You Never Know

Life can be so unpredictable.  We all have plans for our lives, even if it’s just the expectations we have in our heads about how things will go.  I have always tried to find the best in every situation, sometimes that’s a lot easier said than done.  I thought I would be active, exercising every day, fighting the aging process and being fit for my kids and my future grandchildren but, things have not always gone the way I have hoped.

I’ve been exercising and playing sports my whole life, I was always very athletic, it was my identity.  I wasn’t the pretty kid, or the smart kid, I was the one that was good at sports.

In gym class I was always the first one picked for any sport we played, it was the only time I was popular.  In the neighborhood where I grew up all my friends were boys and we played football, baseball, hockey, etc. every day.

Once I started working I had the money to join a gym, that’s when my obsession with weightlifting began.  I originally joined to lose weight and get into shape.  I lost 40lbs and started feeling so much better about myself and I was hooked on the gym and made it a priority. 

The gym turned out to be even better for me than I could have anticipated because it was there that I met my husband, the love of my life.  Once Randy and I started working out together I got even more into weightlifting because not only did I love working out but I got to see and be with him.

Three years later Randy and I were married and had moved to California for his job.  At this point in my life I still didn’t know what I really wanted to do for a career.  I was a secretary for almost 10 years and absolutely hated it.  After trying out many, many jobs I finally realized what I wanted to do, I wanted a job where I could be in the gym and get paid.  So I went to college in San Diego to prepare to take a personal training exam.  

Once I got my first job in a gym as a trainer and began training people I spent 90% of my time in the gym, either working or working out.  Then Randy and I joined a softball team together and had a blast.  Softball was my second favorite activity, only after weight training.

My plan was to weight train for the rest of my life to stay in shape and it also had a great effect on my mental health.  I have suffered from depression my whole life and exercising became the best thing I could do for it. 

I cut my wonderful career short after we had our first child.  I really planned on going back to work but just couldn’t leave my new little guy.  I loved him more than I ever thought possible to love another human being.  As my maternity leave was coming to an end I started crying all the time at the thought of leaving my little guy everyday.  Randy was amazing about it all, he said “if you don’t want to go back, you don’t have to!”  Of course, that made me cry too but I took him up on that immediately!  We had to cut back a lot but it was so worth it!

When he was old enough, I started back to working out while my little guy was in the nursery. It wasn’t easy for me to be away from him but exercising,  staying in shape and fighting off my depression was also very important to me.  Plus, being a stay at home mom can be very isolating and I really needed adults to talk to during the day.  We had our gym time and then we would go to a park, go for a walk or anything I could do to spend special time with him for the rest of the day.

Three years later, now living in Texas, again a move for Randy’s job, I gave birth to our second son.  His birth was, the only way I can properly describe it is that it was violent.  The doctor sent us home while I was in labor only for us to have to rush back when he was crowning.  The doctor wasn’t immediately available so I had to try not to push but he was very ready to make his appearance in the world.  I ended up with an umbilical hernia, a rectal prolapse and a beautiful baby boy!

Since his birth I have had many severe health problems due to the trauma of his birth.  I’ve had more than 20 surgeries in the past 25 years to try and repair the damage that was done.  Doctors advised us not to have any more children because of my health issues.  But, I knew with my whole heart that I was not ready to make that decision.  Being a mom was the greatest thing I had ever done in my life and I wanted a house full.

Two years later we had a surprise pregnancy.  We were so excited to have another child.  Unfortunately, twelve weeks into the pregnancy I lost the baby.  This is when we knew for sure that we wanted another child.

One year later we welcomed our first daughter.  She had to be taken by c-section to try to avoid any more damage to my bottom.  I continued working out all throughout the pregnancy.  This pregnancy caused a few more issues with my body.  I had something called diastasis recti which is when the abdominal muscles don’t go back to where they belong after giving birth.  I had to have surgery to reconnect the muscles. As soon as I healed I was ready to get back to the gym.

I continued to exercise, only taking time off when I had to have another rectal prolapse surgery which, at this point, was almost a yearly surgery.  Everytime it was fixed it would last for about a year and then things would start collapsing inside again.

Five years later we were extremely surprised by another pregnancy.  We were very concerned about this one because of all of my health issues and my age.  I was in great shape because I exercised pretty much every day but I was still having rectal issues and I was now 39 years old.  This was a very difficult pregnancy because my body was hurting so much during the whole pregnancy.  We gave birth to our second daughter and fourth child by c-section.  This time I had my tubes tied, I was finally ready to say that I was done having children, our family was complete.

Due to many recurring rectal prolapses I finally had to stop weight lifting.  This was a very hard reality to come to because it had become part of who I was and I absolutely loved it.  It was then that I decided to try yoga.

Yoga was fun and it was helping with my yearning to exercise but more surgeries followed.  I had to step out of most classes due to pain, tried putting my membership on hold but then eventually I finished up my membership and quit because I was spending money on classes I couldn’t necessarily make my way all the way through.

I then decided to try Pilates.  This felt like something I could do and would be really good for me, mainly it would strengthen my pelvic floor, which is one of keys to helping with the rectal/colon/bladder issues.  At this point I was also playing volleyball in an adult recreational league.

Unfortunately, with all my health issues I had to sit out on a lot of the pilates classes because of pain.  Again, I had to keep putting my membership on hold and was finding it harder and harder to get back to exercising because of pain and more surgeries.  During this time I was incredibly blessed to meet an amazing pilates instructor that was going to start doing private lessons at her home and would be able to customize exercises just for me.  I’ve had to take a lot of time off due to surgeries and pain but she is so flexible with her schedule it hasn’t been too much of an issue.  Not only do I get special care because my pilates sessions are private but my instructor has become the best friend I have ever had!  It’s the kind of friendship I’ve prayed for all my life. 

Recently I have had 4 surgeries in less than 3 months and have had to stop pilates and volleyball.  Everytime I think I may be ready to get back to my physical activities there’s another issue.  These recent surgeries have left me with severe pain that my doctor and I are trying to get under control with no success so far.  Now, not only am I fighting with uncontrollable pain but also depression from not being able to do all the things I love to do and even a lot of daily responsibilities.

One of the things I am trying desperately to take away from all of this is that even though I don’t understand why this is happening to me, God has a plan.  I can’t even begin to imagine what His plan is for me or what it is that I’m supposed to learn but, I have to believe there is one because if I don’t, I would be sitting on my couch with ice on my butt crying all day.

My point to all of this is that we think we can plan ahead for things, we think we know what we will be doing in years to come but we really don’t know anything.  We can have dreams and goals but you never, ever know what God’s plan is.  I thought at this point in my life I would be still weight lifting, hiking, playing volleyball and doing all the physical work around the house and yard that I love to do.  But, this has been almost impossible for the last 5 months because of healing from surgeries and because the pain is so out of control right now.  I have another procedure next month for a nerve block and steroid injections in my rectal area to hopefully get this pain under control.