Graceful Agony

Someone told me recently that they were excited to know me in 9 months. While that statement seems odd on the surface, it was really a very touching thing to say. You see, I'm having surgery in roughly 3 months to replace this worn down, degenerating, broke-ass hip of mine. And she was telling me how excited she was to see what I was going to do once I didn't have to spend such an inordinate amount on time and energy on dealing with and attempting to manage pain.

I don't like talking about it at any real depth. It's very apparently there...the limp gets so much worse when the pain is worse, and I have had to reach a point where I'm comfortable talking about the big picture stuff, even if it is in a slightly removed fashion. But what it means to my daily life, the countless little compromises I have been making every day for almost 10 years, the countless big compromises my family has to make for me every day and the guilt that accompanies that, the depression, the isolation...I don't know, even the surface level shit feels too flipping dramatic, much less the "deep down stuff".

But recently I found a blog where a person FAR more elegant with her words was able to say so many of the things I feel. I read this there, recently and it struck me as an amazing way to describe a piece of my own "deep down stuff":

I miss the little things….. having the energy to get up and go, watching my son’s Christmas concert without having to worry about how hard the seats are, how long I will be sitting for, what price I will pay the following day……. It isn’t BIG things like ‘Oh I wish I could go skydiving still!” or “I really miss alpine skiing!”…. I really miss just NOT having to be aware….. I am hyper-alert every minute of every day, and it is TIRING! The first thing I think about in the morning when my eyes open is what I have to do just to get through the day…. I always have to be 10 steps ahead of the game….. if I have a coffee date at 5pm, I have to modify everything I do so I know that I will be mobile and functional by the time 5 rolls around….. I miss NOT having to think in those terms…. I miss not having to think of my pain every second of every day whether my pain is bad that day or not…. I always have to be 5-10 steps ahead…… it prevents me from living in the moment at times. - Graceful Agony

I don't have much to add beyond that...just throwing something on here that's been on my mind lately.

Time

Two years ago was one of the most terrifying/wonderful days of my life. It sounds so cliché to say it like that - but it was such wide sway from one emotion to the next. From fear to joy all in the same breath, I don't care so much if it sounds cliché.

As many of you know, that day we headed into the last 45 minutes of the personal Lifetime Movie we had been living in. The part where the plucky pregnant heroine, who has been holding her little family together through the terrors of cancer and chemo, finally succumbs to the crappy part of the storyline where something is wrong with HER now. She is rushed over to hospital the same day they get their first post-chemo “All-Clear” from her husband’s cancer doctor…no time to celebrate before the next plot point. She’s in crisis with HELLP and the baby is in crisis just by virtue being 4 ½ weeks early with severely underdeveloped lungs.

But...thanks to the wonderful staff at a wonderful hospital, as well as the undying love and support of our friends and family, the story gets to be a “feel good” Lifetime Movie and not the super tragic kind. Thanks to the amazing research of some amazing doctors over the years and despite a very rough start, we are here two years later enjoying life with Sir Henry the Insane. My sweet little boy who is unbelievably happy, delightfully mischievous/crazy and incredibly loved. It’s so hard to see this picture from two years ago today…it’s always hard to see such a small baby attached to machines that way. But this is my beautiful little boy on the day he was born…

and look how far he’s come. Happy birthday little man.