Colectomies And Faith

When I was only twenty-two years old, the doctors sat on the edge of my bed and quietly pronounced that I had two weeks to live. That was thirty years ago, after four years of being constantly sick, and weakened by blood loss from ulcerative colitis. Either I, or my colon, had to go. Instead of dying , I elected to have a complete colectomy. But there was still work to do. I had to gain back some weight before the surgeons would be confident enough that I would survive the eight hours of surgery. As I lay there, arms bruised from so many failed IV attempts, devoid of evidence, and with nothing but faith , I steeled my mind to tell my body to get well. After a week, I jumped from a hundred and ten to a hundred and thirteen, still down from one sixty-five, but still good enough to give my operation the green light. I was out of time, and out of options, so I took the best one I could see in front of me.
That was a long time ago, and since then I have tried my best to prove that just because you have had radical surgery, doesn’t mean that life ends. For me, it really started. The sheer joy of being free from traveling from bathroom to bathroom for four years made me giddy. I could actually walk around the mall without stopping every ten minutes to worry about whether there would be someone in the men's room occupying that all too familiar porcelain throne. I could even take long cars trips without stopping! The pressure was off. Even though I don't go swimming all that much, and tackle football was out of the question, along with my undefeated reign of wrestling matches, some won within seven and a half seconds, there were other enjoyable sports to play. Six black belts in various styles of karate later, I decided that I had proved to myself that I could pretty much do whatever I wanted, so I slowed down and simply concentrated on gem digging, building houses, writing, family life, and practicing my favorite martial art, Tai-Chi.
Having kids I discovered, was a greater challenge than even radical surgery! Not for my body, but for the soul. Like anything else that presents itself in life, you can either have it be a blessing or a curse, or the third option: a challenge to be used for rising to the occasion, whatever the occasion may be. In the case of my children, I decided as a single parent, that no matter what happens I will use that circumstance to better myself. After that decision, the frequency of yelling diminished radically, and when they come to me with orange hair, or boyfriends who call the house by the minute, freaking out isn't one of those options. Loving them is. Turns out, it's the only one worth taking, no matter if I'm dealing with mohawks or money. That way, the great three, the physical, the mental, and my spiritual life, are simultaneously taken care of.
It's an interesting thing, when you take things as a challenge, even ignorance can support us. For twenty years after my surgery, I went along blissfully doing whatever I wanted physically, until curious one day, I came across an 'ostomy care' group. The sheer amount of management suggested, to put it mildly, all based on a 'fear of' something happening, so turned me away that I simply kept on living my oblivious life of physical ease, despite their copious warning of potential problems. Life isn't about problems when you take things as a challenge, it's about solutions. The funny thing is, if you take things as a challenge to rise to, for every problem in front of you, there's always more than one solution. Sometimes hundreds of them. With my choice to have a colectomy or not, I'm just glad that I took the one I did!

TB Wright is the creator of The One Penny Millionaire!™ web based seminar series, and the author of Be BAD! Do Good! How To Get What You Want In Spite Of Yourself! which is available at www.onepennymillionaire.com .