The Bride in Kill Bill as she lies in the back of The Pussywagon: "Come on. Wiggle your big toe."
This is how I feel as I try to get the right side of my face to work. Like The Bride in Kill Bill, I'm focusing all of my energy on the one area of my body that bothers me the most in terms of its inability to work--my right eye. I'm otherwise flaccid, purposefully, because I'm envisioning all of my energy, my chi, flowing into the right side of the face, and into the orbit more specifically. I'm nothing, if not determined.
I'm not worried or scared. I'm not even concerned. It's like when I was told by four reproductive endocrinologists that I could never conceive a child, or if I did, successfully carry it to term...or if I did, it would be a crippled wreck of a human being. I know now, like I knew then, in my soul, in the pit of my being, that it was all bullshit. I'd be able to break that bronco of a problem. I felt my child's soul on the other side of eternity, and you were never, ever going to convince me otherwise. I kept marching to the doctor's office and if they had to draw blood six times that day, I'd smirk at them through the tears of pain. Because I knew I'd have my baby. KNEW IT. And I know that I'll move the right side of my face again, including my right eye. KNOW IT.
So, don't worry about me being afraid or feeling helpless, hopeless and out of control. No way. I'm focusing on something simple, something you take for granted...wiggle my right eyeball. Wiggle my right eyelid. Forget closing the eyelid...that isn't happening right now. But notice I said, "right now." It WILL happen. But The Bride didn't sit there (or lay there, actually) in the back of the truck and say, "Get up and walk right now." She knew the level of her debilitation at that point, and she knew she'd get to rising and walking...but first she had to accomplish the smallest of tasks and build from there. "Wiggle your big toe," she said to herself, willing the digit to move...but of course, it wouldn't move right away. She had to keep at it, stay focused, put the time in. And eventually her limp, previously comatose body began to respond to her command.
And so it goes. My eyelid won't close. My eyeball does have more motion to it, though. And my eye doctor told me yesterday that the corneal scratches are healing. Awesome! I have a fresh contact lens bandage on, but this should be my last one. I can go to regular lenses in about a week or so, and hopefully by then the photosensitivity will be gone, if not greatly reduced. That's why I can't drive right now...the eye isn't reliable (sometimes it rolls...ewwwwww) and it's photosensitive. If you can drive, that's probably another thing you take for granted. But I'll get there. I lift my eyepatch up a few minutes more each day, sucking down the salty sting of pain. I'm getting used to riding out the pain and discomfort...it's like anything else. You build up your tolerance to pain only by experiencing it. And as the hackneyed phrase goes, whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
I am building up muscles to win the weightlifting competition of life. That's the way I see it. Even with a rolly, unpredictable eye, that's how I see it. If there's something bothering you today, something you feel you can't get done because you "just can't," quit whining, channel The Bride and I, and power through until you've succeeded. You know what Captain Barbossa, of Disney's Pirates of the Carribean, is famous for having said in negotiations he didn't care for? "I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request. Means 'no.'" That's what I say when something gets in my way. You do the same!
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