Feeling

It was recently pointed out to me that I hadn’t mentioned here the follow-up results of my testing and CT scan.  I guess it just didn’t seem right to even think about it since it was during the same week that Stephie passed away.  I just couldn’t try to be happy about my news, when it is the news we all wish had been her’s, too.

All is well.  No cancer.  No anything else, either.  All of the blood tests looking for rare clotting disorders that are currently known came up negative, so my hematologist thinks I have a rare disorder that just hasn’t been identified and named yet.  Many suggestions have been made that they name it after me, but who wants a disease named after them?  Not me.  Let them call it Wong’s Disease (that’s my doc).  I’m still waiting on having a park bench named after me.  Or maybe an overpass.  Nothing says success like a dirty, grey, graffiti-decorated, someone-died-under-there concrete overpass.  For generations to come, every hobo that pees there will think of me.

But I digress.

Certainly, you expected no less from me.

I had another leg scan as well, just to make sure that all that new metal in there was staying shinny.  The stents are open and flowing, and on a clear day you can get AM radio on them, but you have to put your ear to my bellybutton to listen, so we might need to become better acquainted first.

I am often asked how I am feeling.

Hmmmm.  Loaded question. 

My leg, well, it’s not the same.  I don’t limp much anymore, maybe at night a little, but a far cry from my wheelchair of only a few months ago.  My foot stays cold to the touch.  It aches and feels funny, all tingly and such, but I am learning to ignore it for the most part.  I am finding the value of keeping my mind an hands busy.

My bod… it is taking a long time to get my strength back.  I am like a dollarstore battery, good for a short job but not very powerful, and fizzles out quickly.  I am exercising with Kathy now most mornings, but I would say I am at about 60% - but determined!  One day, one limp-armed jumping jack at a time.

My heart… aw, geez.  I don’t know.  I am just still so grateful.  Grateful to be alive, grateful for this unbelievably gorgeous baby asleep beside me,  to be returning, in any form, to my life; to kissing my husband and hugging my kids, to singing and making art and nursing babies and wiping butts and noses.

But not a day passes that I don’t think about the people around me who have and are continuing to suffer.  I think of Steph and Kristi, both young mamas, both gone from their families.  I think of Lyn, gardening one morning, in the hospital the next, unable to speak or move from a massive stroke.  And Dale, who went to work last week and suffered a massive heart attack and never came-to before he passed a day or so later.  Of Dan, and Dave and Tyler, alone.  My heart aches, because I got to stay.  Isn’t that strange? 

Stranger still is that I find I seldom cry for myself anymore; for my frustrations and rough days, but I am brought to tears for others in a shallow instant.  I am a giant receptacle for the pain of others, a mirror for grief. 

I am feeling… life.  More color, more flavor, more heat and more cold.  I find myself just watching everything around me in awe, and for now I am just feeling it all.  

Dr. F.  Messaged me a pix of this poster the hospital put up of him. Apparently they used the text on the poster from a letter of appreciation I sent to the department chief telling of our gratitude for the amazing care Dr. F. Gave us. I will forever be grateful to this amazing man.