Alone

I am hard on myself.  I am my own worst critic and made it a habit of beating myself up daily.  There were countless days when I was growing up I allowed others opinions and criticisms of me to form how I viewed myself.  My sense of self was skewed.  I think the little of bit balance (of positive to negate some of the negative) came from my mother.  No matter what I did, or where we were in life at any particular time, she always tried to hammer home with me how beautiful and smart I was.  Mom told me I could be anything I wanted to be and what anyone else thought of me did not matter.  I think I believed it for a while.  It became harder to convince myself once my mom had died. 

I was seven weeks shy of my twenty-third birthday when my mother died.  I arrived home to my apartment around 2am after a marathon workday of my full-time job then six hours babysitting.  Back then I only had a landline and an answering machine.  That makes me sound so old….Anyhow when I arrived home and saw nine messages on my answering machine, I knew.  My mother was in a nursing facility a few blocks from my apartment so I had access to her.  I was her power of attorney and nothing could be done without my authorization, apparently that included moving her corpse. The first three messages were nurses from the facility telling me to call as soon as I could.  The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh messages were my older sister blathering hysterically into the phone.  The final two messages were the nurses again.  No one said she was dead, but I knew she was.  I guess it was against policy to announce someone’s death on an answering machine.

I grabbed my keys and ran the five blocks to the nursing home.  I pounded on the locked door until someone answered.  “I’m Angela Matrozza and I’m here about my mother, Dorothy.”  An orderly let me in and led me to the nurse’s station.  I kept walking, making a b-line for my mom’s room.  The nurses tried to stop me, but I wasn’t having it.  I suppose someone wanted to prepare me for what I was about to see. 

I entered my mother’s room to find my sister sitting by her bed crying, dramatically and hysterically as she usually did.  Mom was blue.  She was still mildly warm and a little bloated.  She was lying in her bed on her back and the small cylindrical tube protruding from her throat where her tracheotomy line connected was taped.  Her hair was pulled back into a long white ponytail.  Mom was a hairdresser and stopped coloring and styling her hair when she was no longer able to lift her arms to do it.  I would brush her hair and pull it back into a bun for her when I would visit her, which was just about daily.  Her hair was a bit tattered because I had not done it in two days.  I was supposed to visit her the day before but she told me to rest up for my long workdays. “You don’t have to be here everyday, Angela,” she’d tell me.  “You are allowed to have a life”. I told her I’d come visit her Friday, which would have been tomorrow had she lived to see it.

My sister called my Uncle (mom’s brother) because no one could get a hold of me.  He and my Aunt shortly arrived after I did to find me lying in bed next to my mom stroking her hair.  I think I felt bad it was messy and at the same time I was amazed that it was still so soft.

I vaguely remember the brief conversation between my Uncle and me. I told them which funeral home to contact to come and retrieve her.  I had to make the call because I was the only one authorized to do so.  I stayed there until the guys from the funeral home arrived and wanted to watch as they gathered mom together but my Uncle wouldn’t let me.  Which I thought was kinda funny since I’d seen so much worse. 

Funerals are for the living, not the dead.  It’s this morbid ritualistic sense of closure that we need to put ourselves through to say goodbye.  Funerals were not mom’s thing and I knew what she wanted when the time had come.  Well, that time being now I needed to assert myself and complete the task at hand.  I made very few concessions to my siblings.  The only battle I really did lose was to have her casket open during two days of viewing.  I got to see her alone beforehand to be sure she looked like herself.  My mother had given me this lovely silk pale pink long nightgown and robe set. She told me its what she wanted to be cremated in.  “No sense in torching good clothes” She’d say with a chuckle. 

After two days of viewing, a little sibling drama, and finishing all the plans I was spent.  Emotionally and mentally.  True to form I held it together until the very end.  I wasn’t someone who liked to emote, especially in front of others and certainly not in public. But on the second day after the service, which was done there at the funeral home, (my mother was not a churchgoing woman), people filed by the casket and me to say their final goodbyes and pay their respects.  I sat at the head of my mother’s casket in a single lonely chair.  I suppose because most of my life it had been her and I, and there just wasn’t anywhere else at the time that seemed appropriate for me to be.  My brother and sister were with their families and melted into the crowd of people.  I felt like I was sitting alone on this island with my dead mother. 

Once everyone had cleared out and it was time to take her to the crematorium, I had a final moment with my mom.  My siblings and aunt and uncle were outside.  They had given me the courtesy of privacy in my final moments with mom.  It was quiet.  I remember looking down at her. I bent over and kissed her on the forehead.  I whispered to her that I loved her more than anything and to tell daddy I miss and love him.  I also told her I hoped they were in the same place, perhaps hoping for a reason to chuckle.  To this day I can see that moment in my mind’s eye anytime, as if I had just lived it a second before. 

I had never felt so alone in the universe as I did in that moment.

My father died fifteen years before.  Mom always kept him alive for me. She adored him and never remarried.  His memory was part of our daily lives and it was if I had lost them both, him for the second time. 

The funeral director gently approached and told me it was time.   I reluctantly let go of her hand and stepped away from the casket.  I confirmed that everything on her person was to be removed except her silky pink garments and her wedding ring for the cremation. He assured me that the other pieces would be returned to me promptly.  

I watched him slowly close the casket lid.  Watching the shadow cast over my mother’s face.  When the lid was closed, I dropped to my knees and cried.  I knew it was the last time I’d ever see my mother’s lovely face.  I knew the last person who ever loved me and believed in me unconditionally was gone.  I was alone.  It was the scariest and worst feeling in the world.

As my family and the rest of the world went back to their daily lives and routines, I was plagued by grief.  I quit my job, unplugged my phone and climbed into bed.  I cried.  I cried so hard and so much I threw up.  My bed had become my island. Where I stayed for almost two months. 

The funny thing is.  No one looked for me.  No one called me.  No one came knocking on my door to see how I was.  Which confirmed my beliefs and solidified my loneliness to my core. 

Those dark, lonely, weeks were only interrupted by a few of my friends pounding on my apartment door the afternoon of my birthday.  “Get your ass out of bed!”  “Get a shower!”  “We are going out!”  They yelled at me.  I reluctantly opened my door and they smiled at me as if they were waking me up from a hangover.  I can’t imagine how crappy I looked but I felt like death.  I got up and decided to get cleaned up because I was starving and people were here for me.  Throughout the history of my life it is my friends that have never let me down.  Which is why I treasure them to this day.

My 23^rd birthday, which was captured on film, was a crazy concoction of bars, strip clubs, and diners.  It was the first time I laughed since my mother had died.  For a few hours my loneliness and internal despair had been put aside.  And I was grateful.

Mother’s Day arrived shortly after my birthday, which really sucked.  But I took it as an opportunity to try and be productive, honoring my mother in some way.  I decided it was the perfect day to finally lay mom’s ashes to rest. 

I had been staring at a box on my dresser for months that read on the top, “Remains of Dorothy Iona Matrozza, March, 1997” I couldn’t afford an Urn and even if I could have I wouldn’t have bought one because I did not wish to keep my mother’s ashes forever.  That and they were ridiculously expensive.  I knew everything she wanted, except how to dispose of her goddamn ashes.   Of the entire myriad of things we discussed, THAT would be the one that would have been the most helpful.  I didn’t even thing about it.  I took her to the cemetery where my father was buried, and with the help of a close friend I opened and spilled my mothers ashes into the ground beneath my father’s headstone.  I felt it was where she belonged.  Or at least where I wanted her to belong.

   

Her ashes were pure white and like sand.  I ran my fingers through them imaging the last time I hugged her. The last time I brushed her hair.  The last words we spoke to one another. 

I spent many years longing inside for death.  I was lonely and unhappy all the time.  I wanted to be with my parents.  I wanted to be with the two people who never judged me, never ignored me, and never ever failed me.  Despite my outgoing sociable persona, I was a black hole inside. I spent many years punishing myself for feeling how I felt.  For succumbing to the loneliness.   Hating myself for being guilty of letting her die alone.  It was only when I was actually faced with my own death that I realized what a gift my life and experiences actually are.  I realized I wasn’t alone.  I was loved.  I was of value.  My presence in the world effected lives beyond my own.  And my time here was not done yet.  Not even close.

I think of my mom everyday.  I recall the deep alto in her voice and in her laugh.  Whenever I look down at my own hands, I see hers.  Although I spent many years living in the depths of my grief, I live my life today honoring the woman these two amazing people shaped me into being.  I embrace the relationship I had with my parents as well the impact of losing them.  I continue to do the best I can to make my parents and myself proud.  Every single day.

Feet Don't Fail Me

  

I am not a runner.  I run, but that does not make me a “runner”.  I think I am actually a little retarded.  I developed this bucket list of sorts a few years back.  The list consisted of a few things I wanted to accomplish before I reached 40.  Although the list is small, since the stroke I am more adamant than ever to accomplish it.

One of the most challenging things on my bucket list is to run a marathon.  26.2 miles.  I actually might have blamed the stroke for the damage to my brain that makes me think I can do this, had I not set the goal to so do before I fell ill.   

I began training for a half-marathon about six months before the stroke.  I figured if I was to reach this massive physical goal I had to do it in phases.  I’d run a 5k, then maybe a 10k or 15k and then a half marathon.  Once I had that under my belt I would be more realistic about tackling the entire haul.  I was up to running eight miles when I had the stroke.  It was the furthest I had run in my entire life.  I was a lifelong soccer player so I could sprint.  Long distance running was never my thing.  I was so excited and proud of those eight miles.  Then my stupid brain halted my progress.

I was planning on running the Miami Beach half in the 13.1 Rock and Roll series.  I clearly remember thinking to myself, a couple times actually while I was hospitalized, “How am I gonna train in here?”  When I was released from the hospital I asked my neurologist if I could still do the half, (which hysterically was less than five weeks away at the time).  Of course he laughed at me and firmly said, “No.”  I was looking for a compromise.  “Can I walk it?”  (With my walker)  “No!”  So the 2010 Miami Beach half passed me by.  I didn’t run it.  I now realize what a doofus I was to think for a second I could even walk one mile let alone 13.1.  Looking back it took me weeks to be able to get out of bed and use Esther, my walker, around the house.  I was exhausted after pushing her to the bathroom and then back to bed.  I had serious delusions of grandeur.  At home I soon forgot about the race I had missed and refocused on recovery and sleep.  Lots of sleep.   My thoughts of running didn’t return to my conscious mind until I began physical therapy. 

Luckily I convinced the doc to release me home from the hospital instead of straight to an inpatient rehab facility.  I actually did a small pirouette to convince him I was ok to be home and travel to outpatient rehab.  It’s a small miracle I didn’t fall flat on my big ass.  Impressed with my fervor, he let me go home.  I was expected to be in outpatient PT and OT (occupational therapy) for at least six months.  I was released from both after 45 days.  Yeah, that’s me, forcefully stubborn as all hell.

Occupational therapy was all about motor coordination and physical response. Basically they were assessing how the signals in my brain were communicating with my body. I went through a few repetitive visual exercises.  It was really frustrating at first because my brain clearly recognized the signals and how to appropriately respond to them but my physical being couldn’t keep up.  It was, quite frankly, infuriating.  My brain told me immediately what to do but my hands couldn’t do what I wanted them to do.  My arms couldn’t reach those lit up red buttons in a timely manner.  There was this huge board.  It was probably 20x30 and it was white covered in rows of red buttons that would light up in any given random order.  I had to press each button as it lit up.  My eyes found them immediately.  My arms and hands just couldn’t get to them in time so the first few go rounds I missed a lot.  My motor coordination was crap.  I was really pissed.  There were other visual things, matching games and items on paper, but that damn board was the thorn in my side.  I was determined to make my body respond so I could master it.

Physical therapy was surprisingly not as mentally frustrating to me as the occupational component.  However, it was grueling.  It was like having to stand on a toothpick while juggling.  Ok, perhaps that is a mild exaggeration, but it damn well felt like that at the time.  I broke a major sweat doing the simplest of things. My left side was pretty compromised by all the brain swelling, as was my vision, so that was my physical therapist’s focus.  Jackie was my PT and god bless her she was awesome. When Jackie said shit to me like, “Ok you are an athlete, you can handle this”, I knew it was going to be unpleasant.  And I was rarely wrong.  Balance was a huge obstacle for me. Mostly because my vision was so wacky that it was often difficult for me to find any resemblance of equilibrium.  Jackie honed in on that.  I remember a lot of the elementary things I had to do. Like walk.  Its amazing how hard walking is with a bum leg and screwed up vision.  I recall walking on a rubber matted area, set up like parallel bars in gymnastics, except the bars on either side of me were metal and there for me to hold onto for dear life.   Which I white knuckled the first few times I walked it. 

Once I got walking down pretty well, Jackie got all ambitious on me.  She gave me a balance exercise that I was intimidated by, but tried anyhow.  She made me stand on this round disc that had half a ball beneath it.  So basically I had to stand on half a sphere and not fall.  It was my “Whatcyou talkin’ bout Willis?” rehab moment.  I can’t put into words how hard it was.  I mean I did it, and I did it EVERY therapy session, but it was excruciating every time.  I had to focus, really focus, on my muscles and visualize myself not falling every time I stepped on. I hated letting go of those bars.  Those bars were the only thing between my head hitting the floor and me being back in the hospital.   Then after a few sessions, once my need for the bars was gone, she felt we should strike up a friendly game of “catch” while I stood on this satanic contraption.  Yes, catch.  She literally threw a ball at my head and expected me to catch it WHILE I balanced on the disc.  It sounds simple enough.  But it sucked.  I was soaked with sweat and fear after about ten passes back and fourth.  That exercise became a staple in my sessions.  And the balance time got longer and the balls I caught became heavier.  In two weeks I felt stronger that I ever thought possible with my body in that state. 

My most difficult time was post therapy and pre final MRI/MRV.  Even though I had recaptured my ability to do basic things, I was still not allowed to exercise. At all.  I was allowed to walk no more than three miles a day (on days I was not so fatigued that I could actually do that).  I was in a limbo of sorts. A rehabilitative purgatory.  Although I had improved, my neurologist would not clear me for anything even remotely strenuous until he saw that the blood clots had all dissipated.  I’d dream of returning to my yoga practice and wondered how long it would take for me to get back to running eight miles. 

I finally went in for my final MRV in October of 2010.  Driving to the appointment I said out loud, very matter of factly, “The clots are gone. My scan will be clean”.  

I waited eight long days for that call.  Then it came.  The clots were gone.  Not only were they gone, but also three baffled neurologists looked at my scan, because my brain had healed so perfectly and completely there was absolutely no sign of the trauma it had endured.  No scarring, no damaged tissue, nothing.   My brain was healthy.  More so than it was ever expected to be. 

I was at work when I was given the results.  I hung up the phone and cried at my desk for ten solid minutes.  The relief was overwhelming.  I think that moment in this entire ordeal was the first time I felt truly lucky.  I then called Keane and left him a message.  After that, my first thought was, “Can I run now?”

My neurologist told me I could do yoga and some light running to start.  He advised me to ease back into it, but I was totally free and clear to resume my training.  I was so excited and terrified at the same time.  I truly hoped I could get back to where I had left off, sooner than later.

I remember the first time I ran a full mile. It was the following December.  It was the best Christmas present I could have ever given myself.  It took me twenty minutes, but I did it.  I sat on the edge of the treadmill in my basement and with head in hands cried.  I cried a lot to myself in the following months.  Every tear was one of pure gratitude.  I thanked my body everyday for returning to me and promised to treat it well for the rest of my life.  Thus far, with Keane’s help, I have stuck to that promise pretty well.

I have faithfully run and practiced yoga since my clean scan.  I have set my mind into motion that I can reach each small goal I set.  I ran my first 5k with Keane on our anniversary in March 2011. He held my hand and saw me across the finish line.  I did it in 37:42, but I finished.  Today I am running at least twice a week on the treadmill (a 5k or a 5 miler depending on the day), and an 8 – 10 mile run outside once every two weeks or so.  I practice yoga in class twice a week and at home regularly, while lifting weights once a week.  My routine is set and although I am not perfect with it, I am getting stronger and looking forward to being in the best shape of my adult life by 40.

So here I am.  Nineteen days away from running my half marathon in Miami.  As each day creeps closer, the anticipation fills me with both excitement and terror.  I know deep down I can finish, even though doubt still haunts me on days where my body feels weak.  I’ve been mentally preparing for this for years.  I have trained responsibly yet hard, for almost seventeen months.  It is all going to be in front of me in nineteen days.  It will be the best feeling in the world to cross that finish line with these legs of mine.  It may very well be the hardest thing I’ve done so far.  It will be a test of my mental fortitude and physical strength.  It will once again allow me to prove to myself I can do anything.

And I can’t wait.

A Little Help From My Friends

It never ceases to amaze me when people are kind.  In today’s world people are always ready to bitch about something.  Everyone wants everything yesterday and impatience, instant gratification, and pleasure are immediate needs of most people.  It seemed to me that the days of the “Golden Rule” had gone by the wayside.  The Golden Rule being “Do unto others as you’d have others do unto you” (For those of you who might be confused).  Of course my views on people have changed a bit. Not dramatically, but I have been able to witness the selfless and kind nature of others first hand.  Sometimes it comes from places we least expect it.

I live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  The state capital is a nice place to live.  It has its desirable features while lacking in some areas.  Like most places I am sure people who are from here wonder why in the hell people leave where they are from to move here. I arrived here via New York, then Vermont.  After I left my hometown of Pittsburgh and was far away from PA for almost four years, I wanted to come back.  Be closer to home, without actually being back home.  Harrisburg at the time was a great option.  It was close enough to visit family and old friends but not so close that anyone could show up on our doorstep unexpectedly.  The only thing that was difficult was that we were alone.  No one was in an immediate proximity should an emergency arise. 

After living here a few years I left the company I was working for and branched out on my own.  Being in business for myself granted me to opportunity and freedom to do things on an unconfined schedule.  I could go to luncheons, chamber mixers, and professional group meetings regularly to get out and meet new people.   These opportunities brought people into my life that would provide me a kind of support I never thought I’d know; women and men who had not only become colleagues or clients, but friends and comrades. 

I am not close to my family (and I use that term referring to the people I am related to by blood).  I used to worry about that a lot growing up.  I actually came to resent it.  I went through a lot of inner turmoil to try and figure out why I wasn’t super close to my siblings, cousins, and Aunts and Uncles.  I thought something was wrong with me.  I never blamed it on the fact that my brother and sister were both considerably older than me, fifteen and seventeen years older, respectively.  Or the fact that my extended family was spread all over the globe.  Sometimes I thought that because my father died so young it severed us as a family unit.  Part of me still thinks that might hold some weight but I can’t say for sure.  Whatever the reason I grew up very disconnected from my family.  Once my mother died I was pretty much a lone wolf.  That’s just the way it was.  And for the most part still is.  I have love for my family and as an adult have come to accept things as they are, trying not to dwell on it so much anymore.  I think the lack of a solid, dependable and safe family unit is what made me so independent while helping me develop as an outgoing, social being.

My husband says I make friends easily.  That is not true.  I am open to people and make acquaintances easily.  I do however make friends.  My true blue friends till the end are few and far between, but I do have them.  And I know I am very lucky in that respect.  Yet my ability to be open to and foster relationships on a variety of social levels has done me well.  Now, that being said, I am not everyone’s cup of tea.  For sure.  I have a way about me, or shall I say my delivery, that people either find endearing and wonderfully fabulous or dreadful and offensively repellant. Either way is fine.  I have learned with age, and much heartache, you can’t please everyone all the time.

My friends have always been important to me.  I choose them wisely and only give them as much grief as I agree to take from them.  When I got married my brother said something very poignant to me. After spending several hours huddled around a few beers at a table of my college buds he said to me at the end of the evening, “Ange, your friends really love you”.  To which I responded, “Of course they do. They are the family I got to choose”.  I didn’t say it to be hurtful, but I think it was a great view into him knowing who I was as a person. Being able to see me through the eyes of people that really knew me and were intertwined in my life.

By the time I had become ill, I had lived in Harrisburg almost seven years, had been in business for four years, and built a wealth of contacts and “human capital”.  I had a large social circle, a huge Rolodex, and a small circle of intimate friends who had matured and grown with me over the years.  The people in that circle are still with me today.  I’d take a bullet for the few of them, as I know they would for me.  When I was whisked away from Christine’s office in that ambulance I know one thing that went through both Keane’s and my mind as some point was, ‘Who do we call?” 

Of course the obligatory calls were made.  My brother and sister, Keane’s parents, and a few select others in my family.  But no one on that list was here. No one could rush to the hospital to meet us.  So when Keane asked me whom he should call, I thought of the closest few people to me at the time, my friends from CPAFE.  The Central Pennsylvania Association for Female Executives was, and still is, an intelligent, diverse, and fun group of professional women.  The organization helped me grow as a businesswoman in many ways.  Over the years, my involvement had garnered me some really close-knit relationships with other women.  Which is funny because as a rule of thumb I am not a fan of women in general.   We as a species can be unbelievably annoying and unnecessarily complex. I have always preferred the company of men in both friendships and business relationships.  But I digress.

Maria, her husband Bill, and Catharene were the first on site at the hospital. Maria lied and told the ER nurses she was my sister.  Keane confirmed so they let her come back to see me.  I don’t recall much of her and Bill’s initial reaction I just know they talked a lot to Keane.   They went and retrieved our car from Christine’s office, and coordinated an army of CPAFE women to facilitate the goings on for the next several weeks of our lives.  Those women, some of whom I barely knew, and others who I knew closely, came to our home every day.  While I was in the hospital our home was cleaned, our dogs were walked and cared for, and I believe Keane rarely came home each night from a long day at my bedside to a fridge that wasn’t packed to the doors with food. I was amazed and a little worried that by the time I had come home, twenty different people had keys to our house.  People would come by the house in shifts.  They worked out a schedule to walk, feed, and play with our dogs.  They left notes for Keane each day as to who did what and what was there for him to eat.  Many of them came to the hospital.  They brought in our mail and separated out the Get Well cards so Keane could bring them to the hospital each day and read them to me. They also kept each other informed on my progress and what still needed to be done.  Keane was literally at the hospital thirteen to sixteen hours everyday for over two weeks and our household seemed to be magically managing itself.  But we knew it was not. 

After I released home the help did not stop.  Although Keane did most things, people would call and see what we needed.  They did our grocery shopping.  Picked up household items for us.  And not one person ever took a dime for that kindness. 

On top of everything else I know a lot of those people came to the hospital to just to keep Keane company and be sure he was ok too.  They kept calling the house to see what we needed for weeks after I was released.

After the smoke and haze of my brain had cleared a bit Keane told me all that was done for us. I was stunned, grateful, and extremely humbled by the immense acts of kindness.  I remember talking to Catharene and saying, “I didn’t even realize that many people liked me!”  Which was true.  It was amazing to me that so many people could take time, and in some cases money, to do so many important things for us.  For those people I will eternally be grateful.  I will never forget the outpouring of kindness I had the privilege of being bestowed upon me in a time where it was needed most. 

An act of kindness is a very powerful thing.  A Roman philosopher once said, “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness”.  Through this experience I have learned two things; to be a kinder, gentler person and that family is what we create not what we are born into.

Although there are some individuals who did a great deal for me that I am not really in contact much with anymore, everyday I appreciate their presence in my life. Every day I wake and no matter how I am feeling my first thought is always the same.  “Thank you”.

Mirror Mirror....

Other than nuns, monks, or other old world clergy, is there anyone who doesn’t look at themselves in the mirror on a daily basis?  I know people who look at their own reflection EVERY time the opportunity presents itself.  But think about it.  How bad would it really be to not look in a mirror for a few days? A week? A month?  Well let me tell ya….

When you are bedridden, especially in the hospital, your own reflection is never a priority.  In my case, as is most I’m sure, how I looked was not even on my radar.  I was too busy being in pain, being in a drug-educed haze, bitching about something, or begging someone for my next caffeine fix.  Since I have fully recovered, people who visited me (either at the ICU or at home) have all shared the revelation with me that I looked dreadful.  Well, thank god now I know.

I realize when people say that it’s not to be an asshole.  It’s just easier than saying, “You looked like you were going to die”.  Only a few of my friends actually had the balls to tell me they thought I was dying.  And I guess that was a plausible conclusion, since my brain was swollen like a bloody blowfish inside my skull. 

I remember the first time I saw my own reflection after the stroke.  I was in the step-down unit off the ICU and they had finally removed my catheter.  Man that was a happy day.  I think anyone who has ever experienced catheterization can relate to how unfabulous a process it is, getting put in and then removed.   Both equally uncomfortable and annoying.  Anyhow, I was able to get out of bed with the help of another person and Esther, (my walker, yes she was a joy we will discuss in another post).  On this particular occasion I wanted Keane to help me to the bathroom.  He held me up while I slowly tried to maneuver Esther into the bathroom towards the toilet.  It wasn’t purposeful, as my main objective was to finally pee on my own, but I caught my own reflection when I passed the sink.  I stopped.  And I looked.  I looked for so long I almost didn’t make it to the toilet to pee. 

What I saw astounded me.  I looked like someone else.  It didn’t seem like me. Not at all.  My face was pasty.  My skin looked so tight, like I was stuffed in it. My sharp Italian features were lost.  I couldn’t find my cheekbones anywhere.  My chin was really rounded.  I was bloated beyond belief.  I looked like someone shoved a garden hose up my ass and turned it on high. I was round.  Really round.  Even though I could see my hands, feet, and body all along, this was different.  My face was foreign to me.  I looked tired.  Well I was tired.  All the time.  I felt as if I looked like someone who had let herself go.  Not cared for herself, not been kind to herself.  I felt pretty crappy that I looked as bad as I’d felt and dreaded knowing that it was probably the best I’d looked in awhile.  As stunned as I was at my appearance I was pretty happy to have a reflection to look upon at all. 

My appearance has changed a lot over the past two years and yet sometimes it’s still difficult for me to see those changes.  People tell me all the time how healthy I look.  My regimen of yoga, running, and working out seems to be helping me get into shape.  It’s hard to see though.  Some days I can’t get past that initial reflection I saw in the hospital bathroom.  Other days I can look at myself and be accepting and kinder to what looks back.

I had to get a new driver’s license photo three months after I got out of the hospital.  And it should say “Angela A. Blowfish”.  I still on occasion show it to people who don't believe how bad I looked.  Most people hate their driver’s license pic.  I kinda like this one.  Keeps things in perspective for me. God knows if I ever have a “fat day”, I whip that puppy out and take a look.  That photo reminds me where I was, how lucky I am to be here, how far I’ve come, and excites me to see where the hell I am going.