2018- Ups, Downs, & Diagnosis

Happy New Year and, Happy Saturday! It's a beautiful, dreary day here in Southern California (and I DO mean "beautiful"... that's the Oregon girl in me speaking).  I'm sitting in my small two bedroom apartment with my hubs and our dog; ultimately unbelievably happy, after all that 2018 threw our way.

2018 was undoubtedly the biggest year of my life. So much has changed in a matter of months and it's still hard to wrap my head around my new life.

In March my then-fiancee and I signed a franchise agreement to start our business. Since then we have traveled more than not, which meant living out of boxes and suitcases for 5 months while we began the move from Oregon to California. 

In late October we had an unbelievably beautiful and romantic wedding, which was the perfect way to say goodbye to Oregon (for now). Ahh Oregon, I miss you already.

We honeymooned in Mexico and stayed in an incredible over-water bungalow at an all- inclusive resort, where (of course) I happened to get stung by a jellyfish on day 2 of our 7 day stay, which definitely wasn't ideal and changed the itinerary drastically.

We continued our honeymoon by road tripping to Dallas where we attended a 3 day conference for our business, then took our time coming home and detoured to the Grand Canyon.

After visiting my family in Oregon for Thanksgiving, we traveled to to our corporate office in Michigan where we stayed for several weeks to complete training before opening doors.

In Michigan I became sick. Very sick. I had been pretty severely struggling with my health for over a year at this point, but that pain and those symptoms were like anything I had ever felt before, so I began doing what everyone tells you NOT to do- googling my symptoms.

Days after we returned to So Cal, my husband and I found ourselves once again in doctor's offices, but this time I was pleading to these strangers to preform surgery and give me answers. After being completely blown off, my hubby's aunt, put me in touch with her incredible OB/GYN. He took me seriously from the moment we met and I knew he was going to be the one to help me. When I told him I had self-diagnosed myself with endometriosis, he agreed to take a look. 

On December 27th he performed my surgery and I officially diagnosed with Endometriosis. During the procedure, he found several Adhesions and performed an excision to remove as much as possible.

Since then, my life has been turned upside down and I know this is only the beginning. I am now facing sudden, HUGE, scary, life-changing decisions (but more on those another day) and I'm struggling daily with depression/anxiety and amplified homesickness.

It has now been 2+ weeks since my surgery, and I'm recovering fairly well, although I am constantly reminded by my healing organs that nothing is definite, life is far from-perfect and I'm discovering that maybe I'm not meant to be the person I always wanted to be. I am also reminded every day by my new loving husband that this is the journey that we were given and that we are going to make the best of it. I'm learning to accept my scars and also starting to look forward to finding out who I CAN be and what I'm capable of doing as a result of this turn of events.

This week our business was licensed by the state and we are now able to begin a whole new kind of crazy. We are nervous and excited and it will be a much needed distraction from some of our other realities.

Ultimately, sometimes life sucks. Sometimes you can't plan to a "T". And sometimes that's for the best.

Here's to 2019. Here's to rolling with the punches. Here's to all of you, too.

May we all find happiness in this beautiful, unpredictable, chaotic life.

C.C.