Something BIG.

I have to tell you what happened today.  What hurt today.  I haven't written since November, and when I looked back at my last post, it was haunting.  My last post asked for prayers for a "health scare."  Little did I know, I would need all the prayers I could get over the next four months.  Because that last post was written right before something BIG happened.  Before that post, I wasn't a person that had ever experienced something BIG.  Now I'm a person with a BIG.  I could go on American Idol and have a sob story and describe how I got through it and how it changed me.  Before that, I could never have been on American Idol.  Now I can... So, there's that.

But I digress.  I'm not writing today to tell you about my something BIG.  I promise you, it will come.  I'm not sure yet how to write about my something BIG, because it deserves such BIG words and I can't find them yet.  I've been asking God how I should go about telling you about my BIG, but He hasn't told me yet.  I know that He chose me to go through this for a reason.  And it's not so I can go on American Idol (honestly I can't sing, so it wouldn't work anyways).  There's a purpose and I'm looking for it.  When God gives me the words and the strength to write the words as BIG as they should be, I promise you I'll tell you about my BIG.  Today I'm writing to tell you about something else.

My BIG hurt me in many ways.  I'm forever changed because of my BIG.  But one thing that my BIG can't change is my heart, and what is in my heart is my running.  I'm a runner, a marathoner.  It's who I am.  It's part of me.  It's part of me that I wouldn't recognize myself without.  When I first got sick, my fiancé and my parents were told that I wasn't going to live.  They were also told if I did live, I would definitely lose my leg.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
My fiancé went through 48 hours realizing that if he was lucky enough to keep me at all, he was going to forever have a wife with one leg.  I have a special hubs-to-be.....because my love wasn't worried about having a wife with one leg and how it would affect him....He doesn't think that way.  My love is selfless.  He'd love his wheelchair wife just the same.  He was worried that if he was lucky enough to keep his wife alive, he would have a wife with one leg that also didn't have a heart anymore....because running is her heart and without a leg, she couldn't run, and therefore, she'd lose her heart.

You know what?  God kept me alive.  I could see him, you guys, I could.  He turned my little butt right back around and put me back on earth.  And guess what else?  A million people prayed.  And all of their friends prayed.  And He listened.  And He let me keep my leg.  It's a different leg now.  It's scars will forever remind me that I was insanely close to Jesus but He gave me more time.  And I got to keep my heart too.  My doctors at Loyola told my fiancé, family, and myself that if I work hard, I'll make a full recovery.  I'll run.  Dr. G told me he's coming to my next marathon.  I told him it might be in Hawaii, because my leg deserves to run a marathon in a pretty place.  That marathon will be hard on my scarred leg.  Those 26.2 miles will hurt her, and she'll deserve something pretty to run on, like white sand.  Dr. G said, that's ok.  I'll come to Hawaii.  Dr. G is pretty damn fabulous.

Today I saw a different doctor.  One of the first surgeons that took care of my BIG.  She tried to tell me that I need to dream smaller.  She told me my leg won't be able to run a marathon.  It hurt, you guys.  My leg was pretty upset too.  She knows deep inside, she's the same leg, she's just a little different now.  She just looks a little different, and she's not quite so strong, but she's working so hard to get there.  She knows, and I know, I'll run a marathon again.  I'm the hardest worker there ever was.  God kept me here, and He knows what's in my heart.  He would never take that away from me.  My other doctors and physical therapists tell me of course I'll run, and heck yeah I'll run a marathon.  This doctor told me I shouldn't have such big goals.  I left the office in tears.

I just wanted to write this down, because someday I'll be running a marathon on that leg that that doctor cut into and didn't believe in, and I want to print out this story and show it to that doctor.  And tell her that she should never tell a girl with so much heart to dream smaller.  I'll run that marathon....and I'll send her my race bib number in the mail to hang in her office.  That way, she'll learn.