From: Yesterday to: Tomorrow

I was lying on a hospital bed with a very excruciating headache. I just had transnasal neurosurgery the day before and the head pain from the surgery still was very unbearable, like if someone hit you in the head with a bat twenty times repeatedly. The sound coming from my family around my bed was muffled by the throbbing of my headache. I saw everything a little blurry until I can see again. I remember needing to go to the bathroom, so I got up slowly with the help of my mother and the nurse. Suddenly, I puked something blue out of my body but the nurse told me, it was normal, that was just my anesthesia. I was not well, I felt the weight of my body, I hardly could eat yet I continued to feel dizzy and exhausted. 

At the hospital after the surgery, I had two tampons up my nose to
stop the bleeding. 

My body felt weak, like a diabetics but the doctor told me my sugar level was fine for now, it was just a little low and that I should eat, I hate food I told him. He couldn’t say the same for the young girl who had the same surgery lying next to me on the other side of the room, she kept having problems with her sugar from time to time but eventually she will get well, which was a great sign. She was my board room buddy. We both had the same surgery and the same tumor in the same place. She understood me and I understood her. We felt one another’s pain and we felt one another’s energy, all along we were relief but we were scared. We knew the journey to recovery was going to be a difficult one, but how we were going to erase five years of immense struggle and pain, shame and embarrassment was still unsure.  The truth is, we were over 230lbs. I knew I was 250lbs. Those were the beginning of my second chance here on earth, I never thought that something so small can have such a major effect on my body… but it did. The tumor was the size of a pea and it impacted my life in more ways than one.

I took this picture on my way to the hospital for the surgery

My tumor, thank God, was not malignant meaning potentially cancerous. Luckily my tumor was benign, which means good/non-cancerous. However, it can become malignant if not treated appropriately and fast. The surgery was clearly to remove the tumor I had between my pituitary glands in the frontal lobe of my brain, and since the operation took place so closely to the brain, it caused such a traumatic headache and nasal congestion. Tumors, such as the one I had, can cause serious hormone problems. The defect caused me to gain a lot of weight and it also caused me my overall emotional and mental imbalance. A lot of what I do today and how I feel about myself can be trace back to this experience. Actually, it can be trace even further than that like father issues, sexual harassment and pre-mature transition from girl to woman hood. Nonetheless what the tumor caused was a disease called Cushing. In an early post I mentioned how depress I felt. Every once in a while I get these mood swings and I start to drift away to this very dark place of death and despair. All the things that I been through in the past starts to surface and my depressive mood starts to become so viciously active in my mind. I feel it in my body and I feel it in my heart. I am twenty-six years of age, I am young and I had the surgery at the age of 22 going on 23. I was mad, because I knew my twenties were not going to be as peaches and cream like most people tend to think your twenties are. I knew I couldn’t think, act or perceive life the way many young adults in their 20’s do. It was not a matter of maturity it was more of a battle to survive. I have no money, no parents or family that can help me emotionally and financially. My family view life as it is, nothing more, therefore we shouldn’t want anything more than what it has giving you. In theory we suppose to want more for ourselves and believe that there are better and greater things for once self out there. My family didn’t see it that way. It is clear that they already grew accustom to their way of life, they think very old school and they don’t believe in depression, at least not admitting it existence. All in all they were no help in that department. I know they love me and they care for me but there is only so much they can do for me since they are trying to make sense of it all for themselves, how the hell are they going to figure things out for me? 

Me and my best friend a year after the surgery

Me and my rock at graduation day, receiving my
BFA in Film, he is the love of my life.

Fast forward to the present day, I have a boyfriend we been living together for the past two years and it is incredible. He is the love of my life and no one understands me quite like him. He is supportive, strong and has been through more hell than I can ever bear. Therefore he takes time to be patient with me when those famous mood swings start to kick in. Is not easy for a man to be with a woman that is so down on herself but he makes it work, I love him very much for that, he is my rock. Besides my great boyfriend, I am still fat, but the disease left a huge mark, I haven’t been able to look the same or go back to my regular size. I’m back to zero and I need to try to get my body to the ten that it was. I have a bad foot, caused by all the weight I put on it when I was gaining those treacherous pounds. I still need to fix that bone in my foot. I am still with no stable job, the last time I found a great job I was laid off because the company was doing bad, they let go of over 200 people across different markets. Hmm… That’s it, my clock is ticking and I feel as though I am not putting enough effort to make my second chance here on earth worth wild. I am not doing myself any justice and I keep failing, at least that’s how I feel but I am trying, my love is strong. I hope you all can understand how impatient I am to make things happen in my life, to know the answer to everything. I don’t want to worry anymore about my health, my mental instability and my financial instability. What is it that I want? What is it that I need? Where do I see myself in the next 5, 10 years? I don’t know, I keep going down this narrow path and I am lost. All I can say is never stop trying. You get many chances in life and some come more frequently than others. Be kind to another, be loving and be supportive. At the end of a long day, we are all nothing more than humans.