Also, I do get very tired of harping on the stuff I deal with. It is what it is.
Of course, though, a big reason I blog is to air it all out, to share my life perspective. For the benefit of GETTING IT OUT, and if, perchance, someone in a similar situation came here and felt like somebody understands....
Life is a mixed bag. A big, jumbled, tissues, chewed bubblegum, hair clips, chap stick and change in the bottom MESS of a bag.
There are things that you make happen, whether intentionally or not, and things that happen TO you.
For example, wanting to have a child. I wanted that and made it happen. On the other hand, my eye problems happened to me. That was not something I wanted.
I'm not sure how to categorize my husband's health problems.
I met him as a visually impaired Diabetic. I married him as a sighted kidney-pancreas transplant recipient. Now, and for the last almost 12 years, Mark is a Diabetic on dialysis with multiple heart conditions.
Mark and I made the transplant happen. But the rest of it? Happened to him/us. No one wanted any of it. No one wants any of it.
They say it's not what you're given but how you handle it that matters. I tend to agree. More on that later.
Because sometimes I get disheartened, even angry, about what we've been given.
Did I ask for a sick husband because I married him knowing the possibilities?
I don't think so. Even when two people getting married are both perfectly healthy and they say the vows "in sickness and in health", they don't really think about the possibility of sickness. And perfectly healthy people can develop health problems down the road.
When you get married and say those vows, though, you sign up for it all. In our case, "it all" is a lot. Not as much as some, but more than most.
I didn't want to be worried all the time. I didn't want ever to be faced with the idea of being a young(ish) widow. I didn't want to deal with nasty low blood sugars that take everything out of both of us. I didn't want to feel like hospitals are my second home. Regardless of how informed I may or may not have been on my wedding day, I didn't bargain for the disease(s) to lead to a loss of intimacy with the love of my life. I didn't want every cough, sneeze, ache and pain my husband has to make me think about worst case scenarios. Every. Single. Time. I didn't want PTSD because my husband has had to be shocked back to life on more than one occasion.
To know the itemized cost of resuscitation. How much a life is worth. Around $346.
I never wanted to feel helpless sitting at home because I cannot simply jump in the car and get to wherever Mark or one one of my kids is at a moment's notice. I never wanted to feel like this life, these limitations, are holding me back, that there are things I simply cannot do. That because of all this crap, I have so many worries, and I hesitate. I question. I fear. I am damaged.
And yet. And yet I am happy.
To know true and abiding love. To be a mom. To have sweet and generous family, and caring friends. My little house and big, fat cat. That I'm not totally blind, and that, despite everything he's been through, Mark is a fighter.
How we handle the things we've been given? I can now hold my head up and own that we do it with courage and grace. Because having to wage war on the crap life throws at you gives you the perspective to truly appreciate the good. To focus on it. To nurture it and help it grow BIGGER than the bad.
This is what we try to do every day. Sometimes we're not successful. But mostly we are.
So yeah -- and I'm saying all of this as much for myself as for anyone else -- we have to deal with some tough stuff. Sometimes it really sucks. There are things missing; things we want but can't have. I will never sugar coat it.
But we have the most important things that at the end of the day are all anybody really wants. And we CHOOSE to let those things fill us up.
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