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I'm Good. Yeah


Its funny how we deem what is safe, secure, doable. I knew by age eight that I had no saving grace. My parents were merely human. My dad was not going to rescue me under most circumstances. Would he try? I wanted to think so. Yet back then, understanding how fallible we were as human beings; I accepted the fact that when push came to shove, the truth was I was alone even then in this world. I had to become my own saving grace. My own hero. And if I could be there for someone else, then I would.

Many decades later in 2008, as I'd attempted to race at the U.S. National 24-Hour Championships in Texas, this while still bleeding out just a few days after a burst ovarian cyst put me onto our toilet back and forth with dry heaves included. Then put me onto a floor sideways. That was only after I'd gotten our children's lunches made and packed. Cooked and served them breakfast bent in half. Telling them, "Mom just doesn't feel too good. Its okay." I'd paused. "And I want you two to sit on the step inbetween the laundry room and the downstairs hallway. Because i need to know that you're safe as you eat your breakfast in front of me." They followed, then sat where I'd asked them to. I then felt they were safe, texted the babysitter to where we'd be. I then laid down on the laundry room floor nearest the toilet.  
I knew if Norman were home he'd be calling the ambulance as he had in March of 1999. It was I'd turned grey and was losing consciousness. Thank God he wasn't home this time. My goal was to keep myself conscious till the babysitter arrived to take our children to school. Then to get the first few clients canceled even from my cold spot on the bathroom/laundry room tiled floor. Then give instructions to my secretary to take care of business. 
What? I had a flight to catch the next morning. And I'd be damned if losing my stomach in more ways than one, having a fever, bleeding clots of blood out and pain were going to stop me in my pursuit which I'd trained for. That was for most of my life. The hell with birth defects and a feeling of going unconscious. I was going to give this illness a hell that it had never seen before. 
It was now over three decades of this insanity and eventually having the ability to tell a self-defense coach, "Hey man. I'm down a gallon today." He knew what I meant. And at that point I'd made it through children's needs, dinner was either planned or done and I'd finished most of my work for the day at my office. I was just a little ragged, missing hours of sleep for a couple nights from the illness and pain that knocked me down at unexpected times. But hey, I was still standing. Well, sort of.---Jody-Lynn Reicher, from "Authentic, a Memoir"

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