How It’s Going

I felt like a champ when I woke up, I won’t lie! I did it. TWICE. The strength of my heart pumping like it was—I’ve never felt that before. Strong—like if it had a voice, it would sound like James Earl Jones. Strong. Here with purpose.

But then I felt the pain—a pain unlike anything I have ever felt before in my life. My entire upper body felt shattered, and even though I knew it was stitched together, I was still afraid to move. Terrified. 

I had ragged scrapes and bruises all over my torso. When I asked why, the nurse said casually, “Oh, that would be from the clamps.”

Clamps?! Huh. Just picturing how they had my two sides jacked open, pulled apart, clamped— made me wanna puke.

There were so many tubes. So many lines. Bruises everywhere. Blown-out veins. I was in rough shape—but in my mind, I was fascinated that I was still alive. That I had done this shit—twice back to back. And I’m still here.

I don’t remember the first time. Not the pain, not the tubes, not the lines. It’s like I didn’t want to—or wasn’t capable of—acknowledging any of it back then. I was just rolling through on airplane mode.

Now I’m on week 4. Week four? Huh—what?! It feels like it’s been 4 days. The pain is still very present. It’s the trauma. Trauma doesn’t move time like life does. Trauma lives in the body, not on the clock.

The hours, the days, the weeks—they’re all blurred together. My body is still in survival mode. From the trauma. That shit ain’t no joke.
I’m going through it.

My first surgery was two years ago. Feels like it was only a year ago. I keep saying “last year.”

I’ve been through a lot—I’m not well. I’m still very deep—deep inside the healing process.

Outside of the physical pain, I’m dealing with the grief of people—friends, family—who are no longer in my life or around me.

People I will never see, laugh with, or ever have a conversation with again.

And that also includes the girl I used to be.

You don’t just bounce back like nothing ever happened after you’ve faced mortality. It doesn’t work like that. 

The moment everything stops…

People talk about death like it’s an idea. Something far away. Something that happens to other people—one day, someday.

But I’ve been there. I’ve felt the weight of that moment—not just the thought of dying, but the truth that I could. Not in a poetic way. Not in a dramatic, slow-motion kind of way.

Just real. Quiet. Brutal. Like: “You might not wake up from this.” It wasn’t abstract. It was in my face. In my chest. In the hands prepping the table. In the last words I said before the mask dropped down.

I had to face the fact that my life isn’t guaranteed. And that maybe… this could be it. That changes you. No matter how strong you are.

No matter how much you tell yourself you’re ready. When you face mortality—I mean really face it—it’s like time stops. And something in you breaks wide open.

Some people feel terror. Some feel peace. Some freeze. Some fall apart. Some wake up for the first time in their whole damn life.

Me? My heart stopped. And so did the version of me that had been living on autopilot—the one who smiled through pain, gave too much, performed strength like a fucking job.

That moment cracked me open. And after that? You can’t go back to pretending. You can’t un-feel it. You can’t unknow what it showed you. Facing death didn’t just scare me.

It revealed me. It made everything sharper — the pain, the love, the bullshit, the truth.  It shows you everything you’ve been running from. And if you’re lucky (or strong enough), you come back with a second chance.

It showed me who I was, who I wasn’t, and who I still wanted to become… if I got the chance. And I did. 

You don’t really know yourself until you’ve faced mortality—When your heart stops, and the world doesn’t. When you wake up, but parts of you don’t come back. That’s when you learn who you are—or who you’ve never been allowed to be.

Pulling yourself together after facing mortality isn’t a snap-back moment — it’s a reconstruction. And not to who you were — but to someone you haven’t met yet.

Pulling yourself together doesn’t mean going back. It means standing in your truth, even if your hands are still shaking.

I didn’t come back the same. But I came back.

Trauma — especially surgical trauma — messes with your sense of time. I’m living proof of that. It’s not just that I’m confused. Contrary to what people like to think. It’s like my brain has unplugged from the calendar completely.

Days blur. Weeks disappear. Two years? Gone in a blink. It’s not because I’m forgetful. It’s because my mind is protecting me. Because if I had to feel all of this at once? It would crush me.

Only now, I’m catching up to my own survival.
Physically, I lived. But my spirit — my identity, my memory, my sense of who the fuck I even am — is still floating out there, untethered, trying to crawl its way back into this body.

I’m not healing in real time. I’m healing in soul time — the kind that drags, breaks you open, and makes you bleed truth.

And PTSD? It’s a fucking ghost. It creeps in through sound, smell, silence. One second I’m standing in my kitchen, the next I’m back on the table — chest cracked, heart exposed, eyes wide with fear.

Back in that hospital room that still haunts me. Back in a moment that refuses to let go. Time doesn’t tick normal anymore. It twists. Four weeks feel like four days. Two years feel like a lifetime and a second, all at once.

And this second surgery?  It hit different. I thought I’d be stronger. I thought I’d be ready. But nothing could’ve braced me for this round.
It broke something the first one didn’t touch.

No one tells you how trauma compounds — how the first wound never really healed before the second one cut even deeper. This time, it didn’t just mess with my body. It collapsed my timeline.

I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know how long I’ve been carrying this grief. I just know I’m still here. Still breathing. Still trying to pull myself back through the fog, one slow second at a time.

It’s been 4 weeks, and I have to go back to TGH for more follow-up tests and appointments. I don’t even want to go back to the hospital. I don’t even want to look at one.

A part of me died in those rooms. A version of me that will never walk through those doors again without shaking. Just thinking about it— my chest tightens. My hands sweat. I feel lightheaded.

Not because I’m weak. But because my body remembers what my mind is still trying to survive.

Because my body remembers. Twice, I’ve woken up in that in-between state—alive, but not okay. Breathing, but not whole. And now… I don’t want to go back. Ever.

I don’t want to walk into a hospital and smell that chlorhexidine. I don’t want to sit in a cold waiting room with fluorescent lights flickering above me. I don’t want to wear another paper gown.

I don’t want to see another tray of tools meant to cut, poke, or prod me into being “better.”  I know what they’ll say: “It’s for your own good.” “You’re lucky to be here.” “Be grateful.”

I am. I’m grateful to be alive.

But that doesn’t erase the trauma. It doesn’t erase the fact that healing didn’t happen in those rooms — it happened after. In ceremony. In silence. In the sacred, messy work of reclaiming my spirit.

They also gave me panic attacks, fashbacks, and a fear so deep it doesn’t respond to logic. So no — I don’t want to go back. And I will eventually have to and I’ll go with prayers tucked in my pocket and my boundaries I didn’t set—I earned.

Because I know now what that place does to me. What it took from me. What it could still take. 

I’m tired. I don’t wanna go to any more appointments. No more needles. No more leads. No more of that soapy-sweet, stinky stench on their scrubs that instantly makes me wanna puke.

All I wanna do is heal. In my bed. Sort out my thoughts, my cries—alone, for however long it takes — without interruption, in peace. I just want to heal. And write.

I’ve come to realize writing has played a huge role in my healing. So ya, I think I’ll keep going with this kind of writing for now — real-time, raw — through the blog. 

Because fuck knows what real time even is for me over here. You can read the rest of my memoir when the book comes out.

I’m taking my time healing — one day at a time — which might be three or four days in your world.

Y’all have fun at the pool, at the park, at the festival—I’m not over here with FOMO. Don’t you worry about me. I’m taking care of myself. I’ll catch up when I catch up. Don’t call me—I’ll call you. See ya when I see ya!


PS

Most of you have heard—
for those who haven’t, two books will be published by moi before this year is out:

‘Memoirs of a Lash Artist ‘— September 2025

‘They Saved My Heart — I Had to Save the Rest’ - December 2025

Wait for it…

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Second Time Around

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Cancer vs Heart Disease