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.

Facials

Up until one week ago my idea of a facial was opening the dish washer during the dry cycle.  Maybe even sticking my head a little further into the dryer then I should when hanging mostly damp clothes one by one.  Ahh the steam.  Sometimes I even get really fancy and let the girls rub my husbands lotion all over my face while I close my eyes tight to prevent my eyeballs from getting slathered up. 

Well last week I actually had my first real facial courtesy of a very good friend.  Man, what I have been missing!  I felt so relaxed afterwards and my skin still feel softer then normal.  My friend just launched her own personal business so if you are local and interested in a facial or other services offered by a Licensed Esthetician I can give you her info.  She also offers pamper party packages for a minimum of 5 guests or more.

Doctors joke that if it wasn't for Cystitis, they'd go broke.

So this is the post to explain my hospital trip and recent vague posts.  A bladder infection.   Yes, I really went to the hospital for a bladder infection.  It beat the crap out of me, took my name and number and then came back over the next two days and beat me into submission.

So I will start by saying that apparently I have lived under this most beautiful rock of a place where I NEVER have gotten a Bladder Infection before.  Man, what a blessed life I have had.  Second I will say that for those of you who typically range between 1 and 3 bladder infections per year - I am sorry that you live through that.  That's serious shit.  I want to retro date many waves of empathy, hugs and respect to you.  And third PEE.  PEE all the damn time.  Don't freak out about stopping as a gas station or using a public park bathroom Just GO PEE.  Trust me, I thought those other germs were going to kill me and you may agree and if you agree you have never had a Bladder Infection.

Here are some very important things to know about Bladder Infections - specifically my bladder infection experience.

1) Hands down BEST cleanse/diet EVER.  We are talking 8.5 lbs in 4 days!!  You will never know what hit you!
2) You will have some killer dreams - seriously.  I dreamt for three straight days about killing things.  I never in my life have ever had such horrible dreams.  But in the last 5 days I slayed more things, grew more things out of my skin and ventured into more terrible places then I have ever done my whole life
3) You think a broken knee cap hurts?  Yeah it does.  But you know what also hurts?  Feeling like someone was picking you up off the ground by your hair, kicking you in the stomach....just in one spot.  OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
4) Need a nap?  Get a bladder infection, sleep for days!

So now, Yes, I didn't just have a minor bladder infection.  Because, have you known me long?  GO big or GO home.  Right?  Hindsight is always 20/20 and yes, looking back there were some signs and I did over look them for maybe one or two days.  But by day three - last Friday here is a run down of what day three looked like for me.

7am - wake up with kids, get them off to school and complain I may have a bug
8am - confess it may be an Ovarian Cyst
9am - take a norco and say you are going to sleep it off
1pm- cry in the mirror. realize I had a fever
1:05- cry its not a cyst its worse
1:15pm consider an ambulance, settle on a ride to the ER
1:30 - throw up, lots
1:45 - get to the hospital
1:46 - throw up more, check in
1:49 - throw up more, give a urine sample
1:56 - Get called back to a bed after they took one look at said urine sample but, after you throw up again
2:00 - Get morphine, Zofran and IV fluids (which takes more then one try because I had no fluid left in my body)
2:15 - get examined - probably appendicitis
2:16 - My second panic attack of my life.  Spend the next 35 minutes with my fingers seizing up and worrying my broken knee and right leg muscles may soon follow.  Breath, in through the nose out through the mouth.  Have the left side of your face seize up- refuse to answer anymore questions.
2:36 - Get Ativan via IV

Mix after that a blur between Ultrasound, Xray, CT scans with Dye, Tylenol 500 * 2, breaking of my fever and a very clear case of a Bladder Infection.

It took me three days to keep my eyes open longer then 20 minutes.  It look three days of near constant vomiting to swear off all processed foods and never eat "dirty" again.  It took three days of  moving only from the toilet to the bed.   My face is visibly trimmer.  My stomach flat.  My leg and all my progress is pretty much gone.  Any muscles I had started to build is atrophied again.

I thought I was at my low.  Boy was I wrong.  Now I am going to stand loud and scream that I can not get any lower then a Bladder Infection or Monday.  Yesterday, with no improvement I went back to the Dr.  It took two shots in my butt cheek - one Antibiotic and one Zofran and my body came back to life.  I stayed up last night for two hours.  Today I not only got out of bed, but I stayed out of bed. ALL DAY LONG.  I still am breathless with little movement, my leg stiffer then normal but God, I am ready to finish all that and this crap.  I hit rock bottom.  Got it?  No more pity.  I am not getting my ass kicked anymore.  I am not moving backwards.  I don't have time or energy for it.  It took that one shot of Zofran yesterday to resume eating and I have been puke free since.   I am still on a bland diet, water/cranberry juice only.  But its a diet.

So bottom line.  PEE or else be warned.  Gotta post now so I can go pee.

Charity, crickets and confusion

I have been struggling for two days about my next blog post.  There are some serious issues I need to get out - all featured in my title.  Charity, crickets and confusion.  I am not sure what comes next or which becomes more or less important first.  And then there is Enrique.  Perhaps the answer is none of the above.  Perhaps the answer is music.

Radio silence until my soul or my voice speak.