Been thinking about what my first blog post should be and after a few weeks I finally decided to stop procrastinating and tell you about the one moment that had the biggest impact in my life.
Don't try this at home: fill up a zippo have it spark and burn your whole face and then drop it on your nylon dress. Did you know that nylon melts and sticks and continues to burn? Well I figured that out the hard way. I was sitting alone in my car when this happened, I was 23 and it was the worst day of my life. After the shock of burning my face (lost my eyelashes and eyebrows) I realized that my dress was on fire. I quickly patted down my legs to put it out. Something didn't feel right. Adrenalin was pumping. I was in survival mode. I drove myself to the hospital ad I clearly remember the nurse's face that saw me first. She looked at me then she looked down and instantly yelled for a gurney. No waiting in emergency for me (woohoo!) they took me straight in and started their work.
I had 3rd degree burns, my ankles got the worst of it, spent a month and a half in the hospital, had two surgeries where they took grafts from my thighs (thank god I have tattoos on my back or they would have taken it from there) to replace the skin on my lower legs. After the second surgery I had a fever and a heart rate of 160 lying down. They thought my body was rejecting the grafts and I had an infection. I started getting prepped for surgery number 3: amputation. Imagine getting amputated at 23? I am not sure why, but one doctor, I now think it was my guardian angel, decided to take a chest X-ray and discovered that the cause of the infection was in my chest, I had caught pneumonia.
My stay at the hospital is fuzzy. Morphine is fucking awesome... I was pumped with it every day. I would have hallucinations and call my family and friends at random hours, I even thought there was a bomb in the hospital and begged for them to come get me (I don't remember this but they love to tell this story).
It was a rollercoaster month and a half. I was released a week before Christmas 1999. I had to learn how to walk again, wear compression garments for 2 years and full recovery after 5 years. What I mean by full recovery is wearing a bikini for the first time and letting the world see my scars.
I was a 23 year old that was going to have scars for the rest of her life.
It was hard for my brain to grasp, but it was a fact. Anxiety attacks became a daily occurrence and I ended up being diagnosed with PTSD. Anxiety attacks suck. All the doctors do is prescribe you with pills and send you home. I ended up with a drawer full of drugs. I refused to take them and after a year of driving everyone around me crazy including myself, I discovered one thing that made me clear my head: the gym. It was therapeutic. Lifting weights was the only thing that distracted me from my thoughts. It hurt like hell, the skin around my ankles was so stiff and until this day I struggle when doing squats, but I refused to be a victim and let the scars win. So I would workout twice a day. I slowly gained back my life, I was still self-conscious to bare my legs, but mentally I grew stronger and stronger every day.
I conquered my scars once and for all by competing in my first bikini competition in March 2016 at the age of 38.
Here we are 42, fit and fabulous. Scars and all.
Life will push you to your limit, there will always be barriers, some bigger than others. What makes you a badass is knowing that YOU are the only person standing in your way.
We Are LIMITLESS. I want to share all of my stories and inspire you to be limitless too at any age.
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." Khalil Gibran
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