What does healing mean to you? Do you think of a physical healing or a spiritual healing or a mental healing? When you close your eyes, what do you see? My entire writing experience has been laden with honest conversations about spiritual issues, mental health, physical health and the effects of trauma on all of these fronts. My ability to verbalize these without a filter is getting easier and easier! Whether you ask or not, doesn’t matter. If you matter to me, it’s important that I explain where I have been so that you aren’t confused by my actions or responses to situations when we are together. Some of you have done amazingly well in your efforts to empathize and others have become very uncomfortable and that’s ok. If you remove yourself, that’s ok. I get it! Today I feel like bringing you up to speed with what’s gone on in my life this past year! Although you already know.

It may seem to the outsider like my selfishness is at an all time high, and you’re right!! I have taken about 18 months to get from point A to point B and I’m not apologizing! January 2022 was one of the darkest times of my life. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t lay, sleep, function at all and my body quit. I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and a hip that was gone. The pain was excruciating and my mind went numb. Survival didn’t really matter at that point, I just wanted out of the pain. I had no choice but to continue, so I amped up therapy, changed my diet, cut sugar and laid there until I could find the doctor to replace my hip. Now, on November 16th it will be a year since my hip was fixed! My life looks completely different than it was a year ago. But I didn’t stop there.

At my hip check up I asked Dr. Shuck to look at my knees, they were sore. I was told I have no meniscus left in either knee, they bowed in and had nothing left. I needed both knees replaced. I then asked if he could look at my ankle that I messed up 35 years ago. It too was bone on bone and severely damaged and deformed. It needed replaced. So came the next part of the journey! In order to give my ankle the best possible chance of recovery, we had to straighten the knee first, then the ankle. I had total knee replacement on June 21, 2023 and let me tell you, that surgery is no joke! Day three I wanted them to take my leg off and leave me there! Wow! Physical therapy is hard, zingers are hard, weak muscles are hard and anesthesia is hard! As usual, a three hour surgery became a six hour surgery and nothing was as planned. Recovery seemed the same. No matter how hard I would try, I couldn’t walk without my limp. My ankle was causing more problems and discomfort with my knees than anything and it was time to replace it. On September 20, 2023 I had ankle replacement surgery. Three hours only turned into five as it needed reconstruction too! I didn’t take lightly the commitment to myself to be able to walk and not cry, it has been a very long process. My family has had to deal with the pain and frustration just as much as I have. Without their help, I wouldn’t have attacked this ankle. The ankle has a huge failure rate if you mess it up and sometimes even if you don’t mess it up. It is 8 weeks of non weight bearing and then a very careful regimen of weight bearing in a boot with crutches and eventually graduating to shoes. It’s a damn long process. I am on week 3 today. Slow and steady. I can tell you, people look twice and usually stop to talk when the hatch back of my car opens up and I’m laying in the back with an ice machine, my leg up on four pillows and I’m wrapped up in blankets in the back, waiting for my walker and Mike to unhook me! The nice lady at Dutch Brothers felt sorry for me and even gave me my coffee for free! Nicest thing ever!! That’s what it takes to get me to and from surgeon’s appointments. It’s seven plus hours of me telling Mike to stop throwing me around in the back and to stay off the rumble strip. Last week me did it again just so I could go get my stitches out! I had to stand on it for X-rays and wanted to pee my pants, but I did it! Healing looks good. Two weeks from today, I get to start walking in my boot. I get to begin at 5 weeks because he didn’t have to lengthen my Achilles tendon, he only had to lengthen my calf muscles. Whew. I struggle with being so dependent on people and I’m mentally exhausted from laying or sitting with it above my nose 23 hours a day. I have a knee sling on my walker that hurts my new knee almost worse than the ankle! I can’t get out the door to be outside because I have to lift this contraption and try to get out the door, then the door shuts on me and I’m stuck. I can’t sit in my chairs because my foot isn’t high enough and the throbbing about makes my eyes bug out. I need sun. I need to go for a ride where I can see out!

These three surgeries in the span of 10 months have challenged my body and mind like no other. My commitment to myself and my family takes priority over anything. The fortitude it takes has made me laser focused on the future and my goals. I have had to cut out unnecessary drama and things that upset me. I have had to delete people who don’t appreciate what they have in their lives and complain, be it taking for granted their own mobility and complaining about things like weight etc or taking their family for granted and complaining about them. You don’t realize how much of that goes on until you watch Facebook or TikTok non stop. I have had to shut down the noise of television and radio and I even turned off my music. Over stimulation is hard when your nerves feel like they are laying exposed on top of every inch of your body. I spend a lot of hours silent. That is working for me. Oddly enough, it seems to help when I am alone with my thoughts, there was a time when I couldn’t be. I had to be constantly going and I didn’t want to hear my own voice. Not true now.

Durning this process, we also left our church. Now, one naturally assumes that I have lost my belief or am challenging my faith and yet, this couldn’t be farther from the truth! I have more peace than I have ever had. My connection to the Almighty isn’t dredged in politics and one man’s opinion about right or wrong, rather, I am inclined to believe that I can see much clearer my faith in my direct line. It’s been nice being able to hear my voice and to trust God to take me where I need to be. Right now, it is to heal. Mentally, physically and spiritually.

I am writing today only to document it for myself and to stay off Facebook! Mindless scrolling is terrible for me and I know it! I am unable to sleep and I try not to nap out of boredom. I have made a few hats and a blanket or two. I have worked on me and the only thing I can control…me and my reaction to life. That’s all I can control.

Things are looking up. Two weeks will go by as it does and I will not remember how difficult this is, I will let the new memories begin to come with hope and anticipation. I will focus on each step becoming stronger and more comfortable. I will focus on healing. Just one more thing I will work on. I don’t know what happened when I turned 50, some 6 years ago…. My switch flipped and I had no room for this nonsense. I am an ever evolving person who just wants warm weather, sun and a beach. Too much to ask? Lol. I don’t think so.

Thanks for the help, the texts, the calls, the visits, the understanding and for hanging in this long. The long haulers who have watched me and been supportive, the ones who are new and don’t judge and the ones I haven’t met yet! Life is full of repairs. I’m just wearing my scars one repair at a time!

Until then.. heal. Breathe. Wait

E

Looking for joints. Hit me up. I know a couple guys!!