) when I first got out of the hospital to my friends Tom & Dian who took me in to their home for a week and went to all my doctor’s appointments with me without hesitation to “the girls” who stopped by whenever I was alone at the house to make sure I wasn’t feeling alone to Tanner (the friend I got in the motorbike accident with) and the couchsurfers texting me every few days to see how I was doing, I found that the people I have surrounded myself with here are great people.
• Reach Out Across The Ocean When You Need It – Yep, I needed my Mommy & Daddy after this happened. I talked to them at least 3-4 times a week by Skype. And my sister. And my bestie in Portland, Melissa. And my SPIRLBFF Jenny, who also sent me the most adorable hot pink teddy bear (Recovery Bear) that I sleep with every night. Don’t judge, Recovery Bear is a great snuggler, and sometimes in situations like this you really need someone to snuggle with.
• Know What Is Going On With Your Treatment – When I was released from the hospital I took one look at my 1500 MG antibiotic dose of amoxicillin and saw a huge problem.  I’m allergic to amoxicillin. Like anaphylactic shock allergic. Even though it was noted on a separate bright red hospital bracelet, my IV bags, my hospital record, and my patient folder, the pharmacy still prescribed me a medication that might kill me. Fortunately the hospital continued to be amazing and sent a driver up to our house with a corrected dose of erythromycin, which would not kill me and instead would heal me. (Note – This is not an Asian hospital thing, you hear about this stuff happening all the time in Western hospitals as well.)
• Commit To Your Treatment – Every time I went to meet with my doctor, I brought a notebook with questions that had come up during the week between visits. When I got assigned my physical therapy exercises, I went online and found some additional ones. Then I created a Google Doc (I know, you are shocked by this) to track my exercise completion and notes on how I felt or any milestones from the day. I could rattle off to anyone what my assigned healing tasks were for the week.
• Don’t Be Afraid To Push Yourself – During my second check-up, I went in armed with one question after talking to my parents: Could I increase my antibiotic dose to kill off the infection faster? My doctor checked a few things and sent me to the lab to get a blood test checking my cell count and kidney functions. When all was clear he increased me to a dose of 3,000 MG daily of erythromycin. He warned me I would be tired, nauseous, and not feel great while I was on the dose. And he would only put me on it for up to 10 days. Did I really want all that? Oh, you better believe I did.
• Be Willing To Acknowledge When You Are Overwhelmed and Need To “Slow Down” – The other nugget of wisdom my doctor gave me during my final appointment was not medical advice, but instead life advice. “You need to learn to slow down sometimes.” Like yesterday when, after 4 days of running around Seminyak without crutches, I was so exhausted and sore I slept for 8 hours the night before then 6 hours during the day then 9 hours last night. Or if I had listened to Dan the first five times he told me I should go to the hospital. You know, things like that.
• Look For Positives - I still have my leg. I’m healing like a rockstar. I have great friends helping me, making me laugh, and reminding me I’m not alone. I can feel my family’s love 12 hours into the future. I have a hot pink teddy bear to snuggle with at night. I’ve lost considerable weight and the crutches totally worked on some of my upper arm toning (if you are looking for a new fad diet the massive-leg-infection-major-knee-surgery-high-dose-antibiotic plan really works, though I personally would recommend against it). I finally got down to the Bukit. I am very fortunate to work with people who were willing to let some of my responsibilities slide for a bit so I could recover like it was my job.

Today, March 21st, is one month from the day of my surgery. I’m writing this sitting in my favorite non-villa office space (Grocer & Grind café). I have no stitches in my knee and am not hobbling around on crutches. Sure I can barely bend my knee more than 70 degrees (way up from 30 degrees two weeks ago!) and I still limp around eliciting stares and whispered comments, but I’m here and continuing to push through.

After all, what other option is there? 

photo credit: otisarchives3 via photopin cc

February 2012 is possibly the worst month I have experienced in nearly 32 years of existence.

To sum it up quickly it involved a bar fight, motorbike accident, sprained ankle, infected knee, searing pain and bouts of unconsciousness, emergency surgery, four-day hospital stay, enough antibiotic to sterilize a Thai strip club, eating at least my weight in oranges, and questioning/confirming every decision I made that brought me to February 2012.

The longer version (and it is long, sorry!) goes a little something like this…

At the beginning of the month, I watched my friend get into a motorbike accident as we were heading to dinner and gasped in horror. Crashing metal and plastic, people tumbling and flying, helmets bouncing off asphalt…it was terrifying.

Less the 30 minutes after another friend and I confirmed our busted up friend was home and ok, we were driving down a side street to Jalan Legian on his motorbike, on our way to dinner yet again.

I can barely describe the next 20 seconds because in my mind the entire scene plays out in simultaneous slow motion and like I’m blinking. I saw the motorbike in the opposite lane of the road pull directly into our lane to pass stopped traffic and I knew that there was no way we would be able to avoid him. My friend screamed and then I felt the hit. Jolted hard, we bounced backwards and sideways and began to spin out.

Like the accident I had just watched a half hour ago, I heard the crashing of metal and plastic, felt my friend throw his arm around me to try to push me away from the ground and out of traffic as we tumbled and flew, and scraped my helmet and right side of my body along the asphalt of the street.

Instinctively, I curled in a ball and tried to go limp in a tuck and roll move that I think I once saw in a Smokey and the Bandit movie.

Dazed, I felt a group of locals grab me under the arms and pull me back off the street. My friend came running over to make sure I was ok while another group of people brought his bike over to us. I started shaking and crying as one of the locals grabbed my friend and told him to bring me to the apotek (pharmacy/clinic) immediately as I was bleeding excessively from the road rash on my right shoulder.

Once we got to the apotek and met up with another friend, I called Dan in tears and told him we had just gotten hit head-on by another motorbike. As the pharmacist poured a bactine-like antiseptic over all my cuts and bruises I alternated between deep breathes and cries of anguish as the dirt and puss washed out of me with a horrible sting.

The rest of the night was a mish-moshing of texts to confirm everyone was doing alright, picking dirt out of my abrasions and pouring more of the bactine-like antiseptic over it, and crying randomly as bursts of adrenaline came and went from my body.

I spent the next two weeks tending my sprained ankle, twisted knee, and road rash on my shoulder that easily tore off at least 2-3 layers of my skin. Things seemed to be progressing well as I tried to fall asleep and not have flashes of hitting the road and my bloody shoulder and sobbing in the clinic infiltrate my dreams as they were the last things I saw on the back of my eyelids each night.

As I began to feel better, I started venturing out to different places that I had been countless times before. My ankle swelling went down and my shoulder worked at growing new layers of skin. My knee felt funny, but having never been in a motorbike accident that twisted my knee before, I assumed the feeling was normal (given the circumstances).

I went out to lunch with Dan & Ian (my bosses, in case you didn’t get that part of the story), walked to the ATM to learn that my debit card was “no longer in use”, met up with them at the supermarket to buy bottled water, and wandered back to the house. Stepping off the curb onto our street I felt something in my knee pop or snap. This most definitely could not be good.

Ten hours later I was laying in my bed writhing in agonizing pain as my knee swelled and throbbed. Whatever I had done to twist it just got bammed up another 20 degrees. For the next three days I lay in bed, alternating between consciousness where I was pleading with whatever spirits or deities wanted to listen and fever-induced bouts of unconsciousness that lasted 4-5 hours a piece.

Not wanting to let anyone know how bad it really was I toughed it out with as much of a smile as I could muster and continued posting and emailing and working. The guys rose to the occasion of my bed-ridden state and checked in throughout the day to take care of anything I needed. All I wanted was oranges. I couldn’t eat enough oranges.

Then Sunday night/Monday morning I was changing the bandage on the abrasion on my knee at about 12:30 AM. As I took off the gauze and released whatever pressure had unknowingly been building inside my knee, the scab broke open and a pinkish-reddish bloody liquid erupted from my leg. When I say erupted, I mean it looked like someone had been murdered in my bed. Shaking I reached over to pick up my phone and call Dan. “I think I’m ready to go to the hospital now. I was just changing my bandage and something happened and now there’s blood everywhere.”

Knowing I had to hold in the volcano that my knee had become, I looked around my room. Grabbing a package of women’s maxi pads I wrapped them around my leg and held them in place with an ace bandage. Hey, those things are made to absorb liquid, right?!

We tore to a hospital in Bali known for emergency situations. As I was wheeled into the ER about 5 nurses leapt to their feet to chase me into the exam room. They unbandaged my knee, took one look and told me “You have a massive infection in your leg. We need to do surgery immediately to drain the liquid from your leg, clean out your knee to find what is causing the infection, and you will have to stay in the hospital because we need to give you high-dose antibiotics through an IV.”

My brain and body went numb.

I was told to wait for the orthopedic surgeon to arrive at the hospital to do a full assessment. Dan went back to the house to call other hospitals and see what they could offer. I laid in the examination room by myself fighting back tears and cursing myself for being stupid enough to let this happen. I laid out the entire course of events of stupid decisions in my mind that brought me to this exact stupid moment in time. How this entire situation was, in my mind, 100% my own ridiculous fault.

After meeting with the orthopedic surgeon (which involved him coming into the exam room, poking the abscess that had formed on my knee to re-start the volcano twice, muttering something in Indonesian to the nurse with him, and then looking at me and saying “Yes, I will need to do major surgery on your knee”)  I determined I did not want treatment at this particular hospital.

Hobbling to another taxi we made our way down to Kasih Ibu hospital, based on the recommendation of friends and a call to their ER for information. I was admitted to Kasih Ibu at 4:15 AM according to my medical bracelet and by 9:30 AM I was being wheeled into pre-OP to meet my surgeon (Dr. Yoga – I cannot explain how happy I was with the Universe in that moment) and my anesthesiologist (one of the most attractive Asian men I have encountered on this Balinese adventure, sporting a glistening band of gold around his ring finger).

There they explained that they were going to make 2-3 incisions in the sides of my knee to drain the liquid that had formed as a result of the infection. Then he was going to make an incision in the top of my knee to clean out my wound as that was most likely the cause of the infection. Overall the procedure was set to take two hours. I tried not to focus on the fact that this was my first surgical procedure ever or the fact that people kept saying to me “Just say the word and we’ll get on a plane to Singapore to go to a real hospital.” Mostly I focused on the fact that putting any weight on my leg was so painful I almost passed out walking to the taxi 12 hours before.

I told my anesthesiologist that I wanted to be loopy for the procedure, but I didn’t want to be put out. I had enough wits about me to know I didn’t want to go under in a foreign country. And boy did he make me loopy. I have vague memories of the surgery, hearing the machine they used to suck out the infected liquid, discussing with the anesthesiologist who sat near my head the whole time my adventures thus far in Bali, and the blood pressure cuff squeezing my arm every few minutes.

After they wheeled me into a post-OP room to sleep and be pumped with mass amounts of morphine. Eventually, when I came to and confirmed that I was not in pain they brought me back to my room. For the next 3 days I slept, ate bad hospital food, and was wheeled in and out of the operation room for further care of the incisions and continued draining of my leg. Because I have tiny little veins in my hands and wrists, I went through three different IV locations for my antibiotic. Including one very painful burst vein.

Fortunately I had a good group of friends that ventured down to the hospital daily to visit and keep me in good spirits in spite of the situation. Though scared to death of what each day would bring, with my spirit crumpled up and tossed thoughtlessly to the floor, I continued the smiling and laughing to make sure that everyone else was ok with my situation. Even if I wasn’t, there was no reason that they should have to endure a similar angst.

Then, on Wednesday night they pulled back all the bandages to show me my stitched up knee which had a drainage tube sewn into it. Well I *say* it was my knee. It actually had no shape or semblance, a bruised and swollen mass of skin with blue plastic stitches strewn across like a character from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I immediately started crying and hyperventilating at the same time, which is a difficult task. Nurses rushed around to get me water, lay me flat in my bed, and do guided breathing inches from my face. My doctor just held my hand and smiled at me, telling me it would get better and that everything would be ok. I accepted that finally I had hit my breaking point.

(Note – you can see my knee (a little less scary two weeks later) by clicking this link – but don’t say I didn’t warn you)

I texted Dan and asked him to come back to the hospital if he was still in the area, I couldn’t face being alone after they had bandaged me back up. I picked up the box of tissues the nurse had given me and proceeded to cry myself through about half of it. By the time Dan got my hospital room (toting ice cream, Sprite, and a movie about blogging – I have great friends here in Bali!) there was a mini-mountain of tear-stained kleenex on my meal tray.

“Sorry,” I told him. “I think I finally lost it.”

I was released from the hospital the next day, and sent home to tend my wounds and practice bending my knee, a difficult task with over 40 stitches in it. I dutifully did as I was told, took my medicine at exactly spaced intervals, ate my weight at least in oranges (Vitamin C baby…and man was I still craving them!), elevated my leg whenever I was not hobbling around on crutches (except when I was sitting and working on bending my knee), and tried not to make any major life decisions in my current state of mind.

I called my parents as soon as I got home, they did not know I had been rushed to the hospital. I figured, like the guys visiting me at the hospital, I didn’t want to worry them unless there was something to worry about. They couldn’t get to Bali before I would have been released so there was nothing they could have done but freak out. That isn’t fair to impose on someone!

I told my Dad, sniffling and fighting back tears that were ready to stream down my face “I don’t know if I want to stay here.”

My Dad told me a story of a bike-a-thon we did together when I was 10 or so. Apparently as we were pedal-biking a huge RV went by close to me and I fell over. Scraped up and bleeding and hurting I whined at him that I wanted to stop. He wouldn’t let me, he told me I had started this and I was going to finish it. And I did. (It is important to note that my Dad is one of the sweetest most teddy bear huggable humans on the planet so I was half expecting/hoping he would support my desire to chicken out and run home)

That story has now stuck in my brain for the past two weeks as I stayed with friends to recover (awesomely amazingly wonderful friends who not only took care of me while I was all hobbley but took the time to be my friend and hang out and be supportive which mattered even more. Oh, and they brought me brownies practically daily!).

Between their super care and my over-achieving Type-A driven spirit (which I had now picked up from it’s crumpled mass on the floor to begin straightening out and putting together) I have been healing up at super speeds. As my friend Nate said “You can’t even heal your knee without doing it in an epic way.” This was after my doctor told my friend who had come with me to the hospital that my healing at 2 weeks is where most of his patients are at 3-4 weeks.

Stitches came out Friday and I’m down to one crutch to walk around the house (two if I go out just to be safe). Started swimming in the pool today, meaning I cling to a floatie while treading water around whomever is in the pool with me for an hour. Still working on the bending thing, doing some ridiculously painful physical therapy exercises (real killers like “Lift your leg 5 inches off the bed”), and only occasionally taking the pain pills my doctor prescribed if it got to be too much. He calls every few days (yes, I have my doctor’s cell phone number (my surgeon, not the hot anesthesiologist (hey, a girl can wish!))) to see how I am and give me new instructions in my care. My shoulder is healing, though the new skin remains a bright pink color, indicating that there are still some new layers to be added.

Dan told me while I was in the hospital that I was one tough girl. At the time I smiled at him, thinking I was anything but.

With just a couple weeks under my belt, looking back, I’m beginning to believe him.

Photo Credit: Unseen Portland