I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...
Posted Sep 16, 2010 11:32pm
While I write this update, Mark is sitting next to me uploading some photos. I want to say at the outset that some may find some of them disturbing. I found them insanely disturbing at the time I was living them. And maybe that's why I've elected to post them. This little kid needs credit where credit is due. This was no small undertaking. I realize there are many kids who undergo scoliosis surgery, and it's gruesome every time. But a majority of the kids who do are 13 year old girls, whose entire goal is to get back on the cheerleading squad. The whole point here is to give Phil a few more years of breathing room. It's not about pity...it's about a from-the-bottom-of-my-heart "ATTA-BOY!".
Bringing Phil home has, indeed, has been eye opening for me. Eye shutting in the sense that I'm getting a little more sleep, but I feel rather displaced in my own life. You see, I came home to little things that had nothing to do with Phil. The water department came to read my meter, and subsequently called me asking me if I knew I had a leak somewhere. Good to live in a small town where they give you the courtesy call. They even came over and found it for me - the upstairs toilet. Due to it's leaking, we now have, like, a $1200 water bill. My phone is blown up with messages from the cell phone company, letting me know that they'd kinda like to get paid. Then my grocery wholesaler called me and wanted to know what I needed for the store. I want to just explain to them all breifly that, "Hey...I'm still traumatized here. I don't want to think about this stuff, I mean...I have to think about when the next dose of pain meds needs to be given, and how many cans of Ensure we have to feed yet and at what rate and that Phil has to be turned off his butt in about 15 minutes, and I should give him the Valium a half hour before we have to change the bandages. Don't you people GET it???"
And the Universe is quick to remind me that in fact it is ME who does not get it....yet. It will come. In time; each day I can see another element of the chaos turning into order. Slowly...but I do believe surely...we will come to make some sense out of this new reality.
The photos, then, only reinforce this belief. I see the photo of Phil, looking for all the world like he just got hit by one of the Mack trucks he adores. But the little man leaving the hospital just a week later has all the evidence I need to see that while there are some permanent scars on the body, you cannot hold back the spirit if it chooses to live. And for all the crap that Phil has to endure, he still wants to live. It then becomes a process of learning to live...one day at a time.
Nope - not in Kansas. Not sure just yet where we are, but I like to think that we are just visiting this plateau before we discover a much better place.
Gonna go caption the photos now while Phil is playing with some legos. Pain free at the moment, so we're going to enjoy that, and even get some sleep tonight!
Bringing Phil home has, indeed, has been eye opening for me. Eye shutting in the sense that I'm getting a little more sleep, but I feel rather displaced in my own life. You see, I came home to little things that had nothing to do with Phil. The water department came to read my meter, and subsequently called me asking me if I knew I had a leak somewhere. Good to live in a small town where they give you the courtesy call. They even came over and found it for me - the upstairs toilet. Due to it's leaking, we now have, like, a $1200 water bill. My phone is blown up with messages from the cell phone company, letting me know that they'd kinda like to get paid. Then my grocery wholesaler called me and wanted to know what I needed for the store. I want to just explain to them all breifly that, "Hey...I'm still traumatized here. I don't want to think about this stuff, I mean...I have to think about when the next dose of pain meds needs to be given, and how many cans of Ensure we have to feed yet and at what rate and that Phil has to be turned off his butt in about 15 minutes, and I should give him the Valium a half hour before we have to change the bandages. Don't you people GET it???"
And the Universe is quick to remind me that in fact it is ME who does not get it....yet. It will come. In time; each day I can see another element of the chaos turning into order. Slowly...but I do believe surely...we will come to make some sense out of this new reality.
The photos, then, only reinforce this belief. I see the photo of Phil, looking for all the world like he just got hit by one of the Mack trucks he adores. But the little man leaving the hospital just a week later has all the evidence I need to see that while there are some permanent scars on the body, you cannot hold back the spirit if it chooses to live. And for all the crap that Phil has to endure, he still wants to live. It then becomes a process of learning to live...one day at a time.
Nope - not in Kansas. Not sure just yet where we are, but I like to think that we are just visiting this plateau before we discover a much better place.
Gonna go caption the photos now while Phil is playing with some legos. Pain free at the moment, so we're going to enjoy that, and even get some sleep tonight!
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