Surgery

Next Tuesday, December 23rd, I'm having surgery on the bottom of my foot. I'm not really scared of the actual surgery, if it's going to help me get better than why not, I'm just scared of what is going to come after. Sometimes I get scared that I wont wake up, that the doctors will give me to much medicine and when the surgery is over I wont be able to get up and start living again. Other times I'm scared that they wont get the crap out of my foot, I want to be able to walk afterwords and I'm scared that someday I might not be able to. Right now I'm scared for the recovery. Three weeks without walking? Having to use a wheelchair and crutches? Making my dad carry me downstairs, and having my mom bathe me with a wet washcloth? I'm trying to act tough about it, but the truth is that I'm scared, really scared. How can go back to school after winter break in a wheelchair? What if the doctors cut something in my foot that they weren't supposed to and I can't walk ever again? What if the surgery doesn't work? What if I don't wake up? What if I DO wake up and they aren't done yet? What about Christmas Day? What happens if I bump my foot? Or somebody else does? Can I get mad at them? Will it make recovery longer? I have so many questions and only 5 days to make peace with all of this. What if the bump isn't what they think it is? What if it's something worse? How do I deal with this? I don't like thinking about it. I try to ignore it and think about what hopefully will happen afterwords, but with so little time left I feel like I can't ignore it anymore.

I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I don't want balloons or cards, or "Get Well Soon" posters hung in my room. I don't want people going out of their way to help me. I'm not going to be a freak. I'll still be the same old Sydney, just a little less mobile. I'm trying to see this surgery as a good thing. but it's hard. I'm praying that everything works out fine, but that doesn't mean it's going to.

I can see God pointing down at everyone around me (okay maybe not God, maybe a less important angel/person/ghost/whatever) saying, "You see! The stingray DID ruin her life, and none of you believed her. She told all of you that YES this was a big deal, and still everyone dismissed it."

Okay, maybe that's just me saying it in my head... The thing that scares me the most though is how no one, not even myself, knew about the bump. It scares me that it took a pedicure, on my birthday, for everyone to realize how much the stingray hurt me. I don't think anyone realizes that I think about that every day. I remember that day so clearly in my head. I can only try to tell you how badly it hurt, or how weird it felt...

I don't know the exact day it happened, but I know it was in July and on a Friday or Saturday. It was the day after Randi, my mom, and I had driven Brooke (my ex-best friend) to a gas station to meet her dad. We ate Taco-Bell on the way there. The next morning my dad flew in from
Arizona to spend the last day(s) with us. We went out to the beach in the late morning and played in the sand for awhile. I remember the ocean being really dark and gloomy that visit to the beach house. I remember Derek catching a baby shark off the pier, and Billy getting the stung by a jelly-fish. I remember Randi flirting with the lifeguard who told us to put vinegar on Billy's sting. I remember throwing a bucket of water on my dad and then running into the ocean so he didn't get me. I went deeper, and deeper into the water, I got as far out as 2 guys teaching somebody to surf. I remember looking back to the shore and seeing my dad headed back for the sand. I was walking through the water when I briefly felt something "swish" against my leg, I remember thinking for a split second that it was a piece of seaweed and I took another step. I can't explain how painful it was to feel the barb piercing the skin of my foot. That's when I screamed the first time. It felt like a red hot needle being stabbed into my foot. It was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. When I felt the barb pull out of my foot it, I guess you could say "shocked", me with venom. It was like being electrocuted only it happened more than once. I felt that "shocking" feeling three times before I felt the slimy, smooth skin of the stingray glide under my foot. I couldn't move that's when I screamed for help. I tried to put my foot down and walk back to shore but it stung, and the sand was grinding in with the cut. I screamed again for help and really started to sob. I half swam, half dragged myself to thigh deep water where my dad caught me. He tried to pick me up, or a least tried, and started to tow me to the beach. The surfers had seen what had happened and came to help my dad carry me. I thank God every time I think of that day for them. If it hadn't been for them I don't think anyone would have known what happened to me. They knew right away that it had been a stingray and one of them ran up the beach to the lifeguard station to get help. I remember watching my mom run back to the beach house as one of the surfers and my dad carried me to the beach. My dad was asking me if I could walk by myself and I remember shaking my head "no" while loud, heavy sobs consumed my vocal cords. I didn't know my foot was bleeding until they laid me out on the towel. I honestly was kind of out of it for the next part. I don't remember what anyone said or asked me. I just remember the lifeguard truck coming and putting me in the back with a lifeguard who held on to me while we sped off to the station. I remember my dad running behind the truck and meeting us at the station. I remember the little room they took me to with a two or three small tubs. I remember sitting there with my foot in the tub for an hour and a half. I remember how blistering hot the water was (113 degrees) and I remember seeing the venom coming out of my foot, it looked like thin, silvery-clear hairs. I remember that the lifeguard was from Hawaii, that he'd seen guys in the Marines cry about being stung, that he thought I was brave. I remember that he told me that stingray barbs could go through a person's toe, the bone and everything, and that they could easily go through water shoes. I remember seeing a couple of stingray barbs framed like a picture over the tub my foot was in. I remember my right leg shaking so hard that I thought it was funny, but I couldn't laugh. I remember limping home and putting a brave face on for everyone at home. I remember trying to walk through Sea Port Village later that night because I didn't want to disappoint everyone who had wanted to go. I even remember seeing my science teacher, Mr. Raths, there with his family eating dinner. I remember going home and going to volleyball practice the next day.

I remember that day like some people remember funerals, or weddings, or birthdays. I could tell you more except that story was getting kind of long...

People have never understood why I still don't go in the water. Why my dream of being a Marine Biologist no longer exists. I can't tell you why I don't like water anymore. I don't really know. All I can say is that it scares me. Like over the summer at Lake Powell. When all the little kids were jumping off the side of a rock twenty, thirty, feet up. And I did it too. I screamed, and it hurt , but I did it. Randi did too. But I could see how scared she was. How Mike had to coax her into it again, and again. I don't really know, but in my mind I think she was thinking about Kyle. I think she was scared $#!+-less. I was too. But not of the jump. I was scared of the water. She, I think, was scared of the jump. I'm SO proud of her for facing that fear. I still, to this day am scared of all bodies of water. Okay, maybe not a bathtub, but you get the idea. I don't think I'll ever be able to get over it. I hope I will, but I don't know. I was supposed to be the second person in my family to become a certified Scuba Diver. I know that's never going to happen now. I used to want to work at Sea World, that isn't going to happen either. My whole view on life has changed. And now this surgery comes along...

I kind of don't want to get rid of the bump. It's a reminder to me for all the people who didn't believe me, but who saw it happen. The past six months has made me think a TON about that day. Let me say this clearly. I'm. Not. Mad. At. Anyone. It wasn't any one's fault, and no one knew these past couple years about the bump. I know it's no one's fault, and that everyone feels bad for not believing me. I know! And that isn't what I'm trying to say. I just wish that these past years instead of people making fun of me and laughing they would have been nicer. Shown that they cared a little more about my feelings. I've never laughed at Randi for being scared of something or not doing something. I've never told my mom or Richelle that they needed to "get over" something that was bugging them. So, why me? Why am I not the same as everyone else?
And again. I'm not expecting cards, or balloons, or posters after my surgery on Tuesday. I just want everyone to think about how I wasn't lying, and I'm not crazy. I want people to take me seriously when I saw. "Ow. That hurt." or "Hey! I'm in a lot of pain, so stop laughing."