Am I Normal, Again?

I've ask the question before. Almost two years ago, to the day. Two years ago in March I went on a great adventure, to the hospital. Two years ago this week, I sat in an oddly large waiting room with a half dozen other people at the Regional Medical Center. I sat apprehensively next to John Boy, clutching my purse and nervously picking at my nails, feeling cold and hot, sick and nauseous, with as much stillness as I could muster, which, at the time wasn't much. I shook, and one side of my head hurt. My face, my cheek, my ear, my eye. Like a dull, throbbing headache.

I watched the activity in the adjacent hall. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, all moved up and down the corridor much like an ordinary day. For them, it was, an ordinary day. I watch the hall and then looked at each face around the room. Quiet and unassuming. Some conversing in whispers with their companions. Whose life would change today? Does anyone ever think about that when they sit in silence? In a waiting room, in the car, in a quiet moment at work or home. Do they stop and wonder if the news that is gleaned from the appointment at the hospital, did it change someones life? Does anyone care?

I wondered that as I sat waiting for an MRI. An magnetic resonance image of the upper half of my body. Would my life change that day? What was in my head? Would a moment in time change everything I was by the time I left the hospital?

Life changes in milliseconds. And it's short. In my little bubble of a world it has shifted monumentally a number of times in 37 years. Brick bats, 2X4 moments. That day, in that waiting room, I wondered, would my life change again? Sometimes we are left with what if? Should I have? Could I have? How do I? Sometimes we just have to decide. Other times we have time to "think". Hindsight is always 20/20. Would I do something different? Would I say something different? In some cases, I don't know if I could do anything different. In others, I wish everyday I could go back and do it different.

I was tremendously lucky that day. I left the hospital and nothing changed. I still don't feel "normal". Maybe I never will. Maybe I will always hear a ringing in my ears. Maybe I will always have moments of unpredictable, unexplainable panic. Maybe my head behind my ears will always hurt and have lumps. Maybe I will always have a racing heart beat. But, my life, thankfully, did not change. And I did not wish then, or now, for undue sympathy or pity. I'm not different, I'm just not normal.

Bubbles goes in for surgery on Friday. Let's hope she's stays just the way she is, too. We hope for the same things. And I, like having her around. We're too little for big changes. We're not done on the playground. Glad you join us here in no where....