So since then, so I was really looking forward to going to Ushuaia with my love and my friend and spending some time training hard, putting our relationship and our friendship into this kind of environment where we’re teaching each other about patience and communication and listening and skiing, so I feel very much like that was taken.
and I’m sad, and the reason that I feel sad about it is because I feel like State Farm took it from me and that makes me really sad, but I know that I had to work toward letting go of that.
I was angry about it for a while, partially because of the tryout, but the tryout, while it’s a goal and it’s something to work toward and something that’s sort of been the glue or the path or the light on the path I guess. It’s more like the light on the path.
It’s not really the point, and so, you know, if life happens and the tryout doesn’t, that’s okay. I’ll be sad not to get to give it a shot, but you know at this point it’s kind of out of my hands. All I can do is keep doing the best that I can do and we’ll see what happens, but not getting to go to Ushuaia with Kurt was a little bit heartbreaking and so that heartbreak, that loss, was very difficult, more because of the opportunity for us to experience what it would be like to have an adventure like that for an extended period of time alone together and, you know, see who we are alone together.
I feel a little bit like that got taken, and so I had to turn it around and let go of the idea that that got taken and sort of arrive at the fact that that’s not what’s happening now.
As angry as I am with the claims adjuster for my case who promised me when I was hit we’ll do everything in our power to get you healthy as quickly and as thoroughly and completely as we can, and then stopped paying for treatment about, you know, six months or three months into it.
I can’t dwell on that. All I can do is, you know, continue to ask them politely to pay for my rehabilitation and the things that I need to make me healthy, so here we are. No Ushuaia. It’s all right. No trip to Whistler. We were thinking about going up to Whistler to ride bikes. It’s all right. That’s not going to happen either. No downhill mountain-biking race at Sol Vista. That’s all right.
It was a qualifier for nationals, and I’ll tell you the truth, I was a little curious. I mean, like am I going to be Kitner? No, probably not, but do I want to race downhill more? Heck yeah, man. I love it, and you know what else? I like winning it.
I don’t like winning it necessarily to compete against the other people but to compete against myself. This is a really unique experience for me. Like, I don’t feel like there’s other people out there because it’s not four cross. I’m not competing against them. There’s a clock, there’s a course, and I wonder (a) can I do it and (b) can I do it well.
If I do it well, I will be faster. If not, can I go as fast as I can and stay on my bike, but like how well can I do this and the result has been faster every time, and so now I’m just wildly curious about it and I just want to get after it. So now, anyway, I got myself completely distracted.
None of that stuff is going to happen and so I didn’t go to Soul Vista and I didn’t win and I didn’t win any points and I didn’t get to go to nationals, and it doesn’t really matter. I mean, it doesn’t matter at all, and it’s hard to let go of those disappointments and see that they’re just things that happen or don’t happen, and it’s like that old Chinese story of good luck, bad luck, you know.
Maybe it’s good luck, maybe it’s bad luck. It’s neither. It’s just something that happened, so we moved on and then things were pretty good for a while and I accepted: okay, so you know clearly it’s difficult for me to zip up my sweatshirt and it’s difficult for me to put a ponytail in and it’s difficult for me to use buttons, and it’s starting to be difficult for me to type, so I'm losing strength in my left hand really quickly.
My shoulder’s starting to hurt. I’m losing strength in my shoulder. It’s time. It’s time to do this, and then there was a night when I woke up in the middle of the night by myself and I thought to myself oh my God, what if the pain of the surgery hurts so much that I can’t stand it.
What if it’s beyond my pain tolerance, and saying that now feels really silly because I know I have a big pain tolerance. I had both my kids at home without any drugs. I think they gave me some ibuprofen. You know what I mean? it’s fine.
What else? I had an implant put in my mouth without any Novocaine because I had to give a talk on mental performance coaching that evening and I couldn’t be all numbed up. I needed to be able to speak, so they like drilled a big hole in my jaw and sank a big steel post into it after they packed it with cadaver bone without numbing me up, and that was painful and I was okay.
so like why should cutting my neck open, intubating me, moving my esophagus over, moving all my neck muscles over, cutting up all my discs, taking a big 1-inch by ½-inch disc out of my hip bone and using a hammer to put it in between my vertebra and screwing a titanium plate to it be any worse?
I guess the answer is because oh my God, that’s what they’re doing, and it’s my spine, and it’s scary, and then the next thought that has been sort of dancing around in my head every once in a while is it’s really unlikely that anything will go wrong, but what if something does go wrong and I never see my kids again?
that’s really scary. They are my heart. I lost my dad when I was really young. I was 13 and I still miss him every day, and so I keep going oh shit, maybe it’s not worth it. You know, the percentage chance of something going wrong is so small and they do this all the time and Andy’s fine and it’s all good, but you know I had that thought when I got the instructions for the surgical shower that I have to take every night.
I have to scrub my body in a certain order with this hibicleanse which is an antimicrobial soap. It’s a surgical scrub and I have to put this antibacterial stuff in my nose twice a day to reduce the germs, because I’m preparing not to get an infection around the big, huge hole they’re going to make in my neck, and the idea of getting an infection is so scary.
It’s so scary, and so I’m like, okay I’m just not going to get an infection because that doesn’t happen that often, but I know a couple of people. I know probably five people that have had staph infections and it’s serious, it’s frightening, and a kid I coached, he almost lost his hand because he got a staph infection from swimming in a hotel pool.
It put him in the hospital and he had like major, massive hand surgery and he almost lost his hand, so I think like oh my God, if I get a staph infection in my bone in my neck, like holy cow, what are they going to do, cut my head off?
I mean, maybe we could be refitted with one that’s got a brain, but anyway, so I’m trying to let go of that thought.
It comes back every once in a while. It’s starting to ease. It doesn’t have as much of a hold of me as it did before. Insight spent last night hanging out with Bodhi.
Last night was helpful, but I caught Bodie’s cold a couple of days ago so I haven’t been able to spend as much time with him as I want to because I can’t be sick and go into surgery, so I had a sore throat and felt like shit for about five days, and then Bodie got sicker. He got some diarrhea, so I had to stay away from him and the house and the kids, and so part of me is thinking, like, this might be my last five days with them that I ever see them on this earth, and part of me is thinking: just don’t get sick so that you can be healthy and you survive and thrive and heal and whatever, but it’s interesting.
Even having a rational thought through it, the fear is still there. It’s still sort of stuck in there because I love those boys and I want them to be happy and healthy and have a mom and I want to play with them.
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