Wink. Wink. Part 1

My right eye has been twitching since about day 6 of our China trip. Everyone thinks I'm winking at them and, honestly, I'm just waiting for my entire right side to start with a tick any day now. The last time I had an ever-present eye twitch was when we were going through Jeb's adoption four years ago. See any pattern here? We turned in our paperwork to Lifeline on May 5, 2008, by Thanksgiving my eye was twitching and by February I felt like I was one discolored mole away from the top floor of Brookwood.

I can look back through my life and see all kinds of "markers" that point to me having anxiety issues. When I was 9, my dad and I were walking to get ice cream and an ambulance passed us with its lights and horns going. I remember feeling instantly nauseous and thinking "That could be me in that ambulance someday." In high school, I had a friend who worked for the volunteer rescue squad in Knoxville and he thought that maybe he was exposed to TB while working an accident.....maybe. I made my mom take me in to get a TB test. I could go on and on with examples, but I think you get it.

Jerod and I both drove to Lifeline to turn in our application to start Jeb's adoption. I had been praying for that moment for so long and it should have been one of those great, "happiest moments ever." But instead when we walked out of Lifeline Jerod got in his car and drove back to work and I got in mine and had a complete come apart. The fear of the unknown set in and the "what-ifs" started. What if he has Down's Syndrome? What if his mom has HIV and it just hasn't shown up on his lab tests yet? What if he kills us all in the middle of the night when he's 15? What if everyone in his genetic family turns in to purple aliens on their 8th birthdays. I mean, really, I went through them all. But at some point I guess I got tired of worrying about things that I couldn't control in Guatemala, so I started worrying about things I could

"control" here.

It started with the eye twitch that meant I had a brain tumor. My friend that's an eye doctor said it was just stress. Then I one night I found a mole that looked funny. I've had that mole for as long as I can remember, but this night it looked funny. The doctor said it looked normal to him. Then I found a "lump" in my right boob. So, I went and got an ultrasound of the boob and all the radiologist could tell me about it was that it was a "fluid filled cyst" about the size of a Grape nut and that I should drink less caffeine. I asked him for a more official sounding diagnosis but that was all he had to say. Well, except that he had no idea how I even felt it because it was so small. He just doesn't know me.

I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, but one night I was talking to a friend of mines husband who is a doctor. I was telling him about all that had been going on with me and the "diseases" I was sure that I had and he said "You know what you're thinking is not normal, right?" What????? Really? Honestly, I thought that's how everyone lived. I thought everyone wanted to throw up when they saw ambulances it was just that some people had better coping skills for their "throw ups" than others. Right? So, sitting there as a 29 year old mom of two, was the first time I had ever thought that maybe this wasn't normal. Maybe I didn't have to live life like this anymore.

****Part 2 of the story will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm not trying to be dramatic, I'm just really tired and my eyes are starting to cross and twitch. Plus, nobody wants to read a marathon post about moles and cysts!****