Saturday, January 31, 2015

A "world weary lamb"

Tomorrow, February 1, 2015 marks 10 years since "the day that changed it all" or some would just say my "Annie"versary. Ten years since my first aneurysm ruptured suddenly filling my head with blood. Ten years of stumping the medical world! I have no words of wisdom to impart to you, I'm simply going to ramble because my brain has been fried by a birthday party for a special 7 year old (Hubby's side).
When I sit here in my current fried state my first thought should probably be: STOP just sit staring blankly into space! But, I'm going to type the wild gibberish swirling in my head. So when I think about my survival, that is the word I would use to sum it up.  The plain truth is most days I am simply trying to survive.  This Christmas season was particularly brutal with the death of a dear uncle. If I can just survive until Christmas.  Survival means I can attend one service not all of them with the rest of my family. I survived and my very next thought was, "If I can just survive Christmas." Christmas day came.  I had my mom help me with setting timers on my phone to put each item of food in the oven, yup survival!! Hubby woke up with some version of the flu, Christmas Day at our house was cancelled since nobody wanted to catch it. But, that just meant I had to "survive" celebrations another day! Not to mention "surviving" hubby being sick. If you know me, you know I was right behind him to disinfect anything he touched,....... I mean, I lovingly took care of him like a good wife would! Of course, I tried to do both because, I am me!!
Hubby had a one week training course for work in TX last week.  I thought, "If I can just survive the week then....." There is never a then. Then is just the next thing to survive. Of course, it is the end of January in the northeast so naturally there would be a blizzard predicted. SURVIVE. I did survive and I even proved to myself that I was capable of plowing out our driveway, with a tractor! Yup, that blizzard dumped a good 3 inches of snow!

So, for the first ten years, it's been survival for this survivor! Maybe the next ten years will be thriving! Don't get me wrong, this has always been the goal but reality has been surviving with moments of thriving like when I was asked to speak at a conference or participate in a walk with other survivors of all kinds! These moments have made me feel like I was thriving!  I will cling to those moments and end this post as blogspot is not cooperating with me like I think it should!
Please pray as Monday I have a 10 year followup angiogram just to make sure the clips are holding and blood is flowing as it should! Oh, the dread of the procedure!  Grace, just enough, just when you need it!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa-
Sorry the party was tough on you today because it was so good to see you.I couldn't believe you got on the tractor and plowed. I call that a definite triumph!
I celebrate your 10th year anniversary and am so happy you are still with us. You are our miracle and I pray all goes well with your tests on Monday. Love-
Nan

Shelby 2.0 said...

Yay , Happy Annie~versary to you, I agree that its all survival, way back at the start of my journey, people would say that I was a survivor, and it just confused me, I hadn't done anything, it was my surgeon that saved my life. It wasn't until my 1 yr annie~versary, that I felt like a survivor. Dont ever forget that your record of surviving anything so far is 100% Hugs to you.

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa
I hope you are feeling better today. I know yesterday was hard on you, but it was so nice to see you. I hope things will be better for your mother and grandmother too.
Saying a prayer for all of you.
Love
Nan

Farmgirl said...

I feel strongly connected to your sense of "survive" vs. "thrive." I also, though, see so much triumph in your world-weary face. The truth is, none of us are "made" for this world, but you've managed to bring a heaping dose of hope and strength to it, despite your perceived just-getting-by-survival. I'm rambling. But I see so much in you that you probably can't feel. I'm sorry you can't feel it. But I really think "thrive" is your future.

Unknown said...

I am a ruptured brain aneurysm survivor. I am also Laura
Hopper's (Oakley's) little sister. I thought I would reach
out! Hi!!!

-Molly