The Cyst That Wasn't

Well, it has been too long since my February post. A lot has happened. I did go into surgery back on May 3rd to drain the cyst. Once they got in there they found that it was not a cyst after all. It was a tumor. The doctors biopsied it and closed me up. When I came to, it was obvious to me that something was wrong. My doc was standing in front of me and she was not looking very happy. I knew this meant that things were as I had dreaded and I had a tumor.  I just said frankly "lets bring it on!" meaning that I knew there would be more surgery. They then rolled me to the Intensive Care Unit.

When I got to the Intensive Care Unit, I realized that my right hand was having motor issues. Later when I was allowed to get out of bed we noticed that my right foot wanted to go to the right and I was not able to walk well. I was scared that it would be permanent. To my amazement I quickly got better, with the exception of my neck. It took a couple of months to heal.

Due to having to wait, the next surgery did not happen until August 15th. When I was admitted to the hospital, they told us that I would be kept under for 24 hrs. I woke up almost 3 days later to find that I was paralyzed in both legs and my right arm! Little by little, I began to wiggle my fingers and twist my wrist on my right arm and hand. I began to put pressure on my legs and found that they were weak and I could not stand on my own. They had to use a lift system that  was attached to the ceiling to move me in and out of bed.

The room I was in was quite large as far as most hospital rooms go. It came to be known as the penthouse suite as it was equipped with a refrigerator and microwave that were tucked hidden inside a cherry wood cabinet. To the left of my bed was a full sized couch and to my right was a table with 4 chairs. The right side wall was all windows from one end to the other. From my bed I overlooked the Ross Island bridge and Mount Hood. It was an amazing view. It was the topic of most visitors. At night was my favorite time to look at the view of te city lights and the enormous thunderstorms that we had the pleasure of viewing.


The food was what I worried about. You hear people condemn hospital food all of the time. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to order anything that was on the menu. It was just as shocking to find that I was supposed to eat a lot of food, I mean a lot! I was always worried that I was ordering too much but then they came and said I was not eating enough and needed to increase the protein.

For breakfast I would eat an omelet with vegies and cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, toast, milk and juice. They also had this plate called an Artisan Fruit and Cheese Plate. It was so mouthwatering good! I would never have thought that cheese and fruit go good together. I would snack on it with my visitors throughout the day. I later would have bacon strips added to breakfast due to having a salt deficiency.

Lunch consisted of what they called pot roast. I soon discovered that it was actually a very tender, perfectly seasoned, melt in your mouth steak! Since I was a one armed bandit, I would pick it up and just bite off a piece. I savored every ounce of it. I would have some brown rice and a double order of spinach as my side dishes and cheese cake for desert.

Dinner came a lighter meal of Salmon, double order of spinach and brown rice.

They still said I was not eating enough! I simply told them that I couldn't eat anything more. However, I noticed that the meat and spinach portions grew in size. To my amazement I lost 30 lbs in the 3 weeks that I was there.

While I was still in the hospital, the nurse had put up a sign that said "no free water". Why in the world would they say that we had to pay for water? I was confused, as were my guests. So, I asked why I and my guests were no longer allowed water? The nurse laughed and said that it just meant that I was no longer allowed plain water. I had to drink liquids that had salt in them and that the nurses could no longer fill my water jug with water. My sodium had dropped so much that rather than give me salt pills, they had me drink Gatorade and eat bacon! lol.

Once  it was no longer medically beneficial for me to be at the hospital they sent me to a convalescent center to learn to walk and use my hands better. I was there for about 6 weeks. Then I was sent home.

Once home the struggle truly began for me.  The reality that I was no longer me.

My Heart, My Smile

My heart, My smile

Can they see my heart through my smile?

The face changes over time, the smile remains the same

The heart gets damaged and yet remains the same. 

The body has become damaged, yet the smile remains the same

Do they truly see me through all the pain?

My heart remains the same.

Would they notice if my smile were to fade?

Would they think me weak should my heart change?

My heart, my smile

Can they continue through the days of pain unchanged?

If my heart, my smile disappeared today, 

I ask again would they notice the pain?

Alas, the body remains damaged and the power begins to fade

Do they still see my heart, my smile?

As it fades with each passing day.

My heart, my smile all that still remains.

2011 is coming to an end. Put this as your status if you met someone amazing this year ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

2011 is coming to an end. Put this as your status if you met someone amazing this year ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ This was posted to my Facebook account today. It got me to deeply think about the past year and how I made it through it.

I had become a very different person from the one that I had set out to be. I forgot about all of my hopes and dreams. I let others decide what I was going to do, act, be, etc.. I lost my passion for life. I just merely existed.

As most people know, I have been to hell and back a few times over the past 10 years and especially the last year and a half. My world turned upside down and I didn't think that I had anything more to give. I was ready to run as far away from anyone and anything that I ever knew or worse. 

It was then that I realized that I did not remember who I was. I saw a stranger looking back at me. Empty eye's that had lost all recognition of joy and meaning. I had lost everyone, including myself. 

I wondered where did that smile that I once cherished go? Where did my magical world of words and rhyme drift off to? I used to have an imagination and now it seemed lost in my own faceless reflection. Writing, music and photography were my passions and then in the mirror I saw that they were gone, as well.

One night an acquaintance that I had met through work said something that really made me think. He said, "If you continue staring at 4 walls and don't get out and do something, You will die! Get your ass out of that house and join us!"

That acquaintance was Jedediah "Diamond" Aaker. Who is now one of my dearest friends. I told Jed some time later, unbeknownst to him, that he saved my life that night. I was in a real bad place and didn't think that I could pick up the pieces and move on. But, Jed knew different and he introduced me to one person after another, as well as, to new places and experiences. He helped me realize that I was not alone and that I was worth something. I believe that the diamond fits him well. His heart is a precious stone that is undervalued until it becomes polished and shines. 

The friends that I have had such a pleasure of meeting this year, have become like a family to me. They have been right by my side throughout my whole ordeal with my tumor. Showing me how perfect strangers can open their hearts and at times their wallets, to make sure that I made it. Making me realize that if a perfect stranger can open their heart to me, then there must be a me inside somewhere that was worth saving.

I have been and am still on a journey to find out who I am and if the amount of love that I have received this year from my friends is any indication of what the next year will bring, then bring it on 2012!! What do you have in store for me?

Welcome to the United States of Dictatorship!

As most of you know, I am not usually very politically outspoken, but there comes a time when enough is enough! I have always stood my ground on the fact that if you don't like the freedom and rules of our country then you can leave it! However, in light of the recent laws that Wisconsin has taken upon itself and taken away the right to have a union by taking the union away from it's state workers. These are the people that are the heart and soul of the state. Without these workers the state can not run. Who are they to take the union from the workers? It is our American right to form labor unions.

Some states are considering laws that will take away the right to even have a cell phone in the car or to talk on one while sitting in a parked car and even to ban walking and talking. What about those that want to ban eating in the car, will they then ban drive-thru's? Will talking to people in person while walking then be next?

I am just wondering when our country stopped being the United States of America and became the United States of Dictatorship? When will our elected officials start doing what the people elected them to do and stop telling the people what they will do? It hits a nerve with me that we once built the greatest country in the world and now people are leaving it because it is no longer the home of the brave and land of the free. It is now a land where the citizens wonder what rights they will lose next! Is America headed for another Civil War? Will the people ever regain control of the government again? or will the government become the United States of Dictatorship?

Recent Realizations

As some of you may know, I recently had a very bad scare and had to agonize over the possibilities that were in store for me. I went in for an MRI of my neck and they immediately contacted the Neurosurgeon to take a look at my picts. They found something but would not tell me what it was. They only indicated that I now needed to go in for an emergency MRI of  my entire spine. 

This obviously meant that they were definitely worried about what they found. I too became worried, since they were not telling me anything. I spent 4 1/2 hours on the MRI table the next day. I then had to wait 2 more days until they told me what was going on.  I became very scared that it may be something so bad that they won't be able to save me. 

I began to call, email, text and write as many of the people that I could in such a short time period. I was preparing for the worse in case they were to rush me to surgery and a chance that i might not recover. My grandmother died from a tumor in her brain that then spread like warm butter on toast. She only hung on for a few months. It was too late for her by the time they found it. I was afraid that I was going to follow her to the same fate. My usual strong willed self was wavering.

If you can imagine or comprehend my thinking, you will see that when the doctor told me that it was a cyst in my spinal cord, from the C1 and the C5 Vertebrae, I was relieved.  I now knew that yes, I would have to have surgery on my neck but I was going to live! I did not have cancer or some uncrushable disease. I was going to be alright. I will have time to learn to live life. 

I will be having the surgery about April, unless something changes in the meantime. I will need the support of my fans and loved ones to get through it. But, I am a survivor and I will conquer whatever is thrown at me.

Life is to short to waste it worrying about the little things that you can't control. Get out and live your life and make it what you want it to be, before it is too late. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't. Always remember that just as I have, you to can.......

Live life, Love always and Be who you want to be! 

Luvs,

T

Begin by Searching for Life , Not Bringing it Down!

I guess that I have had a lot of practice at life's little game of starting over and so even though I did not know the strength that was within me, I have been through the pain before, over and over. Just when I feel like the world has caved in I don't know where it comes from but I pick up and start again. When I feel like I am about to burst, I turn to my friends and they have helped to give me strength. I used to dance, sing and enjoy what life has to offer. I forgot how to do all that somewhere along the way.

My health has suffered for that and now it will be a bigger struggle to reverse the damage that I have done.  But, I know that the people who truly care, will show themselves to be there every step of the way, to help get me back to , well.... ME. I don't know for sure who that is anymore but that is the journey that I have to take and I hope that my friends will take the ride with me and still be there all the way.

 I have learned that life is an endless journey with so many paths that are too often untraveled and I am simply tired of taking the safe path and missing all of the things that life's energy can promise. I have lived my life being afraid of the next step and that hasn't turned out very well for me or a large majority of the people that I have known. If you have checked my blog you know that I have emerged with a new sense of what I want my life to be about and hope that everyone will join me in living, loving and being. To me this has meant to embrace the joys of life, learn to love life, and to simply find out who you are and be life. Don't trap all of those feelings inside, get them out there before the demon destroys you and you wake up and find out that you have not lived life at all. He and I have had a close personal relationship for a very long time and I simply had to chose to leave all that anger, pity, jealousy, lies, fear and pain, etc.  behind and say let me live and let you be only a very distant memory.

So, be there for those that start to falter, pick them back up and never bring them down with you. You deserve to Live, Love and BE!

Tina McKinney

Reflections of the Past, Insight to my Future

I have often wondered what I would have become if I had followed different paths in life and at the forks in the roads what would have happened if I had ventured down the uncharted paths?

I have realized that there is never a right or wrong path to travel. Eventually one path will lead to another and another and so forth. We all make different choices and then wonder what if? But, if you are always wondering about the what if's in the world, what are the what is' that you are missing in front of you. If that makes any sense what so ever!

I have had to start down the unknown path and since it is the unknown path, I don't know where it is taking me. I just know that though it may be hard to take the steps, I am taking them anyway. I am terrified and excited all at once. I have spent my life playing everything safe and living the way that others have expected. I am now making an effort to "roll with the flow" so to speak. I am trying new things and meeting new people. Listening to different kinds of music and experiencing the variety of life that has been passing me by.

I remember a time when I would venture out of my comfort zone and live life. It seems so long ago. I don't look at this time in my life as forgetting who I am but, finding out who I am. I seem to have forgotten or lost myself somewhere along the way. I have learned that I need to stop being scared and venture out into the world and see what is out there.

I know that it won't all be good but I hope that I will learn from the experiences and have fun while doing it. The resent events in my life have shown me that life is to short to watch it from the side lines. I intend to get out and be a part of it and not a mural on the wall that gets glanced at and then forgotten. People will remember that I lived life, That I loved life and that I was life.

Live, Love and BE!

Laura's 40th Birthday Barfly Bus Bash!

We set out to have a great time last night and celebrate a special friends 40th birthday. We loaded a bus with BarFly Crew and a bunch of rowdy school bus drivers. I said to myself, Self, what an odd assortment of people that you have assembled! Oh, but I knew that the combination could only lead to a rockin' good time! I knew that when you combined a bunch of homebody people that don't get to get out much and combine them with the fun loving crew at BarFly, you couldn't help but have a great time.

Everyone got to meet at least one person that they had not met before. Some left with someone new and others re-sparked a long lived love. There was a lot of singing and dancing going on in the bars, on the bus and in the streets of Portland. We made a special stop for the birthday girl at Portland's famed Voodoo Doughnuts. If you have never Voodooed then you are missing the best and weirdest doughnuts in the world!

I set out to try and get drunk for the first time in my life and though I drank and drank some more, we did not succeed. I found that I just get to a point to where I can't fit anymore in. So, that experiment was a failure! But, I had a great time and can have fun without drinking to get drunk. I am not saying that I will never get drunk. Because none of us know the future. But, last night it was just not in the cards. I usually only have a few drinks when I am out with my friends and I can live with that.


Live, Love and Be!

My New Friends

Many of you have noticed that I have acquired a wide variety of new friends and have reconnected with many of my old friends. Some have asked "why".

I have pondered this very question. I have come to the realization that those friends that I have made, both old and new, have stuck by me through my most difficult of times. Everyone knows that my life is a mess! However, these friends have stood by me through it all. My cornucopia of friends that surrounds me, like the girl in the plastic bubble, have protected me, never judged me, and have accepted me, well for just being me!

My newest friends, that I refer to as my "Crazy BarFly friends", are never negative, always supportive and like me, have dreams of success.

Each one of us may have different dreams but, we all support one another freely. I don't feel afraid to let my fears be known with them. I don't have to say just the right thing. I can just be me! I love the spirit that they bring with them when they walk into a room or onto a bus. LOL. Each of them are their own person and they just plain love one another. When you are with them they do not prejudge or crucify you. They listen, even when nothing you say makes sense. Which for me, happens a lot! As many of you know I can tend to ramble about nothing and yet about everything.

So, the long or short of it is that my friends, new or old, give me the courage to persevere and get out of bed everyday, to explore new things and to accept everyone for who they are, as they have accepted me into their lives.

I will close with my new motto:
Live, Love and Be!
Meaning: Live Life, Love Life, Be yourself!

Live Life and Be!

Live Life and Be!

Be spontaneous and don't let fear keep you from exploring the world! I used to live by this motto and somewhere along the line I got lost and found fear. I have resolved that life is too short to live it in fear of the unknown. I myself am going to conquer my fears and learn to live again! NO MORE FEAR, BE SPONTANEOUS, AND JUST BE! ( FOR THOSE WHO ARE ASKING THEMSELVES WHAT DOES "JUST BE" MEAN, be yourself and be who you want to be, if you don't know what that is then get out there and figure out what it means to you.)

Life is passes to quickly to be negative and wonder what the rest of the world is like. Find out and make your world everything that you want it to be. Stop judging and start living. As most of you know, the last year of my life has been a living hell, to put it bluntly! Like the roller coaster with it's twists and turns, I have been bounced all over the rails. It took observing some of my new friends to realize that I can't continue to  live a negative life. I have judged others and been judged. Negativity will eat up your soul and leave you empty inside. I spend a lot of days putting on a good face for others and spend my nights in surrounded by four walls, shedding an ocean of tears.

I have had a lot of time to think about life and I am tired of not "being" and am vowing to "BE". I don't know where my journey will take me and I am sure that the ride won't be smooth. Some of you will welcome the change and others, well... But, I vow to do my best to BE! This may only make sense to me but, that is all that matters in this crazy messed up world.

Do something that you never thought you could do!

LIVE LIFE, BE SPONTANEOUS AND JUST BE!

Bar flying