Journey To Ironman: 12

There's a movie called "Where the Heart Is". In the movie a young woman is cursed by the number 5, anytime that number shows up in her life- its bad news. First seeing the movie you'd think that its a joke, there's no way. I even did too until I started connecting a few numbers.

When I was born, for some unknown reason a doctor thought I had some incurable disease and was going to die shortly after being born, so my Mom got discharged and I was left at the hospital for tests and to be watched for 12 days, until finally they realized that I was going to be fine. On my birthday, so 12 months, my Mom lit my candle and blonde me touched it and burnt my finger. You must be thinking so far that I'm just being paranoid, but it gets more interesting.

Several years later, I got really sick one day. And I stayed really sick for a couple days, till finally my Mom took me to a hospital off 12th St in Ocala. They made us wait forever, thinking I just had a silly stomach bug. 12 hours later I was on a hospital bed being put to sleep to take out my appendix. Well, while on the table I WOKE UP. Thankfully, they got me back under, finished the surgery with 12 stitches. Later that year, my Grandfather past away on the 12th of June.

When I was 12, my Dad and I went into a store and I went to the toy section while he went to whatever areas of the store he needed too. There weren't many people in the store at all. I was walking around when a young man shoved me up against a wall and sexually assaulted me. I was in such shock as to what happened I didn't know what to do, and unfortunately this wasn't the first time I'd been attacked this way.

The end of my freshman year in high school, I was training to be an exercise jockey for a summer job. It was the 12th when I was bucked off a horse so badly I blacked out and woke up in the hospital with a broken clavicle on my right side and a ligament in my left ankle was torn. Recovery time was 12 weeks.

As if high school isn't stressful enough for a young teenage girl, lets really throw a twist. On March 12th, my Father (who's birthday was December [12] 12th) had lost his battle to cancer. Now are you starting to see a pattern?

Now time for the 12th grade. Summer leading up to senior year I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Disease. I had two ovarian cysts, one on each ovary. One was 7 cm in diameter and the other got to 5 cm (12 cm total). Doctors had told me when they first found them that had they gotten to 4 cm, they'd surgically removed them. That never happened, they determined that the cysts grew so big that to surgically remove them would cause too much scar tissue to the ovaries so I was a live ticking bomb waiting for them to rupture. That hurt like a mother effer.

I loved school, I would never want to skip and was always excited for it. One day after school, my Mom brought me dinner while I stayed late for club stuff. I got a chicken sandwich from Hardies, I wasn't paying attention while eating it until halfway through I stopped and looked at the sandwich and saw nothing but pink. My sandwich was still raw. I ran it to my Mom who was in a booster meeting and her jaw dropped and told me not to take another bite. Sure enough, that night I was throwing up non stop, went to the ER and this chick got Salmonella poisoning. I got to eat nothing but jello for 12 days. Which sounded exciting and cool at first, but I was over it at day 2. So my senior year was really off to an interesting start. Then, as I was getting ready for the biggest competition of my high school career, I got Mono. I was sick as a dog and just miserable. At this point I was just done with sickness and school and ready to go to college. I was done with the 12th grade.

I was terrified for the year 2012. I swore up and down I was going to die/get hit by a bus. Just something terrible was going to happen. I knew it was. Months went by and nothing too terrible had happened. I thought, had my bad luck streak with "12" finally be over? Until 12/1/12. That day I got the phone call that my Step Dad had died. I had planned on leaving that day after work to go visit him cause I knew he was sick. But I was too late. I was a mess. I left work immediately and drove straight to Ocala so I could say good bye before they took his body. As if that car ride wasn't hard enough, I got a phone call from my Doctor. They'd found cancer cells in my last screening. A few days later the doc went in and removed the parts of my uterus that had the cancer spots on it. Thankfully he got it all out, but because of this when down the road I do decide to have children I will most likely be high risk and have complications with carrying the child.

It's been a tough journey for me, hard to believe with how much I smile, right? That's because regardless of all the crap I've been through, and believe me there is a lot more than this, I MADE and FORCED each thing to make me stronger. I didn't turn to drugs/alcohol or go psycho. I just become stronger and better. I still am very cautious with anything that deals with the number 12. I honestly avoid it as much as I can.

Too many people blame unfortunate situations to their foolish behavior. I have no pitty for those people. Those people who try to find reasons and excuses as to why they couldn't stop eating for years, drink themselves to sleep, did drugs, committed crimes, etc. make me so upset. Because I've dealt with some horrible stuff, again way more than what I listed above and for those of you who truly know me, you know what I'm talking about. It hasn't been easy, I've worked for everything I have- I've never been given anything. So stop looking for an excuse or reason to not be better, instead go look in the mirror, see that person breathing, looking back at you? Fight for that person. Be better. Don't let hard times bring you down, I promise they can make you stronger. Be tough and be brave.