There must be darkness to appreciate the light.

It's been a long winter. I can barely remember the sunshine and the green grass, and every day seems to blend into a hazy gray snow bank drizzled in dog pee. I am still recovering from surgery, and feeling even more trapped because of it I am sure.
Every day that is above freezing, I open the widows just a crack to feel that wonderful fresh stream of air that smells crisp and clean. I'm sure I'll regret it when we get the natural gas bill, but those few minutes of sanity are worth it.
I am slowly trying to find value in myself again. I have realized that for many years, I have found my value in that little slip of paper with my name and a dollar value on it, yep, my pay check. Since I was a mom and wife first, and an employee second, I wasn't worth much most of the time. But I had my "own" money, I had a little financial freedom, I didn't have to talk to my husband about every penny spent and balancing joint accounts, and I liked it. This surgical recover, this winter of my life, has had so many lessons, and a big one for me is that my value is not determined by my paycheck. My value is in my children's smiles, it is in the dog that curls up at my feet at night no matter how many times I accidentally kick her. My worth is in my husbands lop sided grin when I say something dumb when we are out on our "date night". My value is enumerated each time I smile at a stranger, or put a dollar in the collection jar for the animal shelter. When I hold the door for the elderly man, or help the woman at the grocery store pick up everything that has fallen from her diaper bag, I am infinitely human and eternally valued on a scale that really means something.
My credit score sucks right now. I am not positive what it is, I even went to one of those "free credit report" sites to try and find out, to face my fear, and it said my score wasn't available. Maybe because it is currently lower then dirt, or maybe the site was just having problems, I am opting for the first. I wish it were different, but I'm gonna just have to be ok with it for right now, because I have a medical debt of around $75,000 right now and it's gonna only go up before it goes down. I need to remember that this life is short, and my credit score certainly won't follow me into the afterlife, God forbid I hope it doesn't! But there is something much more important that will. Who am I to the stranger? Who am I to those that have hurt me? Who do I want to become and how will I get there? Those are the things I want to focus on.....I can change my phone number so the bill collectors will have a harder time bothering me for now, but God's got my permanent number, and I need to change the things I can for his purpose so I can find that value I have been seeking. When will I learn to trust Him?

Recovering (AKA Humor is Everything)

It seems to be a long and dark road back to health, and I really regret now not fully understanding how lucky I was to have good health for the most part of my life until now. I had surgery on December 21, 2010, yep 4 days before Christmas. I had a gracilus muscle flap procedure, sphincterplasty, and now have a temporary colostomy that has haunted my days and nights for the last 2 months. I went into the hospital on Dec 14, fully prepared to have a 3-7 day hospital stay and a 2-3 month recovery. I had been on a liquid only diet for two days, and drank bottles of nasty juice that caused all of my insides to cramp while I lived on the toilet. I barely made it to the hospital without multiple accidents of the Depends variety. I cracked jokes with the nurses as they put the lovely compression fitting thigh high stockings on, and got to experience the humiliation of sitting off the edge of the gurney, letting my 41 year old tummy that had carried 5 babies to term "all hang out" so the colostomy nurse could put an x on a "good spot" just in case it was decided I needed a colostomy. It was a 50/50 thing at that point. I was in favor of the 50% that said there was no way I could wake up and have my colon coming out of my stomach and draining into a bag. I met with everyone that was on my surgical team, kissed my hubby goodbye, and had a very Que Sera Sera attitude at that point, I'd already prayed, contemplated death, been full of fear, wished I'd done everything differently, celebrated everything I'd accomplished, longed for a vacation, the whole gamut of emotions and I figured if anything, at least when I woke up, it was going to be over, one way or the other, and I could focus on recovering at that point, (or haunting everyone I loved if the good Lord had decided in that direction.)
I recall the anesthesiologist telling me about his recent vacation to South America, telling me it was a great adventure, and that I wouldn't remember a thing he was saying when I woke up. He said he would have me count down from 100, but I'd never get past 95 so I might as well start with 7, so I began the count down "7, 6, 5..."
I woke up in the brightly light operating room. The clock on the wall showed that either 13 hours had gone by, or only 1. The surgery was scheduled to take around 7 hours, so something was up. I didn't feel woozy at all, I turned and asked the anesthesiologist what was going on, he seemed surprised that I was awake enough to speak. He said the Doctor would be in to talk to me in a few minutes, she had gone to talk to my husband first because they didn't think I'd be awake this quickly. I did an assessment as I waited. No pain anywhere. Could move all my parts, and squeeze the cheeks. Either the surgery was way easier and less complicated then planned, or there was trouble.
It was trouble of course. "So once I could finally get in there and get a good look at everything, it was a lot more complicated then we'd planned on. I'm going to need a microsurgeron here with me to do the surgery." The Dr. said, still wearing her full surgical attire. "We are looking at worse case scenario now, and you will definitely have a temporary colostomy." I tried to think of questions but really couldn't. I had time off from work starting, my husband had his vacation days planned around when I would get home from the hospital and need the most help. I couldn't believe I had gone through so much fear, planning, praying, and finally resolve to wake up to....nothing? They wheeled me to a recovery room, I drank some apple juice, got dressed, was told to call to reschedule something tomorrow, put a big piece of tape over the stoma mark in my stomach and went home.
As we drove away, I felt the kind of let down you experience when you leave the casino empty handed, reeking of strange smells and disappointed. I tried to wrap my head around it as my husband Jeremy was fielding calls from friends and relatives all asking if I was out of surgery yet. His explanation starting with "Actually....and ending with "yes, well let you know as soon as we know more"