Cake Boss

My sister's birthday was Wednesday so my 5-year-old niece and I made cupcakes. These are the ones she decorated.  We affectionately labeled them "poocakes" and Mom couldn't bring herself to eat one.  :)

Grace to Heal

Yesterday was the 3 week anniversary of my surgery, and I'm still healing.  This is hard for me.  A voice in my head tells me I should be healed already, that surgery was all I needed to be okay, that wincing when pain hits makes me a big baby.

Lies.  Damn lies. (Is that a quote, btw?  In my head it is.)

A friend of mine who has had 14 surgeries (poor girl) reminded me today that my body is healing.  I need to be kind to myself.  I had major abdominal surgery!  Of course my colon is still healing from where all the scar tissue used to be!  Of course I still have pain where my appendix used to be!  Her words were 'a cup of cold water in the night' to my brain and I feel permission to continue my convalescence, rather than pushing myself to start work again or pick my social life back up.  I do not need to go to church on Sunday, I'm still healing.  I do not need to go visit my ailing friend, I'm still healing.  I do not need to go meet my other friend's new baby, I'm still healing.

It is totally normal to be 3 weeks in and still recovering.

Firsts

Today I wore jeans (real pants!) and drove. =)

I think

I'm getting swept into something magnificent.

All I want for Christmas:

George MacDonald

"Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead."

"To wait is harder than to run, and its meed is fuller. "

"Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates.  Once with his father, he is to himself of no more account."

"God created me -- not out of Nothing, as say the unwise, but out of His own endless glory."

As silly as it sounds,

my surgical pain astounds me.
Ridiculous, considering my pain levels are miraculously so low that
when sitting still, I feel nothing.
Even walking, sometimes fine.
But if I move wrong and am reminded that my body is still in pain
I think,
"What??"
Like,
somehow,
magically,
only a week after major abdominal surgery,
I should be healed.

I am a massive lump

sitting on my rump
and being a big baby about recovery.
This pain is nothing compared to what I have had,
but it's still annoying not to be able to
sleep on my stomach or
pick anything up or
do my own laundry or
drive anywhere
while my insides heal.
I do not rest easy. It is a discipline. I must learn.

The best part about being sick

is the flowers.

Quick Update

I am alive.

:)

I don't know the full details of the surgery, as I was super drugged for a day and haven't met personally with the doctor yet.  He gave the information to my mom, but since she hasn't been reading up on and obsessing over endometriosis surgery for the past 5 months she doesn't really remember what he said.  What I do know is that:

- They took my appendix.  This was planned, because at the pre-op he said they often run into this problem with women with endo where their appendix bursts and the woman just thinks it's the endo/healing from surgery.  Scary!  So they took mine, which was good because it was "huge" and snaking around surrounding organs.  I was probably very near a burst appendix and, knowing me and my family, would have just tried to suck it up and live with the pain.  It coulda killed me.
- There was a lot of endo on my colon, as I already suspected.  I think he got it.  Mom can't remember, she just remembers he said there was a lot of "scar tissue" (endo) there.  But he's a good doc and obsessed with getting it all so I'm sure it's gone.
- One of my ovaries was swamped in endo and now it is clean and fresh.  Ready to drop eggs and make babies.  Any takers?

Aside from that, my incision points barely hurt.  The most painful thing has been the leftover CO2 (they blow your belly up) that hasn't fully worked itself out yet.  I keep giving my family members the "privilege" of massaging it out of my shoulders, where it likes to rest.  They've been more than affable about it.  Alright, that's it for now.  I'm a bit more coherent today than I have been, but my attention span at the mo is like that of a 5-year-old, so I'll post again after my appointment on Monday when I have more information.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Here we go!  See you on the other side.

Cool at night.

This is one of my favorite things about California:
north to south,
no matter how hot the day,
the nights always bring relief.

I'm in NorCal now, at my Aunt Carol's house, my happy place.  My nervousness has returned regarding the actual procedure, so please pray for me.  I know I'm not the first person in the world to have surgery, and many of you reading this have gone under the knife yourselves, so sometimes it feels a bit silly to be so afraid. But did you know I've had two aunts die from surgery?  One during; the other, a day later. I think more than anything this continues to be the main source of my fear.  Well that and the thought of not being in control.  I mean, just lying there, in a controlled sleep, while strangers cut into your naked body.  It's just a weird thing, that's all.

There will be scars.

One through my belly button,
two on the sides of my belly.
Little purple-red dots.
One for the camera,
two for the tools.
This is laparoscopy.

Drastic Changes

There is fear in recovery.

It took me a long time to admit to myself how sick I actually was.  I tend to think that I can do anything I try to do, and that I will be the best ever (A+++!), so it took the endometriosis getting really bad for me to acknowledge that I couldn't.

Couldn't keep moving forward.
Couldn't support myself.
Couldn't heal myself.

I finally did acknowledge my need (thank you, E.R. trip of 2010), but it still took months of living with my parents and working for them - even borrowing their vehicles since I sold mine in 2010 - before I internally defined myself as dependent.

I'm glad it was hard for me to embrace dependency, because dependency can be dangerous.  Just as there are both healthy and unhealthy forms of independence, there are healthy and unhealthy forms of dependence.  Healthy dependence says, "I need other people.  I can't function autonomously.  I am just one piece of a much larger whole and I need to learn to work in conjunction with all the other pieces."  Unhealthy dependence says, "I'm going to let everyone else do all the work so I never have to face my fears or grow as a human being or contribute my share."

That second form is such a trap (and on a totally polarizing political note, is where welfare gets sticky for some people) because life is scary sometimes.  It's scary to be an adult and have to stand on your own.  It's scary to provide for yourself - to be the person in the job interview selling your skills and praying they're good enough for the employer.  No one can prove yourself but you.  Sink or swim, success or failure, no one can do it for you but you.  So when you've been sick and gotten used to others providing for you - to never having to really be good at anything because the real adults around you were gonna take care of it no matter what - then health...freedom...independence...is scary.

And it's rushing upon me 860 miles per hour.

When surgery is past and I am recovered I will have nothing but myself standing between me and thriving.  I am ready...like a woman is ready to give labor...like a soldier is ready to go into combat...like a virgin is ready to get married.

Thank you, Pinterest!

The Eagles

Don't let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy.

Two Words: Bowel Prep

On Thursday of last week I was going to start a juice fast.  I have to go all liquid the day before surgery and can't eat certain foods (like beans or red meat) for a few days leading up to it, so I thought, why not?  I have to do this nasty bowel prep the day before surgery anyway (12oz Magnesium Citrate, 4 laxatives, 1 suppository, 2 enemas), so why not get my colon ready just a few days sooner?  Make the bowel prep that much less painful?  Explosive diarrhea isn't so bad if there's nothing to explode.

But I'm a stress eater.  Not a sad eater - if you break up with me I'll just lose 10lbs and be hotter than ever .  An I-just-quit-my-job-so-I-could-have-surgery-and-go-back-to-school-sweet-Jesus-where-am-I-gonna-get-an-income-in-two-months-? eater.  Which is why I just finished an Udi's Gluten-free Pizza and two So Delicious Coconut Bliss Ice Cream Bars (seriously...like eating a giant frozen Almond Joy...)

Wouldn't it have been great if I had stuck to my juice fast on Thursday?  Pressed in to the Lord and drawn comfort from Him?  Mm?  Yeah...well, as the French say, "Tant pis!"

So...TOMORROW!  TOMORROW!  I love ya, tomorrow... tomorrow I'll start my juice fast.

The way we are with God

"I have decided," he said slowly, his head rolled back as he sat on the couch strung out on heroine, "to give your friend R.A. a chance."  This, to my friend, his older sister, who told him she would, "Never do that to R.A."

He's good looking.
He's intelligent.
He's a raging drug addict who sleeps with a loaded gun under his pillow.
If he didn't love heroine more than food or family or life itself I might be willing to go on a date with him, but as is he doesn't have a snowball's chance in Phoenix. I'm no prize and I'm willing to overlook other people's issues, but I am not taking on a drug addict.  I watched my sister go through that; not happening.

Anyway it's a bit funny to think of a man lost in addiction giving a non-addict "a chance".  
I have to smile.

And then I stop and think, 
"This is how we are with God."

We are beautiful, no doubt.  How couldn't we be?  We're the Imago Dei, and as long as we bear His image we are beautiful, if broken, creatures. But God is too good for us.  Yet we sit there in our self-addiction saying to God, "I have decided to give you a chance."

How God must smile. 

Time and Money

I was supposed to work this entire week but Dad doesn't need me so I am at home instead. The extra time to prepare for surgery is nice as I get my room in order (I moved all the furniture around and have made it as recovery-friendly as I can), but the fundraiser made around $2,000 less than my anticipated need and my own financial situation isn't strong because of being sick for so long, so missing my last week of work is a stretch.

However, on top of not working this week I also had to pay Dr. Cook the full amount for his cut of the surgery (paying the hospital et al comes post-surgery). The total amount? Two thousand dollars less than the paperwork said I'd be paying. Two thousand less than I expected to pay when Bekah and I came up with the fundraiser amount.

Is surgery the right decision? Well I would say Someone keeps opening doors in this direction...