Sunday, January 22, 2012

Pain

'you sure know how to take the pain!' mom marveled as she tried to pop a surprisingly big and painful zit on my back. 'of course I can take the pain!' I thought, 'this is nothing compared to a spinal fusion!' irregardless, my hands were still clenched as mom attempted to rid me of the stupid bit of acne. After concluding that the zit would be ready to pop in the morning, I headed upstairs to my room and replayed the past five minutes back in my head.


'you sure know how to take the pain!'- was the one thing that kept spinning in my head. The first logical thought I had was 'of course I can! That was easy!' . Heaven knows I've been through MUCH worse than that. Which got me thinking.

For being an 18-almost 19- year old virgin, I've still gone through a considerable amount of pain in my life. If I trip over my feet and land on my knees, chances are, I'll examine my knees, look annoyed and finish what I was doing before going inside to clean myself up. I actually remember tripping on the street while playing with my friends one summer and busting the skin on my knee clean off. I calmly picked the gravel out of the wound before standing up and saying 'where were we?' no one said a word about my knee until we had made it down to my house, three houses away. Finally, one of them asked 'Aren't you going to clean that up?'. I looked at my friend, looked down at my leg which had blood trickling down it, looked back at my friend straight in the eyes (which is hard to do when you're half-blind- I try to look someone in both eyes with my one eye one at a time just to make sure I made full contact.) and said with a completely straight face and serious attitude, 'Nope'. Ten seconds later, I realized mom wouldn't be happy if the sock got blood stained- so I went and got all patched up.


I fell a lot. Call me California's Bella Swan because I am the klutzest girl in the state i'm sure. It got to the point where I would expect to fall once a year and have a bloddy knee- that was the 'norm' for me. Being medical, though means that I was automatically labeled 'fragile' in peoples heads--not on purpose, it was more of a 'oh she's medical so she has to be extra careful' kinda thing. So when I fell, everyone who saw me fall would stare at me until I got up and then ask if I was okay. As I got older, it was annoying but mostly funny. After all, the skinned knee deal was by far the less severe amount of pain that I dealt with.

For years the medical was everyone's top concern for me and right behind that was....my health. My health was a big problem for years on end- so this is understandable. I was born in the hospital and by the time I was 7, it was my 'second home'. I got sick all the time as a kid--my immune system wasn't as strong as the other kids' were so I had to be extreemely careful during flu season. Usually, I would end up with peneumonia right before or after the holiday season--sometimes even during! When I got peneumonia, it generally ment hospitalization for anywhere from 2 days to a week. By the time I was 12, I expected to end up in the hospital. It didn't scare me by then. Honestly, I don't remember when the hospital went from panicking to packing. In anycase, it got to the point where I thought 'here we go again, I'm going back to my second home'. When I say the hospital is my second home, I'm not joking. At two years old, I had spend most of my life in the hospital. The longest I was out of the hospital was a few weeks. After that, I'd get sick and end up back in the ER. So the hospital is more of an annoyance than anything else at this point. I will say though, the one thing that sucked was the IV's and the blood draws. I'm a stick. It is very hard to get a needle in me for more than two seconds. Shots are no problem, its in n' out, whatever. If the thing has to stay in to get some blood or to give some medicine.....honestly, just give the needle to my Mom. She is the ONLY person that can get it in me on the first try. Everyone else, its a 50-50. Well. more like a 40-60 but....you get it. The odds of being stuck once are....slimmer than slim at best. Sure, it'll hurt if I get poked to many times (like 5 or 6+) but for the most part, no pain is felt.

The biggest amount of pain I've been in was back in 2007- my freshman year of high school I was scheduled for a spinal fusion. Morphine was my best friend while I was in the hospital. I couldn't cough without it absolutly killing my back and crying was out of the question. I know pain.

Its funny though, I was thinkning about all the pain I've been through and realized that most people use the word 'pain' to describe how they are feeling physically. However, people can be in pain emotionally/mentally too. I almost want to say that physical pain is easier to deal with than mental pain. Actually, I know it is. Has anyone ever considered that the person doing drugs on the street is actually just in a lot of emotional pain? Thats what drugs- weather illegal or not- are used for, a medication to numb the pain. The reason I say physical pain is eaier to deal with is this; people can accomidate to physical pain quicker. They learn the patterns of what will produce that pain and they can avoid it. They can get a massage, a tablet of tylonlol, a nap, and the pain will go away. Easy. But mental/emotional pain is different. If your in pain emotionally, you can't get a massage that will loosen up your crammed thoughts and help you think better. Its not something you can numb until your body becomes used to it, and it definately isn't as predictable as physical pain. Emotional pain is.....different. Much much much harder to deal with than physical pain- especailly in a world where emotional pain may as well be illegal. Only the strong survive- if you cry, your weak. Or, so the world says.  I say heck no! If something makes you wanna cry, go ahead and cry!!! It's not going to kill you! It might actually make things a whole lot easier!!!!! Newsflash folks; WE ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE ON THIS LIFE ON OUR OWN!!!! We NEED SOMEBODY!! Wheather that somebody is God or a family member or a friend, a teacher, a pastor, a coach, a sibiling, an aunt, a stranger, a shrink, we need somebody we can rely on to be there for us whenever we may need them! We don't have to do it all ourselves.....WE WERE NEVER SUPPOUSED TO!! Even Jesus as a human recruited 12 men to help spread His love thoughout the world. Even Jesus as a human asked His Father for the strength to be crucified. Even Jesus as a human cried when his friend died. The shortest verse in the Bible is 'He wept.', the 'He' refering to Jesus. He cried! We're only human, guys. So why do we try to act like gods? Being perfect doesn't mean not having any emotions.--I'll write more on that statement later.
Peace.    

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Welcome! (The Intro Blog)

Welcome one and all! My name is Tesia (T-sí-uh) Dawn Carney and after some requests and thinking, I have decided to join the world of online blogging. The first thing I will post is my background so you all know how much I've been through just in my first few months of life alone. Since I have SO MUCH information on the first couple months, I'll just post a genaric e-mail I wrote and then I'll take any questions that you have and I will answer them more fully.  That way, no one has to be overwhelmed with tons of information.
So, here's my life up until I was eeh, almost 16.

*Takes big breath*
My birth Mother whos name is Dora Neil and birth Father whos name is Terry Marshall had sex before marage and I was the result not only me but my OLDER brother and sister. (Whom I believe are in there 20's by now)

I was born without breathing so they put a trach in me right away.

My vocal cords are broken which means I cant swallow anything without it going into my lungs.

My voice box is broken so I shouldn't be able to talk (although now they cant shut me up :-) )

Since I cannot swallow I cannot eat orally which means I have a tube in my stomach that I get my balanced food through

Which means I also cannot swim

My mom now was my nurse in the hospital which was the orphanige to me since I got sick so much.

She and Dad fell in love with me and 6 months after paper signing and permission form my indian tribe Creek which I am half on account of my dad who is full blood indian

And my parents saying good bye (even though my mom couldn't have me anyways condiering she took drugs which means my brother and sister got taken away form her by the state,

I was adopted.

When I was 14, I had a spinal fusion to correct my scoliosis.

Now, at nearly 19, I've been diagnosed with various things like ADHD, GAD, Congenital Vericella, Bilatteral Vocal Chord paralysis, ect.

I have a Gastrostomy Tube as well as a Tracheostomy. My eyes are actually two different colors, one blue eye and one green.

I am a very good writer (not a speller) and I know so much about Disney-from movie lines (mostly animated movies....the good stuff), to songs, to Disneyland Facts, to princesses- that I'm used as a resource for Disney questions among my family!

So, there is a VERY brief profile of myself--more will be revealed as you read my blog!

Enjoy, and feel free to post ANY questions you have for me, even if they sound stupid! I'm very patient and don't mind. :)
Tesia