Don't make me use my teacher voice... Because I can't.

What do you get when you have a teacher who can't talk? Me.

I mean don't get me wrong, I can talk but not in the teacher voice tone I used to have or that I need to be a teacher. But, it's been amplified by this nifty little microphone that has me channeling my inner Lizzie McGuire. And for the record… I officially felt old when only one of my students got my reference.

Besides just feeling old, the last two years have challenged my identity in many ways. The miscarriage challenged my identity of being a mother. Am I am mother if I don’t have living children? Do I fit in the infertility community even though I don't have a diagnosis of infertility? I mean I don't really know what my body is capable of anymore, it's been through Hell and back... am I infertile? How do I explain to others that I am a mom but I'm not at the same time? Then, cancer challenged my identity that I found in having it all together, perfectionism, and my workaholic tendencies. My body couldn't keep up any longer. I had to find boundaries that allowed me to still function and survive in the midst of kicking cancer's butt and the aftermath of it all. Could I still teach if I couldn't give as much time as I have in the past? Could I still function if I didn't look like I had it all together? Would people still accept me if I was an emotional, exhausted, wreck? As I worked through the trauma of both of those combined, I found answers that surprised me. Yes, I am still accepted if I'm vulnerable and messy. Yes, I can still be successful even if I don't have it all together, it just looks a little different. Yes, I am a mother and instead of getting to love on my child with snuggles and kisses, I get to love on Baby O from afar by healing and becoming the best person, wife, and mother I can be to their dad and hopefully siblings down the road.

Despite how much I've worked through where I should find my identity, life decided it would be fun to challenge the last place I found my identity in - teaching. After the neck dissection I had in January of this year, my voice was a little off, but it got better with time. Once I went back to teaching it continued to improve until I hit a plateau and developed a cough that wouldn't go away. I could barely have a conversation above a one on one level without my voice leaving me or becoming so quiet that I people had to lean in to hear me. Makes for an extremely difficult time teaching. So after a week or so of not improving and continuing to cough, I reached out to my doctor. She asked me to come in the next week which happened to be spring break. I went thinking that she would tell me that I was healing nicely and this was just a side effect of the surgery and would go away on it's own. Little did I know that the appointment I was walking into would crush my world once again. I walked out with being told I needed physical therapy for my shoulder that wasn't improving after surgery and that I had a paralyzed left vocal cord. The cough was most likely from irritation. She also shared that my body was compensating nicely (insert thankfulness for my body for allowing me to still have a semi voice to teach with here)… but I would need a referral to a laryngologist for further treatment. No wonder I could barely hold a conversation - I was only working on half capacity. We knew this was a possible complication - I mean they were digging all up in my neck - but it sucks that it's reality. Then the question set in of what do if I'm a teacher but I can't talk? Up until this point I pushed it off as me just healing and didn't want to consider something else. Now I knew there was a serious reason behind it. Cue identity crisis #724 over the last year. The news sent me into a spiral of frustration, anxiety, feeling behind even more than I already did. At the point of that news, I was still waiting on test results from my endocrinologist to decide if, how much, and when the radioactive iodine would happen. So not only did I feel like I couldn't do my job, I also felt like Dilan and I couldn't move forward with the treatments and plans to grow our family. After all, having radioactive eggs to make a baby might sound like I'd be able to pass on superpowers, but it's not the safest option for myself or a baby. The day after I got the news about my vocal cords, I had a counseling appointment and life group (our church's small group) back to back. I was dreading both of them honestly, not because I didn't want to go through the struggle of talking and didn't want to explain the news to everyone. Despite me dragging my feet to go, I ended up going and short story, I'm glad I did. I spent my counseling session filling her in on everything I knew and didn't know. After listening to my frustration word vomit of the identity crisis I found myself in, my counselor followed my rant by referencing Psalm 119:105 "Your word is like a lamp that shows me the way. It is like a light that guides me." As we wrapped up talking through the anxieties and frustrations I was feeling about not having it all figured out, not having answers, and just in a place where I felt STUCK this was a reassurance that there is light on my path amidst the darkness. After counseling I headed to life group. It was the night where we split men and women. We spend our time sharing truths about ourselves and then lies that we have begun to believe about ourselves. Being in what seemed like a huge identity crisis my lie was that I had to work and preform to prove myself to God and others. And this lie was running hard through my head because guess who couldn't do that currently? Yep, me. The next step of the night was to challenge the lie of the woman next to you. We had a bit of silence and then the woman next to me started off by saying she had a vision of something while we were silent and asked me if I liked the lake because that's what she saw. My emotional self started tearing up immediately, not because she struck a cord but because I have NEVER had a conversation with her about the lake or our love for boating and camping, but she saw it and shared that that's where God wanted to meet me. In the stillness. She smiled a bit and then shared the second thing she saw was me covered in crystals and that God wanted to protect me from the fear I was feeling. Keep in mind y'all, she had no idea what was going on with the vocal cords or physical therapy or identity crisis I was buried in... I hadn't shared any of that. I lost it. All I could squeeze out was "that was very timely, thank you." Shortly after I composed myself enough to speak, I shared what was really going on. The women then prayed over me and all of the prayers were so sweet. But the one that threw me most was the last prayer. The women started by saying "I see clam hunting but I've never been clam hunting in my life." I smirked a bit wondering where this was going. She continued by explaining with clam hunting you have a lantern and it only lights the path so far that you can only see where to take the next steps, not any further. I lost it again. It wasn't a coincidence that both her and my counselor were referencing the same verse less than 2 hours apart from each other. I came home that night and my exact words to Dilan were "You won't believe what happen today." As Dilan called it, it wasn't a coincidence, but something that started with an "H" and ended with "irit". For those of you that are like me and it takes awhile to get his riddles, he was hinting at the Holy Spirit.

I hesitate sharing that story because it sounds very "religiousy" and having faith in things unseen. I get that. I've fought my fair share of doubt this year and still do. I have asked God so many questions, yelled and cried, and given him the cold shoulder more than I like to admit. But if I'm 100% honest with you, it's those questions that pushed me to grow in my faith which is partially what's gotten me this far. It's that faith in the unseen that has helped me travel the valleys that I would wish on no one. Helping me believe that there is a bottom to the valley I feel I keep traveling further down into. Helping me fight my way out of some dark, dark places that I never thought I'd find myself in. And for the first time in a long time, that evening that some might call coincidence eased the spiral of fear and uncertainty that I found myself in.

Thankful for a doctor date buddy.

As far as the health update, I will hopefully have most of my teaching voice back after I get an injection in my vocal cord next week and work through some speech therapy following that. The doctors don't know whether the paralysis is temporary or permanent, but the mix of the injection and therapy gives me the best shot of having a normal voice - even if the function of the nerve never comes back. I'm still waiting on the radioactive iodine protocol, at this point it will likely be over the summer - which means our opportunity to grow our family and move on is on hold once again.

Part of me wanted to wait until this was all said and done to share the update, but at the same time, I find writing this all out helpful for me. So you all get the raw, middle of the crap, reflection on a hard situation. So thank you for sticking with me through the valleys, I'm thankful I am able to have a voice here despite not having my teacher voice that I realize now I took for granted.