How It's Going

We are surrounded by so much love!! I am posting tonight simply because I've had so many people call or email and say, "We haven't seen an update. We don't know how David is doing." So rather than continuing to go with the "no news is good news" philosophy, let me report that David is doing GREAT! He had his first day back at work today (yes! already!). He's feeling no ill effects from last week. He had lost a tiny bit of ground in terms of his stroke recovery because he had to be down for a few days. That caused him to be more "wobbly" when he walked for a while. It really does take a concerted effort for him to maintain the ground he's made in his stroke recovery, and when he can't work at it, he does regress. At this point he looks to me to have made it up, however, and, again, the best way I can describe how he is doing is GREAT! (Yes, this is the same picture as on the last post, but I like it so much I didn't want to have it move down the page!)

I guess I took a posting break because that heart repair was, in some sense, the pinacle of this whole journey (as far as we know!). We are by no means at the end of the journey, however. As mentioned below David will have follow-up testing on his heart for at least the next 6 months - goes in for the first time in a week and a half. His physical therapy is ongoing too. He's gained a lot, but there remains so much that he's lost that he is both hoping to and working hard to regain. You wouldn't know it to look at him. In fact many people say, "If I hadn't know you'd had a stroke I'd never be able to tell." That's a very wonderful thing, but there are things not so evident to the eye that remain lost or changed. David's spirits are good, though. He continues to work hard at PT and to have a hopeful spirit but is also displaying an accepting spirit in case everything does not come back.

OK, that's the update on David, if you want to read a bit about me, I'm going to share some of that too in the words that follow.

I think part of why I took a posting break is that, although I know we are not at the end of the journey, something in me needs to rest from it for a while. In some sense the procedure David underwent Tuesday is "routine" (if any excursion into someone's heart and placement of an object into a heart can be considered routine!), yet with the way his cardiologist has spoken with us for months - expressing over and over the uniqueness and complexity of David's case - and repeating to us multiple times every time we went to his office that "You nearly died, Chief! If you have another stroke you'll die. You know your situation is complicated, Chief!" (direct quote) and having told us over and over that David had an ASD but that he knew there was more going on than the tests were showing - another hole perhaps or something else - it was a little hard for me to go into this with a truly calm heart. The surgeon coming in and calling David a "conundrum" didn't help matters! So, as much as my conscious mind was sure all would be well, I think my subconscious had a pretty strong fear that - I can't even say it - that it might not go well.

I think that fear has weighed on me over the months more than I had allowed myself to realize. In fact, I think as much as I've written so many thousands of words here since November 2 and expressed concern in words, I haven't been able to FEEL it as much as I've been able to SAY it. Up until last Friday, in all the time since David's stroke, I had not cried - got a little teary-eyed from time to time but not a serious cry. Suddenly last Friday, without warning, I finally broke down and sobbed. It came totally out of the blue - 3 days AFTER his successful procedure and four and a half months (and tens of thousands of words) after David's stroke it finally happened. I think that is a good thing, and I think it means my insides finally feel that it is safe to "let down." It had been bothering me that I hadn't cried. I'd wondered what was wrong with me, but maybe that part of me had to stay strong just in case.

I've had a very split focus for a long time, and now that I'm able to look with more clarity and fullness of vision at my studies I'm realizing that I haven't been nearly as attentive as I should have been (with good reasons, of course!) - that I've nearly missed some important deadlines. I'm feeling very incompetent as I try to pull things together in this area. My head feels a bit like it is coming out of a fog, and that's a good thing too! It's a little stressful, though, as things are staring me in the face with full force now, and I'm having to rise to the occasion when really I'd like to take a break and just kind of go with this sense of release I am feeling inside.

All of these realizations and responses inside of me have really taken me by surprise. I had no idea I'd respond this way.

A dear friend said, "Tell me the news is good! Everything I read makes it sound ambiguous." Well, unfortunately, it HAS been ambiguous, and I must say I'm with her, and it's what my heart is believing; it's good news. They found a hole, which we have every reason to believe is the sole cause of the stroke; they've fixed the hole. Now we press forward!

As I was driving around town today I was thinking of all the things over the past few months that we have to be thankful for in terms of this situation. Next time I get a burst of energy and unbury my head from my studies I'm going to post a list of as many of these thanksgivings as I can.