birthday

today is my birthday.  i am 59.  i have no idea how in the hell i got to be 59.  it doesn't help that i just stopped keeping track of my age many years ago and birthdays were just a day that everyone could give me presents and i could eat ice cream and cake.  ok, i do that even when it's not my birthday.  i got lots of birthday wishes and know that i am loved.  but i'm really feeling this one.  that makes me almost 60.  good grief, 60!!!  ok, it is better that most everyone i know in my age group is older but that doesn't make me feel any better.  i guess i'm mostly afraid of being more and more physically damaged as more time goes by.  it is one of my biggest fears, getting old and not being healthy.  but i can say that this surgery was most successful and i got a butt lift out of it.  and i will eventually be healed and can do more than i could before.  my biggest goal is to be strong and healthy again. 

i return to work on tuesday after having been out for 3 months recovering from major back surgery.  this is what i have learned from being wounded for so long.

you cannot imagine how traumatic major surgery is unless you've had it or taken care of someone else who has.  i was most naive as to how much pain and trauma have a disc replacement would be.  and the amount of pain meds needed is frightening.

my dogs are much more protective when i'm wounded.  i would be totally medicated but be aware that i was surrounded by my 3 dogs.  one of them, riley, would follow me around the house any time i oved.  he is my biggest supporter during floor stretching exercise, which i do 2-3 times a day, as we are the same height when i lay on the floor and he always comes and rubs noses with me.  he can be in a different part of the house and can hear me groan when i get down on the floor, and here he comes.  then he stands guard until i get up and he made it clear to the other dogs that this is his special time.  it is.
that moms need to have a purpose when one of their children is wounded.  she couldn't really do much to help but was always available to drive me to any appts etc.  her driving makes me want to scream out loud but she does fine and i have to remember she's getting older and drives like all the other little old people in paradise. 

that i am loved and there were many people who checked on me regularly.  it's probably what kept me sane as this recovery was a bitch and a half.

coming off narcotics when you've been on them for the better part of a year for pain is not attractive and made me incredibly bitchy.  such a change in my personality...........

and i'm glad i apologized to my husband before any of this got started cuz i knew i was gonna be a bitch before it was over.  not that i am any other time.  but i only ripped his head off a couple of times and if he'd been listening he would have seen it coming.  he's so male.  i love him madly.