#Reverb14: Day 9

1. As you enter into the new year, what would you like to do/make/have/be more often? How will you bear witness and celebrate the tiny milestones? How will you respond on the occasions when your intentions do not come to pass?

2. The Plank: It has been said that you must learn to take care of yourself before you can be effective at taking care of others.  How did you take care of yourself in 2014?  How will you take care of yourself in 2015?

Yesterday slipped away from me -- a long day of shopping for both donation gifts (for kids, through my Bunco group) and the beginnings of my own shopping. Got home and left 45 minutes later for the photo club Christmas party, and didn't get home from that until about 10. I was ready for bed.

1. In other words, what do I want to do with my life next year? I would like to spend much less time going to doctors, for one, and more time traveling with my honey. I want to feel stronger and steadier on my feet. I want to learn some new things and practice some of those I learned this year. I want to feel content and happy more often. 

With the afib issue looking far more positive and the painful foot issue scheduled for surgery in early January, my health concerns should be pretty much resolved. Time to make exercise and rehab a priority again and regain all the strength and balance I've lost over the past three years. Feeling better and stronger will mark that successful venture. And always there is the January diet plan that will kick in, which I'm hoping will work in tandem with the getting stronger and steadier routine. How will I know it is working? When I can walk easily without getting winded quickly, and when I don't feel unsteady. 

There are always slips and lapses. The important thing is not to abandon the effort because things are not progressing as quickly as I'd hoped or that I escaped back into comfort food for a while. This is truly a lifelong effort that is done one day at a time. 

That's all we ever get anyway, one day at a time. I can handle pretty much anything for one day. And I'm a lot better about not beating myself up all the time. I can do this and I want to do this. 

2. I can save one life --  mine. Since I read Mary Oliver's life-changing poem "The Journey," a few years ago, that has been my touchstone, but this has not always been the case.  And while my husband looks out for me constantly, he can only do so much: the rest is up to me. 

I took a very proactive path about my health in 2014 and will continue to do so in 2015, although I hope 2015 will be largely rehab-oriented and not quite so much medical procedure and medication-driven! 

I own my mistakes and my faults, but I don't own any one else's, nor can I manage another's life. I think I may finally understand this, hard though it is. I am finally living life doing what I want to do, putting me (and us, my husband and me) first, and that is a radical change. Nobody else gets to call the shots on what I do or don't do; nobody gets to make me feel guilty about it either. What a concept, eh?

More of this in 2015. Happier. Wiser. Stronger. More generous with myself and my love.  

I'm still here

....and a little embarrassed by my lack of attention to this blog, after going on three months without so much as a "Hi there."

I can't really explain it, either. Certainly life has gone on and things have happened, good and not so good.  I think I went somewhere for a while, far away from creative thought or sharing mode, and it was not especially good.

But I'm here now.  And in a completely different mode. Let me tell you more...

Living on one foot 

After a misstep last spring and nearly six months using an ankle support, I finally was able to see an orthopedist about the pain I had when I walked much at all, even with the orthotics I've used for five years and in my 'comfort' shoes. Crippling pain, folks, hobbling along with a cane on some days, my left leg feeling wooden from the knee down.

Turns out I have severe arthritis in the joints there, compounded by a severely flat foot, fixable through surgery called a triple arthrodesis. So we began to plan, with surgery finally scheduled for Dec. 27.

I will say that we were prepared: the first time I've ever had the luxury of actually anticipating the surgery and recovery period. I read health message boards, researched the procedure, figured out what medical supplies would help, and began freezing soups and stews and casseroles. Friends lent me a bedside commode, a transport wheelchair, a shower chair. We got toilet rails and in lieu of crutches, a knee roller. I practiced using just one foot to get into the shower (not doable, but it works in the big tub), to get off the toilet. 

Although this was 'elective' surgery, the alternative is literally crippling, and I'm just not ready or willing to go there. So in my mind, there wasn't an option. Even though I wanted to go through with it, I found myself gradually getting more anxious, more afraid -- and that mindset likely had a great deal to do with my not blogging. 

Finally I reached out to a local healer friend who works with energy and reiki and asked for help -- and it made a HUGE difference almost immediately. On her advice and with her help, I turned my focus inward, concentrating almost wholly on me -- something I have almost never done for very long, and always still trying to juggle the other commitments and relationships I have had. This time I found other, easier ways to handle existing commitments and completely backed out of others, and came home to my honey, my cats, and myself. And focused on increasing energy, positive energy, in myself and in that wooden leg.

It worked, really well. And going into surgery, I felt positive about my recovery, positive about the surgery, and actually was walking better than I had in a long time. I could feel the leg again. It was connected to my body, and I felt whole. The morning of the surgery, I was ready, I was calm, I was positive.

I confess to an unreasonable fear of general anesthesia, which I always have come out of (and have never been told that I had difficulty with) gasping and groggy and grateful that I am still alive. Although I'd hoped to do a spinal block along with a local nerve block and thus remain more or less awake, it turned out that one medication I'd taken the morning of the surgery negated that option for safety concerns, and under I went, after only a little meltdown, and indeed, I came out groggy and gasping. But within a few hours, I was coherent and without pain and so, so grateful.

That's where I am now. 

I am two weeks post-op and spending much of my time in Tony's recliner with my foot propped above my heart. There has been only minimal swelling, almost no pain**, and I am not stir-crazy. Indeed, that inward focus continues, and I'm contemplating spirit and prayer and quiet and purpose and just learning to BE instead of DO. I'm leaving other people's business and conflicts to them rather than offering opinions (unsolicited) or help (which I am in no position to give). For now, that is what my work is supposed to be.

**The nerve block did not wear off for 30+ hours, and when it did, it hurt. I spent one night in the hospital taking pain meds and using the nifty pain pump, but was so nauseated that I regretted all of the meds. Since then I have taken the strong stuff sparingly (it has such nasty side effects) and have used just the occasional Tylenol to ease discomfort. But what I had been told was a hugely painful surgery (involving screws and cutting into bone) has turned out for me to be nothing more than a few aches and twinges (nerve regeneration causes some leg jumping and zingers, but it's not so much painful as it is frustratingly random). 

Grateful. Beyond. Measure.

Time for the recliner now. 

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." Albert Schweitzer    





        

The Scintilla Project - Day 1

Several weeks ago some of the folks who were involved in Reverb11 contacted those of us who participated to tell us of a new writing exercise, The Scintilla Project. 

Since I know I respond well to writing prompts, I signed up. If you're interested, so can you. And if you want to read more, there are lists of participants and links to their blogs on their website for these next two weeks. Tony is also participating; you can read his work here.

Today is the first day, and we were given two possible prompts: 1. Who are you? 2. Life is a series of firsts. Talk about one of your most important firsts. What did you learn? Was it something you incorporated into your life as a result?

Since I'm still figuring out who I am, and that can vary from hour to hour, I'll pass on the first prompt. However,  I definitely experienced a huge 'first' last week. Let me tell you about that today.
*******************

Monday started well, with errands and a salad lunch out with my honey. But by dinnertime, I was gasping and rocking back and forth with incredible pain, clad in a hospital gown on an exam table in our local hospital's busy emergency room.

I had been packing for a little Oregon coast getaway we'd planned for weeks, our first 'retirement' trip to one of our favorite places, Bandon. We'd planned to get supper at our favorite local spot.

The pain hit me about 4:45 pm at hip level, right side and to the  back, and suddenly -- fine one moment, gasping at the next. And then it grabbed hold of my right side from just below my breast to groin, hinging like a powerful vise grip around to the front. Within 20 minutes we were heading to the ER, me with a bit of ginger in my hand to try to keep me from throwing up on the way.

The ER had whole families sitting inside and outside, not quite a party atmosphere, but there was fast food and sodas in evidence, which didn't help my growing nausea. It felt like an hour, but I think I was called into the intake room within 20 minutes or so.

Apparently I had a kidney stone.

Time just stopped for me then: all I knew was pain and horrible nausea although they tried to squelch it with anti-nausea drugs and two doses of morphine, and nurses and techs taking vitals, blood, wheeling me to the CT scan, and my poor husband patting me, crooning "I'm so sorry, honey. I'm so sorry."

I know I rocked back and forth most of the time, sitting up more because I couldn't lay down. I know I tried desperately to breathe into the pain, which came in waves from bad to horrible, but never easing more than a split second, even with the drugs, and just ended up gasping with the impact. I know I answered questions but I'm not sure how much sense they made.

I know I understated the pain. You rate pain on a scale of one to ten. I said 'eight.' In truth, it was an eleven, looking back now. I couldn't stay still. My mouth was so dry (probably from the nausea drugs) that I could barely form words, but they didn't want to give me even ice chips until much later.

I remember hearing the people in the next bay, us separated by a thin curtain, discussing food in some detail. I remember wanting to yell at them to shut the F**K up about the food, but I couldn't stop gagging and gasping long enough.

The CT scan showed that my right kidney had a soft blood clot in it, obscuring any possible stone. The docs consulted with an on-call urologist in Redding; a decision was made to admit me for pain and nausea control, but that I didn't need to go to the larger hospital unless there was evidence of poor renal function. (When they finally got some fluids in me, that part worked fine, albeit bloody -- yeah, I know: TMI!)

Once they finally shot me up with dilaudid in another effort to corral the pain and I was waiting to be admitted, I finally unwound a little and was able to lean back against the pillows, at least enough to realize that it was very late and my husband had not had a bite to eat since lunch -- not a good thing for a diabetic. I talked him into leaving for home and food, but not until he had a room number for me, bless him.

When I finally got to my room (11:30 pm) and the nurse was helping me get settled, I finally tossed up the last shreds of whatever was in my stomach, sucked on some ice chips, and was finally able to sleep, at least until the next round of pain and nausea meds.

I heard the same thing from many of the nurses and doctors: kidney stone pain is worse than childbirth pain. At least at the end of childbirth you have a baby. As it turned out, I didn't even get a stone -- just some unanalyzable bits that 'might' have been a stone.

It was my first. I pray it will be my only.