I’m moving!

Hey – I know it’s been many eons since I’ve posted. I have much to update, but I’m going to start putting all my updates here:

http://www.facebook.com/PutDownThePezDispenser

Please “Like” my page so you can continue to read about my journey!

16 Miles

My brain has been in an odd place lately. Seems my prayer for God to strip away all the things that don’t matter is being answered. And the enemy doesn’t like it, I guess.

See, I haven’t worried much about my body – with my head hurting so much, I couldn’t make myself exercise because it made my head hurt more. I gained some weight, but I can squeeze into my old clothes.

Right around the time I went back to Cincinnatti to see Dr. Durrani about my renewed headaches, I began to really earnestly focus on what are the distractions in my life; the things that keep me from actually putting Jesus first in my life. Easy to say he’s first, but do my actions and possessions demonstrate his position? Not so much. I realized, though, that God isn’t necessarily asking us to actually give everything up – but rather to be willing to give it all up. I found that the willingness to give up those things meant that I often ended up letting them go.

An example from a long time ago: We considered giving up paid TV. I was attached to our DVR. Attached to the shows we watched and the sports and the ability to zone out. I had the nagging thought that maybe God would ask us to give it up someday, but I didn’t want to. I like TV.  But once I realized how much of my life was wasted vegging out in front of the TV, I decided maybe it would be ok to give it up. Tom agreed soon after we talked about it – and we cancelled our service. It wasn’t hard at all – despite how attached I thought I was to it.

So anyway, other little things have been nagging me and I have slowly been letting go of all these things that are keeping me from making Jesus a priority. This coincided with my starting to feel better with the new soft collar – and suddenly I realized how tubby and out of shape I felt. For the first time in a very very long time, I felt like making myself throw up after I ate something because it made me feel so fat. That day, I freaked out and did a mad workout on the elliptical for like an hour. Thus began a renewed obsession with my body – wanting to go back to counting calories and yet knowing that it was a trap; that I’d end up never knowing how to stop counting calories… that I’d end up wanting to lose more weight that is healthy for me.

I felt more trapped than I had since the headaches first really went berserk a few years ago. I strained to remember all the things my counselor had told me – strained to get back to a happy place, but my brain wouldn’t have any of it. I fell into the pit of despair and couldn’t see a way out.

Finally, I told Tom about it. He needed to know because he would know to watch for me to go too crazy. Then I started really exercising – 4 days a week for 45 minutes on the elliptical – or better yet, my bike. The thing is – and this is so hard for me – there are days when I just can’t exercise. My head still hurts most mornings and if I get it under control, the exercise stirs it up again and it isn’t likely to go away if it comes back. And the days when I don’t exercise – especially if it’s after a day “off” – are filled with guilt and frustration and an insane feeling of heaviness.  I feel that I must keep exercising and lose weight – and if I miss a day… it’s the end of the universe.

So is there a way to find peace with my body and its flaws as well as its limitations?

I honestly don’t know.

EDS has taught me (when I’m willing) to take things one day at a time and so that’s what I’m trying to do. If there’s a day I can’t exercise, I try to listen to what my body is telling me – am I hungry or eating because I’m sad? I try to remind myself that even with more than a year and a half of basically no exercise, I’ve only gained 7 or 10 pounds. A few days without exercise are not going to make me blow up like a puffer fish.

Today, I rode my bike 16 miles. Then I came home and had a hot dog and s’mores. And it’s all good.

“Bo-ten” (A long overdue update)

When Kaylee was a baby, she had a “WubbaNub” pacifier – a Soothie brand pacifier with a stuffed duck attached. She loved her pacifier and relied on it for comfort and to go to sleep. But, it was getting ridiculous – she couldn’t go to sleep without it, she would cry in the middle of the night when she couldn’t find it. She wouldn’t talk with it in her mouth (duh) so it had to go. I had heard of people cutting the tip off their kids’ pacifier so that they would not want to suck on it anymore. (Note: this only works for Soothie brand pacifiers because they are one piece and cutting off the tip won’t cause it to become a choking hazard.)

So one night, I cut off the tip when she wasn’t looking. When she popped that thing in her mouth, she couldn’t get a good suck on it because of the missing tip. She immediately burst into tears and cried about how it was “bo-ten” (broken). She handed it back to me and said, “Mama fix it.” Of course, it was too late. So I just handed it back and she sobbed some more. “Bo-ten. Bo-ten, Mama.” I admit, I teared up. No one ever wants to see their little ones crying.

She got over it pretty quickly – it wasn’t very easy, but grieving never is.

I went back to Cincinnati to see Dr. Durrani yesterday. My head has been feeling bad in waves – mostly when I look down and when I wake up. If you look at my x-rays, this one from after my c1/c2 fusion:

 

The two screws go through the c1/c2 and the one below that is the c3.

Here’s an x-ray from March:

 

If you look at the c3, right under the back of the c2 (below the back of the bottom screw), you can see that the c2 is moved forward some, and the c3 back some. It’s like whiplash – they are what is called sublaxed (it’s a level before dislocation). Dr. Durrani believes this is the source of my most recent headaches. Usually vertebra sublax because of a fairly severe injury, only the only thing I ever did was jump around and play with my kids. I actually think I remember when it happened because one day I was feeling particularly great and jumped and danced around with the kids for almost an hour. Afterwards, I had a terrible headache – the first really bad one I’d had since before the surgery.

Dr. Durrani prescribed a soft collar to sleep in and wear at home – I tend to wake up on my back and my head is always pushed forward when I’m on my back. I go to sleep on  my side, but never stay… Anyway, he seemed fairly confident that the issue can correct itself given enough support and rest. While I’m thrilled that he didn’t immediately try to cart me away to surgery, I can’t help but feel like saying “bo-ten” – about myself.

I want to hand my spine to God and ask him to put it back together.

Bo-ten.

I am broken. And you can’t glue a spine back together anymore than you can glue a pacifier back together.

So I take comfort in knowing that God is mostly likely tearing up like I did when Kaylee cried about her Wubbanub. I held her in my arms, her fat tears just pouring down her cheeks. She couldn’t see past the moment; past her pain. I was powerless to show her the good that could come from her temporary hurt. I couldn’t explain why it was better for her without the pacifer. God knows me – he knows what’s best for me and sometimes what’s best for me hurts.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4:17

You Give and Take Away

I finally let myself cry today. Because the surgeries were supposed to give me my life back. Not for just a few months, but forever. I was supposed to be able to say, “Hey, look at how God led me to this doctor and how I finally got the right diagnosis and how I’m all better now! Look at how I can do all the things I used to do before all this mess started!”

So why – why – does my neck ache and my head throb? Did God let me taste those months of relief from this awful pressure only to snatch it away again? Am I like Job – being tested to see if I will curse God?

Job said, “Shall we accept only good from God and not adversity?” He also told his wife, who was ticked at God for the suffering He’d allowed, that she was “speaking as a foolish woman speaks.” This was a man who’d lost everything! Including his health.

Yesterday, I was thinking to myself about how people who mock faith in God would probably take this as a sign that God doesn’t exist – or that I am an idiot to trust that God is still in control. I was desperately asking God for something to say, to show that I still trust God and that it’s the only choice I have.

This verse popped into my head – “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26

I must have memorized it along the way somewhere. Goodness knows, I memorized a ton of scripture when I was growing up. And yet, this isn’t one I’ve repeated to myself very much – it’s not one of my “go-to” verses. Well, it wasn’t, anyway.

But do you see how much God loves me? This verse – God gave it directly to me when I so desperately needed something from him. There are tons of other verses that apply: “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness…” “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me…” “The Lord is my shepherd…” “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you…”

Those are “go-to” verses that are floating around in my head on a consistent basis. But the phrase “my flesh and my heart may fail” kept surfacing as I was praying, and I had to look it up because I didn’t know the rest. All I knew was that my flesh is failing, and my heart – my faith – is failing, too.

And this verse – it says that “God is the strength of my heart” – I don’t need to find my own strength to trust in him, he himself is my strength. And he’s also my portion. Every day, I need a certain amount of food to survive. The amount I need to live is my portion. We Americans are so used to living with very large portions. Jim Gaffigan, a comedian, jokes that people from third world countries would ask “What’s an appetizer?” and we would say, “Oh, that’s the food we eat before we eat our food. It’s supposed to make us hungry.” And then they’d ask, “What’s a dessert?” and we’d say, “Oh, that’s the food we eat after we’ve eaten our other food. Usually, we have to force it down.” American Christians seem to think that the idea of God being enough somehow includes an appetizer and a dessert. But all that excess isn’t good – all we get is a bunch of fat, unhealthy people who think they can’t live without their morning coffee or chocolate or extra cheese or whatever.

God is my portion. He is enough – my flesh may want some spiritual desserts and appetizers, but God doesn’t promise desserts and appetizers. He promised that he would be enough.

It’s that quiet voice – that whisper of love in the middle of my frantic, fearful thoughts – that reminds me how much I am loved by him. He hasn’t abandoned me. He has heard my prayers. And my flesh may fail – someday it will fail; it wasn’t designed to last forever – but God is my strength and my portion. In the good times, and the bad.

I don’t want to talk about it

It’s been about 2.5 weeks now. Headaches every day, most of the day.

Why are they back? I didn’t realize how much better I felt until I started feeling so bad again.

I’m angry. I frustrated. I’m terrified.

This can’t be my life. It just can’t.

No, I haven’t talked to Dr. Durrani about it yet. I keep hoping I’ll wake up feeling better again. I don’t want to talk to him about it because I don’t want something to be wrong with me anymore. I want to be normal. I just finally accepted that even though I felt mostly better, I was not ever going to feel “perfect” – and I was willing to adjust my lifestyle because of it. So I can’t run, can’t do pushups or lift weights over a few pounds… So I can’t pick up my kids or clean the whole house in one day… Fine. If I can feel good – really good because I am willing to give up roller coasters and white water rafting, so be it, I thought.

But now I feel bad again. Today was really bad. And all my wonderful friends who care about me could tell – and asked me how I was. It was all I could do not to cry. I don’t want to cry because I don’t want this to be my life again. I don’t want to be pitied – or to have a reason to be pitied. I don’t want to be “that person” – the one everyone feels sorry for and is secretly glad that it’s not them. I can’t be that person.

And yet, here I am.

It’s only been a few weeks. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel better.

This is Your Life

Last week, I used our elliptical 3 times. I went slow and used a low difficulty. Boy, it felt good to get my heart pumping again!

My goal is to use it three times a week and when it’s warm, to ride my bike again. It’s pretty crazy that a few years ago, I was doing intense workouts an hour or more 4-5 times a week with some really hard yoga and Pilates on my off days. In those days, I was driven by the insatiable desire to be skinny. Really super skinny.

Now, I just want to feel healthy again. Sure, part of me wishes that I could look like I could kick your butt. Part of me wishes I could run a hundred miles a week. That part of me thinks I’m settling by admitting that I have limitations.

See, there are some limitations you can push through – you can find work-arounds or beat the odds. Some people are told they will never walk again and that’s all the motivation they need to get up and prove everyone that they are crazy strong in their hearts – that their will is stronger than what the doctors believe their bodies are. Some people find a way to be more than anyone could have imagined.

But sometimes, limitations can’t be ignored. There’s a good kind of pain – sore muscles after a workout or feeling a good stretch – that’s the kind of pain they mean when they say “no pain, no gain.” Then there’s the kind of pain that is your body telling you that you had better stop or something horrible will happen. For me, it’s when I’m on the edge of dislocating something completely or when my joints sublax (slide out of joint and then back in) – and that is a kind of pain you simply can’t fight through.

I can’t do a push up right now – my left elbow screams that it will be dislocated if I put that kind of pressure on it. If I ignore that pain, I’d end up needing a doctor to put my elbow back in place or probably surgery for destroying the tendon that’s trying so desperately to hold me in one piece.

There are several yoga moves that I can’t do – shouldn’t do. My wrists end up being so sore that holding a half gallon of milk becomes so painful. Or my hips start popping out of place more than they already do. Or that place in my lower back feels like it’s on fire.

Ever since I realized that I had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I have wanted to pretend it wasn’t true. I hoped that once my headaches were fixed (I’m at about 85% now and holding!) and that if I could somehow have my neck pain reduced, I could start being “normal” again. Doing all the things normal people can do.

But I can’t, my body reminds me every time I try – and then I have to go through the grieving process of trying to accept that I’m never going to be that person I dream of being.

Right now, I’m in a pretty good place mentally. I’m gingerly testing out my body to see what I can and can’t do – and then doing what I can do instead of bemoaning all that I can’t. I can do the elliptical. I can do some yoga and some Pilates. I can walk, maybe not as fast or as far as I want, but I can walk.

You have to work with what you’ve got but for a long time, I let what I didn’t have dictate what I did – or rather didn’t – do.  And I realized that what keeps most people from fulfilling their dreams – at least in a physical sense – is that they are dreaming of something that may not be possible for their body. It’s great to dream big, but if you haven’t exercised in years, you shouldn’t dream that in a month, you’ll be running a marathon. Heck – maybe you shouldn’t even be dreaming about running! Some people think that’s the only “real” form of exercise – and it’s a great one. But it’s hard on your body, especially if you have loose joints in the first place. And some people do it because they think they should, but they hate it and the give up because they hate it and they don’t even try anything else.

My point is – even when I started feeling better, I didn’t start moving again because I was too depressed about the fact that I’ll never be as tough looking as the girl who does the kick boxing on P90X. Or that I would never impress anyone with how far I’d run, or even biked, on a given day. Sometimes, I still feel that way. And I get depressed when something new hurts, or when my neck still hurts (though it seems to be improving little by little), or when I remember how much I used to do. And I feel hurt by the message that I can do anything I put my mind to – well, yeah, I sort of can. But then again, I really can’t. Unless I like being out of joint. Or tearing my weak little tendons.

So I have been getting up – a whole week and half now – and moving. Slowly. No impact. Knowing that some days will be bad days and I won’t be able to do much if any exercise, and believing that it’s actually ok if I don’t. You know what? I don’t have to run 10 miles or lift a hundred pounds to be successful – not in this life anyway.

 

Oil and Water, Opposites Attract…

Kaylee and Sienna were born on the same day. And that’s about the only thing they have in common. I had to laugh when people asked how I could tell them apart as babies – it was not hard! Of course, they were mine, but even in my belly they were different. Kaylee was wiggly and demanding of her space. Sienna was bony and constantly stretching to accommodate her. When they came out, Kaylee was full of drama from the second she breathed air – Sienna was far more serene and even keel. Sienna slept long stretches at night, Kaylee was up every hour. Kaylee was a chubby baby, Sienna more thin and fine-boned. Kaylee had a head full of hair and Sienna’s was a fuzzy peach.

Now, Kaylee is long and lean and Sienna is more compact and very strong! Kaylee has long blond hair and Sienna likes her brown hair short. Kaylee is free-spirited and hates to color in the lines. Sienna colors better than I do and her every move is calculated and careful. Kaylee is left-handed and Sienna uses her right hand. Kaylee makes friends like Donald Trump makes money and Sienna, well – she is a sweet, friendly girl, but so shy and reserved and distrusting; she doesn’t believe she has many friends.

At Classical Conversations, our homeschool group, Kaylee likes to sit and play with the “big boys” – they are 10-11 year old boys who don’t seem to mind my happy, gregarious child tagging along with them and chatting with them. But Sienna has one special friend – and she doesn’t want to share. She tells me that no one else wants to be her friend. I have a hard time believing that, but oh, my hear hurts when, with tears in her eyes, she asks Kaylee, “How do you make friends so easily?” And then Kaylee says, “Mama, why does Sienna’s friend like her more than my friends like me?” Because Sienna takes the time to really be friends and Kaylee just runs around laughing and playing with everyone.

Kaylee looks at Sienna like Sienna is asking how to boil water. “I just find people and talk to them,” she answers. Kaylee’s mind doesn’t comprehend that someone might find her annoying or a pest. She just assumes that her blue eyes and Hollywood smile will melt everyone’s heart and that no one would ever dream of rejecting her as a companion. Poor Sienna – she can’t imagine anyone liking her just because she’s adorable. Her blue eyes hold a certain amount of distrust when she meets someone new; she holds back her gorgeous smile until she’s certain it’s deserved.

It’s so hard to tell them that they are both wonderful just as they are – that Kaylee can be happy because she’s never lonely, but that Sienna can be happy because her friends, while fewer in number, are more devoted to her – they are true friends that will last! I can’t expect them to stop comparing themselves with each other – but I wish they would realize that each of them is special just because they exist – not because of what they have or don’t have. Sienna doesn’t need blond hair or an outgoing personality to be special – Kaylee doesn’t need to write neatly or draw pretty pictures to be unique.

Of course, you can see what’s going on here – I want my daughters to grasp something I’ve never quite managed to keep hold of. I want them to love themselves just because God made them and for no other reason. I want them to look in a mirror and love everything they see instead of wanting to change this or that or the other thing to match what they think it should be. At five years old, my babies are already struggling with something that I’ve struggled with my whole life. Every day, I pray, “God, how can I show them how wonderful and precious they are? How can I help them to accept who they are as perfect just because that’s how you made them?”

And I cry. Because I’m so incapable of doing this job – mothering these treasures and showing them their value; letting each of their own qualities shine without making them think that one is more precious than the other. It seems that when I point out Sienna’s talented drawings, Kaylee thinks hers are terrible. And when I tell Kaylee she’s so good at making jokes, Sienna thinks she’s dumb because she doesn’t make people laugh as much.

Theirs is a universal struggle – it may be more magnified because they are twins and yet so different – but every girl (and every boy, really) wants to be special and loved. And most of us feel like we have to be different to be good enough. If only my girls could see themselves through my eyes. If only WE could all see ourselves through God’s eyes. All those things the girls want to change so they can be more like each other – those things are what make Kaylee Kaylee and Sienna Sienna. Those are the things God put in us to make us US. 

“Friends” and “Unfriends”

I know I’m not the only person in the world to be deeply wounded by people I thought were my friends. People who, in my darkest hours, should have stood by me and instead added insult to injury; rather than weeping with me, they reprimanded me for not having faith. I know I’m not the only person in the world to grow apart from friends who swore they would never let distance or life changes separate us. People I grew up with and loved almost as long as I can remember and who now ignore me as if I don’t exist. I know that everyone who’s ever had friends knows what I’m going through.

My EDS and headaches forced me to start saying “no” to a lot of events and to skip many events to which I’d committed to go. I quickly found out that some people I thought cared for me didn’t care enough to make the effort to come to me. We grew apart. It hurt. And now the silliest part is, Facebook is a constant reminder of what I’ve lost because we are still “Friends” there.

Before Facebook, I grieved the friends I lost to distance and to differences in our phases of life and then I moved on. There are times when I think of these people I spent countless hours with – watching movies, bowling, talking, laughing, crying. I saw them get married, they held my first baby. But things changed and friendships ebbed and flowed. Sometimes they flowed and didn’t ebb again. I think about those people and it hurts at times – but mostly, I just don’t think about them anymore. No sense wasting my energy on something I can’t change. And believe me, I tried to change it.

And now, my life – with this body that refuses to do what I demand of it – has forced more dear people to move on from me (no one wants to be around people who are hurting; they are no fun) and the sting won’t go away because, even though they won’t answer my e-mails or texts or phone calls, they are still there on Facebook. It’s like they are toying with me; making be believe there’s still hope for reconciliation. Facebook says we are still “Friends.” And as long as Facebook says we are “Friends,” maybe we are still friends. Why, people, if you won’t answer my attempts to reach you, would you still let me be your “Friend”?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hovered over the “Unfriend” link by their names. I could click that button and suddenly, we’d be unfriended. Everything we suffered and enjoyed together: Gone. I’m not naive enough to believe that could make the pain go away, but it does make me wonder. Is Facebook really the only link I have left? If I “Unfriend” them, do I have to remove their contact info from my phone? Do I have to write them off forever?

Can you believe that one of those people who left me years ago – who hurt me so deeply that sometimes I still cry for the loss of her friendship – tried to add me as a “Friend” a while ago. I debated and debated about what that meant. I tried to call her and she didn’t answer – nor did she call back after I left a message. Emails went unanswered. So I denied her request.

Is it possible (yes) that people would actually just call themselves my “Friend” so that the little number beside the word “Friends” is higher? Is that what has happened with these people who don’t talk to me in person but keep me around in the cyber world? Maybe. Either way, I can’t figure out what to do with these people. Before Facebook, at least I didn’t have to choose to “Unfriend” someone; to make a choice that sounds so permanent and unfriendly. (Unfriend-ly. Ha ha.)

I’ve said before, that I wanted to leave Facebook altogether. After all, if people were really my friends, that wouldn’t change anything, right? But it’s not true. I have real, honest-to-goodness friends on the other side of the world who have shown me through Facebook that they care more than a lot of people I know and see face to face on a regular basis. If I go through and try to “weed” out the people I’m not sure about, it feels like I’m being cruel and judgmental.

So here I am. And I feel like I’m the only person in the world who knows what I’m going through.

I hate runners. Sort of.

Before all the headache crud, I confessed that I’m not a runner. My knees and hips can’t take it – they pop in and out of joint, swell up… it’s not pretty. It’s not even good for me, other than my heart and lungs. So I started biking and I rode everywhere for hours at a time. For the first time in my life, I found some kind of exercise that didn’t feel like work, even a little bit. But it was on my bike when I first thought my head had exploded – I thought I’d had an aneurysm or a stroke and that I would die. Since then, I have only ridden a handful of times because too much exertion caused that same exploding headache and it was awful to say the least. Sometimes, my head would explode when I bent over or turned my head.

My head is screwed on tight again and I’m cleared for light workouts – but it’s the dead of winter in Northeast Ohio; not the prime time for biking. I could do it – but cold is still my enemy. My muscles seize and I’m sent into spasms of pain that are not worth it. And that’s just going out to the car from whatever building I am in. I can’t imagine what biking in this weather would do. I can accept that – normal people find other ways to keep fit in the winter.

But I’m not married to a normal person. I’m married to an awesome runner. Seriously, he’s amazing! He told me the other day that it’s weird how a nine mile run feels like a “shorter” run now. He regularly runs over 45-50 miles a week – before he goes to work. I’m proud of him – I truly am. But I’m seriously jealous, too. I’m jealous of all my runner friends and people who run who aren’t my friends, too.

Tom and I struggled with getting pregnant – we tried for several years and had a few miscarriages and I was insanely jealous of all the women I knew who had healthy babies. I wanted everyone in the world to put their lives of having kids on hold until we were successful.

That’s how I feel now: Would everyone please stop exercising and being fit until I can join you?

Only, I can’t ever really join you – not the way I want, anyway. I tried doing some push-ups today. Nothing big; girl style, even. But my elbow kept sliding out of joint and that hurts! So I can’t do push-ups.

I feel like an old lady. I need low-impact, low resistance, gentle exercises. And with EDS, I’ll need that for the rest of my life.

How will anyone ever think I’m a spy if I can only use stretchy bands like they use at the physical therapist’s office to get strong? 

You’d think that all my struggles would have taught me to be thankful for what I have rather than lament about what I don’t have. But that doesn’t come naturally to us humans, does it? Instead of rejoicing because, for the most part, I have no more headaches – at least not that kind – I whine because I am jealous of my husband! Oh silly me!

Do you know what I did today? I danced – jumping, hopping, looking like a goofball – for half an hour, rocking out to Mumford and Sons with my kids! I couldn’t do that 6 months ago without an explosion in my head. I’m trying really hard to shove down my jealousy of people who can do what I wish I could – I’ll never be able to do the things I dream of with this body here on earth and I’m just wasting time wishing I could.

The journey to being at peace with EDS is a long one.  It’s not one I enjoy and if I had my druthers, I’d be on a different path. And I’d be running.

I have returned! Did you miss me?

I must apologize for disappearing like that. My life has been one long mishmash of craziness since my last post. I spoke about cutting things out and I’m still in the midst of figure out what that means. I’ll try to catch you up on the goings on since then:

The biggest thing that happened was my second surgery – the one to fuse my C5 and C6. That was on December 14, the day of the shootings in Connecticut. The surgery was in Cincinnati again – but not at the hospital. This time it was at Journey Lite Medical Center. It was a reasonably nice enough place – designed specifically for same-day surgeries and therefore with fewer amenities. No private rooms or anything. My surgery was supposed to be at 10:30, but didn’t go back until well after 12:30. Everything went great – and boy, was I out of it afterwards. Dr. Durrani went through the front of my neck for this one and had to push aside everything to get to my spine. So my throat hurt the most and I was a little hoarse. It was late when we left – like 5:30. I don’t remember much of anything. I know that they asked me what I wanted to drink and I asked Tom what I should have because I couldn’t process the question. I also know that they gave me a collar identical to the one I have already from the other surgery. He said I could wear it if I wanted and I think I put it on to go to the car.

Tom drove (duh) us home and I slept most of the way. He reminded me of something funny – we made it to Columbus from Cincinnati in a little over an hour and a half. He was flying! I woke up and was dumbfounded at the good time we were making and I said, “We are making awesome time!” Just then – quite literally – we came to a traffic jam and it lasted for 45 minutes. That’s pretty much all I know until we got home where I promptly went to bed and slept very well. The majority of my pain was from the incision and all the pushing around they did – it hurt like razors to swallow. I rested that weekend, but just like they said, I felt mostly normal within a few weeks.

This surgery isn’t like the C1C2 fusion in that the problem it’s correcting has been around for so very long that the results won’t be as immediate. I found relief from most of the headaches right away, but the neck pain will take time to get better. So I don’t know how successful it will be as of yet. I still have so much pain when I’m cooking or cleaning – but I’m only a month out. So I’m not discouraged yet.

The other thing I need to talk about is how God has been preparing Tom and me for some kind of change in our lives. It’s come in the form of a feeling of being ill-at-ease or unsettled. We were looking at houses earlier and both of us want to move, but neither of us feel that it’s the right time. I don’t know what will happen, but I’m ready because I feel it coming!

Lastly, I started a new blog – this is the only time I will claim ownership of this blog because I may post things that could be taken the wrong way and be offensive to some. It’s my answer to when I really feel snarky and don’t want to upset people who read here. 🙂 Here is the link:

http://elephantherder.wordpress.com/

I should be here more regularly again – I’ve missed pouring out all my struggles and worries and joys!