So today I was lying there with my feet up in the stirrups.....you know what I'm talking about ladies. I'd put a pap test at the top of my "least favourite things to do" list. There's something about having my lady parts pried open with a metal speculum, or as I think of it, some sort of medieval vice, so that I can lie down, relax, and chit chat about my day as someone ceremoniously scrapes my insides. "Hey, what's on your vacation list this summer?" I believe was the question. All though I couldn't really hear her over my muffled screams (I covered my own shrieking mouth with both hands so the poor people in the waiting room didn't think I was being murdered). I actually get so stressed about these exams that I clench up to the extent my doctor is worried I'm going to break her wrist. Truth. She actually said that. But I digress. The reason I am writing about all of this, in painstaking detail, is that we have to do hard things. It would be so easy for me to simply not book these appointments, to avoid my greatest anxiety. But then I run the risk of letting years slip by, and perhaps missing an early cancer diagnosis. And I love my life too much to let that happen.
Let's make a promise to one another that we will continue to be brave.
The most important pieces of our lives: our health, our relationships, our children, our friendships, our jobs, all involve pushing our comfort zones, they all involve sweat equity - they desperately need our time and attention. It's really easy in this day of distraction (TV, cell phones, internet, video games, you name it, there's an app for it) - to tune each other out and slowly let things erode.
But we need to put our energy into what matters most. I had a great conversation with my doctor today, because she is also my mother's doctor - and we talked about how illness can give us such clarity on what is important and what isn't. Fight for what is important to you. Be brave. So when my feet were in the stirrups, I was thinking of my little gal, and how I will continue to do all these uncomfortable medical exams and procedures if it means that I get to watch her grow up.
I know so many people going through marriage crisis right now - but when marriage has a 50% success rate, it's not surprising to know of several being tested to their limits at any given moment. All I can say, as someone who has done all the hard work to persevere: you need to get the help of a counsellor, sit down, have the hard conversations and if you are both truly interested in saving it, I really believe you will. But if you prefer to put your head in the sand, turn to distraction rather than facing things head on, you will just add years of flatlining instead of putting vibrant colour back in your life. Why wouldn't you want to fix it now?
My doctor told me today that one of her colleagues, a healthy 48 year old doctor, dropped dead the other night of a heart attack. Life is short. Be brave. Don't put things off. Do the hard stuff so that you can have the life you want. xoxo
