Letters from a survivor

I wrote this post a couple years ago and I wanted to share it today. I have a series called letters from a survivor, then letters from a thriver/warrior, followed by the unfinished letters from an Overcomer.

I share this today because even though Ive come so far, some days it feels like I am starting over again. Like I’m just trying to survive and push through. I’m not an Overcomer or thriver, I get stuck in “survival mode” as we all do from time to time.

Look,I know my story is FAR from perfect and I use A LOT of words to convey my point. That’s just who I am. I could get on here and put on a constant brave and encouraging face but that’s just not real life every day. Some days are hard and frankly they just suck. Marriage is hard, raising kids is hard, managing relationships with family and friends is hard and having a disability is so hard and some days I want to just through my hands up and surrender. I read these old posts to see how far I’ve come but to also keep it 💯 real and not sugar coat a prune and call it strawberry.

I pray this post and others will help someone see that we all struggle with our own “demons” we all need prayer and guidance and we all stumble from time to time. To remind myself and you all that it’s NOT about the fall, it’s about how you get up and dust yourself off that counts ❤️❤️

❤️❤️❤️

Nicole’s Journey, Day 676

Letters from a survivor....

Survivor. To be honest, over the years I’ve developed a rather love/hate relationship with this word.

Websters dictionary defines a survivor as a person who survives; especially a person remaining alive after an event in which another or others have died.

** Yep!! Been there and survived that!

It further says that a survivor is a person who continues to live and move forward, to prosper especially after a traumatic event: check, check and double check on that one ✔️✔️✔️

A person who copes well with difficulties in their life. ~ if you know me at least more than a passing head nod at the grocery store, you know this is my specialty!! Seriously like my tombstone could read Nicole “lemons into lemonade” Minihan. Not because I want to be good at crisis management in my life, but when the choice is either sink or swim, you can be dang sure you’ll find me doing the breaststroke!!

Now about that love/hate relationship with the word ‘survivor’...This might sound crazy to you (wouldn’t be the first time I’ve looked like a whack-a-do on here! Ha!)but for all the positive attributes of a survivor, to survive, by definition, means that something tragic has to have happened for me to survive. That I was, in essence, a victim of yet another event outside of my control (yes I am shaking my head right now at the idea of really being “in control” of anything!) And while often times it is not my fault or choosing when a tragic event occurs (who would choose that ), it demands a response. Even if I want to ignore it, dig my heals in and refuse to acknowledge the world crashing down around me, that is a response in and of itself (Dang it!!) And again, if you’ve ever had more than a five minute conversation with me you know I’m just not built that way. It’s not the way I roll (Haha get it 😂) It has never occurred to me to run away from a challenge, rather I tend to run in guns a blazing ready to tackle the situation and everyone in my way. As you can imagine... that can only take a person so far in life

Years ago when I was a young single mom with two very young kiddos, I remember my dad saying “Nicole there is a difference between just surviving day to day and really living your life. Don’t just survive, thrive” For those just turning in, my dad was my hero, as most little girls feel about their dads. He raised my brother and I as a young single father and he could do little wrong in my book (though as a teenager I’m sure I felt at least a little less generous about his attributes! Lol) he was my strongest supporter and at times, my toughest critic. He was always the one I could go to for advice and yet I knew he was also the one who would point out any flaws in my plans if he thought I needed to hear them. He expected a lot (from me) because he said he knew I was capable of a lot, even when I sometimes just needed that support~ that seems to be a common parenting theme we share 😬But For better or worse he is the voice I hear in my head pushing me to do better~ I wracked my brains trying to remember where I heard/read that. A classic novel perhaps? An academy award winning film?? Nope.Sandra Bullock, Two Weeks Notice. Lol

Nevertheless it fit. My dad was, for me, the one person I most wanted to grow up to be like! Still do in fact ☺️ So when he gave me such sound advice as to live my life completely instead of just surviving from day to day, I was eager to listen and try to follow. I have thought of this conversation dozens of times since that day and over the last 15 years, “thrive not just survive” has become my mantra. At the best of times it has motivated me to push harder to “get back to good” and at worst shamed me for feeling that just surviving was not enough. Even though now I know that sometimes, surviving is EVERYTHING and it takes everything you have just to hang on. I would need this reminder so many times as I struggled through some very hard trials and some devastating losses over the next 20 years or so but never as much as I did on April 22, 2016.

Sometimes surviving is everything.... Just hang on, Just breathe

That morning the reality of the day before and its’ implications threatened to strangle me before my eyes even opened. I felt the wires attached to my chest, the now familiar feeling of the blood pressure cuff squeezing intermittently, the unmistakable sterile smell of a hospital; It was a backache. Just a backache!!

Breathe just breathe.....

Paralyzed from the chest down. On the cardiac floor because they are afraid my body could still be attacking itself and any higher and it could affect my lungs, my heart... but it was a backache!! Just a backache.

I’ve never really understood the flight or fight reaction. Who doesn’t stay and fight? Who runs away?!? Me! I wanted more than anything to run away (and not just because my legs didn’t work either) and never look back!! And yet I knew that wasn’t an option. I could survive this. I would survive this. Oh Lord, please let me survive this.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

‭‭John‬ ‭16:33‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I spent six weeks total in that hospital when I thought I might be there for a couple days in the beginning. I had a neurologist who fought me at every turn... denying pain meds after only a couple days while still in extreme pain, refusing to diagnose me though everyone else knew what I had, and even messing with my anxiety medication when I was

downstairs in rehab causing me to think I was losing my ever loving mind when she shouldn’t even have been touching any of my medications! She was promptly fired from my case and honestly I would be thrilled if I never saw her again!! I felt violated by someone who had so much power over my health and my trust for the doctors in that hospital, whom I was supposed be able to trust my life with, suddenly became suspect to me. How could I trust the others??

Breath... Just breathe…

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

So many times during that first six weeks, I tried so badly to follow my dad’s advice... to not just survive but to thrive in the eye of this storm. I knew my God was for me and that this was no accident. Almost immediately I knew that this was an answer (albeit not one I would’ve have chosen) to specific prayer.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:28‬ ‭NIV‬‬

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:28, 31‬ ‭NIV‬‬

These verses became both my refuge and my battle cry. My survival song, if you will over the last 22 months. Where I learned how to survive in a world where 80% of it was not made for me or people like me. It will be 2 years in April. In some ways I can’t believe it’s been 2 years already. I thought I’d be walking after a month, 3 months...a year wasn’t even an option, 2 years was just unimaginable. 😳Yet somehow here I am almost two years out and still paralyzed. 😪 In other ways it is the complete opposite, like time has stopped and the hands of the clock and the days of the months are going in reverse. Days where it seems like I’ve been doing this for 10 years instead of for 2. Days where the pain is so bad I want to curl up in a ball underneath my covers and never come out 😔Where my own hurt about how this happened to me and what was taken from me is just too much to ignore!! There are the times even today where simply surviving a week, a day, or shoot even an hour until my husband gets home is all I can do!

Now don’t get it twisted, I have had times of great thriving along with the business of surviving , but to ignore or minimize the beauty and madness of surviving is no longer where I want to be. Because like them or not, these times remind me that I am a survivor. And being a survivor during the fiercest of battles doesn’t make me weak....It makes me a WARRIOR!

♥️Always Nicole