Moxie, Rising.

Welcome to Tuesday’s with Chel.

Each week Chel Micheline of Gingerblue will offer her perspectives on our Bliss Habits. Please enjoy the wisdom and clarity she offers.

Moxie is a good thing, but it also seems the tiniest bit exhausting, like it’s some sort of thing you have to draw forth from deep within and invest energy and determination into happening.

I *perceive* Moxie to be that way, but when I think about it, I realize that Moxie usually happens on its own- it rises to the surface and takes over when you don’t even realize you have it in you to summon its energy. It’s sort of like a super-power very few of us realize we have until its most needed, and then it explodes to the surface all on its own.

Here’s my story:

Imagine, for a second, you own a house.

The house is pretty decent. It’s actually got a lot of potential. The problem is that there is one part of the house- a small, but very significant part- that constantly breaks down. It’s the kind of “broken” that effects the ENTIRE house as a whole, and the part can’t remain broken or the whole house will come down. And the part can’t be replaced because it’s part of the house’s foundation, so the only option is repair.

You’ve had all sorts of expert repair people come in and look at that broken down bit. You’ve have had it repaired several times, the repairs taking several months, each time. You’ve even had parts of your house RENOVATED several times (by several different people *promising* you that they had the exact fix that was needed) throwing your life into chaos and taking months and years out of your life, and the thing STILL keeps breaking down.

Exhausting, right? But what can you do? It seems like you are at the mercy of people with more knowledge and experience than you have. You can try and figure it out yourself, but that would be VERY dangerous as this part of the house is complicated and effects MANY systems.

What do you do?

What do you do if the “house” is your body and the broken-down bit is a part of that body?

That’s what I faced in my first year of college. I was born with Spina Bifida, and it wound up effecting the growth of my left foot so that it was quite a bit wonky. I didn’t walk on it right. My whole body was thrown out of whack- my hips, my spine, my neck, my other foot and leg, my brain, etc.

Many doctors took their shot at repairing my foot, reconstructing it, transplanting tendons and muscles into it, even filling it with all sorts of screws and bolts and things. Nothing seemed to work. It just kept evolving into a different kind of wonky.

So anyway, I was 18, and sick of the “house” of my body and sick of the “broken part” and sick of the endless repairs and renovations. I was DONE. I wanted to go away to college and start my life without medical issues and just move on. But then I moved to Alanta and there was a whole new set of doctors “tsk”-ing over the really BAD repairs and saying THEY could fix things. I politely said no, thank you- I asked them to help me keep “the house” and the “broken bit” running and I agreed to be vigilant about maintenance.

But my foot had other ideas. A blister on my toe met up with some VERY scary bacteria in my college dorm bathroom and on Thanksgiving of 1992 I was admitted to the hospital with a bone infection. At the risk of losing my foot and leg, I had to submit to another round of repairs. However, this time a doctor swooped in and did something completely new- he removed a lot of bone from my foot and replaced it with fresh and stable bone from my hip. He made me a NEW foot.

It was a time consuming process- I withdrew from college for the year and my focus became on my health, once again. But there was hope this time.

However, before this was going to happen, I had to beat the bone infection and while I was beating it, I had to prevent it from spreading. Part of my toe was removed, I had a central IV line implanted in my chest, right in between my breasts. The veins in my arms and legs were blowing from the IV antibiotics I was on 24/7 to treat the bad infection, and I was going to have to be on those antibiotics for several more months, round the clock.

Anyway, flash forward to several months later. Three reconstructive surgeries had been complete, my newly formed foot is in place (and my left hip sore and a little from the bone that was removed from it), I beat the bone infection, and I’m ready for the bandages to come off so I begin the arduous physical therapy process and learn how to walk again, to walk PROPERLY, to use my new foot the right way.

For the first time in *MY LIFE*, my “house” (my body) is all in order, all the broken parts fixed, and it’s time to turn on all the systems and see how things run.

One small thing- my central line, that IV line in my chest, needed to be removed before I left the hospital. It was supposed to be a simple procedure- a tug on the line, and a tiny bit of “pressure” (which means “pain” in medical terms, but you know how that goes), it slides out and one or two stitches later closing the little hole in my chest, I was done. I could go home and begin true recovery. Go home and begin to LIVE in my body for the very first time in my life. I was SO ready.

For some reason, a plastic surgeon was scheduled to remove my IV line. I guess he was the guy on the schedule for it since the nurses weren’t allowed to do it themselves.

Before the plastic surgeon was due to arrive- my last morning in the hospital- the nurse wheeled in a tray of shiny metal objects, which gave me pause. What happened to simple procedure? She explained it was just stuff for the stitches. Okay, but it still made me nervous. Even though I had been through MAJOR surgery and this giant infection and twenty years of “repairs”, for some reason I felt uneasy about it all.

The doctor was due at 10am, but he never showed up. Finally, at 5pm, he saunters in wearing his golf clothes, with a large group of young, male medical students trailing behind him, chatting about how this was just a simple procedure and then they could all go for dinner afterwards and then have the evening off. Very light mood all around.

The doctor explained to me it was a teaching hospital, so they were going to observe. I didn’t quite get why they needed to observe a simple procedure that happens constantly in a hospital, but whatever. Just get it out so I can go home.

So I take off my t-shirt and bra, and try to think about anything but the fact that I was an eighteen year old girl sitting in the middle of a pack of 20-something men, with no shirt on.

The doctor does his prep and then tugs on the line.

Nothing.

“Hmmmmm”, he says. He tugs harder. Nothing. He twists and tugs and moves around to the other side of the hospital bed and tugs from a different direction. Nothing happens- the line doesn’t budge.

Sweat forms on his brow. He looks at his watch. It’s now 5:15. He takes BOTH hands, wraps them around this tiny tube jutting from my chest and YANKS. Some of the medical students don’t look comfortable with his approach.

The tube doesn’t budge, but my shoulder basically gets YANKED down my chest. And it hurt.

Let me tell you something- I have a HIGH pain tolerance. I have RARELY taken a pain pill, or “pushed the button” on my pain IVs. Ever. I just hate the way pain medication makes me feel- I get super dizzy and my stomach gets crampy and I feel like throwing up, and to be honest, 99% of the time it’s just easier to deal with pain than feeling like I’m completely motion sick and ready to run to the bathroom, which is difficult to do when you are stuck in bed with a bum foot.

Anyway, the doctors mumble and confer. The line MUST be caught on something, something inside my chest. I hear bits of the conversation, mostly about how it’s now 5:30pm, and to get me “up” (to the operating room) would take time and organization and phone calls and all that so let’s just open up and see what’s happening.

Before I realize it, the doctor grabs a scalpel and CUTS INTO MY CHEST, right above my right breast. No warning. Blood pours out, my mom looks like she might faint, my dad leaves the room to try and find someone else to take care of this.

And I feel something going on in my chest, something besides the tugging and the pain from the sudden cut in my skin. Something brewing and bubbling, in a way.

Then the doctors- two of them this time- tug again. It hurts a lot and I’m bleeding and that scalpel REALLY FREAKING HURT.

All the sudden, I hear a scream. Not a “crying in agony” kind of scream, but a “horror film, I’m going to hurt you” blood-curdling scream. A furious and rage-filled scream. A low, deep scream, sort of like the kind an animal would make when it’s attacking.

The doctors jumped. I did, too, until I realized the scream was coming from me. And it felt really good, in a way. I wasn’t sad or depressed or in pain (well, I was, but not enough to make me scream). I was PISSED OFF. I was DONE. I thought I was done before, but this was being *really* done. I screamed a little more.

The doctors immediately leapt back and SCRAMBLED out of the room. The nurses rush in, along with the floor physician who is astonished at the fact that I have been cut open. The kindly resident who has watched over my progress since the day I was admitted back in November runs in. My orthopedic surgeon comes down from ANOTHER FLOOR to see what’s going on, what the screaming was.

I calmed down immediately and I was whisked into an operating room by my orthopedic surgeon and the wonderful resident, where they gave me some drugs to make me sleepy and then took the time to figure out what was going on.

It turns out that my body, the body I had always been a little impatient and unkind about because of its broke-down bits, had GROWN AROUND the line, wrapping it in tissue and incorporating it deep into my chest. My body had HEALED the central IV line into itself, welcoming it and making it a working part of the whole. There was no way a simple (or crazy-hard) tug was going to dislodge that thing. It had to be carefully untangled and cut out. It took them at least an hour to do this. But I wasn’t conscious for any part of it except when they stitched that wound in my chest up.

I learned two things that day.

The first, was that my body is an amazing, incredible home. It has gone above and beyond what it was made to do, and while I still struggle with the imperfect bits, I am truly grateful for what it does, and how it has recovered over and over again, and TRIED its best to work even when working was almost impossible.

Second, I learned about the power of my voice. That I could say “no”. That I could make noise, FROM MY HEART, and literally pick up men and MOVE them away from me when they caused me pain. I had never done that before, never broken free like that, never used my inner strength to express how I felt.

On that day I realized it’s OKAY to be done, to have had enough of something, and to push for something better. And I can say I have never stopped living in that way since it happened. I have become very good at being my own defender, standing guard over myself (maybe a little too good, but I’ll talk about that some other time…) It was SO empowering. It sucks that it had to happen that way, and at that late a point in my medical life. But up until then, I thought I just had to go with what life handed to me, what the doctors said.

It’s just NOT TRUE!

I also realized that Moxie comes about when you least expect it, when you think you have no energy or no fight left in you. THAT’s when the Moxie comes out.

So if you are at the end of your rope, if you are “done” with something, if you are losing hope, and don’t have the energy to summon your own Moxie, DON’T give up. That Moxie is still in there. Don’t be afraid to expect it to come forward on its own. Don’t be afraid to say “NO”, to fight for something better, to defend yourself, to draw on your inner resources, to ask for MORE, from not only the people around you but from LIFE itself.

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If you too have a story of Moxie you would like to share, please consider linking it up to our

“Speaking of Moxie” party or contacting me to guest post here on Bliss Habits.