I’m getting real, raw and personal on the blog today. Why? Because life can sometimes just get to be too much. Sometimes you need to just get it out, talk about it. Remember I told you last week I did a 3-day training and in that training we took the DISC assessment? If you are not sure what that means, the DISC assessment is a measurement of your behavior. Mine…well I’m a high “C” with some “D”. That means I need to have lots of information and I like to be in control. The sequence of events I’m going to tell you about have got me out of my comfort zone. The information is NOT the kind I want to hear and well I’ve lost my control.
As I thought about writing I told myself, “Kathleen, your issues are no where near as bad as others. You just need to be stronger, this is so unlike you. Be happy that it isn’t worse”. But then I told myself “no matter how little or big my life crisis I have the right to feel overwhelmed, sad, anxious, out of control and whatever else”.
You see 2017 started out as an awesome year, it was my year to be me! I was planning my escape, that’s what I liked to call it, from the full-time job I despised and I was going to become an entrepreneur. I was going to be my own boss, calling the shots, doing what I wanted, not what someone else told me to do. This year did start out as a great year. Things were going as planned and I was right on track to quit my job April 29th and become an entrepreneur May 1st. Life was good and I became a much happier person. Out of no where life decided to throw us (my husband and I) a curve ball.
Let me back up just a minute and start by telling you, August 1, 2016 is the day I lost one of my beloved kitties, Elena, to brain cancer. *tears* 
This was a very low time, not only for me but my husband and our other kitty Chloe. My husband and I began to slowly mend but Chloe missed Elena terribly. She was alone for 10-12 hours/day during the work week and crying all night long. I felt the only thing to do was to adopt a friend (Lucy) for her. Needless to say, real life did not play out the way I had planned it in my head.
And then life started to get a bit much…
Time passed and life decided to throw yet another curve ball. Chloe started having issues. Early summer of 2107 we found out that my cuddle bug had a large tumor in her bladder and nothing could be done for her. She was already showing signs of poor appetite and much discomfort and that day we said goodbye to her. *tears* 
So now it was just Don, myself and Lucy. Don and I have been healing from the loss of my 2 babies that I cared for and loved for 13 years. And then out of the blue guess what….I’ll give you one guess. Life decided to throw another curve ball. Now I’m starting to think that life is just getting to be too much.
One random day I noticed a lump on Lucy’s left ankle. Thinking it would be nothing I took her to the vet just to get it checked out. The visit didn’t end there, the vet sent me to the pet hospital to see an Oncologist (this brought so much anxiety, it’s where we said goodbye to Elena and Chloe). I felt nothing good came from that place….and we were about to get another “nothing good”. The, being sent to an Oncologist, should have tipped me off but I guess the mind likes to protect as much as possible. We were told, after some testing, that Lucy has stage III undifferential sarcoma…the worst. *tears* I immediately thought why? Then my second thought, life is just getting to be too much. When we got this terrible news we had Lucy less than a year.
In the meantime I have a “sensitive” tooth that has been giving me lingering problems. I went to the dentist so they could do their thing to it and the sensitivity would go away, just like before. Well, this time they told me I had a hairline fracture in my tooth and I would need a crown…A CROWN! I have never had braces, only a few minor cavities and really just went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned every 6 months. This was devastating to me, only “old” people get crowns, I’m only 47 years old. Needless to say I had to go through with it and I was like a cat on the ceiling…just waiting for it to hurt. *tears*
Over the past couple of months we have been dealing with Lucy and her illness and me and my tooth. Even after the crown my tooth has never felt any better, this meant I would need a root canal. *tears* You won’t believe this but Friday afternoon I was eating leftover Mexican food, I bit down and Oh My Gosh…I had a pain in my mouth. I thought I have got to get this tooth fixed! Come Sunday evening I had a deep hurt in my gut, like I had been sucker punched. I noticed it wasn’t the crowned tooth, it was the tooth next to it, my back molar. I cracked it! *tears and more tears*
Yesterday, I spent between 9a-12:30p going to the dentist, getting the bad news *many tears* and having an evaluation by an endodontist for a root canal. You know what the end result was from the evaluation, right? I’m having a ROOT CANAL Thursday morning *many many many tears* My root canal needs to be followed up with a CROWN within 3 weeks. *more tears* My anxiety level was through the roof yesterday. Visiting the dentist has now become a whole different experience. Life just seems to be getting to be too much.
The past 6 months have been filled with many, many wonderful things but there have been so many challenges, mentally, along the way. I’ve received so much unwanted information and I’ve had to surrender my control so many times. Yesterday I cried all day, wondering why all of these challenges keep coming my way. So many hard decisions to make in regards to our kitties. And my teeth, I feel like they are falling apart on me. I’ve spent so much time at the pet hospital and the dentist, two places I now loath. Have you ever had the feeling of not wanting to do something so bad but you know you have to? That feeling just took over yesterday, I DON’T WANT A ROOT CANAL. But if I want my tooth back to normal I have to do this. I know, I know it could always be worse, but right now, in this moment it just sucks.
Life must go on so now what…
Sometimes life can get overwhelming. It’s easy to get stuck in a funk and let those negative feelings and experiences take over and be your guiding light. As the day went on and evening was upon me I knew I had to surrender my control. I tried turning my thoughts to positive ones. I told myself that both the dental assistant and the endodontist were wonderful with me. They knew I was scared, they knew I didn’t want to be there. They used their patience with me. I told myself that they have my best interest at heart and they are not going to do anything, on purpose, to cause pain but do everything to prevent it. As for Lucy, all Don and I can do is do our best in making the right decisions for her whether it be biopsies, surgery, chemo medications or nothing and just love her and provide a good quality life for her during whatever time she has left.
I believe it was in September or October of this year I went to a class on Journaling for Health, there I met Stacey Crew. Stacey taught the class and focused on how getting thoughts down on paper can help your overall health and wellbeing. It can help settle your mind. That’s what I’ve done here. Now it’s time to focus on what’s good, what’s positive and be thankful because it could be so much worse.