Been busy.

Getting myself into a head space where I could clean out my desk at Jordan was as difficult mentally as figuring out how to pee while laying in bed when I was in the hospital.  Possible TMI but....deal...I'd say "dare ya to try" but without the trained medical staff it's prolly a bad idea.  I just didn't know that "rotation" was part of that job.  Apparently it is, and I don't get a say.  So I'm reassembling my perceptions & girding myself up to go into this new adventure with a positive attitude.  I will dearly miss the people who have been so helpful & essential to me for the last 5 months, but at least until June I get to see some of them for 9 hours a week.  Working at Redwood campus is going to give me all sorts of new opportunities & I openly admit that I'm more than a little intimidated by the scope of things.  But I felt the same way at Jordan when I started, sure that I was somehow going to screw up everything because I wasn't sure exactly what was expected.  I shall weather this too & learn to be good at it.

I suppose the added strain of not knowing exactly how much I can do before I give out is an additional strain.  Lately every "normal" thing I try to do results in me arriving home afterward and falling into bed exhausted regardless of whatever else I needed to do.  I get SO tired So easily.  The few things I've attempted lately have been very rewarding in that I haven't done ANYTHING in weeks and ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTING.  I hope stamina builds back as quickly as I've lost it.

I'm definitely better off than I would have been without the surgery.  The headaches I was having those last few days, and the pain I was experiencing combined with the scar tissue they found on the spinal sheath & the spinal fluid leak they couldn't locate during surgery lead me to believe that I tore the sheath on my own and was leaking fluid those last few days.  There is no way of measuring what calamity I'd have found had I not been already scheduled for surgery.

******what follows here has made me cry twice reading over it, guess I'm sharing my learning process & being a bit weepy, don't read on if that kind of stuff bugs ya.  I promise not to go here very often******

So I'm taking my punches & trying to find the rainbow.  It ain't all that hard when I stand up and move without pain (that is when I haven't over done it).  But I'm really so much better off than I have been for years.
I know what's wrong:     Those 4 MRI scans were totally worth the mental anguish & however much my insurance paid for them!
I have a spine specialist I trust:    Doc Nathan is aware of everything I'm dealing with spine wise & is treating me.
I have a GP I trust:     Despite my sour grapes with West Jordan Medical, Doc Mikesell has my trust.
I CAN WALK:     Yep, that's a pretty take for granted thing, but it's praiseworthy when you've been without..
There ARE moments when I am pain free:     That's been a while!
I have options for pain relief, and I've gotten damn good at managing it:  Begin 3 week countdown to hot tub time HERE.

I'm not planning marathons, and taking pilates classes just yet...I'm walking, I'm LIVING.  I can not convey in words how VERY thankful I am for that.  I have been fighting this invisible monster for 14 years.  I now not only know what it is, I have an attack plan & am finishing the first battle.  Damn that silly ladder accident 14 years ago. It changed EVERYTHING!  But I can't change that, I can move on....FINALLY.

 I'm not even sure I would change that...it's a strange thing to contemplate.  The decisions forced on me by that event have been so much a part of getting to where I am, & I like it here.  I'm at a place where I'm really at peace with me.  There's no price to put on that & I wouldn't trade it.  It could have been easier along the way, but I wouldn't have learned the things I have.  I could list off the adventures, but those of you who watched & helped along the journey know what they were, and rehashing them doesn't hold much value.  So I'm gonna keep glossing them over, they're easier to carry that way.

I've been missing my dad this week.  Not like the normal days when I say to myself "sure wish I could ask Dad what he thinks" but the more heart wrenching kind where I KNOW he'd be better at making this decision than I am.  There's so much going on, and I'm so overwhelmed & he always knew what kind of head pats I needed & he was so good at helping me find the information that would be pertinent to the decision I'm making.  Just the rumble of his voice at my shoulder (don't know how many of you ever got the "come sit by me" treatment with him, but even when it was the last thing I wanted to do it was the thing I needed) or over the phone was enough to help me step up to so many things.  I miss that, but more I miss him.  There's a thousand ways to justify why he's elsewhere and what he's up to these days but sometimes I just have to sit down & do some missing. He had big strong hands. I picture rock man here from never ending story, and then remember all the hours of sacrament meetings gone by that I spent tracing the scars & creases of those hands, I knew so many of  the stories they told.  So many of them were from stories that included his dear ones, the people he loved and helped, and sometimes got banged up in the process.  To this day I catch myself when sitting quietly with an idle mind contemplating my scars & the stories that they tell.  This most recent one on my back has a much longer, deeper tale than most.

Okay, done.  I'm gonna sign off & lay down, been sitting too long.  Love to all those who read on this far.  & more to those who've teared up in the process.  I'll find something shiny to share soon & promise no more tears.

Live long & prosper.

~m

at the time I disliked the way my name skews what was meant to be shared with all who visit.  But just now, I'm recalling that "love ya daughter" were his last words to me & I'm ok with it all.