Recovering From Retinal Detachment And Reclaiming Momentum

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm Tina, your transformational coach and emotional intelligence strategist. I'm here to help women break their unhealthy patterns and come up with some new ones, some good ones, some replacements. Okay, you guys, so midlife has really hit me hard. But nothing has hit me harder than spending 70 days on my side in bed. This was after a retinal detachment. And currently I still don't have a clear prognosis. But the gas bubble that was in my eye went away. I still don't have my vision restored. I have a cyst now, so I had a complication and have to wait a little longer for a prognosis. You know, midlife already makes you rethink everything. And try doing that while you're laying down on your side for 70 days after the retina detachment. It took the control that I had, I had, that I thought I had, which we know we have control to help things in our life or shape them a little, but we really don't have the ultimate control. And so I like was planning and writing and thinking and up all night. And then I like planned my whole life in that bed for 70 days because I didn't know what else to do. I listened to audiobooks, I listened to podcasts, but all I did was dream of possibly being able to see again. And quite honestly, it was a really hard time. I had just hit the new year running. I was like, okay, I'm ready to do everything. I spent over a year and a half healing from a domestic situation, and I broke a pattern of 36 years going out with the same kind of guy. And I was like, I'm done with this, I'm ready to hit it hard. I spent that whole year or 15 months, or actually a whole year, working on myself and trying to see what my part was and what I can fix more, and then started working on myself. And so I was like, okay, January, okay, I'm gonna start dating again. I'm gonna get my own place. And then all of a sudden I was blindsided, like literally blindsided. And then I thought, wait a minute. I was good at making plans for years, for years, I have so many notebooks, so many notebooks with the same thing. I never take the action, not never, but I don't take as much action as planning. How much planning can you do before taking action? One success that I did have is in October. I took action to start this podcast. Now, in the back of my head, I feel like, okay, I'm confident, but at the same time, like I don't know if anybody's really listening or anybody cares. And I'm like, no, you had downloads. So I'm still in that imposter stage, but I tell myself I am a podcaster. Like I am, regardless of if it's good or not. I know some parts are good, and I know I say some words like like, like, like, like over and over. So I'm critiquing myself, but I hope that this actually helps people. That's the whole purpose of this. It's not about getting famous because, you know, whatever. It's just about helping people. And it's about, you know, now that I can't do the surveillance job, I've always spent time going to conferences, using self-growth, reading books. I have read so many books, taken so many notes. I probably have 30 notebooks of notes everywhere. And it's time for action. So after I laid in bed for 70 days, I promised myself if I could see a little bit better, which I did because the gas bubble left my eye and it took 70 days. It's gone now. But then my lights, my eye started dimming, and I was told that I have a cyst and I need to wait another six weeks to see what kind of vision I'm gonna get back. Well, part of me for those days didn't even want to get up, and part of me, even after the 70 days, didn't want to get up because the first doctor I saw told me I may only get 20 to 60 percent of my vision back, which scared the heck out of me because I have one lazy eye, so that eye is shot. And the eye that has the retinal detachment, guess what? The good one. I don't share this for sympathy, I just share it just to kind of explain the lived experience and story that I'm going through. So literally, my good eye has a retina detachment. I can't see, I couldn't see before that, even with my glasses on, like without glasses or contacts, I couldn't see two feet, three feet in front of me. And so, yeah, it was a really challenging time. And I didn't want to get up and I thought, oh gosh, if I don't do something, I have 70 days, and when I had those days, I could plan. So now that I made my plan, I promised myself that I would start doing things. Like I took my vision for granted. So just to get a glimpse of that vision back, just to have a small bit of it, I was not gonna waste it. I was not gonna take it for granted. I promised myself somehow I was gonna take more action. And yeah, I have struggles because it's still I still have hard days, of course. And I have an ADHD brain, but no, I need to, I just started looking at things to try and things to do, and I started taking some advice of some of the YouTube videos and podcasts that I listened to. And then I have remembered one huge thing that helped me before. It is a planner, and I will not mention who it's from. Yeah, it is a planner, and it's meant to be in time blocks, and that had worked for me before, and I remember that because writing down three things from nine to midnight, or well, that was one of them because I was a nighttime person, but now I'm trying to sleep at night and get my body healthier. I put down six to nine, and six to nine, I'll try to get up, but I really am not a morning person now. I'm trying to be one, so I get up. I've been getting up before 10, so that's good. That's that's progress. So I get up now, and you know, in the block I'll put get up, go to the bathroom, drink more water. I'll just have a small list from six to nine or nine to twelve. This is how it goes in three-hour blocks, and then it has a place to just put your goals for the day, and then later at the night, it has a place to put what successes you had. And then the goals at the end are the goals that you still have, and you can put them down there. And oh my gosh, I filled up the page a lot yesterday, remember that. And so here's the goal today was to come to the podcast room. And I struggle because it's hard doing it in vision, and I'm like, I don't want to take the bust. And I realized, you know what, I can take the Uber, and that was so much better. Because right now, since I'm healing something in my eye, it's gone dimmer, so I cannot really see out of the left side so much yet in the peripheral vision, and I'm too afraid to walk because I've had some incidents happen, like I missed the step, and I thought, well, it's getting a little more dangerous for me to try to walk and take the one bus. So I just took an Uber. So, long story short, I followed through, but that list is what's helping me. It's not a list that's just on piece of paper because that helped sometimes too, but then I lose that list. But the list with the time blocks, and sometimes I hit all my goals and sometimes I don't, and that's okay. Just put them maybe for a different time or for the list for the next day. But the time blocks is what has really made a huge difference in my life, and also the fact that I took for granted my sight. So once I got some back, I started to use it. Now, the hard part is I don't have a prognosis yet, and I may not ever be able to see again to drive or work. I worked in surveillance in a casino, and I'm telling you, vision is very important. But I I broke that pattern of working there. I worked there 20 some years at different surveillance jobs in the casinos. Oh, yes, it's exciting. Oh yes, it's fun. But there's another side that people don't see, and that's a whole nother episode. And I guess it just wasn't for me. And yep, I call soul sucking. But what I realized for years I was going to conferences, I've been reading books, I've been making plans, I've been wanting to start a podcast. For three years, I wanted to start a podcast. And then finally in October, I pushed the button and I did it. Was I scared? Yeah. Am I still nervous? Yes. But I know that this is what I was meant to do. I'm meant to help other people. And I hope this helps you. And that's I'm not here to try to get famous or anything. I'm here to help somebody else with the pain while not having to work work, although this is the most work I've ever done in my life, but it's not for nothing. It's not for somebody else, as far as like a corporation. If this helps people, everyday people, not feel alone, like other people, other TikTokers, other YouTubers, other, you know, FB, what do you call them, reels? These have helped me. And I know it sounds silly, but how many of you have watched them over and over? Yeah, sometimes it gets a little unhealthy, but for the most part, some of them have helped me. Like there was that one that I always mention. There's the one where the woman's like, get up. Come on, you can get up. Come on, honey. And when she says this part, I know it's hard. Those words triggered me up. I got up, I pushed forward, I hopped in the shower. I had no desire to take a shower because I'm like, oh my god, I don't know if I'm ever gonna see. What's the point? I should just lay here. So, yes, I hope to make that kind of impact on somebody else's life. And I hope somehow to make a living out of it. It doesn't have to be a huge living. I don't I was gonna say, I don't need to drive beautiful cars, and I thought, oh, I may not be able to drive. And that's a hard realization because I love driving, I love Mustangs, I love Jeeps. And then when I was thinking about that, I won't be able to drive. Well, what will you be able to do? I would be able to rent a car and maybe my kids could take me for a ride and we can have or get a convertible. There's other things that you can do. Maybe I can't physically drive myself, but there are other people that I could ask to drive me and have the experience still. So to me, it's all about the experience. And like some of the other things that I would do is I started to take my medicine on time, scheduled on time. And boy, that I cut my lab numbers in half. I'm doing so much better medically. I've come up with things to do just one at a time. Maybe for the day I have a rest day and I don't do anything, and then I might start organizing some stuff, and then I'll stop. Like I might spend one hour, I'll set an hour timer, and sometimes I will go like two, three hours. Because once I get started, sometimes I can't stop. And the other day I took out all my papers because I'm moving next next week, which is also exciting. Moving still with my family because of my circumstances, and I am grateful. I am grateful to them because without them, I would be on the street. Oh, that's a huge one. So I am grateful. I am finding gratitude, and I always used to be like, oh, gratitude, schmatitude. I don't want to do a gratitude journal. But every day I find myself being grateful and saying it loud out loud or saying it in my head, like I am grateful to have them. Oh, pardon me. So I just kicked the table. That's ADHD. And I'm working on that next, and I guess I'm working on that right now. Am I taking medicine? No, not yet. I'm a little scared. I have a lot of medicine for different things, and I don't know. We'll see. I'll tackle that later. But I just wanted to share some of the things that I was doing to help. And maybe you're having a situation where you it's out of your control and you feel like you can't do anything. So I challenge you this week. I know it's hard, but get up. Just get up. If it's taking a shower, maybe it's making yourself something to eat. Maybe it is writing down on a piece of paper some of your dreams and some of the things. Maybe it's starting action towards one thing that is so important to you. You know the thing that keeps coming back in your mind? Mine was start a podcast. Write a book. I keep hearing write a book. Well, I wrote a book, but I'm revising it because I want it more personable. Okay, guys, thank you, and I hope you have a great week. If I can do it, guess what? You can do it too. And if you feel like you're alone, you're not alone. I am here right with you. You can DM me, you can send me a message on the podcast, you can go to www.getitgirl.com. Get it got it girl.com. And you can just send me a message. I'm glad to talk to anybody. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is get it got it girl. This is Tina. I am your transformational coach and emotional intelligence strategist, and I will help you. I will help you take the next step forward. You guys have a great week.