Full disclosure: I am writing this under the influence of Gabapentin and TIZANIDINE.

Life is crazy. I don't pretend to know how or why most things happen.

I don't generally subscribe to the adage that says, "Everything happens for a reason." Nope. Nuh-uh.

It is what it is, but it will be what you make of it.

I don't think that everything happens for a reason but I do think that the good or bad that comes out of it is correlated with the character of the person and how they respond to whatever is happening.

That being said, when this experience of mine started happening back in May of 2017, I would not have predicted what was coming or how I would respond to it.

When the pain was at its peak, before months of physical therapy and everything, I didn't know if I could make it to the other side of things.

I truly wanted to die at times, especially when I was alone and at night.

At some point it morphed into, "I don't want to die, but I don't want to live like this." I still wasn't sure I could make it but I wasn't going to give up without a helluva fight.

All that being said, it seems strange to a lot of people when I say that this whole experience has been a strange blessing.

How could this be a blessing?!

It took a health disaster of this magnitude for me to realize how much more I was worth and how much more I deserved in life.

It took a health disaster of this magnitude for me to be empowered and take a chance on myself in building (now two) a home-based business.

It took a health disaster of this magnitude for me to start creating and writing again, dreaming again.

I want to help other people dream. I want to be an empowered woman who empowers other women. That's part of why I signed up for the Unstoppable Influence 21-Day Challenge with Natasha Hazlett. You're definitely going to want to check out that link because you can still register, and the challenge officially starts tomorrow, February 4. I got my book this morning in the mail!

Again, life is crazy. I had zero idea who Natasha was when I enrolled, I registered for the challenge on a whim when one of my teammates, Brittany, posted in our team page and said, "Hey I just completed an awesome challenge with this gal, and she recommended that I sign up for this other challenge, so I did! You should too!"

So, I did, because I trust Brittany, and I saw how much she was growing and blossoming after doing the previous challenge.

It turns out, even though I had very little idea what I was doing when I signed up, I want to be an unstoppable influence.

I want to help others while learning and growing myself -- ideally, I'd like to make enough money to pay my bills while doing it.

That's not something that's impossible, it's just not something I believe I could have achieved had I continued to feel trapped and oppressed in a traditional work setting.

But wait, there's more!

Another stupid awesome thing that happened this week? My left foot has started to work right again! 

Many of you know that I went for my piriformis muscle injection on 1/31 (which by the way was not bad at all!) It's hard to tell with these steroid injections exactly how well they are working or if they are working, before a few days go by.

I've been trying not to get my hopes up too much because I've already been through so many different injections and so much disappointment. I've been cautiously optimistic, though.

But this morning when I got up with Rosebud and walked into the kitchen, I was standing at the kitchen counter getting out my morning meds when I noticed... my left foot was flat.

For the past few months, my foot wouldn't lay flat on the floor when I walked from point A to point B. I would get to point B and my left foot would be raised up on its side. I would have to consciously tell my foot to sit flat.

This morning, my foot just worked how it was supposed to. It honestly still feels kind of weird.

I've also been able to do some piriformis stretches the past few days which is also cool. For several weeks even trying to stretch a little bit would cause great pain because of how tightly wound my glute muscles have been.

Even cooler than these two things, or at least as cool, is that this morning I got a card in the mail from Dr. Unicorn and his staff.

WHAT?! A doctor cares enough to send a freaking card?! What planet am I suddenly on? In what realm am I existing?!

I cried. I couldn't help it. The feeling of knowing that I finally have a doctor who is proactive and actually gives a shit...after all I have been through it's hard to put into words the gratitude and sense of relief.

So, that's my week. It's been an interesting one. Don't forget to check out that 21 Day Challenge -- it is truly for anyone. There are ministers, authors, direct sales folks, educators, trainers, I mean just all kinds of amazing and talented folks.