TRAPPED

        ****please note that this entry was compiled this week, as I had an insane number of doctors appointments and was feeling overly tired by the pace of this week which makes me overly emotional!! I am just trying to be "real" for those fellow survivors who just want to hear someone say, "I have been there, I understand ,and it gets better"

     "One of Gabby's nurses just said, 'Hey Mark you gotta come here quickly,' " Kelly says. "Gabby was sitting in her wheelchair in the bathroom with just this look of terror on her face, tears streaming down her face, hyperventilating. And she was trying to say something and really couldn't.
"This was the moment she realized that she couldn't speak. Before that, she was in this long, hazy period of just coming out of the coma and recovering from her injuries. But at this moment, the light bulb came on and it's like, 'I cannot speak. And am I going to be trapped like this forever?' That's what she was going through and it was difficult, difficult period of time. I just held her and I told her it was going to get better. I was going to help her through this. And she has a lot of people that care for her and love her and we were going to get through this and it's gonna get better. And it did." -From "Gabby" by Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords. 
     Have you ever felt "trapped" in your own being? I can totally relate to Gabby, while I was able to talk, I often felt "trapped" by my inability to process language at the speed it came at me, sometimes I still feel this way.  This "trapped" feeling creeps up on me from time to time.  I feel "trapped" by this new world of daily doctor appointments.  I always have a follow up of some sort or a new doctor to try to diagnose a new "phase of recovery".  It seems that I go through these phases like: throwing up, blacking out for a moment due to blood pressure, or a series of migraine auoras.  I feel "trapped" by other ailments that the medical world has no answers for.  My new limits often give me that "trapped" feeling.  It seems overwhelming that I need days to prepare for and days to recover from things as simple as grocery shopping or taking a weekend trip to visit family.  I feel "trapped" by my inability to hold a full time job, and even more "trapped" that I can't tolerate a job of any kind in my field of training. Or how about "trapped" by the knowledge of my short term memory problems. "Trapped" because a functional life now means a series of 'checklists' before everything I do! Of course, I know that "man makes plans, but God directs the paths." So, I'm not really "trapped" by these things but instead I am living safely in God's directed path. I am human after all, and my broken brain feels "trapped" by new limitations and situations.  I struggle with the occasional "panic attack", still, as I claw my way from the "trap" within my own mind while still very thankful that these "traps" mean I am here and able to share life's experiences with others!!! I think Bebo Norman says it best really, "Take my time here on this earth
                                And let it glorify all that You are worth
                                For I am nothing,
                                I am nothing without You......"