journal..

It's been 2 1/2 weeks since my surgery. Welcome to the pity party.....

Yesterday started out so good, then boom migraine and hot shiver shakes. I can't get rid of them. I am so tired....I want to cry, scream, and run away from this body that is failing me.
I only wish that I could keep moving forward and no longer have to continue to take those steps backward every few days. This body is no longer my own it is broken and doesn't wish to be strong. I feel as if my limbs are attached only by a thin string dangling them to the sides of me unable to fall into rhythm and just work.

Maybe the reason I say it like that is because when the surgery took place in order to get to the tumor they had to remove sections in my back of spine and those sections were not replaced with anything. I can feel the empty section in my back. They plan to have scar tissue grow and replace the missing bone structure. Really? I only wonder how it will do this, I get the process. But think about it for now there's nothing....and no brace or anything to keep me in line. I have had to learn to move again, the simple task of walking down a hall. I had to learn to move my arms and offer my body strength I didn't have. To get out of bed is so hard...for many days I cried. I'm still crying.. To sit in a chair...to get up from that chair. To reach, to touch, to move, every detail has to be thought about. I have to plan how I'm simply going to get to the bathroom and more importantly how I'm going to get out on my own. To brush my teeth is a task that is painful. The doctors I am confident know what they are asking of me, but I imagine if it were them it might be different.

It is so frustrating to be depend on every movement, every detail, every second of every day the pain is there. It moves with me and keeps me from moving any inch. To think of the task of getting into bed and just resting is a two man job. We won't even discuss getting up. My body had become a sack of potatoes, it is all enclosed together but each potato or part moves loosely and out of order.

They had to remove a large section of the filum which in cases the spinal cord, because the tumor had grown larger than last recorded. That also means the nerve was attached, and is now gone. The feeling in my hip and leg is no longer, it is dead, they suggest in 18 months that feeling may return but there are no promises. Only if the nerve grows back and mends its self. The sheering pain that does come, down each leg is overwhelming, it stops me in my tracks and knocks me down each time.

I remember having to pull myself up less than a year ago from the last major surgery. This is harder physically than last time.

I know I will live thorough this, but for today I want to give up and just lie down. I am tired and I have only just begun.....

The pain is often times overwhelming. I can't believe I am doing this.....

5 days ....
Come Monday I have to be at my best.

~L