|
It was really over: After seeing Dr. "P" my opportunity to have the damage on my face repaired was truly finished off. There was no way my dad would pay for it after that. I was still recovering and I honed all my efforts into this process. I made sure I got enough sleep and enough food. I made myself exercise even though I'd get horribly dizzy and collapse, vomiting uncontrollably, suffering horrible piercing stomach cramps and then a blood filled involuntary bowel movement, oftentimes after I fell down. This meant that I'd have the bloody bowel movement in my pants a lot of times, but I was well used to being sick by now and I viewed this as just one more part of the struggle. I'd jog as my ankles and other joints would swell up like balloons. However, I was honestly a million times stronger than I was when I was really sick. Moreover, my joints didn't swell as much as they used to and they didn't hurt as much either. What I went through now was literally child's play in comparison. Eventually my ankles set with the right one solidly thicker than the left one, but they didn't swell up anymore after that. My shoe size also reached the point where it remained a consistent size 8! My skin remained normal looking if not a bit dry. Eventually the stomach cramps and blood sodden stools became a thing of the past. In another few years the worst of the dizziness would pass to and I'd be safe and able to drive a car. I took a job at my father's H & R block office as a receptionist and worked through the fatigue. I set a strict schedule for my continued recovery and stuck to it like iron. Times to eat, sleep, exercise and work and that was it. I was determined and focused. My body had gone into recovery enough to give me a chance and I wasn't going to throw it away. I was plunging through the window I had been given through God's grace or through luck. I started training horses out of my parent's Arabian horse farm too. I was a high school drop out because I had been too sick to continue in school, but I was building a plan. I just had to keep fighting my way through the remnants. I still felt the devastation about the choice to have the chemical peel being yanked away from me like that. I believed it should have been my choice and no one else's. And I still felt confused about Dr. "P's" reaction to my questions. Hadn't he ever seen a scared 19-year old girl before who'd had her head filled up full of nonsense? I now knew it was nonsense and I was angry with my sisters. However, I didn't comprehend why they would try to load me up with panic like that. Dr. "S" lost his court battle and his license. He called me at home one day and told me the news. He didn't really have to do this because by then it was a BIG story all over the newspapers and I had clipped the story out of the paper and kept it. Dr. "S" asked me if I would take his pet cat because he and his wife were moving out of state to someplace where he hoped to renew his license. I was reasonably well, but I couldn't take the cat. It had been declawed and was a strictly indoor pet. My mom was severely allergic to cats and a cat in the house would literally send her to the hospital. I couldn't keep the cat outdoors because there were so many coyotes and foxes around. I wasn't making enough money at H & R Block to move out on my own and keep the cat. So I told Dr. "S" that I'd call the no kill animal shelters and attempt to find a place for his cat. I called and called and tried my best to beg them all to take the cat, but they were simply all full. When Dr. "S" called back and I gave him the news he attempted to really pressure me into taking the cat. I just couldn't take her and he flew into a rage screaming at me that I was a nobody, a nothing, a crazy schizophrenic that couldn't even handle taking care of a little cat. He went on to say that I'd never be able to do anything, I'd never drive a car, I'd never go to school, and I'd never have a job�. This is nearly verbatim what Dr. "S" screamed into the phone at me. He went on and on and I just listened and held my sweet secret pearl of the H & R Block job close within my chest. He was wrong and he was the crazy one! I was working, I was recovering and HE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF IT! He was an idiot and a failure. He was such a loony tune failure that even his lofty education didn't help him figure out the obvious when it had stared him in the face for years. No one had helped me -- it was all ME and no one else. Finally he hung up� I never contradicted him, but I really should have. I was going to be something some day. What I had then was just the very beginning and it was a beginning I could build on. I was still only 19-years old. |
|
 |
|
My Favorite Links: |
|
