Category Archives: Surgery

All The Things I Can Not Say…..

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Here we are barking on the 4th month of “The” day my world came crashing down around my feet.  We have a lot of catching up to do.  It seems right now, this is the only place I have to express my feelings in a relatively safe way.  While I have come SOOO far, it also seems like I am still in the throws of the first day.  I seem to go through weeks of being “over” all of this, and then something someone says, a thought runs across my head, my pictures of my future trip me up, a song, a smell, a fear, an event, a victory, a sadness, a tv show………..  It’s all connected to HIM.  I am appalled at the level of sadness, and the sheer pain in my chest I am experiencing.  Will it EVER get easier?  One thing I never thought I would find in life, is my own capacity to really love.  Love without rules, or boundaries.  I found an unconditional love as I gave birth to each of my children, that I never thought humanly possible.  Then I met a man, that at first perplexed me by the way he looked at me.  The kindness, the gentleness…… and then I grew to love the way I could look up and he was staring at me from across the room, as he said nothing, for the first time in my life, I didn’t need someone to say anything.  The look in his eyes said it all.  The few times I have come face to face with him, other than the great parking lot scene, I can still see that same look.

On November 7th, I had that incredible surgery I mentioned before.  It was relatively successful in that I am still walking (was not paralyzed), and my spinal cord is no longer being compressed.  The bone grafting they did with all the donor bone seems to be adhering, and I no longer have to walk with a walker. I have some pretty impressive bionic parts too! I am also driving, and they thought that alone could take nearly 6 months.  God has been SOOO good.  The only hiccup is the level of pain I am still in.  It seems that this will be a part of my daily life, and surely with time, I will get used to it.  I wish none of this would have ever happened, as I feel in my soul that my husband would still be here.  The first night after my surgery, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I surely don’t remember much, but I remember opening my eyes that night, and there he was, asleep in a chair in the corner.  I don’t really remember him being there any other time, but I suppose he was, as my sister said she went out into the parking lot with him, as he cried, saying how much he loved me, but that he knew I could never live with what he had done.  I know that I texted him for several days, because I saw it on my phone later, and he never returned my texts.  The last day I was in the hospital, I had just told the nurses that I could not go to in-patient rehab, because my children were and had been at home alone for 7 days at this point.  My oldest son is 19 and in college, was taking care of his brothers, and working, and pledging for a fraternity.  He was drowning.  I was waiting to hear back, and I even remember how I was laying on my right side, and I could hear his footsteps walking down the hall of the hospital, and into the room, and by the time he made it around to the side of the bed I was facing, I already had tears running down my face just because he was there.  He took me home that day.  That I do know, but the rest is a blur because they doped me up for the trip home.  Periodically over the course of the next couple of weeks he would call or text, and a couple of times would call all choked up.

I was able to find a level of forgiveness the day before my surgery, thanks to a sweet friend that contacted me, and said that she wanted to pray with me, and she and a group of AMAZING Godly women met me at the church, and prayed with me in a way I have never experienced.  I was able to come home and call him that day, and for the first time, he actually answered the phone.  I did forgive him, I do forgive him.  Really.  Is it still painful and raw??  OMGeeee is it ever.  But deep in my heart, I know that God is capable of healing everything.  The problem is he has never said he was sorry, he never asked for forgiveness.  He HAS through this process actually acknowledged and apologized for his “indiscretion” in the beginning of our marriage, but there is absolutely no remorse for what he has done to us…… himself included.  I pray, and pray, and PRAY soooo many times a day, I can’t even count.  I need this pain to go away.  Thanksgiving was TERRIBLE, but Christmas was bearable, because each year a girlfriend and I have served together in providing Christmas for 62 boys in 3 group homes.  We found out about these homes roughly 5 years ago, and the fact that the state did not have the funding to do anything at Christmas time, because these boys are ages 14-18, and all have been in some level of trouble.  It has become our passion, and lucky for me, it was a GREAT diversion to all the trauma my days have been full of since that fateful day in September.

 

(I just found this post in my “Drafts” folder, and decided to publish it……it’s a partial thought, a partial post, but at this time, it seems senseless to add to it, but the thoughts are there, and so very relevant to the journey.)

Clear Mind, Forward Thinking…..

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Again, I wake up to the sheer horror of the reality of my days, and reflection is a constant piece of this complicated process.  My marriage is over, yet the “why’s” haunt me.  I am beginning to recognize that the … Continue reading →

Triumph over Tragedy…. Just wait and see!

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It’s taken me a bit to find my way back to these pages, as the journey is long and treacherous.  I find myself in the throws of someone else’s life, a life I do not understand.  As each day ticks on, I realize that it is too far gone.  My marriage that is.  It’s been 5 weeks today.  While I process that, let me start this by giving you the update on my health.  Dire as it may seem, I for some reason am able to process THIS topic with a lot more ease.

As I said before, in my last post, the final test results are in, and surgery is needed immediately.  I am scheduled for that surgery on November 7th.  Just 3 weeks.  While my Grandmother was here, she went to the surgeon with me, to get all the details, the only thing is, I realized that even I did not have all the details.  I just knew they said it would be rough.  This is what I now know…. Thank God I was sitting down.  Because of the location of the problem, they (a neurosurgeon and thoracic surgeon) will have to go in on both sides of my spine, removing ribs and bone on both sides.  They will have to go in, in front of my spine, behind my heart (where the bone fragment is) and physically pull back my spinal cord to be able to reach the bone fragment, which puts my risk of paralysis in the super high category. If I don’t do it, paralysis is almost guaranteed.  Provided this is a “successful” surgery, I will still most likely have difficulty having proper use of my legs for some time.  I have been told that I will have to walk with a walker, and not be able to drive for up to 6 months.  Where they remove the ribs and bone, they will have to replace it with donor bone from a bone bank, and remove stem cells from the bone in my hips, to put in the donor bone to try to “re-grow” the bone.  Provided my body does not reject the donor bone, it will take roughly 2 yrs for the bone to be stable.  Because of this, I will have pins and clamps in my spine that will actually protrude from my back…… and will be there for the duration of the 2 yrs.  After 2 yrs, provided that the regrowth of the bone is successful, they will have to go in and remove all the hardware.  It will be difficult for me to sit with my back against a chair (driving….) as well as lying on my back.  For 2 yrs.  I’m really not kidding.  I wish I was.  Pretty sexy, don’t ya think??  Ha!  I guess I will be single for a while! :)  The theme of my days of late, are ones of crushing blows to my spirit, and my heart, making it difficult to breathe.  This day was no exception. As I left the Doctor’s office, the world was a blur, my head was spinning, and all I could hear was a rushing sound in my ears, and a pounding in my head.

This blog began as a “Cathartic Expression” of a “Real Housewife” falling to pieces on the inside, literally and emotionally.  I thought that I needed to express my distain in an anonymous way.  There are two things I can now say “From This I Know…..”;  One, everything around me HAS fallen to pieces, and I have NOT.  The other thing is that anonymous only isolates the lonely more. I’m not sure how to comprehend the level of tragedy in my daily life right now.  All I knew to be true and right is all a compounded lie, a facade.  The funny thing is, the alarm still goes off in the morning, breakfast still has to be made, bills still have to be paid, carpools still have to be driven, soccer still happens, church still happens, the people in the drive thru’s, the checker’s at Walmart, the people at the Dr.’s offices….. everywhere I go, still say “Hello!!  How are you?”, and “have a good day!”  With each casual “nicety” my soul is crushed that much more, but I am learning to smile back, and even though I may be thinking “you have NO idea…” I can still say that I will in fact have a good day.  Perhaps not today, but possibly tomorrow.  The days DO get better.  I look at the world around me, and can NOT believe it is still rotating.  When I visit my alternatives in my mind, I am left with no other choice.  Survival.  Again, 1000 times, in all kindness, I am told how strong I am, how faithful I am, what an inspiration I am.  I BEG of you, what choice do I have??  This dark black hole that I am staring into, is not an inviting place.  So I look up…… and I will continue to do so, forever.  As long as I have breath, I chose strength, hope, honor, and dignity.  Anything shy of that is an invitation to the abyss of hopeless despair.  I can’t imagine having to add shame and dishonor to this list of tragedies in my days.  If nothing else, when I lay my head down at night, I can do so with peace in knowing I am true to myself, and I am someone my boys can hold in high esteem.

I have truly protected a large part of this story, because focusing on the details has been dangerous at best.  I can honestly say that his truth and my truth are world’s apart.  I am SOOO terribly perplexed by the events of the last 5 weeks, and baffled by the excuses and explanations.  I keep waiting for him to have an epiphany, and come back to his senses.  Not necessarily back to me, but maybe back somewhere between here and there.  I am coming to realize that I can not focus on what he says, believes,or uses as excuses.  I am responsible for me, my reactions, and the depth to which I allow myself to experience the pain.  A week and a half ago, my dog was going bananas and needed out at 2:30am, so I took him out, and as I stepped into the darkness, there “He” was, on his motorcycle, driving by the house.  I stood frozen for an hour and a half….. literally praying for the epic love story scene you see in the movies.  Only to find myself praying for the strength to go back inside.  That moment gave me clarity….. clarity that perhaps he is torn, but that I am okay. I had learned earlier that week that the “woman” he was living with, made him move out, so I’m sure that is what it largely has to do with.  I stand behind my convictions, I am not torn.  I’m sorry it came to this, but as I went back to bed, I was okay.  I didn’t stop breathing, and the sun still came out the next morning.  I have since received an “I’m sad” text in the middle of the night as well.  I’m not sure what he is sad about, but I am sorry he is sad.  He made an extreme decision for us all, one that we have to live with.  I find myself trying to defend and rationalize what he says, and then I take a step back and look at it from the outside.  I can not defend this insanity, because it is not my truth.

Friends…. you MUST stop looking at me with pity, because I KNOW that with great tragedy comes GREAT TRIUMPH.  I WILL overcome.  My future is clearly undefined, but I know that I will find love again.  A love that is true, and real, and God centered.  (For REAL this time)  My boys are rockstars, and every day they make me proud.  This health thing will all be a memory some day, because like I have said before…

“If not by stature, by Spirit I will ALWAYS stand tall.  With God I will NOT be shaken, nor will I be forsaken.  You can take THAT one to the bank my friends!!”

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Silent Lucidity

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I ran across Anderson Cooper’s daytime talk show the other day, with some crazy hell-bent women, and the antics at which they have gone to to expose their circumstances with ex’s.  I got a pretty good kick out of it.  For a second, I thought that would be glorious to be that crazy girl on YouTube, exposing RAW (did I already say crazy?) emotion, but please know…. that is not what this is about.  I sit here staring at a blank screen, knowing I need to continue this Journey, but not knowing where to start.  This blog was born as I have stated before, out of the sheer desire to shout to the roof tops in an anonymous way.  On Sept. 7th, the birthday of this blog and turning point of my life, I ventured out to say what I was feeling inside and THOUGHT nobody needed to know.  This journey of mine began merely because I was feeling lost and frustrated with MY life.  It was more about me and the silent lucidity of overwhelming proportions.  I think we ALL get here, to this point.  Some just visit for a moment, and some get stuck in the vortex and lose ourselves.  Quite frankly, I felt like I was losing myself.  I knew my marriage was slipping through my fingers, I just had NO idea to what extent.  I knew I had lost something with the love of my life, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.  This all has happened relatively quickly, and I am quite certain that I took each moment for granted.  And just as certain am I, there is absolutely nothing I could do about it.

My husband DID discover the blog in short order.  It’s not something we discussed, but he silently left it on the screen of my laptop.  It’s funny though, I shared my other blog, fromthisiknow.com, regularly, and he never even commented on it once.  But this one seems to have been the cardinal sin.  For a time I locked it down with a password, rather than deleting it, and then I decided that I had nothing to hide.  I can’t be authentic with myself if I become concerned about the fallout.  I stand by the way I felt, I stand by myself, and I know I HAD to find a voice.  I am only putting this one out there PUBLICLY now, because I am on a transparent journey at this point.  I am learning through the events that have taken place, as I have had to reveal the details of our current situation, that I was RIGHT!!!  There are those other Mom’s out there in the carpool lines feeling EXACTLY the way I was feeling. People may not need to know our business, but I tend to think that speculation is MUCH more dangerous.  I could feel the gravitational pull downward, yet for some reason, I guess I thought gravity only applied to me.

Today, I am getting real with it ALL.  My “Fakebook” life is now included.  I finally posted today that our lives had taken a distinct turn, and I was done with pretenses, and living on Faith alone.

“Hey y’all. As I’m sure most of you have noticed, my life has gotten pretty real lately. I am done with pretenses, and living by Faith alone. Please feel free to remove me from your friends list, if you don’t care to walk this Journey with me. But please know, as I walk this Journey, I will seek your support and prayers too, and intend to share these steps publicly, because I refuse them to be in vain. God doesn’t always use the pretty circumstances to encourage others, sometimes it’s the darkest hour that inspires most. So, having said that, in respect I trudge forward….. I married my Husband for Better or Worse, and now just happens to be the worst of times. God has asked me to ENDURE what lies ahead, and I hope you will continue to pray for our family. God CAN do anything…..”

Friends, this is huge for me.  From birth I feel like I have been taught to NOT be who I am, or say what is on my mind.  Yet in the same breath, to be someone you can be proud of.  Confusing at best, but it’s a wrestling match daily inside my head.  Our Triumphs AND struggles form us.  They make us who we are.  God made us relational people, and it’s such a dark place when you walk this road alone.  But guess what…….I made that post about 3 hours ago, and I currently have 48 “likes”, and 24 comments, in my tiny corner of the world.  ALL full of love and support.  We DO NOT have to walk through our struggles alone.  People are DYING to be authentic, and to SEE someone be authentic, even during some of the most UN-Graceful days of my life.  Today I have decided to take a different approach, because the sheer horror of life’s events right now have me in a tail spin, I have decided once again to document my journey.  I almost feel like re-naming my blog “Love Letter’s to my estranged husband”, but then again, this journey began about me.  I can not say enough, that the entirety of this blog was about ME, the season I am in in life, my dismay with my health, my longing for more LOVE in my marriage, to reconnect with life, to live every single breath with as much vigor, enthusiasm, and sheer determination as possible.  To grab this gift I have been given and make the MOST of it.  But to also be able to say…. “I don’t like this day”, or “I feel like S**T today” too.  I never really intended for it to be about my husband personally, however, he is part of what makes me a whole. But…. I guess he didn’t take it that way.  Some of the last words he has texted to me were, and I quote, “You should have never written the blog.  Period.”  I of course have read and re-read and re-read, and had other people read it.  I don’t see what he sees.  Okay, so I might be irritated if I ran across something of the sort, but considering what we are living, I think it would stop me in my footsteps. What he doesn’t understand is he wasn’t the problem, he was the solution.  One thing is for sure, we are on VERY different paths, and we don’t see eye to eye, even with binoculars.

So… here is the story.  On September 13, 2012, my husband took me to have my first of two injections, brought me home from the hospital, brought me a sprite, kissed me on the forehead, went to work, and never came home.  Didn’t even take a tooth brush.  I could stop there, because that , in and of itself, is profound.  He changed the course of 5 lives in one crazy thought pattern.  I have only seen his face or even heard his voice 1 time since that fateful kiss on the forehead.  He can not face us, will not face us, and is blatently a coward, but most importantly a COMPLETE stranger.  I know the obvious…….and yes, there is an affair.  I do know, and I do know details, but I have safely compartmentalized THAT issue in the category of symptom….. this is all a symptom of a very lost soul.  The signs were there, yes, before Sept. 13th, and truthfully I asked in jest….. because my heart knew.  The details of this sorted tale will be vague, because quite honestly, they are useless things to focus on.  My focus currently is finding the strength to trudge forward for my precious boys, and climb this mountain I have ahead with my health issues.  I have to say the one thing that crosses my mind over and over and over, during the moments of sadness and missing my husband, is that he LEFT, he ABANDONED me during such a scary and complicated time in my life with my health.  Thats not something I could do to someone I hate, much less someone I joined souls with.  This is a terribly painful journey, FULL of ups and downs (the ups are the times I jump up and want to kick his ever-lovin’ butt).  I have found my strength in God, and probably read more of the bible in the last  3 weeks then I have in the last 8 years, simply because my mind will not be quiet.  The first week I was frightened to go to sleep, because I knew when I woke up, I would have to re-live the crushing blow all over again of the realization that I was living a nightmare.  And then I dream that this nightmare is all a dream…… Here actually is MY last text to him…. Sept. 28th:

 ”I totally was just dreaming that this nightmare I am living was all a dream, and then as you were coming in to kiss me, I remembered that my life is in fact REAL, so I knew I was dreaming, and needed to wake up!!  I NOW want to OFFICIALLY beat somebody up.  We are too old for your mid-life crisis BULLS**T!!!”  (1st REAL angry message I have sent during this process.)

Yeah, I am that girl that has pleaded, prayed, tried to rationalize, still wear my wedding ring, (yep.  I said it.  I’m not sure if it’s an allegiance to him, or a reminder for me to be true to MYSELF), etc., but here is the deal.  This boy is lost…… he is lost, he is lost, he is lost.  He is chasing after something to validate him, and can’t face the ones that know and love him.  I have known for months that something truly needed to be addressed, for him.  I can’t and couldn’t do it for him.  He has made some INSANE decisions, and attempted to punish me like a child for protecting myself while he makes decisions that are irrational.  I am going to stay the path.  I am going to pray, I am going to move forward, I am going to keep having procedures, and have the BIG surgery soon.  I am going to keep trying to be a light in the dark window for my boys, and I am going to hold my head high.  I have a clear conscience.  I get it to some degree, life has been hard for the past couple of years.  It’s too much even for me!!  Now I wrestle breath by breath with the idea of longing for my husband, being heart broken, feeling the pain of love unanswered, but in the next breath, I start to remember the things I don’t want back.  For some reason I am gaining clarity….  I know I will survive, I know I’m not the only one…… but I NEVER thought it would happen to us.  One thing is for sure, I took what I thought we had for granted.  There are most definitely things that have transpired over the course of the last 3 weeks that my human mind sees as a point of no return, but I have to say, I would not have Faith in our God, and our Savior if I really believed that to be the case.  I am certain that God CAN do anything……… and that includes picking me up off the floor, and giving me a GLORIOUS future.  With or without the man that finally made me believe in forever.

Our Anniversary in May….. That day I was Thankful for a man that LOVED me for me, for richer or poor, in sickness and in health.

One thing I want to leave you with is my insatiable need to find perspective.  I get a little extreme in this area at times, but sometimes you have to.  While my heart may be broken, I may have been left behind with 3 boys, no husband, no job, debilitating health issues, and a long road ahead, I have a new friend that in fact is living a nightmare of giant proportions…. and I say “new” friend, because she too has spent years being guarded, hiding her story and her circumstances.  She is not faced with the fear of loneliness, or a broken heart, she is faced with the fear for her life.  She texted to me the other day, that just my daily texts to check on her at times, just saves her life.  She is in a terrifying situation, and she says I am her hero, that my strength is inspiring.  This makes me ASHAMED, and I want to save her.  Perspective number two.  I actually had an opportunity to put a voice to this just yesterday at Church.  From day one, through my moments of pity, I have reminded myself that though I despise what my husband is doing and has done, NO MATTER WHAT he is still on this Earth, and there is ALWAYS the possibility of God’s hand of miraculous healing in this situation, but I have a sweet friend, whom lost her amazing husband last December in unforseen circumstances.  No matter what, she does NOT have the opportunity to wish upon the stars…… I have to be faithful with the prospect of Hope alone.  I actually have a laundry list, because it’s what I do, but these are two that are at the top of my list right now that help me pick up my head a tad higher.  I will ENDURE and I will do it Gracefully.