Recovery is NOT linear.

Recovery is not linear and I am not a fan.  

Last week I was bragging on how well I was doing, how great I felt, and this week, well I am not bragging today. 

I have journaled in detailed about the thirteen days after surgery for my own records.  It is emotional and raw and I am just coming to terms with the pain and emotions that I went through.  I am not sure if I can every forget those days. That are so present, it feels like the same memories of childbirth but without the beautiful ending of seeing a sweet boy in my arms at the crest of the pain.  

The first eight days after surgery were the worst.  It was a pain that I would not wish on my worst enemy, if I had one. I was constantly icing my head and taking meds. Bobby and the boys loved me tirelessly, serving, supporting, and trying to help. 

When that pain finally started to relieve I thought, wow, this is so much better. I thought I should be doing things, going places and I did.  I now regret so much of the actions I took.  The movement, actions, sensory, and well everything was still too much.  If the first eight days were the worst, the second week was bumpy.  It is hard to describe how I felt as I am now in the third week of recovery, because the second week there were days while I was in them that I thought, this is amazing. However, I was comparing the days to the first week which was a living hell and so the comparison is not a true reality.  Now, I see those days were still hard, still painful, still challenging in their own right.  

In that second week, I felt a turn for the better.  Things were brightening, I was brightening. I was going out and getting around.  Taking less meds, feeling less pain, feeling more joy. However, overdoing it is a thing, a thing I don't like and a thing I can't overcome just yet. Because I was believing anything was better than that first eight days I thought I should be "back to normal," my scars are minimal, and essentially invisible to the eye. 

Everyone says, "take your time," "rest," "give yourself time to heal," but that do not understand that staying still is just as painful as overdoing it. 

As week three approached I began to feel the overwhelming the pain returned due to the feeling in my head starting to return, the pain of a broken skull is real.  Somehow that pain made sense.  However the pain of looking at a screen, tv, phone, Christmas lights, the pain of noise and chaos was harder to understand- a pain I still am having trouble understanding. 

Depression in healing is a thing.  A thing I try and at all costs to avoid, and I do this by being around others, moving, getting back to my normal way of being, and not thinking about the pain. 

However, in week two and the start of week have been challenging.  I used all my energy over the weekend and my over sensory and stimulation resulted in being physically sick, physically sick resulted in head pressure and head pain, and the pressure and pain has caused exhaustion. 

I can feel the heavy blanket of frustration, sadness, and anger well up in me.  I am working diligently to have daily time with God, to pray and seek joy, to find as many things as I can to be thankful and praiseworthy, but the blanket lingers. Bobby is great about having me talk it out.  If he liked talking more he could have been a counselor and not just a nurse.  He is truly God's greatest gift to me in my life. He lives daily to love God and love his family and he hits the mark dead on. 

The pain meds are essentially gone, I refuse to continue to take them at the level they had me prescribed.  However, with over the counters, I find it hard to remember to take them when or rather before I need them allowing the pain to build up and me to be wore down again. A terrible roller coaster of events in which I have placed myself. 

I have hope, hope that the pain will slowly but surely leave. I was given a three month recovery for all my symptoms to either be gone or the likelihood that they would be there for life. I was told that it was be very unlikely that I would feel my entire head again, as they placed a titanium plate 4x4 on my skull. Some symptoms have left already.  I no longer have shoulder or nerve pain which is so crazy.  The mass was wrapped around a nerve and blood vessel so they believe that is part of why that was a symptom. I have had headaches one and off in the last two weeks but they said to expect those.  Thankfully the ones I had the first week have not returned. My vision is still rough, but it is suggested that brain surgery patients do not over sensory by looking at computers, screens, TVs, and such and well- that is nearly impossible in my work and the world we choose to live in. 

I do want to thank anyone who has been reading these, praying, and cheering me on.  I feel that love like a warm summer day's sunshine on my skin. 

Philippians 4:6 NKJV
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God

Colossians 4:2 NKJV
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving