Mirror Images

After the last post and my great news that things were better, even boring, Matt and I had a few bad days. Just normal married people stuff. Stuff I remember arguing about before. It makes this post hard. I’m back to admitting my humanness, but that’s what I’m good at. Sharing my hard stuff so you know your not alone in your thoughts. That said... It’s my favorite time of the year! Only topped by Easter, although the decorations for Christmas can’t be out done. We love Christmas decorations and the warmth that comes with them. We are those crazy people who start decorating in November before Thanksgiving. We both love it, but I think Matt uses that an excuse to get more stuff every year. This year has been especially emotional. I believe the holidays are for most people really. I have been back and forth across the spectrum since putting our decorations up. I really believe it’s because once Christmas is over then it’s my birthday. Not such a big deal right? I’m turning 40 next month! ...

This post is way over due. I just had my follow up appointment for my DVT and realized how long it really has been since I’ve updated. I’m sorry, but the honesty in the last post was a lot. Even for me to share. It was emotional and busy, between the doctors visits and the sharing, which has always been life giving to me. I started this 2 weeks ago but never finished so I’m going to try again. I was feeling bad for having good things to share and not a big, huge lesson I learned. But I am rejoicing in the great things so I’ll share them too! We all have bad days and times, we also have great days. The aren’t everyday all day. There may just be moments of sadness and frustration or moments of happiness. I try and choose hope but sometimes it is hard. So here is me sharing some hope with you... I’m still processing the whole paralyzed part. It can hit me out of no where. Which can cause me to be grumpy with my limitations. Although the last few weeks have been so boring compared to the l...

I really can’t believe it’s been 2 years since the accident. It was a hard anniversary for me this year. It should be a celebration of life, my life. But this life post accident is tough. Honestly I hate that it happened the day after our wedding anniversary. It really makes me emotionally dread that time of the year. My injuries don’t let me celebrate my wedding anniversary, the way my mind wants to. Instead of giving myself grace I just get mad because my body doesn’t do what I want...(throws herself on the ground in her mind) This year we added another big ordeal to the whole recovery deal. The week of August 4th was a crazy week. I have physical therapy and pool therapy on Tuesday and Thursday. I have been pushing myself hard, I mean really hard. I had big expectations of myself for the 2 year mark and I wasn’t anywhere near where I thought I should be. I had big ambitions to thank the first responders who saved my life and walking to shake hands and share hugs. The problem was I c...

My summers as a child were blessed by memories of fishing off a boat for our dinner. Baths in the lake once in a while. Fires with s’mores, glass bottles of pop and my cousins. Every other summer we would visit our family in Michigan and the other years visits with my family in Texas. Those summers left lifetime memories or roller skating and Klaks. (An arcade game I spent hours playing one summer) My Aunt’s house felt so fun in my memories.  Moving to Michigan when I was a teen, I fell in love with it’s beauty, in winter first then summer. Marrying Matt meant I wasn’t leaving the state to live anywhere but Michigan. Which has been ok with me. Born in Texas I often tell Matt my DNA was not created for cold. 😉 I’ve lived in Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan. I’ve been here the longest and love it here and so does Matt.  Back to my point 😁. Due to this accident we were able to fulfill a dream I’ve had on my heart for years. Unlike the "promise" made on TV, in ...

I never would have thought recovery would be so hard. My incision has healed, but the strength is taking it’s sweet time. 😭 I finally got back to physical and recreational therapy, which is literally kicking my tush. It still amazes me how quickly you can lose muscle if you don’t use it. My walking muscles have been lost.  I felt really bad for my new physical therapist. I’m sure after our first few visits she wasn’t sure I had ever been able to walk more than 20 feet. We did some bed mobility, which answered my question from the last post, I CAN’T ROLL OVER. Sigh. I was able to move from my back to each side before surgery and now I can’t. I almost cried at physical therapy because of that. Wouldn’t be the first time. So after a few weeks of having ‘poor me’ moments I got pulled out of that funk by some worship music. If you knew me before you are not surprised that music does that for me. I understand some of the lyrics on a much deeper level now.  It was a few weeks of bus...

It’s been 4 weeks since my last post and 7 weeks post surgery. Wow that went by really fast. Who am I kidding? My life seems to be flying by, while I’m stuck watching. We’ve hit spring, that and fall are some of our busiest seasons. With all the kids stuff and my therapies life seems to just fly by.  The last 7 weeks have been filled with a super quietness, me struggling to talk and not moving much. It’s amazing how much surgery takes out of you. The nursing staff told me not to twist my torso too much or too far, allowing my incision to heal.  I wasn’t moving my torso much before so healing has been pretty good, but now I am having to tell myself I can’t do everything my brain thinks I can. I can tell this will be something I have to remind myself often. There are things I can do and things I can’t do. And that’s ok. Two Sundays ago was the first day I’d been on my feet in 5 weeks. I was worried about having to start all over with walking. Even going back to my first walker ...

I can’t believe today is April 1st! February and March were a wash for me. I seriously don’t remember much of what happened in them. I do remember that I was ready to blog something when things went crazy with me. The beginning of February was hard we lost a family member to cancer. It was a very difficult time for our family, both within our house but also extended family. We also got a new caseworker for me. Our caseworker had been with us since the beginning and was so good to us. It has been very hard to not hold our new caseworker to that level. I also had my physical therapist take a new job at a different facility. Not to mention taking a break from physical therapy and recreational therapy. Crazy as it sounds it was a bittersweet start to the month. The break just meant I was doing well and now it was time to do it at home.  The end of February is a blur. I was sick. I remember feeling like I couldn’t take one more drink of water because I was so full. I remember I cried on...

Happy late New Year!! I hope 2019 has started out well for you! Yesterday was 1 year home from the hospital. What a year it’s been. Some good days some bad days. Lots of healing. It’s been one heck of a few weeks. I have for the first time really questioned why the God I love and devoted my life to allowed this to happen to me?? Let me be very clear I don’t believe He caused the accident, but allowed it to happen. What was His purpose? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s weird how the healthier my brain gets the more I have to deal with this new normal. You know what?!? It SUCKS!!! I hate that I can’t move very well or talk very clearly.  BUT I cannot deny what He has done for my healing in the last year! I’m going to tell you the things I’ve noticed not what Matt or the therapists or my dr noticed, just me.  Don’t be grossed out, but I don’t drool as much. 🙂 When you have to relearn so much including how to swallow this is a huge embarrassment. Especially if your know your n...