One year later

March 26, 2013

One year ago I was in the hospital having emergency surgery.  I was not expected to live.  I stopped breathing twice and came back.  I saw my ancestors and the light of heaven and was sent back because my place was not ready.  That was what I was told when I was there.  I find comfort to know that there will be a place for me, but not comfort in being sent back to this purgatory existence my children and I are currently in.

I sang the praises of my husband for getting me to the hospital in time as the doctors told him.  Now I can not sing those same praises to him.

I have spent more than 25 days in the hospital total over three surgeries and 10 days in a rehab hospital for extended care.
I have spent 3 months in a wound vac to seal my two foot incision up.
I have spent 6 months with an ostomy bag on my body to do my business into.
I have spent 5 months on driving restrictions.
I have spent 9 months on lifting restrictions.
I was able to substitute for 4 months total.
I have spent the last year being cut into and taken apart and put back together and tossed round emotionally.
I have spent the last year allowing my body to get rid of all the poison my body put there slowly over the last months of 2012 and beginning of 2013.  Having body waste in you where it should not be does a number on every part of you.  Your blood system just keeps filtering all that poison through you and into your brain and muscles.  NOT good for you at all.
I have spent the last year healing, being cut back into, healing, cut, healing.  It will take months for me to feel no pain again and be able to exercise or much of anything. It will take just as long or longer I am told to heal completely.
Just since September I have dropped 3 clothing sizes and for the first time in 10 or 12 years I am close to my high school weight. I am within 20 pounds of that.  I do like the thinner me, just not how I got there. 

I don't want to die again and be told that they are not ready for me.  That my place is not ready.  How can I come back to this which I had no choice in?  I must have been sent back for my children.  I could not have come back for me.   

The past year has been a bad film for me.  With what is happening now I can not understand why the Creator would send me back to this.  Just like when I was told as a child I was not loved I wondered why my life was saved then. I experienced some fairly hurtful and sometimes evil things into my teen years.   I wonder why it was saved now, still.  Yes when I was five weeks old I had an emergency surgery to save my life.  Five weeks after my 52nd birthday I was having life saving surgery again.  

At 53 I have to start over.  I do not have a job, but I have a degree.  I do not have the love that was promised to me.  I have an estranged husband doing one right thing by his family and supporting us financially as he promised he would.  I pray that is one promise he can keep.

What I do have, friends and some family and my children that do not run away from me because I am damaged and almost died.  They have brought us food, bought us groceries, taken me or us out to dinner, come over to visit with us and stayed with me everyday in the hospital on the last surgery.  They have checked on the kids at home while I was gone.  These people that show me they love us and care about us I do not know how I can every say thank you and repay you.  I was not expected to survive the surgery a year ago.  I was that full of body waste and had been sick for months and so very septic inside.  It took just over 9 liters of fluid to wash out my inside and wash off my organs.

But, I do have friends and family that are avoiding me, could be that I remind them that life is fragile or it could be that they do not know how to handle my husbands choice of separating and pending divorce.  I don't know, they won't talk to me nicely.  The family and friends that can't handle those two or singular things are not very nice to me and the kids at all.  I have been told I should have died, it would be easier for everyone.  I have been told I and the kids are not cared about by them or the husband and good riddance.  I have been told by strangers that I am the evilest person they have heard about and I deserve to suffer. I would like to know who is telling them lies, I can only guess.  I do not understand why I should be attacked and my children should be too.  Fortunately I have heard no evil words from anyone in months.  These are things that still haunt me from October, November and December.

But back to one year later.
I once was over joyed to be alive.
I was once over joyed to know (at least I was told so) I was loved so deeply and completely.
I was once over joyed to be starting a new chapter in my life with the support of my family.
Now my family is broken and incomplete.

I am glad to be alive, I am not glad to start over most of my life though.  Some things were not supposed to go rotten, they were supposed to get better.

 I guess I am just an idiot for trusting. 

So in 12 months I have had three surgeries, all major in their own rights (the last surgery was in February).
I have had countless vials of blood drawn and tested for everything.  I mean everything!
I have lost probably 2 feet of intestine and colon.
I have been surgically opened two of those surgeries and one laparoscopic.
I have lost over 40 pounds due to stress and the surgeries and healing. 
I have a total of 7 scars, maybe more, on my belly from all those.
I am still bruised from the last vial of blood drawn for testing and that was two weeks ago.
I am still not released to go back to substituting. 
I have had a CT scan to make sure the last surgery went well because I do have complications from that.
I have to wear an elastic belt for a few more weeks to help the last surgery heal and the complications.
I am told by the surgeon it will take till almost this time next year before I heal completely from everything.
I still break out in hives from the medicine and stress. 

I am glad to be alive, I may not sound like it, but I am.  I am not glad to be sick still, and being tossed out like garbage.  That I am not glad about. 

One year later I am not where I thought I would be but I am alive to love my children and set a good example for them.  My children are not where they thought they would be either.

So how does a 53 year old woman start over and find a life again with two teenage children?
I really did not plan on this being a rant.  But it is.