There is no real suffering

I wrote this last year and found it again. There is no real suffering Before I actually experienced multiple miracles, I never thought they existed. But now, more than ever, I recognize that I am a walking miracle. And as my 32nd birthday approaches, all I can think about is how blessed I am. And how I have so much love and happiness in my life. But it wasn't always easy. My journey with my health issues began early. My health started to decline when I was 15, after my father died. For a long time, I thought it was my fault and didn't realize until later it wasn't. At 17, I had 2 heart attacks and was dying. After withering away for months, we finally found out I had lupus. An autoimmune disorder, where my immune system attacks my body. Especially when extreme emotional stress happens. I was good at bottling things up and doing what needed doing. But it still caused damage internally. In a short amount of time, I went from a sickly 105 pounds to 190, because of the steroids for my lupus. Fortunately for me, the steroids also saved my life. At 19, I found out that I had a necrosis (bones grinding on bones) in my right hip and eventually I'll need a hip replacement. At 21, my heart kept causing problems and I was in and out of the hospital every few months. I was pushing myself too hard between school, work, living on my own, trying to be social, and all the promises I made to people. I had issues saying no. I was always trying to please people. But I couldn't keep my integrity at all. At 21, I also found out about my blood clotting disorder (Catastrophic Antiphosphilipid Syndrome, or CAPS) because my spleen exploded. Both that, and my hip, were extremely painful. I took the meds, thinking I'd be okay, but it wasn't working because of all of my personal crap going on. At 23, my brother had a motorcycle accident and because I was so stressed at the time, I didn't take care of myself and had several mini-strokes. I also got gallstones, pancreatitis, and my heart kept trying to attack me. 24 into 25 was the only year I wasn't in the hospital. But a few months after I turned 25, my body revolted against me. I slowly lost feeling in my feet, which moved up my legs. And my body pain increased and became more intense. By the summer, I ended up back in the hospital. Within a week, I had another heart attack, a massive stroke, and my body began to shut down. Over the course of a day, I discovered I couldn't get up, and later that day, paralysis spread up my body. I became paralyzed from the neck down and could only lift my head. I couldn't move myself for almost 7 months and it took over a year to relearn how to walk. When I could walk again, I wore leg braces. After all the chemo, dialysis and lupus treatments, physical therapy was what I needed. For the next 4 years, I let stress, being inauthentic, having a lack of integrity, making promises I couldn't keep, and neglecting myself for others, become my world yet again. When I was 29, I let stress rule everything and that summer, old clots got aggravated in my feet. Up until then, I thought I knew what pain was, but I had just hit the tip of the pain I'd feel during that time. After 11 surgeries over 8 months, and 3 amputations (right leg, right knee and left leg), I ignored my feelings and didn't deal with my depression about what was happening to me. I hadn't been depressed like that since I was 21 and was suicidal for 3 months. That August, I reach out to a good friend and let her know that I wasn't doing very well emotionally and that I needed her to make sure I didn't do anything to myself. It was hard for me to do that, but I knew that if I didn't say anything, I'd get lost in the darkness of my mind. I couldn't imagine my life in the future. I just wanted to walk and live. I couldn't even see the next day, let alone years down the road. I took no responsibility for the things happening in my life, with my health. Or the things I was doing and feeling effecting me. I didn't want my lupus or clotting disorder. I fought them so hard. I'm not fighting it anymore. I feel liberated and powerful, like I can achieve anything. My entire life has shown me that miracles do exist. I wasn't raised religious and never took stock in actual miracles, but statistically, I shouldn't still be alive. And yet, I am. Every single thing I experienced, and up to this point, showed me that there is no real suffering. That I had the power all along to not suffer at all. That my stress and my health didn't have to deteriorate the way it did. And having the knowledge of that makes me feel even more capable to deal with anything that comes my way.