Stress has a way
of creeping up and scaring the crap out of you when you least expect it.
Life had been
good.
At least I thought
so.
I was at the top
of my career as a Documentation Manager/Technical Writer for a company that
created computer programs that spoke for visually impaired users. I looked
great. I felt great, even though I was closing in on forty. My fiancé and I
married and we bought a house, although it needed some remodeling work.
That was the up
side.
The down side? My teenage daughter. My middle
child. What a handful. Running away. Skipping school. You name it. On top of
her issues, there were countless arguments and conflict with my ex husband and
his then wife over the best way to handle my daughter’s behavior.
Lots of stress.
The pain came on
suddenly; the other signs already significant. Rapid pulse. My chest hurt. Face
reddened, flushed. Inability to concentrate.
‘Heart attack’ my
mind screamed.
‘Get to the
doctor’ I told myself.
Ignoring offers
for help and rides to the emergency room, I rushed from work and crossed the
long and busy Howard Frankland Bridge from St. Petersburg, Florida to Tampa.
All the while focused only on praying that I get to the doctor before I
collapsed. In those moments of fear, my only goal was to reach my doctor, for
in my mind, only he could help me because he knew my medical and personal
history.
The crisis passed.
What I thought was a heart attack turned out to be a Thyroid Storm determined
only after months of a multitude of tests and examinations. My life as I knew
it would never be the same again.
The diagnosis:
Grave’s Disease. A thyroid disorder.
The treatment:
medication and rest.
Weaker than a
newborn kitten, on bed rest, and barely able to shuffle from bed to bathroom
without exhausting myself, my life came to a screeching halt.
No home repair
issues.
No programs to
document.
No arguments.
No stress.
Nothing mattered.
Only my heart, as
it jumped to a rapid, irregular beat in my chest; the pain that accompanied it
a constant reminder that I held on to my life by a delicate thread. The
profound impact of my disease seeping into my consciousness; my mind trying to
wrap itself around the immenseness of its affect.
My fragile life.
I grew protective of its vulnerability. Hyper aware
of my own mortality, I examined my existence to that point in my life and found
myself questioning my actions, motives, decision. All went under the
microscope.
I could no longer bring myself to ride my
motorcycle. The sheer danger overcoming my desire for adventure. I bid a
reluctant goodbye to my beautiful red speed machine.
Once an avid inline skater, always willing to throw
on a pair of roller blades and skate for miles, just the thought of skating
exhausted me and made my heart race. I could no longer push my body so hard. My
heart couldn’t take the physical stress.
I feared being alone.
What would happen if I had another episode?
In and out of the hospital emergency rooms with
panic attacks, I struggled to get a grasp on what was happening to me. How my
personal and social boundaries shrank to the physical limits of my bedroom. My
safe haven. My very existence wrapped up in those four walls.
With months of recovery, I grew stronger, while my
mind struggled to understand why I no longer could bring myself to leave my
home for a job I used to love. I tried. I lasted half a day. I needed to be
back home. My safe haven.
A new idea germinated in my mind. I could work as a
technical writing consultant. My own company. I’d work from home. The idea took
root. I found clients willing to work within my schedule and I soon found
myself in great demand as a technical writer. Forty flew in and I rejoiced. The
good life reigned.
Then it happened again.
This time the pain forced me to the emergency room.
CAT scans revealed tumors on my ovaries.
‘Cancer’ my mind whispered with anxious trepidation.
The hospital staff kept their opinions to
themselves, but I could see the sympathy in their faces as they attended to my
medical needs. Was I to be another statistic? I prayed for a chance. A chance
to live a life I hadn’t finished with yet. For a chance to see grandchildren
not yet conceived.
For any chance.
Opportunity knocked. No cancer. Only surgery to
remove the diseased ovaries. Menopause dropped into my life full on with its
hot flashes, mood swings, and weight gain. I grew old before my time. I stopped
coloring my hair and let the gray grow through. I embraced this new transformation
of my life and what new changes it would bring for me personally.
Then a new thought snuck in and whispered ‘life is
short, you’re running out of time.’
What hadn’t I completed yet in my life? What else
did I still want to do before I grew too old to accomplish it? A new idea, an
old dream, surfaced from far below my subconscious. I loved to write. I wanted
to keep writing. But, my writing dreams turned to fiction. My dream of always becoming an author closed in. "If not now, When" was no longer my slogan. Now. Now. Now.
With a renewed reflection on my life, I sought to
fulfill dreams once deemed by others as too unstable and not appropriate.
Novels.
I wanted to write fiction. A dream I gave up on when
I graduated high school and joined the U.S. Marines instead of attending
business school as my family planned.
Stability no longer a problem, our financial
situation accessed, my husband and I worked out a plan for me to steadily
complete projects and drop clients until I could write fiction full time.
My heart soared.
Naïve and inexperienced in the writing and
publishing business I sought out other writers. I joined electronic mail groups
and Internet forums, communicating with other people of various levels of
knowledge and talent. I learned quickly and found others who had similar dreams
to mine. We wanted to organize a group of writers where we could share
information about writing and publishing. A new organization was formed.
Florida Writers Association. Glenda Ivey, myself and five other women became
the founding members of a group of writers helping writers.
The group grew quickly. Word spread about our accomplishment.
I poured myself into the development of the organization and put my writing
second to the success of FWA. Within a few years, FWA became its own entity. A
life onto itself. Self-sufficient, the group no longer needed my continual
support. An organization now strong with over a thousand members.
Once again, my dream of writing novels pushed its
way to the forefront of my life. This time there was nothing to get in my way. It became NOW again.
Or so I thought.
I started down a new path toward an uncertain future.
I wrote Not Without Anna and began a new
novel, Trust in the Wind. In
the meantime, ideas flowed faster than I could write them down. I filled
several four inch binders with newspaper clippings, scraps of paper, and the
beginnings of stories. Short stories poured from my fingers like flowers
bursting forth in springtime. Catch of the Season was born. Eager
to come into the world, March Madness soon followed. Ideas
tumbled from my mind at all hours of the day and night. More short stories
trailed along. Each bloomed from the fruits of my writing fervor.
Writing became my passion. And my passion soon
consumed me. Once again, life was good. With my Grave’s Disease in remission,
my energy burned brightly.
Then blackness submerged my life.
Depression.
Bleak and without hope, I found myself in unfamiliar
territory. My fruitful blooms dried up and withered away. I struggled to find
words to complete sentences to complete stories that no longer held any meaning
for me. I foundered without direction. I no longer slept. Dangerous thoughts
invaded my psyche. My once fragile life became an indirect target for my dark
musings. Scared and uncertain, I begged my doctor to help me. The diagnosis:
Bipolar I. Undiagnosed for most of my life, I had a name for what tortured me my entire life.
Once again, my life was turned upside down by an
illness. This time, it was one I wasn’t sure I could handle as well as the
others. I burrowed deeper into my safe haven - my home. I ate to appease my
anxiety. I ate to satisfy my emotional needs. I ate. My weight ballooned.
No longer able to write, I sunk deeper into the
blackness while I spent hours researching everything I could find on Bipolar
Disorder. I joined online therapy groups. I read books. I asked questions. All
the while, my body rejecting various medications the doctor prescribed to
stabilize my illness. It took more than a year to find the right combination of
drugs that helped. All the while my soul suffered. My passion lay dead. I could
not write.
Finally, a pinprick of light in the far off
distance. Was there a chance for me and my writing after all?
Two years into my illness, I found the courage to
start writing again. Slowly at first. Nothing more than a few sentences. Random
thoughts written in my journal.
I also found the strength to face the fact that I
weighed too much. I started walking with my dog. Every day. My life brightened.
I could leave the house for a few moments every day and the world didn’t end.
Hope flickered.
I found it. A story born from a vivid dream I’d
written down long ago, stepped forward, willing to be the first. Tentatively,
hope flickered. The flame grew more.
My writing technique changed. No longer struck by
inspiration and writing until my back and fingers were numb, I scheduled
writing time with myself. I started small. A page. Two hundred and fifty words.
Then five hundred. I worked my way up to two thousand words a day. I kept the
pace steady. I was writing again.
That spark was now a brilliant fire. It wasn’t so far
away anymore. A slow, low-key birth, Out for Justice joined my collection
of beautiful blooms.
My weight dropped slowly. As each passing year added
another number to my age, more weight fell. Little by little, pound by pound. I grew proud of my appearance, coloring and cutting my hair.
My struggle
with Bipolar and Depression constantly draws energy from my soul. I’m able to
function again with minimal adjustments to my medication and minor cycles of
mania and depression.
Although, not without sacrifices.
Gone is the burning obsession that spilled idea
after idea. The all consuming fire now more like a bed of coals needing
constant attending in fear the fire might go out.
I’m grateful for the binders of story ideas I’d
gathered. They’ll feed my writing garden for longer than I could dream
possible. My pace has slowed. My words more deliberate. But, the passion still
burns in my heart. Best of all, I’m fulfilling my dream. I’m writing novels.
So, now there is everything you could possibly want to know about me and more, any questions?
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