Category: Home style

For as long as I can remember I have always had vivid dreams. Colorful, emotional, so intense sometimes I could smell or even feel things. I think it is because I have always had a super active imagination.

Since after the SCA I have had less than normal (for me anyway), and if I do get them they are not as vivid. One that I had shortly after coming home was in black and white. I was watching my own heart beat, this I could feel. I felt my heart speed up and the stop. I saw it all in black and white, there was pain and I woke up. I have not had one like that since then.

Perhaps, this is keeping me from continually living in my own head, forcing me to act on what is happening in the world outside my head.

I will say that I am by nature a bit of a loner, no I am not a hermit type person. I do love being around others, I just get my relaxation and piece of mind from being by myself. It was nice having everyone around me to help and to be there for my family. I missed my space and started to get impatient.

I think at first it was rally hard to be around people. I really didn’t have much to say. The emotions that were working through me were really complex and hard to explain to others. So, I just kept a lot to myself. I think in the end it did create a void between me and others around me. I needed that void there in order to start healing from the inside. Looking back it was what was needed to start a mourning processes for myself, which is an outlandish concept for me.

 

One of my favorite things to do, especially when I see someone staring at my chest is to have them touch my Defibulator. Reactions vary, though my favorite ones are the ones that people totally gross out on it. The grimace on their faces are classic! It also breaks the ice, people kinda calm down and laugh.

I don’t hide my Defibulator, I think it has become for of a badge of honor. I survived  something not many do. But at the same time I do have issues with it, it is a foreign object in my chest with wires that go into my heart. It also keeps track of my heart rate and rhythms, it’s an intrusive little bastard.

For a lot of my life I have felt that many people view me as being weak. Why I say that is because when an issue or project comes up instead of helping or encouraging, people tend to just take over and do it for me (or maybe they thought I was just dumb). And I allowed it, thinking that was just how it was.Wasn’t until I started playing with Durango Roller Girls, that I understood that I was creating some of this myself.

Seeing how the other women took charge it was a great feeling to be involved. I saw how people viewed strong, assertive women as either aggressive power hungry or out right bitches. All of that dissolved for me, they were none of those things. They were what I had always dreamed about being, strong, smart, ambitious, so much beauty in it. I started work on my out look on myself, and felt so much closer to who I am. Having my daughter made it hard, I was just emotionally tired. We had so many changes in our family. And then I had the SCA.

I felt like I was back to square one, now the feelings of being fragile are right back in my mind. Right off the bat coming home I was physically and emotionally exhausted. People wanted to do things for me, that I normally do on my own. Granted, if I just got out of the hospital I would understand that but this was months after. I think it just brought back feelings of inadequacies that I have had for so long, and I didn’t want to play back into them.

For some reason I still am uncomfortable with being called “strong” because for me that is what I always wanted to be but never understood how to be “strong”. Here I am now at odds with myself, and now I have to find the courage to dig deep to find myself again and see myself in a new light. There is strength in me, I just have to find it all over again.

 

 

 

It really was nice having my brother and his family here. We hadn’t seen each other for years, he was working all over and had to move. My little brother and sister also have some distance from me. I didn’t realize how much I missed being around family.  It was nice because it helped to get back into routine but not like just thrown back in. Also having all the kids around each other I think was a good distraction for my two kids.

I kept up the walking, it was still pretty hard to do. On the walks it gave me time to be able to think. I still had such a euphoric feel about everything. I won’t lie, I still wasn’t grasping significance of what all happened to me. All I really felt was my life had changed, and I would have to take the steps to change it, how I wanted it.

 

In the animal world, sometimes when a young animal is taken from it’s mother for whatever reason and then reintroduced, the mother and/or herd will reject the off spring as if it is not its own. Like the herd/mother know that something is now different with their young and they can’t go back to the way they were.

For me when I first got home my kids I think were afraid of me. I don’t know what all was said to them. The only thing that was said to me was that in the hospital they were told not to climb on me and that they couldn’t really touch me. It was hurtful, I so badly wanted to just hold them. I didn’t want to be mad or resentful towards them, because they are kids and they had been through so much and they can’t comprehend the magnitude of the whole situation.

I did feel rejected I decided at that time not to hold it in or turn into a negative, but turn it into a chance to have the relationship I have always wanted to have with them. Before I think I was distance and not as engaged with them as I could be. Being a stay at home mom you try to balance keeping up on the house, what meals to be made, I forgot to just stop and hang out with the kids. Before the SCA I was just so swallowed up in my own depression, I just didn’t have the energy to be there for them like I really wanted to.

I didn’t push them to be with me or even to hug me, I really let them lead the way. I still don’t know if I should say I was sorry for everything or not. I did talk with my son, because he is old enough to understand more. I just told him I loved him and if he ever had any questions or thoughts about anything, that I would happily answer him. Just by keeping the communication open I think has helped to start to rebuild the relationships with them.

 

 

When I got home, I needed to go downstairs for something, both my husband and my brother wanted to help me but me being so stubborn refused their help. At the second step I went down on my butt all the way down…. And then still needed help to get back up.

One night we went out to eat at a local brewery, this was really the first time I was out in public. It was nice because it was my brother and his family with us there. I had to go to the bathroom, so I excused myself and went to the bathroom. There was someone in the handicapped bathroom and I figured I would just take the little, cause I really had to go.

I finished and realized I didn’t have the strength to get off the toilet without some sort of assistance. I thought maybe I could use the toilet paper holder but then I was like um, I could see my self putting my weight on it and ripping it off the wall, I would fall down with my pants down unable to pull myself back, I would have to wait there until someone found me. So that idea was down the toilet.

I tried to press my arms up against the walls and shimmy up the walls until I was able to stand. Trying that didn’t work, I still didn’t have enough strength to do that. I was starting to freak out, how was I going to get out of this stall. There was nobody in the bathroom, so I thought maybe if I just slide off the toilet and then push off the toilet with my hands that might work. With no one in there to see my this possible epic failure I went ahead and did it. Success, I pulled my pants up and went straight to the sink to wash my hands. Thank God no one was in there with me cause I am sure someone would have been like ” what the hell is wrong with this crazy lady”. I was so embarrassed, I didn’t tell anyone about this.

Coming home I still had to do shots of blood thinners to my belly daily. That hurt like hell, I don’t know how people who are diabetic do it. I have been told that in the hospital while I was out they would do it and it looked like they were shooting darts into my belly. There is no way of being gentle while giving or receiving these kinds of shots.  I couldn’t do it to myself, so my husband had to do it for me. I cursed him out every time. I didn’t have to do this very long, I was able to go on the pills pretty quickly.

 

 

The day finally came to got out of the hospital, I was looking forward to not being in a hospital gown, and not to be so sweaty. For some reason even though I was cold I was always sweaty. Grabbed my bags and all of my instructions on my medications, how to take care of my incision and off I went. It felt like such a relief to walk out of those doors.

The drive home I felt so euphoric. The trees, mountains and just the colors seemed so vivid, crisp and fresh looking. The drive seemed to move in slow motion, it was like I could see things on the drive I never saw before. I just couldn’t wait to see my kids.