Sunday, February 28, 2010

Contentment

February 28, 2010

It's quiet this morning, the kind of quiet I drink in like water. It's been raining, so there is no guilt in snuggling up with a blanket in front of the fire finishing the last chapters my book that I'm sad to see end. Jeremy made waffles for us for breakfast. The sweetness of them balanced the bitterness of my decaf coffee perfectly. It's unusual for our home to be quiet. There's usually music coming from a number of different places, sometimes all at once. But this morning it was quiet. The perfect time to contemplate things.

But you know, instead of dissecting everything, right now I'm just going to enjoy what's going on around me. My husband is napping on the couch beside me, my ever-loyal dog is napping on the floor beneath me. The rain still falls. And I am content.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The feeling I thought I'd forgotten

February 23, 2010

"Here comes the feeling you thought you'd forgotten." The lyrics to a song I stumbled upon came to mind last night as I stood in line at the grocery store looking at my food on the belt. Huh. Look at that. Now this feels like me.

In April of 2004 I was out for a run with Django when a stray pit bull came flying across the street and chomped down on Django's face. I kicked and screamed at the dog. My vision became tunnel. I saw nothing but Django. I heard nothing but Django crying. It was horrible. Somehow Django got away and ran toward home. A neighbor yelled at the pit bull and ran after him to scare him away. Django needed stitches on his face and his legs. It was that weekend I made the decision to quit eating meat. Something about the violence of the incident together with my love for Django pushed me over the edge into the decision I had been debating about for some time. And that was it for meat.

Four years later when I was in the hospital, desperately needing protein, I began eating meat again. Okay, it started with beef broth, and then beef gravy on my mashed potatoes, but animal products nonetheless. I struggled with my nourishment for some time. And then after my colon was removed and I had my colostomy, there were so many food restrictions (no NUTS to name one) that I decided it was just easier to continue on eating meat. It's taken me some time to be comfortable eating again. But I think I'm finally there. I still get a little nervous and am careful about when I eat a salad for lunch or when to eat my fruit for the day, but all in all I feel like myself again. And so it was that I decided this past weekend to begin back on my vegetarian lifestyle. No more meat. No more leather. No more animal products in my food. So long Skittles, Yoplait, Starburst, marshmallows . . . ahhh . . . so long sweet treats.

And yesterday as I stocked up on my vegetarian staples at the grocery store, I sighed inside. Yes! This is ME! What a good feeling. The feeling I thought I'd forgotten.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

She alone is my mother

February 20, 2010

Jeremy and I are visiting some of my family right now, so I'm getting to spend some time with my mom. "This is the first time in two years that I've seen you healthy Abby," she said as she hugged me. It's true. And I'm revelling in it. But there have been moments of sadness and sweet reflection too.

"Harper should be here with us. We should be loading and unloading a stroller from the back of the car," she said, tears welling up in her eyes as we were out doing a little shopping. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for being another person who misses her. Thank you for telling me you miss her and think about her. I'm not alone.

And then I listened to her, my mother, talk about how happy she was I am healthy now. But I wasn't just listening to mom. I was listening to a mother talk about her daughter. She began sobbing telling me how scared she was for so long that I wasn't going to make it. She was scared for my physical being, that I was going to die, and scared for my spirit, that I would lose the will to live. As I laid in bed in the early hours of this morning, I pictured scenes she had witnessed and saw for the first time the frailty that caused her so much fear - saw her through her eyes, a mother's eyes. A mother's eyes who could do little more than watch as her daughter struggled in the hospital to make it to the bathroom. Who was there in the room when her daughter gave birth to her dead granddaughter. Who helped steady her daughter as she took her first slow and weak steps in recovery. Who was there the first time the colostomy bag was changed and saw her daughter laying in bed with part of her intestine sticking out of her stomach, cleaning up stool as it spewed out onto her stomach. The mother who stood in the hospital bathroom and gently sponge bathed her thin, naked daughter after surgery. The mother who sat quietly as her daughter sobbed to her husband in her grief, "I would understand if you left me now."

She was there for the raw moments of pure grief, grieving too, and watching helplessly. "I was so scared that I would say or do something that would cause you not to want to live any more," she sobbed. And we sat with our arms around each other. And I knew that there was no one else who understood what she had been through the past two years. The toll that it had taken on her. The burden she had carried. No one else, because she alone is my mother.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Losing my balance

February 17, 2010

As I was in the shower the other morning washing one of my feet, I lost my balance a little and had to steady myself. It made me laugh. How many times have we all done that? Too many to count, I'm sure. Whenever that happens to me now, it takes me back to my early days of recovery. The very early days of recovery. Those first days when I returned home after having had my colon removed, I was so weak. It took all my concentration to keep my balance when I was walking. Seriously, I had to keep my head down, watch my feet, and take very small, slow steps. My mom was with us then for a while. She would walk in the back yard with me, walking in circles. She would walk through the house with me, in and out of each bedroom, around the living room, around the dining room table. Ten minutes. That was my goal each time. If I did that walk three times a day I was happy. I had accomplished something. As she walked with me, if she said something to make me laugh I would lose my balance and have to reach out to grab a hold of her, or I would stumble. Showering took everything out of me. I usually needed a nap after I showered. My back had no strength and so raising my arms to wash my hair took energy I didn't always have. I couldn't bend over, I didn't have the strength to straighten back up.

As I was gaining strength I remember getting excited about that. I had these two-pound free weights that I carried around with me one day as I walked my loop through the house. I started singing the Rocky song - you know - the one where he climbs to the top of the stairs? I was going for a laugh and it worked. But the next day I was so exhausted I think I slept the whole day. "You might have over done it a little yesterday sweetie," Mom said. But hey, I got a laugh out of it.

I know a lot of people who have had to start over. Oddly enough, when I was in the ER on what I believe was the worst day of my illness, a friend of ours was also in the ER. Jeremy saw his wife there and found out he had been in a motorcycle accident. A bad one. He had months of physical therapy and recovery as his body was rebuilt. It's humbling. No. Those words don't do justice to the experience: "It's humbling." It's also terrifying, exhausting, challenging, and life changing - having to start over. But it's a gift too. It's a gift because I have a gratitude now for things that I never would have otherwise. And really, gratitude is one of those things that I believe has been life changing for me.

Today I am grateful that I can raise my arms above my head, that I can walk without thinking (usually - smile), that I can bend over to pick up Django's toy off the ground, and that there is energy flowing through me.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

What's a girl to do?

February 10, 2010

There's this struggle going on inside me about starting a family. Some of it is an old struggle. For many years of our marriage, neither Jeremy nor I wanted kids. We would nudge each other and whisper, "That's why I don't want kids," anytime we were out and about and saw kids misbehaving or parents not getting to eat their meals, things like that. And it was true. As cliche as it sounds, when I turned 30 the desire to have a baby struck. But even then, we went back and forth as to whether it was something we really wanted to do or not. When we finally decided to try, we tried for four months and nothing happened and then I got a new job so we stopped trying. Then in October of 2007 we went to my sister's wedding and I got to spend some time with my niece - oh did the maternal instincts start kicking in! "Let's just try for a couple of months Jeremy. Two months. If nothing happens, then that's it." And he agreed. And that next month we conceived Harper. But you see, even then the desire wasn't so strong that we said we would do anything to start a family. No. We said we'd try for two months.

Okay, so here I am now. I am going back through the same ambivalence I used to struggle with. Should we start a family (adoption) or shouldn't we? Do I want to focus all my energy on raising a child? Or not? Do I want to change my lifestyle drastically? Or not? Those were the questions I used to have and still do. But there are even more questions now. And before I explain, let me just say that I know these are cognitive distortions, but I get hung up on them nonetheless. So I find myself thinking, if I don't want to start a family now, somehow that means I didn't really want Harper. Then I start feeling guilty. And the times that I do think I want a family, I start to wonder if what I really want is Harper. It's hard to know if the desire comes from grief of wanting what I lost, or from true desire for my life now. That aspect of it makes me wonder if I'm ready emotionally to make the decision now or not.

There's a lot to sort through. A lot of mixed up thoughts and feelings to figure out. Like everything, it's not all black and white for me. One of the funny things about this is that typically I'm a very decisive person. I know what I want. One of my friends told me she didn't know anyone who thought through having kids as much as Jeremy and I have. Ahhhh!! I know. I know. Until I have it all figured out, I'm just going to focus on enjoying my life day by day, because it is a good life. It's a very good life.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

All that I wanted

February 2, 2010

I just want to be home. Oh that thought was constantly on my mind. I hated the hospital. I didn't believe that I would ever get to go home. I thought I would have to be there through the duration of my pregnancy. That would have been from March until August in the hospital. But I didn't really believe I was going to live through it all anyway.

Home. Home to me then meant health. It meant the way my life was before. I had such a good life. I had nothing to complain about before. Couldn't I just go back to the way it was before? If only they'd let me go home, it all would be as it was before. I honestly believed that. I had no idea that when I got home fear would be sitting in the corner smirking at me. Loss was in every room, every vista I saw before me. Pain had morphed itself into me and made a permanent home in my body. There was nowhere to go to escape it all. But I could still picture the home I had before if I closed my eyes. I could see Jeremy and I puttering around on a Saturday morning. I could see us sitting in the back yard by the chiminea, him with his guitar, me with my coffee. I remembered the evenings relaxing in the hot-tub under the stars talking, planning, dreaming together.

So here I am now. Somehow we've managed to work through the fear. I don't know how we did it. I guess by flashing a light around, pointing it out every time we came upon it, being aware of its presence. And now? I'm not afraid any more. And the pain? The pain is pretty much gone, save for a flare once in a while or a medication adjustment that messes things up. Yes, the loss is still there. The loss will always be there, but it doesn't hurt me every day, even though I think of it every day. The loss has become this warmth in my heart. I don't know how else to describe it. The loss has also become a symbol of strength and resilience to me. And that's comforting in it's own way.

And you know what? I think I have found home again. Six and a half years ago, shortly after Jeremy and I moved to Tucson, I returned to the Midwest to attend my grandfather's funeral. I remember my aunt asking me where home for me was. I told her, "Home is where my husband is." That's truer now for me than it has ever been. Together Jeremy and I have this life. It's reassuring, and comforting, yes, and even fun. And I desperately don't want to miss the fact that I have found home. It was all that I wanted. And now I have it again. How many times do we get that chance? To cherish something we thought we had lost? To learn to appreciate? Not many. So I'm not going to miss out on it. I've found home again.