Life is magical.
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At least it has the potential to be. It also has the potential to be devastating, traumatic, inspiring, beautiful, filled with love and support, sadness and hurt, miracles and tragedies, and all the things!
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Sunstone Clay Co was birthed because of all the things.
It happened on an uneasy night in 2021, when I began it being able to walk, and ended it in the hospital, unable to walk. The experience was maddening - my legs had started to twitch involuntarily. I was so tired, but right as I'd fall asleep, I was jolted awake by these movements. I thought I pinched a nerve, so I tried to soothe my muscles through a hot bath. The soaking provided relief temporarily, but the twitching would start again so I tried another bath. I gradually went from being able to walk normally, to hunched over walking, walking on my knees, crawling, then to having to drag myself with my arms.
Scans showed a tumor compressing my spinal cord, so I underwent emergency spinal surgery to reverse the paraplegia; the surgery as successful, but it also confirmed rare and aggressive cancer. Docs told me I had one year left to live.
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Whoa.
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Up until that point, my life had been pretty normal, steady, sheltered, and without health issues. After that week, life truly began to challenge me to level up. The next six months was filled with physical therapy rehab, where I had to re-learn how to walk and function - first using a wheelchair, then a walker, walker with wheels, then a cane. On top of recovering from spinal surgery, I also underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatment.
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For the most part, I was amazed at how well I was handling this turn of events. There was a stubbornness in me that refused to believe I only had one year left to live. I was healing. My body had been cut open, and I now had two metal bars and 12 screws in my back. How is it possible that I could exist with that hardware?! And I WAS re-learning to walk! I was taking care of myself like I never had before - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Overnight I had become my biggest cheerleader, and I wasn't going to let anyone write my story for me if I could help it.
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Then I finished 5 months of chemotherapy, and the true challenge began. Chemo had brought me to my lowest of lows on this new journey of fighting to live. I remember on my darkest days after chemo, wondering if that's what dying felt like - having literally zero energy to even get out of bed - then having even less and less, fading until I was no more. That was the first time I truly remember being scared of my physical condition. Whereas I spent the previous six months being my biggest cheerleader and truly feeling like I was recovering so well, the months of chemo had finally caught up to me and it hard to fight off the negative thoughts as I lay in bed, now unable to move in a different way.
In the past I turned to creative outlets as a form of coping through hard times, but because I was no where near 100%, I had no energy to do my normal creative endeavors.
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