"BLESSED GIFTS"

HOW QUICKLY time passes.  Not quite three weeks since the surgery and I am doing marvelously well.  Still have the facial paralysis. . .and I am adapting. . .especially to speak more slowly and distinctly so as not to be muddled.  Amazing how much we need all of our lips to speak words intelligibly!  So I guess you have to make-up, discover ways to "substitute" for half one's lips.  And wondrous how the body-mind adjusts and accommodates!

In the meantime while I am "passing all the periodic check-ups" and I am terribly excited to be ME. . right now. . alive and loving, being loved. . .what a blessed GIFT!  Yes, a gift. . .and like all real gifts "freely given"!  AWEsome!

And on June 30th I turned 25!  WoW. . a quarter of a century!  An aweful lot has happened in these 25 years.  Sometimes, in the night, on my crazy sleep patterns, I sit - rather sprawl in my recliner and think about all the wonderful people who and events which have worked together to make me Justin. . . . .

This note below never got posted to you when I was leaving the hospital. . but I still giggle about "events big and small" and want to share stuff with you. . . insignificant and all. . . why?  because I have learned a bit more "Everything is Significant". . .LOL

And, oh yes!  GIFT of gifts. . .the tumors were not malignant: NO CANCER!

Thank God!. . . just infection and 'crippling' the facial nerves. . .but since there has been a LOT of natural activity in that area. . .;-)

Dear Friends ~

Thanks for your encouraging notes.  Just thinking: how times hustles on: already two weeks since that long surgery.  I have no real 'frame of reference' for being on the table that long. . . .kept in kinda "suspended animation". . I guess one could call it.  A large cast for this show. . .three MDs in anesthesiology were key. . .I guess "suspended on the edge" is a reality. . .I remember going into the OR and getting me situated, comfortably, on that very narrow guerney. . . .at about 8:25 am. . .My next conscious awareness was in the recovery room about 9:30pm, getting me ready to check into my own room "some miles away" in another part of the world.   lol. . . 

And wonder of wonders, the next morning I was discharged to go home . . .but. . they wouldn't let me out until I had eaten some breakfast. . . I was "on a very empty stomach". . ho ho ho. . .Finally I phoned "room service" to give my order:  a bowl of oatmeal.  Well, I didn't think that would be complicated. . ..but it was. . .complicated!

Worst oatmeal ever. . . the kid prolly needs the job. . .so I smorfe

d it down and Peter got me loaded into my special wheel chair. . . and away we went!  Home to my own bed so I could get some more sleep.  (Hospitals are notoriously poor places to sleep. . . y'ever had occasion to notice?)

I felt really "all together". . ..good in fact. . .no pain at all and immensely grateful to be alive, no signs of any cancer, the facial tumor and infection all gone. . .all in one piece.

The trip to "home away from home" was fine, comfortable even. . . .and, once home, the greatest pleasure was to be able to urinate by myself. . .without getting "stage fright" from all the people hanging around, other patients and their families, nurses and attendants, wandering cleaning ladies and repairmen. . . .the concentrated effort to have me pee in a urinal so they could measure how much I was passing. . . .

Well I sure as I could be I wasn't going to be able pee in that can standing by the side of my bed, before huge expanses of clean glass windows, with people milling all around on the other side of that drawn curtain. . . so I bravely announced I needed to go to the bathroom with the door closed... .all those people shut out, away from my sincere fervent attempts. . . .but, do you think I could do that alone.. .that I could just walk into the bathroom in the corner of the room ?  Oh NO!  I had to be walked to that place of privacy in a most solemn procession, me all hooked up to the IVs and allied tubing.

 

Finally, I expelled all the MCs and acolytes, and closed the door . . . .and did it! I peed in the plastic bottle. . . a glorious urination.  Holy mackerel!!!  WoW. . .and got out of that enclosure and back into the curtained corner near my bed and, before the full expance of uncurtained windows I got dressed in my very one briefs and clothes. . .the only person I allowed in that curtained corner was Peter !  And we were ready to leave.

Oh no you don't!  You must first be declared "Discharged", tubes removed, instructions given after they have been read to you by a lovely motherly old lady, can't find her glasses.  Done.  Finally signed the papers we were ready to go.  Dad had the car at the front door, Peter and Mom got me loaded in, pillows and blankets. . . .why? I don't know. . . .doors closed and away we went.

Grateful, grateful for little things, everything big and small. . .and most especially grateful for those wonderful people who love me and whom I am able to love and share life with.

love,

justin