Every moment of your life is a second chance.

Rick Price

After those three terrible months of waiting from the last blood checkup, I arrived at my destination. Although they were filled with self-discovery and delving into what I wanted my life to look like with my passion, I arrived at the executioner’s corner once again in my mind. I arrived at the next part of my fate once again. My brain was loaded with questions, anxiety, and most of all still that longing of not knowing if I would be able to hold my future children in my arms, or adventure around the world with the future love of my life I would find hopefully. I got the 13 tubes of blood drawn early that morning and I anxiously kept refreshing the lab results tab on my Mayo Clinic app. I waited and waited until finally I received the notification that the results were in and my heart dropped to the floor. All of my results seemed to be leveling out to normal this time around. What in the world! 

Later on that same day I repeated the usual ritual I had with my hematologist at that point. My doctor could not understand what was going on but offered me the smallest morsel of good news. He told me that he wanted to keep checking in with me every three months but today my levels looked good for this check up! Although this would not always be the case (you will find out at my next checkup), that made me feel multiple different ways. I was happy because it seemed that all of the work I had done in those three months had paid off, it felt like I was getting another chance from the world. It gave me hope that possibly mindset is everything. I know this isn’t always the case, but I hoped it would be for me.

The sad truth to what the doctor just told me was the knowledge I had found from the research I did about these blood diseases. Blood cancers are usually swift and deadly, this lull appeared to be something that happened to others before online. I found countless groups where people were fine one day, getting excellent blood counts, and then within the next few weeks dead. I couldn’t stop myself from reading and knowing more about the diseases that could be haunting my tomorrow, but I knew it would be a fear I would have to face. Everyone faces death, it just depends on when you will give in.

If you are still breathing, you have a second chance.

Oprah Winfrey

The statement that I wrote last week has almost been my life motto since I started having the realization that life may go on for a bit longer. “This clot that still rests in my gut to this day, woke my ass up to what really was important”. That resonates in my skull every single time I take a deep breath and feel that slight jarring of my insides. I feel that clot making my spleen the size of a football. I feel having referred pain in my shoulder and upper back from my spleen pushing up on my heart.  I was and am still lucky to still be opening my eyes every single morning and I knew it.

I didn’t give a single care in the world for what people thought about my sharing of happiness and trying to be a point of light in the world. It is pretty outstanding the number of great friends (or who I thought were great friends) that I lost in this part of my life because of my newfound love in motivational life philosophies. You truly have zero idea how this weighed on my fragile heart at the time. I had grown to become numb over the loss of friends close to me, but it especially hurt and made me disheartened when they left my life over something so positive. I understand when a person makes a bad life decision that pushes people away, but trying to be a light in someone else’s world? I was honestly floored. I had another three months to learn how to deal with losing so many of my friends that I loved and cared for in the world. I had another three months to live every day like it could be my last. Those two things were difficult to put together at the time for me. How was I supposed to be living my best life without the people I grew to know and love? I’ve never been good at goodbyes and always long for the chance for just fifteen more minutes with these people I lost. I understand that they aren’t around for a reason, but that didn’t dull my pain at all.

Truly the only thing that kept me going during these dips of depression were the people who supported me with my passion for light and happiness. I started realizing at this point in my journey that I had accrued extra baggage with this health crusade, crippling anxiety. Although it would be almost a year before I would confront this curse, I can recognize the patterns I exhibited back then. Crippling anxiety led me to crippling depression which led me to probably time off of my life.

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a life. I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.

Maya Angelou

This website, is my dream happening like I’ve said in the past. But it also has taken much longer to come to fruition because of this mental health battle I have been facing as well. I hope that everyone reading this knows that it is always OK and the right choice to seek help if you are feeling the weight of the world more than usual. I continued reading, watching, and pondering what my dream would turn into at this point in my life. I wanted to write. I wanted to speak to huge stadiums of people and tell them about my life. I hope you all believe in me, whoever I am talking to. Im ready to throw back at life and I hope you will stay with me on this journey. Next post, I will talk about the start of my mental health journey as I awaited my next checkup.

Until next time ACJ Nation! Peace, love, all the above.

-Alex

Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for all of your support!

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