My Angry Tumor: How I healed myself.

I was four months pregnant and crying on the floor of an empty patient room. My boss hovered over me, scolding me about my behavior and about how I should be better, blah, blah, blah. She wasn't there, she had no idea how stupid this whole mess was, but there I was, acting guilty and sobbing. 

A nurse from another unit had asked me to take her patient outside so she could go back to her unit and I quote "put her feet up." I was pregnant, had food in my hands and mouth and hadn't eaten all day, so I told her "no, I'm eating." This caused her to loose her mind, leave her patient sitting there and run to my managers office so she could gripe about me. I took care of her patient and to this day the same thought still crosses my mind, "How petty."

That afternoon I was told I may loose my job because of this. I was dumbfounded. Never before had I ever told anyone no. I had never had an outburst at work, never done anything to warrant that threat. So in a desperate attempt, I signed up for counseling.

A few days later I was sitting in a cold counselors office. The window was open, the AC on too high and the July air did nothing to help. The smell of cigarettes from three floors down wafted up and into the room and I sat quietly, trying to read into what she was saying and just get through this and get back to my life.

But something else happened.

"What are your goals with counseling?" She asked, studying me. After a few moments I came across a few goals I genuinely wanted to fix.

"I want to be less angry. I want to be able to tolerate people. I want to be happier."

The thing about counseling is, that I'm a medical professional. Aside from my religion, I believe only in science, so the theory of counseling and therapy seemed wacky to me. Seemed almost like a hoax. People claimed they were healed, but maybe all they needed were people to talk to. I had friends. I had family. I could talk to them.

"Have you ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs?" She asked, leaning into me. Damnit. She was using medicine to talk to me. I nodded. and listened as she spoke to me. "Dani, you're not an angry person, I can tell that by talking to you. You're angry at the moment because you're missing something from the pyramid. We just need to find out what is missing."


I was confused, but understood. I was thinking, my mind reeling. What could possibly be missing?


"So what do I do?" I asked.


"Find the problem. Heal it. Or rip open the wound and let it heal itself. Whatever is best for your situation."


It was so obvious it was painful, the secrets I had to keep for my father, the drunks in my life, the drama with my family (in-law and biological). The health issues that surrounded everyone and there I was, not doing a damn thing to take care of myself or my unborn child. Here I was, being put on bed rest at only 16 weeks, and not giving a crap about myself or my unborn baby. 


There isn't a manual on how to break so many hearts at once. On what to do when your life kicks your butt so fast and so hard. There isn't a nice way to tell someone that their spouse had an affair, or that the person they love is an alcoholic. But that is exactly what I did, and something amazing happened. During all that crap, the "throwing the dynamite into the fish pond" so to speak, something amazing happened.

I took everyone else's problems and tossed it away. I focused on myself, on my baby.

And since then I've continued to do it, and haven't been angry since. I've healed myself, and bettered my life. And I hope that by writing this, that someone, somewhere will read this and make their life that much better too. Being "healed," getting rid of my metaphorical tumor, my life is so much better on so many levels.