"I want you to think back to seven years ago when you got your wisdom teeth out, Ryan," said my therapist. (Yes, I've been seeing her that long. And no, I will likely not stop seeing her until she retires. She's amazing and I'm going to hold onto that therapeutic goodness until I can't anymore.)
"I literally worried myself so sick I had to cancel the appointment and reschedule," I said. Next week will be 7 years ago that I got them out.
"Look at how different it is this time," she said. "You're literally about to get four organs taken out of your body next week and you are doing just fine with it - you're a little nervous, sure, but this is a major surgery. Look at how far you've come."
She had a point. It was nice to look at how far I've come in terms of my own anxiety around medical stuff in particular.
What I've also come to realize is that this time, this experience, it is a gift, and a big one. I'm getting the signal and I'm getting it right now - this is my chance to become healthier when this is all done. If I waste this opportunity, what in the actual eff am I doing with my life? If I don't have my health, I have nothing. Literally, nothing. I can push against it all I want. I can buck against how this is unfair, how I could have learned this lesson differently, how something different could have happened. I could have lamented that my body is failing me and wonder why this has happened and why now and spiral right along with all of these thoughts.
It couldn't have gone any differently. This is written into my genes. If it didn't happen now, it would have happened at another time and I would have gone through this all still, but later when I had less of a chance to recover well and make some use out of this lesson, or worse, if those thyroid nodules had turned into cancer, or I got some kind of reproductive cancer. I made the decision somewhere along the way that I wasn't going to worry about what this would look like. What's the point? There's no changing it! I had two choices - I could either let it stress me out, or I could roll with it. The thyroid stuff is written into my genes too, and I could have made the choice to get mad about it. I did, for a while - it's been a really hard few months. But, literally one morning, I woke up and said to myself that I needed to make a different choice in how I was handling this if I was going to get through this with my sanity intact. I could, again, buck against it, or I could roll with it and let myself learn the lesson that I was supposed to.
My health is precious. That's the lesson. Faced with the idea that I might lose it, it's time for me to continue to push it to the forefront.
That means exercise. That means eating better. That means leaning into my body's signals instead of ignoring them. That means trusting my doctors enough to be honest with them and let them help me.
So, at the same time as looking up what to expect after a hysterectomy and after thyroid surgery, I've been looking up ways to carefully exercise in ways that will both benefit my health and speed my recovery process. The hard stuff, the emotional work, is progressing and I'm over the biggest hump of it. The scary stuff is done now that I have the information that I need and can make educated choices. The only thing to do now is let the physical stuff run its course, recover, and then make different choices in how I treat my body. What I keep hearing from my doctors is that because I'm only 40, my body is much more resilient than it would be if I was even doing this a few years from now, so I'm in striking distance of something big and amazing health-wise. I'm solving a lot of potential problems down the road by getting these surgeries done now, and alleviating a lot of worry around what my health will look like if those thyroid nodules continue to grow (and they are - I got an ultrasound of my thyroid done yesterday, and the biggest nodule of the four grew a half a centimeter in three months. This is not a problem that is just going to go away.) or if I don't have the hysterectomy.
So, as I move into the healing phase physically, I'm starting to move into it emotionally too. I've got really good feelings about how the next few weeks and months are going to play out, and I'm going to continue to ride this wave. Am I nervous? Sure. Freaking out? Maybe sometimes, but not all the time anymore. These surgeries will solve a lot more problems than cause them, and I feel really good about that even if it's not something I asked for. And, even though none of this is in my control, I feel thankful for the lessons that this experience is teaching me.
Will it always be this way, especially through my recovery? Probably not, but I'll ride the good days as much as the bad ones, knowing that both are temporary. Pain only turns into suffering if we hold on to it.
(I also think it's no coincidence that Radical Acceptance has been a major theme in my clinical work this week. Thanks, Universe.)
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