If you could, what would that mean?

Sometimes I wish things were different, and at times I feel guilty for wanting that. It in no way means, I'm unappreciative for what I have. I'm blessed and all the things that have happened to me whether they were good or bad have created this mold I have inherited as me. I have been brought to this very day that I'm living in. It all resorts back to the first time I remember feeling like I wanted things to be different, it was in High School. I decided my Sophomore year I wanted to be graduated from school early. I didn't like the school that I went to, and when I dissect that statement into why I didn't like my high school. It wasn't that the school was bad, the school wasn't bad to me. It actually was only beneficial to me. I didn't apply myself how I know now I am capable of doing. I embraced a specific group of people and that was school to me. School was getting up in the morning and getting dressed to go see my group of friends. It was counting down the minutes of the class until I could be reunited with them again. When things would happen within the group, as in the drama that 15 year old young women possess. It made me flee I wanted out, I didn't want to see these people who embodied not life changing stories, or ideas on how to make the world a better place for the common good of everyone. It was a bashing party every day. You weren't liked if you didn't have something, and what that something was just depends on who was pulling the threads of you that day. I had set a plan to graduate early and leave. Leaving to me, meant leaving the state and starting over where nobody knew my name. Nobody placed a label on me. To these people in my mind that I had made accepted me for me. That is so huge to me, to be accepted. To feel like, somebody that knows nothing to everything about me and still accepts me. So, I went day by day and graduated early. My senior year consisted of 3 classes and I was done for the day. I immediately after I was done with my senior year started taking online classes for college. I knew that I wanted to get my prerequisites done so that I could get to this higher standard of living. Where I was new, liked, and nobody could judge me. I always felt the wrath of bad friends, I was talked about, made fun of, and looked at to be stuck up. Nobody has great times in high school but, I regret not making the most of my high school career. I missed out on a lot of fun things that I'm sad I don't have the memories to hold on to. I never ended up going to college. I achieved an Associates Degree online through a school based in Tempe, Arizona. Not too far from the school I had always thought I was going to go to. The school I had plastered on my graduation cap. The school I told everyone I was going to. Arizona State University. I could have gone, and I didn't. I didn't end up going because I was scared. If I could have all of these people around me and feel the way I did. So alone, like I didn't fit in, left out, and not good enough. How was I going to be really completely alone and not feel the same way if not worse. To be that far from home without even a fair-weather friend to call on in a time of need. I could be in a gymnasium full of people and at that moment I could have felt more alone than if I had been standing there solo. I wanted a fresh start, and one that meant something to me. Something that was important to me and made me feel good. I set out to seek employment in Retail. It was something I was passionate about. I enjoyed meeting new people, I liked using my eye for fashion, and I enjoyed making people feel good about themselves. I struck gold with my first job in retail as a saleswomen. I quickly moved my way up in a small company as a manager. There was this feeling again, I wanted things to be different. I had this vision of how things were going to be for me and ultimately this wasn't it. I left and decided to pursue my career in writing and put my degree to good use. At this moment, I also decided since I liked my first job so much but wanted to explore in a new way. I started my own company in retail. I was 19 had my own business, buying from wholesalers all across the world and selling them on my own online storefront while writing on the side for small jobs that paid .20 cents per word or nothing at all. After a few bad customers and not enough income to maintain my small business I was defeated. I closed my business and began another relentless search for what was going to make me happy. All along still wanting to go to school and have this fairy tale of starting all over again just lay heavy on my heart. So, I applied and waited for an acceptance letter that never came. I went into retail banking just before Thanksgiving of 2011 with a heavy sales driven corporation. I was there for 8 months and then found another corporation that wound up giving me some of the best things I've experienced to date. I was promoted from within and have recently began the climb of the corporate ladder and at times here more so recently I'm still in that search. That feeling of "What's next?" and the answer is, I don't know. I could go back to school, and I could move but I'm not sure that's what I want. I want friendships that aren't someone who apparently can't stand a person and then the next day they're popping each others bubble gum and linking arms as if they hadn't been bad mouthing them just an hour before. I want the reliability of if you say you're going to be there, that you be there. I want to always strive to be the best damn damner I can be if that's what my job title is. I want to be the reason when someone gets asked how they made it through, they use my name and say she never quit so neither did I. I have an amazing family, I'm the eminent aunt of some gifted children, I have a job, and a boyfriend I couldn't love more with every ounce of my being. He makes me want more for myself and more for my future than just settling. There is a bigger picture out there for everyone and what that means to you is different than what it may mean for me. If I've ever achieved all of my goals, I've lost. I'm always going want something else, and where I decide to take my next journey on what is going to make me happy will always keep me guessing because I don't even know. I know who I am and what I'm capable of. I've been given a second chance to do anything I could ever want to do. That won't be going unnoticed.

The End of the Nightmare.

The flicker of the television that played all night was like a mobile to an infant. It provided entertainment while settling in to my couch recliner that was my bed. I drifted off into a deep sleep, and when I woke. It had seemed that once again this discomfort decided to rear its ugly head. This was it. It was the morning that everything changed. This was it, it had been enough long ago and now the pains redundant ways were to be solved no matter what that entailed. While my mother was in her office making all the necessary calls that she so lovingly did. It was like she was the president when she would call the hospital. Never mess with a Momma and her cub. I could hear her on the phone "this is the 6th hospital visit! we have been living this for too long, something is wrong!!" she proclaimed. I sat there watching the news, it was all I could do to contain myself as I called my dad at work. I didn't even have to finish my sentence before he interrupted in his deep teddy bear voice "let me clean up here and I'll be home". The hospital knew I wasn't going to be able to wait the countless hours it was going to take for them to admit me through the Emergency Room so they sent us to the Salem Hospital, where they gave me pain and nausea meds until a room cleared up in Portland at OHSU. It was like clock work, every nurse that entered the ER room in Salem wanted to know my story. As if they had all been paid to say "You poor thing! You just want this over with don't you". I always responded with "you have no idea". My dad and I drove up for that last visit. We knew that something this time was going to have to happen. We couldn't go on with continuing this musical hospital room escapade. We held each others hands like we did on almost every night. Something I know on the inside brought him to tears just with one touch because, for that moment I was his little girl again that two year old that ran to the door every time he got home from work. He saw "his whole reason for living" frail. Something which he knew me not to be. In faint voices and long pauses before finishing my statements I asked "what's your favorite memory of me?" he looked at me and quickly turned back to look at the road. He took his left arm and placed it on the window of the car propping it up like an arm rest and let his finger fall on top of his eyebrow as he blinked several times trying to contain his emotions and responded "all of time I've ever spent with you is my favorite. Seeing you ride out there, was fun!...(wow is he really saying this to me? he was having fun? God damn it. I ruined it!) we were all having fun out there and this was an accident Candace, it is not your fault. If you were a car, I would take you apart and fix you but I can't do that! This is it we're not leaving until we find out what is going to happen. They are not going to force us out this time, we all just wanted you home so that we could take care of you and if we allowed them to force us out it was only because we wanted you home so bad!" I didn't say anything not only because I knew I couldn't hold in my emotions the way I needed myself to but the pain was getting so bad I felt like I was going to pass out and never wake up. I just said "I'm so glad you're my dad" and let the tears fall as he continued the road we traveled more than our fair share of times. Upon arrival we did the same thing we always did, got settled into our room had the doctor come up and assess and start the same medications I had been on for almost 2 and a half months now. In the days to follow I saw the worst of my condition come out. The outbreaks of pain that would get so bad I would have 4 and 5 doctors in my room at a time. They thought the pain medicine I had was not strong enough. They brought in to me a large syringe that looked like King Kong in all his glory it was completely relative to the size of him in a Plexiglas box. Attached was a thin piece of tubing that connected to a green button that I called the "Iron Man button" I was allowed to push the button every 25 minutes for a pain dose administration. This worked, for a few hours while I was AWAKE that night when I had fallen asleep I had let the pain get ahead of me and I shot up out of bed crying. Talk about a scene, here we go again with these doctors. "What is going on?! Why can't we just keep the original pain dosage and schedule I have been on until the surgeons can decide what to do with me??!" I asked my doctor. "Well, the body tends to create a tolerance to medication after you have been on it for a long period of time like you have been and we just thought you might like to be in control of the pain medicine when you needed it instead of having to call a nurse in to get the dosage" "YEAH! That's fine and great for when I'm awake and have 25 minutes to wait for my next dosage! This is not working you have to do something NOW!!!!" I yelled while whipping my tears away from my face. I had several days of new teams coming in to meet me which consisted of The Pain Team docs(yes, that's really their high school dodge ball tournament name), The Psychology Team(due to my traumatic experiences and panic attacks during the night) The Pulmonary Care Docs(for my lungs since I had been immobile for so long) and The Surgeons/Trauma Docs(they were all basically one team pretty much the popular jocks of the whole hospital). Oh the politics of it all! Every morning when the doctors would round I would have an emotional melt down, I was depressed. I was pissed off, and I had every damn right to be! My pain regimens were switched around multiple times a day, I never had any doctors come in and explain to me what was going on or what I should be expecting to be seeing or doing that particular day or the ones to come in the future!! I sat there day in and day out in my room asking everyone just like I did when this whole accident happened that same repetitive question that had changed from "Am I going to be alright?" to "What is going to happen?". Never did I think in all my life I'd almost be begging for a surgery. I wanted out of this pain so bad that I was willing to do whatever had to be done. If that was them cutting me open with a butter knife and sewing me back together with Gorilla glue and a flame thrower that was what I would accept and I'd sign any form they needed. One particular doctor that would come in every morning said the same thing to me "Hold tight" and would pat me on the leg every morning. Hang tight? I've got your hang tight!! We were nearing the 11th day of this stay, my parents and I went for a walk. I had to get out of there. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, no doctors would tell me what was going on, I had to gain some sort of hope back because mine was out of the window! We paced the hallway on the 9th floor that went out to a balcony where you could see the skyline of Portland at night. Breathtaking, absolutely remarkable. All at once I felt like I could breathe, even thought the pain I had was still alive and kicking. I didn't seem to care much because I was standing. If I was standing, I was breathing, I was taking in this larger than life real moment, and I had the love and support of my family. That was all I needed. They believed with their whole heart that this was going to fix itself, all of the information the doctors had given us that I had seemed to lose sight of they remembered and held onto that. That was there gold, they kept a tight grip onto the positive that they could and they gave me a pep talk one comparable to a half time tied football game. The type of talk that makes you want to come out of your skin and use all of your anger all of your hope everything you have harbored deep inside of you and pull it out! To produce such a character that whatever could have possibly been blocking your way you'd grow so tall over it, it would seem so small. That night and the night to follow, something happened and it wasn't magical it wasn't painless and it was not easy. The pain had gotten to an all time peak of bad. The doctors could do nothing but practically watch me go through my pain stricken nights of endless screams and cries of despair. Pacing the floor of my hospital room overhearing them say that surgery was what was going to happen early or not, we were going to have to make the attempt and hope something came of it. I've never been a really spiritual person, but after that 3rd morning when I woke up. I felt nothing. Nothing bad, nothing bad at all. I was, hungry. I was in shock. Complete and udder shock. I hit my nurse button, the way I would when I was in pain. The nurse walked in and she was in just as much shock that I had color in my face and my eyes were open and not squinted with pain. "How are you feeling?" "I'm,okay....." "Really?" She said surprised. "Yeah, really!" I said firmly. She knew exactly what I was thinking without even saying it! She called the doctors in on that Saturday morning. They all were shocked and pondering what was different what made this morning any different than the last 41 days. They drew blood, and ordered films the only way we could really get any answers that we so badly wanted and needed. A morning I had expected to hear of surgery prep, even at my 92lb state and all the added risk of going under I had prepared myself the night before to hear, instead I heard talks of hope and intrigue. We waited that whole day, just waiting like we knew so well how to do. It was almost harder to do today than any other day. We had more at stake there was something so much more to this day than any other. We asked every couple hours what the results were of my X-Rays. Meanwhile, we kept our walks and pep talks going knowing that something magical did really happen among all that pain I had felt, that maybe just maybe that was my obstruction correcting itself the way they had told my parents they can do. We waited until the next morning before we received any answers and it was during the morning rounds. That doctor that I had that would always tell me to "hang tight" and tap me on the leg sang a different tune this particular morning. This was the end, and it went like this.. "Your films show to be resolving or completely resolved. They show immense progress and seem to be less distended." My mom and I looked at each other almost smiling but almost concerned. Did we just hear that right? Also, what in the hell does that mean? which we asked next. "So, what does that mean?" my mom nervously giggled. "It means with the films we took yesterday it shows that the obstruction is completely gone" We couldn't wait, we burst into tears right then as if we had just won an Oscar. We smiled and hugged each other so hard I felt my face get red from the lack of circulation. While whipping my eyes I reached out to offer my hand to my surgeon, he took my fingers and swept his thumb over them as my nurse smiled at me. It was over, my horrible journey was over.

Even though it hurt like Hell.

I was so mad at myself! Why!?? Why did I go up that hill? Why didn't I slow down? I shouldn't have even forced my dad into going. Look what I've done to myself, look what I've done to my parents. My father was broken. He was so broken. A man who cried my entire life up until this point maybe twice that I'd seen a single tear run down his cheek. Now, held my hand creating a flesh tissue for his tears. He spoke to God like he was pleading for mercy. He needed me back to myself and I couldn't bring myself to get there. What did I do? I was so pissed off, I was so mad. I screamed so hard I shook like a 2 year old who was having a tantrum. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Daddy..I.." "No, this is not your fault! I am so sorry that you have to go through this and believe me baby if I could take this away any part of it. I would" "I know you would Dad. I know, I.." "I've talked to my Dad so many times, my Grandma and Grandpa and my aunt asking them if they could hear me to please do something to help. For them to just help me..." We sat there hugging each other. Holding each others hands so tight our skin was turning white where the blood was unable to flow. Weeping so hard all you could hear was sighs and feel jolts of our body's from our lungs contracting for air. He blamed himself just the way I had blamed myself. The next day, I was to try this medication called "go lytely"(to get my bowel discomfort from my last meal out of me) otherwise known as the new type of punishment that should be given to all criminals. It was a super laxative that tasted like gym water from a 1910 fountain with a dirty gym sock saturated in a puberty stricken adolescent sweat. It gagged me to where I was either going to throw up my bowel obstruction, or poop out my previous air intake. My parents went back and forth on how it wasn't that bad, so you know what? I made them try it! They both spit it out and gave award winning warm beer faces. Not that bad eh? Noted. The time came, it was time to try oral pill intake to try and get me home. Surprisingly this try seemed to work. It wasn't smooth by any means but I was able to remain comfortable, which the next day landed me home. We had to have home health nurses come to our house and help us with my PICC line and help us learn the pump that would be administering my TPN(liquid nutrition aka food). My parents were instructed to flush my line with saline a few times a day and to keep me on the TPN at night until it was time for me to come back and have the surgery. Watching them put on gloves and come at me with a syringe full of liquid going directly to my heart was not the most comforting thing!! Fearful yet strangely proud we set up for my first home meal via PICC. I got up every 2 hours to go to the bathroom. My mom stayed with me every night on the couch picking up the machine that in the dark looked like she was walking me on a leash like you would a small dog as my IV line fell behind me and she carefully held it up like you would and brides train to her dress. Waking her up out of her slumber was hilarious most nights, I even threw my socks at her to try and wake her up to help me to the bathroom. Laughing with her was always the best even though it hurt like hell. It wasn't easy, it was not stressless, we were not rested but we were home. Still, this wasn't over.

Was I ever going to get better, was this my new life?

I was sitting there half awake in a debilitated Dilaudid state of mind. Feeling the stare of my parents eyes on me out of my peripheral sight. I stared at my blue shirt that had dried blood from my healing incision and watched my stomach rise and fall while I involuntarily breathed. My eyes shut hard and slow with each inhalation I took.

They admitted me under the trauma unit and got me a room on the trauma floor where they finally diagnosed me with ulcers in the small entry before the small bowel. They put me as NPO again, and searched yet for a somewhat unbruised vein for my 5th IV in the last two weeks. They want to stick a scope down my throat which goes down my esophagus and into my stomach to the passage to my small bowel and take pictures of my ulcers to burn off and solve the problem. It was a stressful 5 days to be exact, the pain still there just not as bad. They have me eat a meal again before giving me medicine and sending me on my way back home with a laundry list of pills and to take care.

I was home 2 days this time, I finally made it over that hump where I could actually be home more than 1 day however the pain was not gone and actually was worse now and I was vomiting an obscene amount of everything I had put in the last 2 days. EVERYTHING was coming up. They wanted to see me immediately and had a ER room waiting for me.

This particular visit was 12 hours long. They had called everyone on the night team looking for someone to give an answer different from, "we don't know what's wrong". I had doctor after doctor come in and tell me the same thing over and over again. That it was ulcers, and to grin and bare it. Such an easy thing to say when you're not the one going through it. I was given a stronger opiate and told to continue with what I was doing. Once again, I was sent home.

A day later, the vomit kept coming and the pain to be right there with it as well. I went back to OHSU this time for 11 days, where an entire team of surgeons took over my case and assured me that I would be taken care of finally and that I definitely did NOT have ulcers!! 

I had a partial small bowel obstruction from the emergency surgery that was preformed in Florence after my accident. Scar tissue tends to form and the bowels obstruct causing well, everything I had been going through. It was so clear to them that it was an obstruction they read it off of my CT scan from Salem the one I had weeks ago. Imagine the anger I felt when a surgeon took 20 minutes out of his day to find the problem that countless doctors and teams couldn't see. They at this point in time decided to start feeding me intravenously through the central line(PICC) keep me NPO and get me eating at least 3 meals and having regular bowel movements before letting me go and do anything.

Yes!!!! Finally somebody is doing something they are finally helping me get out of here and get out of this pain! Hallelujah. 

This still was not the end...

My rocky road to Recovery, and No,not the ice cream.

After the first couple of days post surgery, I really didn't feel much. I slept all the time. I was never hungry, I would get a shot from time to time of morphine for pain control and back to bed I would go. The sound and sight of food actually made me nauseated, even the sound of water made me cringe.

Nearing the end of the 2nd day moving into the 3rd, I started feeling this intense sharp pain that was right under my chest in a spot I called "the button". If you were to take the first four fingers of your hand and start at your sternum and go downward you'll fall right into this crevice. That's where my pain was.

It would get so bad it felt like a squeezing pain, such a tight pain I couldn't breathe it hurt to inhale because this overwhelming discomfort would come when my stomach would inflate. I would even feel it in my back, I felt like I was wearing a revenge seeking fanny pack. This belt of pain that wrapped itself from the front to the back of me and brought such pain I  would scream and be writhing in pain.  I remember the first time I felt this pain near the 3rd day after my surgery, I hit the nurse call button and asked for pain medicine and to hurry.

What she had was a shock to me. In she came with what I had thought was morphine like I had normally gotten and the pain would be fine, however; what she had in the syringe was Dilaudid. It's actually 4 times stronger than morphine and she shot it into my IV line in under a 3 second count without saying Mississippi in between the count. It went something like, "1,3" and that was it. I instantly got burning hot. I felt like my skin was on fire, my stomach felt like I was going to projectile vomit. I started screaming and twisting in the bed I started pushing my legs up under my body and scooting up like I was a pair of windshield wipers on a hospital bed. I was turning red almost purple from crying. My mom flew out of her chair and the terror in her voice shook as she asked the nurse "What did you give her?!"

The nurse replied, "It's Dilaudid"
"Okay, and what is that? How much did you give her?"
"It's only .05, very low dose. Lower than what we typically give our patients anyway."
"Look at her!! Look at her! Candace, okay okay stop crying"
"MOM!! (crying so hard, I grabbed her hand)"
"Get her a towel! We need to get her cooled down she's going to pass out look at her!"
(My heart monitor started going off, 2 more nurses from the ICU physically ran into my room)
"What's going on Candace?" Asked a very loud concerned voice from a nurse.
"It hurts, it hurts, owwwww."
"What hurts Candace?"
"This started when the nurse gave her that new medicine"
"What did she give her?"
"I have no idea but this is the result of it and we are not doing it again!! I've never seen her like this."
By this time it had been about 3 minutes and the effect of my body boiling and the pressure that was in my neck like someone 300 lbs doing a hand stand on me had subsided. 
I could talk, faint and mumbled. I could talk.
"You went to fast, I can't even feel my fingers I'm numb."
"Okay, we'll make sure to go slow next time. We have to switch up your meds because the morphine isn't lasting you long enough it's wearing off too fast and we need you to stay comfortable to heal."
I nodded,  I said nothing else and I nodded.
"Can you believe there are people that want that feeling?! They don't care where it gets shot into their body they just want it?"
She was talking about drug addicts.
"Yeah.." I said completely annoyed by her dry joke.
I had just had a "high" that I wanted NO part of. I was in a toss up.

The Dilaudid, was the perfect medicine to take the pain away and I mean honestly truly take the pain away. With how fast she flushed my line with the opiate medication it made me panic. I had a minor panic attack, those seemed to be coming to be me more frequent throughout my days. 20 minutes later I was watching the cooking channel and drinking a cocktail of juice, and telling my nurse she smelt like aqua net and cookies. She was my favorite nurse and truly cared for me, even though I wanted to punch her for inducing my panic rage. She looked like she just walked out of a white snake video. I swear it to you. What a beautiful person she was.

On the 5th morning of my emergency stay they had me up and humbled over walking. Can you believe it walking?! I was ready to take the 2.5 hour jaunt home. The type of ready where you've been waiting for what seems like ever to get going. With a Zofran(nausea medicine) tab dissolving under my tongue and a Norco(vicoden) in my stomach.  I was literally ready. The ride home was an emotional one. We talked about the accident, we all talked about how tired we all were especially my parents making trips daily sometimes multiple times in a day.  When we pulled up to the house I was overjoyed to see my garage door. You might wonder why? Because that's the door we use to get in our house more than our actual front door.  I knew that behind that garage door was my life the way I last left it. Excited and ready for the dunes. I was returning tired, and in pain from the medicine upsetting my stomach and the orange Gatorade I had drank before the trip home was definitely making it known to my body it was not a good choice.

That night I kept the Norco by my side as I had a pretty rough time getting comfortable on our couch.  I had gotten use to the hospital bed living, and being able to adjust my bed and body to my discomfort. It was so bad being uncomfortable on this couch my mom even called a medical supply store to try and rent one for me.

I didn't make it to my second night home to sleep in the much desired hospital bed for comfort ONLY. What I got instead was a real hospital bed at the Salem hospital. It was a night of pacing the kitchen to the living room to the family crying holding my dad's hand. Throwing up this awful deep brown matter. We finally had enough and we went straight to the ER where the admitted me within about 1.5 seconds again with the rushing of the wheel chair and getting me in a gound and an that awful IV started. My arms were so red and bruised. I even had red scabs on both arms in both big veins inside of my arms and on my wrists.  They found a spot on my vein that wasn't completely bruised and set up camp for my new source of relief.

They brought in another surgeon, and she started ordering xrays and a CT scan searching for where this mystery pain was coming from. My CT scan had come back abnormal due to my surgery that had taken place just 4 days ago. She couldn't tell what was wrong, and wanted to keep me for observation and completely stop all intake by mouth. No water, no pills, no food. They called this being NPO. This term was my life for the next few days as I lay in a hospital bed in pain, with a concerned, confused surgeon stating if my pain didn't subside and I didn't have a bowel movement she was certain she would have to go back into my stomach and see what was the matter. NOT ON MY WATCH LADY!

It has come to my attention that when you cannot eat, every other commercial on the television is about food. Red Robin, yum! Applebee's, Taco Bell, McDonald's. Every food commercial that could possibly be about food somehow zoomed onto my TV, the only thing I could do while laying strapped into a bed. What torture!

I had a few foreign things happen to me, saposatory for one, an enema for two, and last but certainly not least a digital and yes that means finger right up the bum! To try and get my bowels working after almost a week of not working. By some sort of another miracle the next morning I had woke up and the bowel gates of Candace had opened and I was a new woman! They watched me gain progress as I slurped down jello, Gatorade and even finally the food I had been waiting for, a mashed potatoe and turkey dinner before I went home that next morning.

We were pleased at how things had been going and I was looking forward to being once again back home! Unfortunately that didn't last long, I made it a day and that next evening I was in horrible pain again. This time we decided to go to Portland to OHSU where "the best of the best" were and get this figured out!

We had HAD enough.

Can you blend a pizza and feed it to me via IV

Everything sounded good, I had made a 3 page list front and back of all the foods that sounded good to eat that ranged from home cooked dishes to canned spaghetti. I didn't care what I had, when you'd knock down every body in the hospital to eat their cuisine. SOMETHING has got be very wrong. I wanted food so bad, I begged people to give me A Cracker. I even asked for A grain of rice. I would just cry because I wanted food. Those television commercials never cease to pop up every 20 seconds. I started watching the TV on mute and keeping my door shut. I could smell it, always! I was convinced the elevators smelt like spaghetti and garlic bread(having gone back there for check ups, this was no accurate description by any stretch of the imagination).

I had spent 11 days and nothing had resolved, the plan soon became it was time for me to go into another surgery. The reason being, the emergency surgery had created scar tissue that formed around my bowels being the cause of my unexplainable pain. However; it was not just as simple as performing another surgery. My scar still was just barely healing. I looked as if to be 5 months pregnant because my organs were so swollen. In fact it would be catastrophic for my bowels if they went in too soon without allowing the alloted time to healing. What would happen is what they call fish netting(a process where the bowels become the texture of over chewed gum and would string apart and that part of the bowel would die and have to be cut).  I had to HAD to wait the rest of my healing time which was another 4 weeks, and then was to expect another open surgery. I couldn't fathom them reopening my stomach, I couldn't stand the constant touch of my shirt being on my incision. To have them completely reopen?? It shot me in the heart every time they so loosely threw that word around surgery. They would reiterate to me daily they would "cross that bridge when they got to it".

They wanted to try and get me on pills so they could get me home. This did not excite me one bit because every time they would try and get me on oral pain meds it wasn't 2 days and I was right back in the hospital, but again I did it. I wanted to be home. My bed, my car, my bed, my bed, and my bed. Wait, these were the docs that told me I had ulcers, the ulcers I didn't have. The pain they considered to be indigestion. Why are they pushing me out? I'm not healed! I can't eat! I need to stay doesn't anyone else see this?

I had no other choice, I had to try.  They even allowed me some food to go with the pills. I saw you're drop. You heard me, food. Finally mashed potatoes and a pill? I couldn't grab my swine flu sticky infested room service phone fast enough. Can I tip you to bring it within the next 10 minutes?(that wasn't an option)

I cried while eating the first bite of my mashed potatoes. I mentioned it on Facebook and explained how sweet it was to taste such a magnificent creation. The pill went down the hatch, and I had made an executive decision to go ahead and wash the pill down with a sugar saturated piece of angel food cake and vanilla ice cream. A partial bowel obstruction is not fond of any morsel of food. It wasn't 30 minutes after my meal and pill I was sitting half on the bed and half off. Hunched over grabbing at the nurses scrubs squeezing her arms and hands begging her to help me. I didn't care what she had to do I just wanted her to fix it. They were so frightened by my aggressive and unruly behavior they sent in a portable xray machine and took 3 xrays  and sent them to my docs and the look on their face when they came in was of pure terror.

They showed me my films and my intestines had expanded so much they were so concerned that my intestines were going to explode.  That's a real thing?! What?! Oh yes a very real thing, they once again put me back on NPO and kept the PICC line in and kept me for another week.

Still, to this day I don't regret a single tear soaked bite I ate....
This still, was far from over.

The Vacation

I always thought it couldn't happen to me. That every lecture that held me up waiting to go out on my excursion was just because they were crazy. I was always careful, if they trust me but not everyone else that's the same as them not trusting me! I was wrong, I was so wrong.

August 25, 2013 I woke up, peering at the vibrant light beaming from my phone accompanied by that dreaded alarm buzz I've come to know all too well. It was 6:45 a.m and the start of my vacation had officially began! My family and a friend were headed to the Oregon Dunes for a day of fun. We all had our own ATV's(bikes), My dad, brother, sister-in-law, and myself all had 2 stroke Banshees. Our mutual friend who I'll leave unnamed for his privacy had a 4 stroke Raptor. My family has been riding for years, all together around 20 years experience. I had been on a Banshee since I was 8 riding by myself, and since I was 2 riding with a family member. I struggled, getting my riding gear on and my weather protective clothing underneath it all. The ensemble consisted of jeans, a camisole, 3 sweatshirts under a riding jersey, and Christmas socks. A much needed variety of layers for the typical unpredictable Oregon Coast weather. As I eagerly awaited the arrival of my brother, sister-in-law, and friend to load the bikes. I updated my Facebook status nearly every half hour. It was not only the anxiously awaited start of my vacation, it was also the first time my father was going to ride his bike again in almost 10 years after a traumatic accident of my uncle(his brother) had encountered. He swore up and down, on everything he had he would never ride again. So, we stopped. All of us.

They arrived, my dad uneasy about going. He made sure to check, check, oh and recheck everything we did. The helmets, the bikes being tied down, the gas cans, the helmets, the coffee, the gas cans, the bikes tied down, the helmets. After an entire hour of lag, late but still within the same day we left to Florence, Oregon. The ride there, was amazing! A truck full of laughter, stories, coffee, and hungry stomachs. We arrived and made a quick stop at a grocery store to grab some food before we got to the dunes. We pulled into our favorite camping site that we had always gone to for years and years. My stomach felt like nothing I could ever accurately describe. I was excited, I was nervous, and I was overwhelmingly proud of my father for going on this trip even though I know he was scared to death of everything we would soon be embarking on. We unloaded the bikes off the trailer, and road out into the dunes. In a long staggered line through the camp site, woven in between each other like some kind of magnetic field was adhering us in a group. The first bowl(set of sand dunes) we come through was one that brought back a swarm of memories without even thinking just appeared like I was reliving a movie scene I had watched so many times. We rode through still in our group to the second bowl where we all staggered and stopped. Looking around I smiled at my dad, even through my helmet I knew he could see my smile from ear to ear.

We proceeded, going over hills and driving on top of packed grey sand that led down hill and to flat terrain where single passenger riders were periodically passing by leaving a trail of two long tracks wherever they so chose. We had a leader, my brother. He knew the dunes like the back of his hand and led us to the beach where we all tooled around and really started catching gears and pulling ahead of each other. Leading to wheelies, and I'm pretty sure I "accidentally" may have roosted(thrown sand with the back tires/paddles onto the rider behind you by quick throttle acceleration). We were having a blast! We rode on, whipping through beach trails with the sun on our backs! The white gleaming sand that looked like millions of diamonds had been put in a blender and precisely tossed on top of the sand making it luster like a dream, or a fairy tale.

We paused, only briefly to shed the unnecessary layers of clothing we didn't need that we were sure we would have. We laughed, and talked about how beautiful it was. We took pictures with our phones and collectively decided we should head back to camp, just for a quick minute to drop off our jackets and sweatshirts and come back out and ride. So we went off, slowly pacing each other coming to the end of the trail that led us into the path back to the second bowl. We came out to a flat patch of sand that hosted a steep hill.

We all stopped, we began looking at each other. One by one, I looked at my dad, my dad looked at my brother, my brother looked at me, and my sister-in-law locked eyes on the hill. My dad asked me, "You going to go up it?!" without hesitation I said "Yeah!!!!!" he replied with, "Let's get it then!". I kicked my bike until the sweet beastly sound fled from under me. "REEEEEUUUUNNNNNNN" went the Banshee, I pushed my foot down popping the gear into first, I used my right thumb to rev the bike as I let go of the clutch and shifted into second, then third, then fourth.

Airborne, I was with wind carrying me. I don't remember, I don't get it. I don't know what happened, I'm on the sand laying there. I have to get up! I stood, I fell. My dad ran over to me as I saw my group leap off their bikes and throw their helmets. "Baby, please tell me you're okay! Please! PLEASE! Candace, look at me, look AT me. Baby, please, oh god! Please, tell me you're okay!!". "I'm fine, I just(wind knocked out of me)..can you, I, take my helmet off." "No!No! Lay down, now!" "No, dad please I'm okay take my helmet off now!!" (he tilted my head up unbuckling the helmet) "ugh, I have to pee really bad!" My sister-in-law crouched down on all fours looking at me said, "I can ride you over there by those bushes and we can go potty." (I didn't answer) "Is that what you want to do? We can go, I'll take you right now!" My dad chimed in, "Do you see why I always tell you to be careful? Oh, god! Are you okay? Lay still." "No, I'm going, I can't stop it, I'm peeing right now." "okay, that's okay, you're alright" "Daddy, I can't see, Dad...Dad...I can't see" "Alright, we have to get her out of here. We're going to the hospital." "Am I going to be okay?" ......... "You're going to be fine...you're okay" my sister-in-law said. My dad put me on the back of his bike, as we left my bike, our and our friend there in the second bowl to wait. My dad pulled both of my arms and locked my fingers into each other and yelled in the most heart wrenching tone. "You hold on, do you hear me? You hold on and you DO NOT let go!" I did...I did.

We made it back to camp, and like my brother and dad were walking on hot pavement they hurled the trailer off the truck. My dad hopped in the driver seat as I blankly stared at the windshield asking to leave. We broke at least 10 laws on the 6 mile drive to the local hospital. Nearly on two wheels as we pulled into the parking lot, a nurse with a wheel chair came out, and sat me down in it and wheeled me to a very white room. Sand gritting against my face as I reached up and touched my hair that was mangled around my face. "What happened?" asked the nurse as she shut a cupboard door tossing me a gown. "I went off a cliff" I answered. "She, She was riding and she went off a razor back, I watched the whole thing happen. She fell maybe 30-35 ft and then she just fell. She landed on her neck, she tumbled the whole way down and then stood up and fell down. She couldn't see, she went to the bathroom on herself." "okay, alright." she nodded back to my dad. "can you tell me what day it is?" "Sunday." "Okay, and what year is it?" "2013" "Alright. Good." She began taking my blood pressure and stripping off my riding gear, sand fell everywhere onto the white sheet of the bed. She started an IV while I started crying and asked her "Am I going to be okay?" She didn't answer, I glanced over toward my dad. He was crying. I wept harder. I asked once more, "Am I going to be okay?...Please?" "Well, I don't know. You seem to be answering my questions and you're not tore open and bleeding, it looks like you might be, but I don't know I'm not a doctor. I can't tell you." I started crying even harder as my dad left the room and called my mom on my phone. It wasn't even 2 minutes before he came walking back in with the phone extended out to me, him telling me to talk. I knew this was going to be a hard phone call... "Hello.." "WHAT HAPPENED? Candace, Are you okay?" "Mom, I'm fine." "Candace, don't you lie to me. Don't be a hero, are you okay?" "Mom, I'm okay! They are just running some tests and they are going to let me know what's going on and I'll tell you as soon as I know." I heard nothing but her crying and breathing into the phone, I couldn't help but do the same as my dad came over to my bedside and held my hand with both of his. Covering my hand so that it looked like a huge growth was on top of my hand. He had to leave, he had to go get the rest of the group that was aimlessly awaiting the return of my dad. So there I sat, waiting... I was there by myself, periodically asking everyone that came in there if I was going to be okay. I even asked a janitor if I was going to be okay and his reply to me was "I'm just here to restock the linen". I was losing my mind every second that went by. Finally, the my dad and my sister-in-law appeared and the doctor all arrived at the same time. The moment I was so ready for, I've never been more ecstatic to see a ER doc in all of my life. My dad and sister-in-law on the right side of me and the doc on my left, he started talking in blurs to me until he mentioned a CT scan and the surgeon to come in. I felt my heart drop, and the monitor that was hooked to me taking my blood pressure every 10 minutes started to go ballistic. My blood work had come back un-normal. "What does that mean?" "Well, we don't know yet. I'm ordering a CT scan and I'm going to have our surgeon come back in with me and we'll go from there" "How long is that going to take before we know anything?" asked my dad. "We can get the results back in about 30-45 minutes it just depends on how busy our radiology department is. We send the results to Eugene and they do the reads." We had no choice, we had to wait all of us! I just cried, as phone calls were made and other members of my group came into my room. I just began the process all over again each time someone new came in my room, it didn't matter who it was that walked in. I asked the same question followed by tears "am I going to be okay?" Nobody would answer me. Nobody could answer me. It wasn't 20 minutes after the CT scan the surgeon and the doctor came in simultaneously. I just knew something was wrong. They wouldn't be here together with that look on their face if something wasn't wrong.

They spoke, Greek is what it felt like windings actually! The final result, I had internal bleeding. They didn't know how much, they didn't know what was bleeding, and they didn't know if they could fix it but they assured me and my family they were going to do everything they could. My sister-in-law broke down and started rubbing my arm. I felt nothing. Nothing had sunk in, I didn't understand. What just happened? I looked up at her, "I'm sorry, I know you're going to be alright I just love you so much" she said. I lost it. My dad grabbed my sister-in-law and held her as they hugged.

This was it, they were wheeling me into a room for surgery. I looked beside me to see my brother and dad looking at me as if I was a sensitive piece of fine china. "We're going to be right here when you get out okay? We'll be right here" I nodded and I was pushed through two double doors and entered a room with a loud beeping sound. Two nurses introduced themselves to me and their names, I couldn't tell you.  They placed this long elephant trunk looking thing over my face and nose and encouraged me to take long,deep breaths.

I woke up, I was in ICU. My dad, brother, boyfriend, and mom were gathered around me like I was looking through a fish bowl. My dad was the first to talk and tell me the surgeon found a 7 inch laceration on my colon, a broken vessel, and lots of bruising. I had lost 16 oz of blood and was very lucky I came in when I did because I didn't need a blood transplant.  I lifted my blankets and looked at a portion of my stomach that was uncovered. My stomach was blue from the surgical procedure, and all I could see was black from the dried blood lining the incision. 

I was alive, and I was tired. I couldn't fight my eye lids from closing as I see my family weep with love that something, somehow saved my life.  For that, I'm forever grateful and I start a new journey every day.

This, is my story from that day on.