Thoughtful Thursday – The Acorn

photo from Pixabay

Consider the acorn, humble harbinger of Fall. What is an acorn, really? Well, in a nutshell, it’s an oaktree. Hardeharharhar. In a nutshell … tehehehe. Anyway that’s what this post is about, the past three weeks of my life, in a nutshell.

As some of you know Superhubs and I are a Spoonie couple. We both have autoimmune diseases that require constant management. Superhubs has MS (with spinal cord lesions) and type 2 diabetes, I have a weird little buggaboo known as sarcoidosis. We’re the most symbiotic people I know, we’re better together than the sum of the two of us and yes he is the love and the light of my life.

A few weeks ago a routine MRI of the head showed the formation of an AVM (that’s arteriovenus malformation if you care) caused by a fistula. Not to get too medical on you but an AVF (arteriovenus fistula) is caused by an artery (or more) dumping directly into a vein without the benefit of the network of capillaries normally present. It creates a “bulge” in the vein. Bottom line, too much pressure on the vein and it blows out. Yeah, this is serious stuff the only thing to do is go in an resect the arteries to relieve the pressure on the vein. Yeah … brain surgery.

So here I am, 2 brain surgeries, 2 strokes, 9 day in Surgical Intensive Care Units, 9 days of in-patient rehab, several seizures, 911 calls and 3 MORE days in general Intensive Care Unit later. The strokes were minimal but have left him unable to move his right foot and ankle. Serious but overcomable. Somehow, his nicely controlled type 2 diabetes has become insulin dependent. In other words along with all the physical therapy (we’re still on twice a week plus home exercise) we have six blood tests and insulin injections per day, along with food logs and weight monitoring (he’s lost too much weight) a tightly controlled carb counting diet and many many many sleepless nights.

Things are looking up, we’ll get through this just like we have everything else, together. I just wanted to thank all of you for your kind thoughts and support.  This is from a plaque my Mother sent me when I was first diagnosed.

“When things go wrong, as they sometimes will
when the road you’re trudging seems up hill,
when life is crushing you down a bit
rest if you must, but don’t you quit

Success is failure turned inside out
the silver lining in the clouds of doubt
you never know how close you are
it may be near when it seems too far

so stick to the fight
when you’re hardest hit
it’s when things go wrong
that you mustn’t quit” ~Unknown

 

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP