Where is bottom?

Some days I really am just not sure.  I can't stop thinking I have hit it only to feel like I fall a little lower.  My children and husband, family and friends are a buffer I suppose.  This has nothing to do with them.  It has everything to do with my spirit and it being broken.  And I am not sure I can fix it.

Sigh, tomorrow will be a new day.  It can get worse so I won't dare utter those words.  It will just be a new day.

Asleep

It is so odd to realize that in hours I will be asleep.  My body dependent completely on others.  My children about their day, aware of where I am but oblivious to the risks.  I trust my surgeon completely.  I offer them complete honesty of my current health knowing well that truth will guide them.  My body will be at complete rest.  My mind asleep.  Hours of my life to never be recalled.

I have had surgery before.  But never with nerve block and induced paralysis.  Waking up in pain is normal and healthy.   I fear waking up to nothing..I fear the unknown. 

All going well is the only outcome I will consider.   MUA with arthroscopy.   Beyond that I leave to my written pre-op orders, risks and fate.

Please pray for Sydney.  My Child's solace is in my body and soul being beside her.  She will worry,  fear and feel anxiety over our distance..  Our routine is each other. Please prepay for Justin and her to find a stride. 

For Luke to be kind and for his family that needs a big brother who is as kind as he is intelligent.

For Emily, that our family appreciates her amazing wisdom, hugs and nuggles.  She brings these things more than we appreciate.

Tomorrow I wake up and regain my right leg.  There is no other option.

Salad from a pizza joint

He orders pizza and surprises me with salad.  Reason number I lost count of why I love him.

Water on a floor

I think for the most part people walk around oblivious to the smallest thing that may lie on the floor.  You see rocks.  You notice trash.  You loathe the rare sight of tagging or puke.  I noticed all these things up until two months ago.  Now though I notice so much more.  I notice a restaurant with carpeting covering its entry way.  I notice slick and smooth concrete and its counterpart porous and course concrete.  I notice a small pool of fluid against black concrete.  I notice frosting on carpet.  Anything on the floor that isn't identical to the floor itself.

There are some people who doubt the validity of post traumatic stress.  I do not know much about the scientific and emotional background behind it.  I am certain I have it.

On a rainy day every step is a memory I live over and over.    In public bathrooms near sinks I see spots I carefully step to avoid.  I caution my children at every random moment of the day I can.  Fall and you could break your knee.

I have always been a ticky person.  I have always had OCD issues.  They were always focused on germs.  Germs now are the least of my issues.  I am focused on every single step I make.  At home and out and about.  I take every single grounded foot plant that I am blessed with.  I always take the time to tell employees of my overly sensitive issues when it comes to the surfaces your feel touch.  I hope I am the reason someday that no one lives through what I am living through.  It has become my mission.  My purpose.

Please watch as you walk.  One small trip and your fall will be a jaded memory of post traumatic stress.

Life moves on when you fear each step there is no doubt to that.  But many times it moves on n very slow motion.  A motion I wish I could have slowed down before it changed our lives for ever.

My husband

Every love is like a leaf.  Some are wrinkled.  Some fall with the seasons.  Some remain green and others turn black and mildew against damp ground in the winter.  No matter the way they change the person who holds the relationship close considers it love.  Love is ever changing, beautiful and a challenge.  You work at it, you care for it and you nurture it.

My love for my husband has been much of all of those I mentioned above.  Not perfection, ever changing, worthy of nurturing.  It has evolved.  It has changed color and shape.  It has grown and shriveled and it is in its current form everything I could have ever dreamed of.

My love lay 20 inches away as I type.  Snoring.  His jammy pants falling just above his cute butt crack.  Sorry Justin, I won't go further.  He snores and his back moves up and down.  He always sleeps with pillows over his head.  Odd to some, perfect to me.  His toes lie still.  Mine constantly move.  He never needs blankets.  I steal them all.   We are a work in progress but we are right now the easiest work I have ever undertaken.

A few years ago and perhaps a few years from now maybe it will not be so easy but I welcome that.  I accept my husband for who he is.  He accepts me for who I am.  It isn't always perfect.  We aren't always on the same page.  But we love each other and we give and take.  And for the last 10.5 years it has worked.  I highly recommend it.  Think of changing nothing.  Accept everything - work together on meeting in the middle of things you do not agree with.  Don't give up easily.  Don't give in too long.  Compromise is everything.  Love is worth it.

Phase Two

My knee cap is this solid mass of tightness.  Youth may say "that shit's tight" but until you have touched my newly designed knee cap you do not know what tight is.  My tight knee cap should be bending at about 120 degrees.  I am barely at maybe 50 degrees- on a good day.  Tomorrow I see my orthopedic surgeon.  He is going to rip into me.

I have thought out in my head justification for why I am not nearly where he (the surgeon) wants me to be.  Some of those justifications include: I am paying you so aren't you happy I need more appointments?  Or I got the bladder infection from hell and nearly died! or my favorite It really hurts!  And of all the excused sadly the last is the truth.  It hurts like hell.  Phase two of my therapy is very physical.  It involves a therapist holding my knee and pressing it into a bending position until I scream Fuck loud enough.  Yes, I say Fuck.  I say it a lot while at therapy.  I am sorry for that truth.

My muscle have been extremely tight which is likely due to swelling and traumatic bending of my knee.  I would like to believe there is something wrong.  Yes I just said that.  I have not had much failure in my life and I feel like I am failing at my therapy.   Failing to heal in the goal time I set for myself.  If I am failing it has to be a blame on something other then me.  But for the first time since this all happened I am not disappointed or depressed.  It is just another hurdle, another jump.  I will make it.  Not as timely as I wanted but I am not perfect.  That has never been more OK with me.  I am human, damaged and mending.

The kids ask often how many more weeks until we do what we used to do.  My friends ask the same.  Sadly we are not talking weeks.  I am two months and a few days into a 6 month minimum but most likely closer to 8 months or 12 months process.  I can not lie to them.  I tell them honestly that a few weeks from now they will not see much change.  And for the first time I am ok with that honesty as well.

Since my bladder infection I am finally tolerating all foods and drinking more than water and herbal tea.  It took a while to not need Zofran.  

Originally I had a goal of taking the kids Trick Or Treating.  That probably will not happen.  That does not mean I will not enjoy it.  It for sure does not mean my children will not enjoy it!  I probably will not be driving by November 1st.  That is OK too.  As claustrophobic as immobility can make you it becomes tolerable.  I will most likely do all my Christmas shopping online.  At this time last year I was done shopping.  That is ok as well.  All good things in time.

As for tomorrow, I will wake up and put on my shorts - one leg at a time.  Brace up into my 4.8 lb leg brace.  I will ride to Pomona and walk into my surgeons office with my head held high.  I will expect failure but I will appreciate my progress.  Anything on top of that will be cake in a very positive way.  I will come home with Justin and Emily.  Pick up Sydney from school.  We will try to make a trip to the pumpkin patch as a family after we pick up Luke.  We will eat dinner.  Life will go on.  Our family will survive and dare I say thrive.  And as we fall asleep I will dream about Friday and repeating it all over again - with no expectations, only dreams of success.

Wishing

I am not a romantic.  Not a poet.  A believer but not in wishes.  But this morning when I laid in bed next to my sweet little six year old son and felt his warm forehead I made a wish.  He woke up with a nasty little stomach bug.  Nothing serious but he had been vomiting off and on all morning.  On my other side lay my sweet little three year old suffering the same ill fate as her older brother.  Her arm rested on my shoulder.  But I focused on him.  At six he doesn't often want my over bearing affection.  He doesn't ask for snuggling anymore.  He is content to sit independent and focus on his own activities.   But today for just a brief moment he snuggled up with me and I made a wish.  I wished that I could take his sickness from him.  A mother never wants their child to feel bad.  I knew it was not a wish that would come true but I wished it anyways.  We drifted off to sleep and napped.  The three of us together.

A couple hours later during dinner he glanced over at me and said he was feeling so much better and that the snuggles took his puke away.

My wish came true, just not in the way I had envisioned it.