In the beginning -- the first few months of dealing with the after effects of NF -- I would think, "why me?" Why did such a rare infection find its way to me? Why was I the one suffering? In the past six years, though, I've realized something: everyone has their tragedy. Everyone. Maybe it's contracting necrotizing fasciitis in a c-section incision at age 26. Maybe it's losing a child or saying goodbye to a parent too soon. Maybe it's struggling with infertility or the break up of a marriage or losing everything in the economic crisis. Everyone has their tragedy. Some are worse than others, sure, but if there's one definite in this life it's that you're going to have to trudge through some bullshit. The way I look at NF now is different. It's no longer "why did this happen to me?" but rather the realization that if it hadn't been necrotizing fasciitis, it would've been something else. Pessimistic? Maybe. But also true.
What I struggle with the most nowadays is a different sort of "why me?". NF is a nasty bitch. So many people don't survive it and, most of those who do, have more problems than just an ugly abdominal scar. Remember Aimee Copeland who made headlines earlier this year because of NF? She lost a leg, a foot, and most of both of her hands. Lana Kuykendall was diagnosed with NF four days after she delivered twins and ended up enduring twenty surgeries and spent months in the hospital. In the months following my struggle with NF, I read dozens of survivor stories on the NNFF website. And in doing so I realized I was the LUCKIEST person to post on that site. Not one of the luckiest. THE luckiest. People lost limbs, people were in comas for months, people had skin grafts, and dozens of surgeries. I had one surgical debreedment and one bedside debreedment. I was hospitalized for 11 days. I was never placed in a medically induced coma. My wound closed on its own and didn't require a skin graft. Six years later, you can't tell anything ever happened to me (unless you happen to see me nakey and catch a glimpse of the hip-to-hip scar). I was so incredibly lucky.
And it makes me wonder why ... WHY was my story so different than the rest of these. I'm not being melodramatic when I say the best possible outcome of NF is basically not dying. So why did I end up so incredibly lucky, so blessed in my dance with NF? It's one of those things that just makes you not only realize how fortunate and blessed you are, but makes you just plain wonder why. Was it so that I could stick around to be a mom to Jaidan? So that I could bring two more children into this world? Why?
