One week anniversary

I suspect at this moment seven days ago, I was lying in my bed in the ICU with bandages and needles all over me, with the medical team trying once again to figure out how to keep me from throwing up.  Or maybe they'd finally gotten it right and I was asleep.

For all morning and quite a bit of the afternoon one week ago, I had brain surgery.  Successful surgery.  Exactly one week ago.

Family and friends sat in the waiting room.  Waiting, waiting for hours.  A really kind friend who lives in North Carolina did exactly the same calm, thoughtful generous thing that she did four and a half years ago, when I was having this surgery:  she brought a delicious lunch for everyone who was trying to distract themselves.

Meanwhile, I was talking--unable to feel much pain but conscious and able to read word cards, identify basic images, even talk about Maybelle.

All you readers know this.  It's not new.  But I find I want to get it out of my body a little bit, to sit back and be able to see it from a few inches away.

I've just taken a four-hour nap, which means for a little while I can communicate by writing--using words without the kinds of gestures and body language that help my mom to be able to nod and understand exactly what I'm trying to say.  My language is and will be really fucked up here, as I was warned by every medical professional I encountered.  Fortunately, the language tangles are temporary--just part of the process here.  But for now, if I want to be in touch with people via any words, I have to have rested really well immediately ahead of that effort.

And now that I've rested and given you a bit of my post-surgery reflections, here's what happened this morning.

Mama and I went to Wildflour this morning to get the mini cinnamon rolls mom ordered for Maybelle's birthday party at school.  Today isn't her actual birthday--that's Sunday--but the timing worked out so that this was her celebratory day at ECDC.

As we took this picture of ourselves, I realized that it's been more than a week since I've had a moment like this:  sitting in a pastry/coffee shop, having a cinnamon roll ourselves as we waited for it to be time to head back to school.  It felt like a new kind of real life, like, "OH, right--this is the sort of thing my life can look like!"

On the one hand, I've barely been out of commission at all.  After only seven days, I'm able to go out to help with my daughter's birthday gathering.  And at the same time, it feels like a world away.

It didn't take me long to recognize a crucial component of my morning birthday celebration:  I had a second cup of coffee at 9am, and that meant I was able to stay awake--barely--during Maybelle's celebration.  It was another kind of realization:  this is an easy thing that adults do all the time, have a second cup of coffee.  And yet it feels both familiar and bizarre at this moment.

The birthday celebration was wonderful.  The class sang a series of songs to Maybelle, and she got to march and dance and circulate the room.  I'd written her a little book this morning about her birthday, and she read it to her classmates (very nicely, I must say).  She seemed to have just about the best morning imaginable.

Then I went home and slept.  I'll get to spend the rest of the evening being an exhausted, but happy, mother and daughter.



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Previous posts about tumors, choices, etc:

• Go home, said the man in the moon, go home.
• Two penguins walk into a bar.
• Gratitude. And pain.
• Guest room
• "You are AWESOME!" "No, YOU'RE more awesome!"
• What's the story, morning glory?