Something different...

Let's cut to the chase here... I could write in specific detail about my every experience with my knee and the events and journey that evolved from one fateful choice and two fatefully placed rocks, OR, I could spit it out - straight to the point.

Basically, I have had 4 operations on my right knee in 3 years. When my journey started, I was mortified as any human being would be. I honestly had no idea who I was and described it as follows;

I've always viewed myself as a tree, I have my roots, my trunk/body, my branches and my leaves. Before I had my accident, I knew what each of those were symbolic of and could thoroughly describe why. 2 years later (at the time that I wrote this), all I seem to be able to find is my roots, which I keep seeing as my family and my partner. I have no idea what I believe, what my morals are, who I am, what I'm going to do or how I'm going to do it. I feel like instead of the sun gently urging me to grow and transform, I'm left with a sky which remains uncoloured and a strange stillness, taunting me to delve deeper into this strange and unnerving confusion. I've been cut off, just above the surface and have no idea how to grow back to the beautiful tree I used to be.

Deep stuff hey.? The funny thing is that this passage I wrote was the clearest I had thought in a long time. For quite a few months, I just didn't know how to cope with anything, and I 'dabbled in depression'. I didn't write anything in my journal. I didn't want to do anything or go anywhere. I felt I needed my partner to be around so that I could be happy - and when he wasn't around, I was miserable, moody, fragile and emotionally wrecked. My body was healing only to a base level and then without warning, giving way and I'd be back at square one. Add in the fact that I was also 20kgs heavier than ever before, weighing 80kg at 173cms tall, and you've got a near toxic mix. I was that much of a mess that I nearly broke my relationship with my partner, which is still an extremely tender subject which I carry a lot of guilt about.

March 17th 2012 I shaved my butt-length hair off and donated it to a Foundation in NSW called 'Tresses for Princesses', raising $3500 for the Leukemia Foundation. Bald head, a new found lightness and a clean slate to start my healing process.

Around April last year, my older sister had a baby and my father and I went interstate for a week to see our new family member. I was the happiest I had been in years. When we came back, it took 3 days before my father bought me a one way ticket back to my sisters and something clicked. I had space to think and a different oxygen to breathe. I knew no one other than my sisters family, which meant that no one knew me personally. No one had constantly witnessed my constant rise and fall over the past two years and 3 operations. For the next 4 weeks I had the chance to make a positive impact on my life and implement serious, and permanent, changes.
 - I decided I was only going to consume the minimum amount of meat and animal products.
 - I joined the local library (which everyone should do!) and hired out 6 books on healing, wellness, allergies, foods and plants that heal, exercise with injuries and positive thinking.
 - I promised myself that I would do 10 push-ups and 30 sit-ups every morning and night.
 - Last but not least, I vowed that I would LEARN and GROW every single day.

The first book I read was called 'Stopping Inflammation' in which I learnt more than I had expected to learn. One of the main topics which struck a chord with me was about allergies and how they really affect our bodies. I realised that by refusing to pay attention to my body's warning signs, I was digging an even deeper hole than I had originally thought. This information allowed me to come to terms with being my own physical enemy and finally I decided to completely cut milk and dairy out of my diet.
"Super Healing" (I'll try to find a picture and link in the next post) was another fascinating read, which opened my eyes and mind even further, and I am still hanging out to buy my own copy.
I can't remember which book I read it in, but one quote shot straight into my soul.
"Many people after a serious injury or life threatening situation, strive to get back to being who they were beforehand. You can't. That person is gone, and you will never be who you were. Instead, you should strive to find a new normal. Decide what you want to aim for and start working on getting there. You will make it. You are going to be okay." This kicked me up the bum so hard, just like the moment I talked about in my first post. Finally every heartfelt conversation my partner and I had over the past two years, finally sunk in. I finally decided, for myself, that NOW was the time to start the changes. Now was the time to start on my quest for a new normal.
One by one, I read those books, taking notes on the information which fascinated and applied to me. I started self studying nutrition and implementing what I learnt in my day to day life.
Day by day, I felt better and better. I looked better and better. My mind became clearer, I could process everything properly and actually think clearly. I started to actually wake up feeling rejuvenated which hadn't really ever happened on a regular basis since I can remember. My muscles started forming properly and I started to lose a little bit of weight.
As soon as my thought process changed, I drew in people of similar mind set and positive spirits. I was becoming someone I loved being. I had passion and drive again, I was starting to become someone I loved being again.

I'm going to stop there for tonight, because I have to be up in... 7 hours. But I'll start up next time where I left off.
I have absolutely no idea if anyone is reading these words apart from me, but my sneaking suspicion is that I'm my own audience haha :0)

Fateful 2010...

From the age of 15, I had at least a year of my 'post high school' life planned already. I was moving to England to live with family, and travelling through the Queens Land working in Historic pubs... I had been waiting for my 18th Birthday with great excitement because, after roller-blading since I was 5, I would finally be able to join a Roller Derby team. For those of you who don't know what roller derby is, basically there are two teams of women on roller skates, who travel around a track (similar to the roller domes they use for cycling), trying to score points whilst practically beating the crap out of each other... *vague explanation*.
Now, for someone who had 14 fractures, breaks and tendon/ligament tears in 4 years, roller derby is not the kind of sport you want to be playing.! I know this in hindsight, but at the time, it was the best idea in the World.. Just like some peoples high school perms haha!
Anyway, I had just graduated from High School in late 2009, meaning I was no longer playing soccer and was no longer breaking, tearing and fracturing myself to pieces. Within about 2 months of leaving school, my knees seemed to not sublux and give way as much, and I was back to flying across the pavement on my inline skates, doing 6 to 10km round trips every day, rain, hail or shine and short early morning beach runs with my beloved dog Max. I felt fan-TASTIC.! I felt alive and I felt free, nothing compares to that feeling for me, when I'm flying along on my skates, feeling my muscles tense and flex, feeling the rain splashing on my skin, dripping down my near frozen nose. To me, that is one of the greatest feelings in life. I suppose you can already guess where this is headed...?

January 26th 2010.
I had received a phone call from the coach of a local roller derby team, inviting me to come down and have a trial that Friday. I still wasn't allowed to "join the team" until I was 18 in three months, but that didn't mean I couldn't start training earlier.. right.?! Can you imagine my excitement.?!?! I was finally getting a chance to do what had I longed to do for so long, I was over the moon and filled to the brim with excitement.! My good friend Gem had lent me her roller skates and I was straight out into the street practising. I set up obstacles and my Maa was giving me tips and pointers on how to transition from inlines to skates, I was so gosh darn excited that I practised for 4 hours in the street.! I was finally doing this.!

January 27th 2010.
Come evening, I had shared my news with my whole family and was so excited, my friend Nikhita was sleeping over so we could laugh and giggle into the night. Mum asked if we wanted to go for a walk and Nikhita said yes, but my brother and I decided we were going to go to the abandoned car park by our house on our inline skates so I could practise my backwards corners. Maa's words to me before they embarked on their walk were exactly as follows.
"You've practised enough, you're just tempting fate now. You'll do fine at the trial, just come for a walk instead..."
My reply, "don't worry Mum, I'm just going to go for a little bit and then my brother and I will come straight home, no big deal".
After my mother's 'I'm warning you to be careful' look, we went on our little journeys and my father stayed home in the warm.
My brother and I were having a blast, jumping over the road islands and doing our zig-zag cross-overs, and of course, the backwards corners. We were about to go home when I decided I just wanted to do two more laps, just to nail the corners.
The first lap was fine.
The second lap, I took the final corner and hit a large rock, which flipped me 180 degrees, and I ended up landing on my right knee, on a ragged boulder.
*Just so you know, I have a weird kind of pain tolerance. When I break a bone or snap a tendon or tear a ligament, I hardly feel anything, and just know that something is very wrong. But if someone pinches, scratches or grabs me, it feels like fire on my skin.*
My reaction to my fall was light hearted, and my brother and I were laughing at my error in judgement when I looked down at my knee... which was now black and twice its normal size. That very wrong feeling immediately appeared, my stomach jumped and twisted and a soft "shit" was said. With my brothers help, I bladed home and immediately iced my disgustingly coloured knee, whilst my Father went on about my fragility and how I should "live in a hospital, because it'd cost less to rent a room there than keep on having to go back and forth." Mum's expression was less than impressed, and a huge "I told you so".

The next morning, my Mum and Nikhita helped me to the car, as I still couldn't put any weight on my knee, and shuffled me off to our Doctor. After begging and persuading him to recognise there was something wrong (he thought I was a hypochondriac, but that's another story), he sent me to get X-rays.
Three different people scoured every millimetre of my film before a very lovely Chinese man noticed a small black dot on the base of my femur. I was sent back home to await an appointment opening with Dr Gerard Hardisty, with the instructions Rest Ice Compression and Elevation and to begin weight bearing once I am able to.
I'm glad to report that we purchased the crutches from our local pharmacy at a discounted rate because of the number of times I'd had to hire them over the past 4 years haha.

The beginning of my current journey...

Bear with me now, as I am completely unable to filter out my personality from any form of writing I do.

2009 January. 16 years of age.

The reason I'm starting my first post, in my first blog, in January of 2009, is that this is where I remember my current journey beginning. After 4 years of the usual pubescent woes and joys, I was finally breaking away and becoming myself, the same self which I am to this day, still evolving and growing into.

   I remember the day distinctly, not the exact date or time, but this singular day. I had awoken in the mid morning, bounded out of bed, and hurried myself off to work. Skip through what my partner calls "every single detail of my life", and I am two hours into my split shift and standing behind the closed bar, polishing wine glasses and gazing at out at the ocean. In a split moment, I began thinking about the trials and tribulations I had encountered over the past two years, and the most amazing, eye opening thought came to mind, completely unrelated to any trail of thought I had been wandering along, "I... am... worthy... I... love... myself. No-one can make me feel otherwise." This is and was, one of the most important days of my life, because this defining moment began the process of my personal growth and happiness. No-one else could have delivered those words to me as powerfully as I delivered them to myself. No-one else's words could have kick started the positive change in my life and attitude, or in the way I saw everything around me. And you know what? I wouldn't have listened to them anyway. I continued my split shift into the night where I received a job offer from a mining company C.E.O, based on nothing but my personality and, as he said "great aura".
I kid you not, two days later, I walked into the very same workplace, with that very same style of thinking, that very same self love, that very same outlook and attitude, and was absolutely magnetised towards a person carrying chairs up the stairs for the function. It was almost as if my soul was being teased into the direction of this person, as if I needed to be near them, I needed to know their name, but the very thought of talking to them made my stomach churn with nervousness and excitement to the point that I felt physically ill. That day, I met someone whose impact on my life is immeasurable and of more value than every materialistic item in the Galaxy put together.
The bud of an incredible friendship came into my life that day with 4 simple words... "His name is Ross".