A Little on Life........ A Little on Recuperating........ A Little on Learning Between the Lines

I know I should be posting about life on my farm or the horses. After all, there is still life here, even if I am still recuperating and feeling like life has left me behind. With or without my health, life goes on and there's stuff happening but my brain just isn't working on all cylinders, I think.

Post material does run around in my head from time to time and I'm sure "this" will be the day I actually get something written about what's happening here. Then, by the time I get the darn computer up and running, all sensible thought has fled. Leaving behind nothing but mush and a fear I've really lost it through this illness and this condition is now permanent.

The surgeon says I'm doing remarkably well considering.... Because I've not posted all that happened to me that term, "considering" doesn't mean to you what it does to him so I'm pretty sure that many of you are wondering why it's taking me so long to come back from this thing. Funny thing is that's exactly how I feel and I know all the gory details.

I did begin a series of posts on the first hospital stay that actually did make it to the blog but I didn't get all the way through that ordeal. In fact I only got as far as my visit to the Critical Care Unit. There was so much more that happened before I ever got to come home from that first trip including a second surgery. Those details definitely laid the ground work for what was to follow.

Then there was the time at home between that first hospital stay and the second. I came home under the care of a home health care service instead of going to the nursing home where the docs really wanted me. It wasn't until months later that I understood how big a deal their decision had been. I was pretty much in denial about my condition and my disease and sometimes, maybe, I still am.

I think the only reason the docs let me come home was because they were so worried about my mental state and that of my family. We were all reeling and sending me to a nursing home would not have helped that. It was obvious to my doctors, and to me, Dave needed some relief or he might just break in some form of physical way too. For him, taking care of me, was easier than worrying about me someplace else. It was bad enough I was sick and he and Lindsay had sole responsibility for the horses without putting more burden on either of them.

Being cut down so viciously by disease is difficult for anyone. My docs understood the additional trauma caused by going from what appeared to be optimum, active health to chronic bed ridden status in what seemed like a split instant. I might not have looked like a typical old cowboy determined to live wild and free but it was obvious to them where my heart was and this blow to my health gut hit hard both literally and figuratively.

Every single time I have seen any of my doctors, I've been asked about my horses because they all knew that was what was keeping me going. Getting me home to the horses was a no brainer for the docs. Horses may not be their thing, but my doctors totally understood the important role the horses would play in my survival.

Once I got home life was never boring here. A lot of things happened and some of them you will probably find very shocking when the telling finally comes. Because of this illness, there are definitely stories to be told that relate to the horses . The incidents run all the way through both hospitalizations on up until now. There's just no way something this dramatic can happen to a horse owner's life and not affect the horses.

For me, I think it's a combination of those things and my current medical condition that prevent me from writing. I am still taking pain medications and I understand that could continue to be the case for maybe six to nine months until the internal stitches finally dissolve.

The surgeon says normally those stitches do not cause these kinds of issues because the nerve endings are protected by a layer of fat. Because I am so thin, I have no layer of abdominal fat so the stitches are rubbing right up against the nerves causing severe pain. The more I try to do, the more pain I have. It's that simple except for the way it affects my life.

Gaining weight would help. Stress, however, interferes with weight gain. Funny how that works. When you're well, stress seems to cause weight gain. Now when I need it, it's pretty difficult to put weight on.

Seems like each time I actually gain a few pounds, something else happens causing stress and the pounds disappear. It doesn't look like any time soon I am going to be putting on enough weight to ease the pain caused by those internal stitches. I hate to admit this because usually I am not a person who dwells on the negative but my fear is those stitches will take longer to dissolve. It seem that's kind of how things have gone for me so far during this illness so I'm sure that's what fueling my fear. I sure hope I'm wrong and things go as planned for a change.

Sometimes I think if I would just write down everything that's happened and get it out there, it would be a relief and this whole nightmare would be over. But.... there are things better left unsaid at the moment. Just as I was unable to post about the things that were happening that led up to getting Storm back, I find myself in the position of needing to hold back. There will be a "right time" to share what has happened here.

One of the things I've realized about me is holding back blocks my writing.
It's not just about pain medications that words don't come. It's about stress and holding back. The stress affects my eyes, my pain levels, my sleep and ultimately my recovery. The holding back probably causes stress too but not nearly as much as telling too soon will do. I wish there was an easy answer to take it all away but, as we all know, life is more complicated than that.

Writing is the least of my worries although I really miss visiting and knowing what's going on with all my blogging buddies. I know I've said that before and I'll probably say it again. Not being able to get around to everyone's blogs to comment really sucks. At the same time knowing I have supportive people out there has been comforting to me. Hearing from you has been almost as good a stress reliever as being with the horses.

While my recovery seems to be traveling at a snail's pace, it IS coming along. I am able to spend a little bit of time with the horses. I wish I could say that happens each day but sometimes it takes me a day or two to recover from a trip to the barn. Those visits are not getting longer but they are getting to be more frequent.

I've tried doing exercises to rebuild my strength but it shot my pain levels back through the roof. It wasn't just at the time I was doing the exercises that I hurt either. I found myself awakened in the middle of the night with pain and my pain meds weren't really doing the job they had been so the exercises have ceased for now, anyway.

That doesn't mean I am letting pain stop me. It just means I have backed off to a more manageable place. Doing so only adds to my stress levels because there is so much work I want to be doing. I'm usually pretty good living by the Serenity Prayer and not letting things I can't control get to me but this last nine months has really tested that resolve. I'm living one day at a time and sometimes one minute at a time dreaming of the day when life is finally back to normal.