The Note That Changed Everything (and more)

Eye-Opening Moments are real-life stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. In this episode you will about The Note that Changed Everything & One Health Scare Miracle.

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Chapters

• 0:22 Introduction
• 1:02 The Note That Changed Everything
• 7:07 One Health Scare Miracle
• 19:48 Key Takeaways

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode #160 of Eye-Opening Moments where you’ll hear stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. They are moments that can lift your spirits, give you some food for thought, or move you. For the introspective mind that likes to reflect, discover, and find solutions or meaning in a complex life, this is for you. I’m your host Emily Kay Tan. In this episode, you will hear about The Note that Changed Everything & One Health Scare Miracle.

The Note that Changed Everything
Flying from the East Coast to the West Coast to meet Cameron, my long-distance boyfriend, I couldn't be more excited even though it had only been four months since I last saw him or since the first time I saw him. Looking out the airplane window, I dreamed of being in his arms and lying on one of the puffiest cumulus clouds I saw by the airplane's wing. Upon arrival, our eyes quickly met, and we simultaneously smiled from ear to ear. We silently held hands on the drive to his house and kept smiling and turning to look at each other. We soon arrived, and Cameron told me to relax on his bed from my six-hour flight while he took a shower. While waiting for him, I looked around his bedroom. He cluttered his desk with this and that. A calendar on open display with three binder rings was elevated at the corner. On December twenty-first, it said: Pick up Emily. That was me. I suppose he needed a reminder of when to pick me up at the airport. I turned a couple of pages back and saw a note on December fourteenth. Cameron wrote four words on that page. Stunned, those words changed everything for me.

Cameron and I had communicated by letter writing for six months, and then phone calls for another six months before we finally met. They were the days before the internet and social media. Since we were states apart and I had little money from a part-time job, I did not entertain flying to meet each other. The letter writing was simply asking each other questions to learn more about each other. The more we asked, the more curious we got about each other. We learned a lot by asking. What do you like to do? What is your favorite color? What do you enjoy reading? Where do you like to go? There was nothing strange or out of the ordinary. However, when he asked to communicate by phone, things changed. Over the phone, he asked more personal questions, like what I dream of doing and what adventures I see myself doing. Cameron also started flirting with me. As a teenager with minimal experience with the opposite sex, I giggled with a palpitating heart and a jittery voice. 

After a year, we met; he had flown from the West Coast to the East Coast to meet me for the first time. He wanted and asked to meet. I just wanted a friend or someone to talk to. We were on cloud nine and madly in love. He was the best thing that ever happened to me. He brought joy into my miserable home life. Four months later, he had me visit him during my Christmas vacation in college. That was when I saw the note on his calendar and what had happened on December fourteenth.

Before I saw what Cameron wrote, I thought about how happy I was to be with Cameron. I loved how he listened carefully to everything I said and seemed interested in knowing everything about me. I couldn't be more thrilled to have someone give me the attention that made me feel special. No one made me feel more special than Cameron. He was my world, my dream man, my everything. The unexpected part was that sparks flew when we first saw each other, and the second get-together was no different. It was a chemistry I never experienced. I was only seventeen, and he was twenty-four when we first met. This second time, I had just turned eighteen, and he just turned twenty-five when I saw the note.

Before Cameron came out of the shower, I read the four words written on the December fourteenth page of his calendar: Made love to Kim. Those four words changed everything. 

He was my world; he was my love. You might think my whole world came crashing down on me. You might think I would cry a bucketful of tears, but I didn't. I refused to show that anyone could hurt me. Always acting like I didn't need anyone for anything, I kept it to myself. I never told anyone about it. You are the first to know. My trust in Cameron died that day. No matter how much I loved him and stayed with him for years on and off, I could not resuscitate the trust.

I pushed him away, claiming I was too busy with work and school. I shoved him out to focus on my career. I told him I was not ready for kids and a family. No matter how hard I tried to push him away, he tried to barge back into my life over and over in a span of ten years. Weakened by the chemistry between us, I let him in but would toss him back out again and again. Weakened by my love for him, I let the on-again-off-again relationship persist. When he asked me to marry him, I couldn't say yes. As much as I loved him,  I couldn't do it. The trust was broken long ago. The note had changed everything; I couldn't find it in my heart to trust him again, and I never married him. Despite the broken pieces, I could find a part of me that will always love him and remember him with a smile. Even though he did what he did, I left him. I left him with my undying love and gave him a permanent seat in my heart.

One Health Scare Miracle
I don’t remember when it first hit me. I don’t recall how the initial pain felt, so I couldn’t bring you back there with me for you to know how it felt. I don’t even want to go back if I could because I know it was painful. It happened over and over. It got scarier and scarier each time. Finally, I went to the hospital to find out the cause of the excruciating pain that made me feel like I was going to die.

After one of the excruciating episodes, I called my first cousin, whom I do not speak to often but was a dear person to me. Before the call, I felt sharp jabs on the lower left side of my torso. It had to be more than fifteen minutes, but it felt twice as long. It was annoying enough to get those monthly periods and then add the sharp pain to it, and it was more physical pain than I have ever endured in my life. 

It would seem to happen suddenly, and then I would be on the floor trying different positions to lessen the pain. It didn’t work. Tears rolled down my face. I only hoped it would go away sooner. What was attacking me on the inside? How long was it going to keep stabbing me like a sharp knife? If it was going to kill me, I wanted it to happen quickly and relieve me of the pain by killing me. I wanted to scream to release the agony, but it only hurt more. Finally, after nearly half an hour, the pain would subside and disappear, but I would not feel all the better as I bloated with my period.

After that episode, I called cousin Eason and asked him for his social security number. I needed his information to change the beneficiary on my life insurance policies. During the excruciating pains, it occurred to me that I could die, and I wanted my matters taken care of. It was scary, and with tears quietly sliding down my face, I explained to Cousin Eason what I wanted him to do because I thought I could die at any moment. If you were the one attacking me from the inside, you know the pain you were inflicting on me. You gave your all to try to murder me and take the life out of me. You repeatedly stabbed me countless times. I didn’t know why you did this each time my menstrual period came. I was helpless to stop you, but I was in charge of what I wanted done with my money if I died.

It didn’t take the death scare for me to think about how I didn’t have family who cared about me. I was used to it since I was born. Grandma Betsy took care of me at age one, and Grandma Sandy took over from age five until I was seventeen. These two grandmothers showed some care for me, and I am thankful I had them so I could grow up to be a decent human being. There was nothing wrong with my mother; she was nineteen when she had me as her second child and was too overwhelmed with children, so she tossed me. With two grandmothers who have passed away, Cousin Eason was the only blood relative left who gave me something precious.

As if I was going to die, I summoned Cousin Eason to let him know he would inherit all my money because he made one of my dreams come true. I wanted to make sure he understood that it was no mistake. I wanted to ensure he did not give any portion of my money to any other relative. You could say I held a lifetime of a grudge. They didn’t care about me, and they didn’t deserve anything from me either. I am by no means a rich woman, but for what little I have, I don’t want it to fall into the hands of my heartless relatives. This preparation came about because I thought one more excruciating episode of knife stabbing could kill me.

After many severe piercing pains, I decided I needed to go to the emergency room. Why didn’t I do it sooner? Because the pain would pass, and I’d be okay. But it happened too many times. Luckily, I was in business for myself, so when the pain occurred, I could stay home or go home as needed. Maybe I didn’t go to the hospital sooner because I was afraid to know I had some terminal disease. But one episode told me I better not delay. I called my then-boyfriend to take me to the hospital. 

I called at 9 am, and he didn’t pick me up until 11 am. That was a red flag, and I should have dumped him there and then. He was busy in a business meeting and said he would come as soon as possible, but I didn’t know it would be two hours later. By then, most of the pain had subsided, and my face was damp with tears from the pain and the wait. I kept asking myself how he could make me wait so long, knowing that I was in great pain. I was sure he would come, so I didn’t call a taxi. In reflection, I was stupid, stupid in love.

Devin, the boyfriend who made me wait two hours, finally came and took me to the hospital. He dropped me off at the emergency ward. While waiting for a doctor, I beat myself up some more. Why was I so stupid to think that he cared about me? He dropped me off and dashed off to another meeting. I had known Devin for over five years and always known him to be kind, but I was wrong. Surrounded by strangers, I waited and tortured myself for having such a boyfriend. My body physically attacked the left bottom of my torso, and Devin emotionally stabbed me in the middle of my heart. After an hour, there was a doctor ready to see me.

I soon learned that I had fibroids, muscular tumors that grow in the wall of the uterus. It wasn’t terminal; it happens to many women, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. The hormones estrogen and progesterone cause the tissue that lines the uterus to thicken during menstrual cycles, and it helps fibroids grow. I have no control over what my female body does to me!

Science has yet to discover an antidote without surgery or medication. My hormones have a mind of their own, and they will do what they will and leave me helpless. Suddenly, I realize I don’t own my body. It does what it wants and does not listen to me! Where is the miracle I want to disappear the severe, excruciating pain?

Researchers say only about ten percent of fibroids get smaller or resolve on their own. It is usually when estrogen levels drop, as at the onset of menopause. One doctor suggested surgery. I never had any surgery, and it was frightful to think of getting cut open. Another doctor suggested medication to induce menopause, which could shrink the fibroids to eliminate the pain, and then there would be no possibility of having children. Surgery was scary. Medication was frightful, too, because I would lose the chance to have children. Both options were like no option as I did not want to choose either one. I needed a miracle to help me. How much longer could I endure such pain? It happened every month. And each month, I was rendered helpless to my body that attacked me.

I endured a couple of years. Maybe it felt less painful because I got used to the pain. Nevertheless, I did not opt for surgery or medication. And then I moved abroad. Suddenly, miraculously, the sharp pains disappeared altogether. I call it a miracle. I did nothing to help it disappear, but it left my body. Maybe I got in that ten percent of women where their fibroids resolved themselves on their own, or early menopause hit me and shrunk those fibroids to relieve me of the pain. I don’t know. I call it a miracle because after I moved abroad, it instantly disappeared, and I found paradise in an island nation. 

I am grateful for such a miracle. But I was also left with a detrimental and emotional reality. Because I was blinded by love, I had ignored the red flags of a relationship that should have ended long before it did. It was a lesson I needed to face. I thought I was dying, and Devin had me wait two hours before driving me to the hospital. Worse, he dropped me off with no support to be by my side. You know who will be there for you when you are in dire need. Devin let me know he was not the one. Lesson learned late, but better late than never.

The pain also led me to call my baby Cousin Eason. He is a grown man now, but I knew him from the moment he was born, so he is forever my baby cousin. I am glad for the health scare miracle but my baby cousin also gave me another miracle. 

Once in business, I struggled to build a team of leaders who would produce sales. The difficulty was in finding people to join me in business and be a part of my team. I needed a team so that my income would multiply. Working alone, I could only make so much money, but my income would multiply if I had a team. That is the beauty of network marketing. I wanted it so bad, but I couldn’t do it. Approaching strangers was highly uncomfortable for me. I was shy and didn’t know how to engage in conversations with others. I don’t have the extroverted personality to be in such a business, yet I wanted desperately to do it.

Unexpectedly, my little cousin, whom I had not seen in nearly twenty years, came to a nearby city from me and contacted me to see me. I was surprised he even remembered me! After all, he was only five when I went off to college and never returned. I invited him to a business opportunity presentation but didn’t have time to meet him there. He left the next day, and we never got to meet up.

I called Cousin Eason, and he shocked me. He said he joined my business. I didn’t persuade or say much and only invited him to the meeting. We began to reconnect and communicate long-distance as it was a national company. From the West Coast to the East Coast, we worked as a team. We quickly began working together compatibly. Cousin Eason was good at recruiting people, which was my weakness. He did not know how to train and motivate them once he got the team members, but I did. Together, we complemented each other and built a team.

I never fathomed that my baby cousin would make my dream come true in business. The teamwork was most satisfying, and the camaraderie I enjoyed was most fulfilling. Cousin Eason made my dream come true; he helped me when I needed a little success in business. It meant so much that I decided he had to be my beneficiary. He performed a miracle for me. While the health scare resulted in a miracle that resolved on its own, Cousin Eason created a miracle by helping me in business. Our compatibility in business and blind trust are also unforeseen miracles. Miracles can come in different forms. However they materialize, be grateful!

Key Takeaways
Though I saw a note that hurt me deeply, it saved me from marrying a cheater.

Though I had a health scare, a miracle disappeared it when I moved abroad.

Next week, you will hear two real-life stories called That Funeral & Unkind Words. If you enjoyed this episode of Eye-Opening Moments, please text someone and ask them what they think about this podcast, or go to www.inspiremereads.com and leave a message. Thank you for listening!