4th Post-Op-Iversary!

Four years ago today I had major open abdominal surgery to move my left renal vein down a little so it would no longer be compressed by my aorta and superior mesenteric artery (SMA), a condition I was born with but that doesn't manifest until your 20s or 30s typically. This condition is interestingly called the Nutcracker Syndrome, because the left renal vein is like a nut being cracked by the aorta and SMA. Symptoms vary but mine were extreme stabbing pain in my lower left pelvic area during menstration, caused by secondary internal varicose veins on my left ovary and the left side of my intestines and also chronic daily achiness from standing or sitting for too long. 

I feel extremely lucky to have had such amazing results after this surgery. The daily achiness virtually gone. The monthly menstrual stabbing pain minimized to a couple of painful hours rather than days. It was like I was given my life back. Early detection played a big part though. The first really bad pain occurred in January 2012, although I had started to feel increased nausea and dizziness the fall before that. Within 8 months, I was having the necessary surgery to open up my renal vein so that the secondary varicose veins could retreat or retire because they're no longer needed. Luckily for me, my body didn't have that much time to create millions of varicosities thankfully. 

I chose to have open surgery over having a stent placed in my renal vein because I knew I wanted to be a mom someday and the stent seemed way too risky with the movement of organs during pregnancy. I was not even married at the time but I knew in my heart that I needed to plan ahead for my future babies. I was however dating an amazing and caring man who is now my husband and father of our baby girl who is due in less than a month. :)

I'm also very thankful for not having a stent put in because my body told me shortly after the surgery how much it despises foreign metal objects by slowly spitting out each of the metal stitches that were placed during the open surgery. I don't know though if my body would have done so if I hadn't had a post-op infection in which the ER doctor, a week after being released from the hospital, had to reopen my wound and let it heal from the bottom up. This was to take about 6 weeks to heal, they told me initially. It didn't heal completely until all the metal stitches were spit out 4 months later. The wound had to be cared for twice or three times per day which my loving boyfriend did before and after work everyday for several months until I was strong enough to clean the wound myself. I couldn't bring myself to look at the open wound for about a month. It was very grotesque and upsetting. The pain of packing the wound with dry gauze multiple times a day was unbearable. This was to stimulate the healing process so the wound could heal from the bottom up, but boy was it awful! 

Soon after the wound had been reopened, one doctor was explaining the process and one term sounded like fireworks or something similar but my dear mom, who was caring for me after my surgery, couldn't remember the exact term so she called it a sparkler. And this is how my wound/scar got her name, Sparkle. It really helped to be able to call this big open area on my belly a nice name like Sparkle. She is still affectionately called that today, 4 years later. 

The whole healing process created a lot of anxiety and PTSD in me. Counseling and life coaching have helped immensely. And I'm so grateful to report that I'm now 36 weeks pregnant with our first baby and have had minimal pain, hardly any of which have anything to do with the Nutcracker or residual pelvic varicosities. My husband and I also feel blessed in a way to have experienced such intense pain together because I always said the pain was preparing me for labor and now we're only weeks away from meeting our sweet baby girl who we hope to have naturally at a birth center. I never thought it'd even be possible with my past medical history but everything shows that I'm healthy and my body likes being pregnant. I feel so lucky to be able to experience such awe in creating a baby human being and be able to carry her for nine months while she develops. In all our checkups with the midwife, the baby seems very healthy and is growing so well. :)

It's been a long road but we're now going to be parents within the next month and we're overjoyed with this incredible blessing! Happy, grateful tears stream down my face as I type this. What an amazing journey!

 

 

Maternity photos by Kristina Slaney of Family Work Life at: https://familyworklife.myportfolio.com 

My First 13.1 Miles

I think I got the bug. My friends warned me about the bug. 

I walked my very first half marathon on Sunday and the very next day I wanted to go for a walk. And two more days later, I've found myself looking up future races that I might want to sign up for. I love the idea of working towards a goal a few months out that will motivate me to train and regularly walk long distances while connecting with friends who will most likely do the race with me. It’s about wellness, discipline, movement, and friendship. 

I have always loved walking. It gives me time to reflect and collect my thoughts and emotions. It’s soothing to me. But I had never ever considered walking a half marathon! Then in April, one of my coaching classmates, Dena started talking about doing a half marathon in September and her enthusiasm was contagious. Several of us decided to sign up so we can have a little reunion a few months after our coaching certificate classes were completed. I signed up and then didn’t really think about it, because it felt so far away. Then luckily, Dena checked in and asked how our training was. 

This was kind of a new concept for me because the year before I did my first official 5K for my friend, Sarah’s birthday celebration, but that didn’t require as much training since I already walked 3 miles pretty regularly. Dena gave us a training plan which really helped break it down and make the concept of a half marathon so much more tangible. I’m so grateful. So the first goal was to walk 6 miles by July 1^st. Then 10 miles by August 1^st. Once we got up to 10 miles, we were practically there and the additional 3.1 miles would work itself out. 

So I wrote a visual to keep the half marathon goal in mind and put it by my work computer. It listed the date of the half and then the number of miles I needed to walk by a certain date. Of course, there is always room for humanness. I didn’t quite get up to 6 miles by July 1^st but sometime in July I was able to. And then I got up to 8 miles several times in August but didn’t get up to 10 miles until early this month. But I did it! I walked a half marathon this past Sunday! 

It didn’t quite hit me until the morning of that 3 years ago I wouldn’t have been able to even fathom walking so far. My chronic pain made it difficult to even stand for more than 10 minutes without getting achy and dizzy. It nearly brought tears to my eyes to think of the healing that has occurred since then. It may have been slow at times, but steadily I’ve gotten stronger and healthier. And now look what I can do! Wow!

Recognizing My Wings

I went through an amazing transformation about 3 years ago, when my whole life--everything as I knew it--was flipped upside down by a surprise end to a 10-year relationship.  I look back on my healing process in awe now and how I literally came out of my shell and found my wings.  I followed a lot of great advice, followed my heart, gave my creativity time to thrive through regularly dancing and dancing in many different forms—zumba, belly dancing, pole dancing, burlesque dancing, salsa dancing, you name it!—spent a great deal of quality bonding time with friends for support, fun and inspiration, and grew spiritually, because I remained open to all the changes happening and I remained hopeful that one of my life’s most precious goals of becoming a mother and having a family would still happen, despite turning 32 when all this happened.  If I let the gremlins take over, as Brene Brown calls them, I would think that there wasn’t possibly enough time to meet someone new, grow as a couple, get married, and start a family before I got "too old."  But deep down, I KNEW in my heart and soul that it WAS possible and that I would be a mother and create a family.  And lo and behold, as my wings grew bigger and even more brilliant and beautiful, and my self-esteem thrived amidst my creativity and budding friendships, I met my future husband and father of my children. I believed it, and it happened.  We were married just 2 years after first meeting and have now been married 10 months.  We are hoping to start a family later this year.  My vision is becoming reality!

While dating and growing as a couple, we went through some very serious health trials—4 surgeries, one of which being major, abdominal surgery to fix a vein that had been compressed near my left kidney, and causing daily achiness and pain whenever I danced or walked—two of my most favorite pastimes and stress relievers. My husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, nursed me back to health, coming to my mom’s house where I was recovering to change my surgical wound’s dressings, because it got infected and was tracking, so A LOT of pain and suffering occurred after that surgery, but A LOT of unconditional love occurred too, both from my husband and my dear mother, who fed me and took care of me for a month after the surgery and then took turns with my husband changing my wound's dressings for several more months.  I knew without a doubt while going through that health crisis that I had found my soulmate and my future husband.  After my wound healed, we got engaged a few months later and were married 6 weeks after our engagement!  It was a truly magical time, filled with family and close friends, creativity and planning, and coming together to create the most love-filled wedding day.

Since then, we have been adjusting to living together, since we didn’t move in together until after our wedding, and learning about each other at a deeper level.  On a personal level, I have still not fully recovered emotionally from all the health crises I went through two years ago.  All of last year, physically, was dedicated about regaining my strength and energy, but I struggled constantly to keep up with my old ways of dancing regularly and walking all the time.  I can dance and walk now.  But I don’t do it as regularly as I used to or as much as I’d like to.  I think I have a lot is fear of feeling pain again, since my favorite activities triggered the pain and achiness and nausea when I was going through my health crises.  And I’m afraid I’ve fallen out of the habit of exercising daily.  I still crave it, but now I feel frustrated and almost desperate to find a way to be active daily again.  I try to go for walks at lunchtime and I do mini-yoga sessions in my living room from time to time, but nothing as regular and as invigorating as my zumba and other dance classes from 3 years ago.  I know A LOT of my healing process and healing secrets from that time were through my dancing.  I gained a sense of confidence that I hadn’t had in a long time and I also opened up through the process of dancing. After nearly every zumba session, I would feel inspired to write and write about some epiphany or important reflection that came to me during the dancing.  I miss that.  I feel almost disappointed with myself for not having kept up with it.  But my inner voice chimes in and reminds me that I physically COULDN’T for quite awhile, due to the pain triggers and then surgery recovery, which was much longer than anyone had anticipated because of the surgical infection and prolonged wound recovery.  Four months of open wound care can take it out of you.  It felt at times as if it sucked the energy and life force out of me.

I think what has happened is that my beautiful, brilliant wings became transparent during my health crisis and recovery, and although I can’t see them as easily now, I must learn to recognize them again. Recognize my incredible journey.  Recognize how far I’ve come and all I’ve been through and learned to get here.  Be kind to myself. Love myself.  Love my transparent wings.  Love my indented scar. Love my rolly belly.  Love my moods and how they can swing from one day or moment to the next.  Love my joy.  Love my enthusiasm and excitement and ZEST for life when it comes to me, sometimes all of the sudden, like a big bolt of positive, fun energy! Even love my fearful nature.  Even love my anxiousness about the unknown.  Love and accept ALL the parts of me, not just the beautiful, which are easier to love, but the painful and difficult parts as well, where the love is needed the most.

I went to a wonderful talk at the Seattle Life Coach Training school last Friday and the inspiring speaker, Sherra Grasser quoted the school's founder, Richard Seaman in his upcoming book, with a profound statement: "Apply LOVE {here}."

Apply LOVE {here}. {There}.  {Everywhere}.

Start small.  And follow my own advice.  I desperately want to get back into being active again and dancing. But I also know that it’s not practical or realistic to think I can just jump back into my 2-3 times a week at the gym for zumba schedule again.  I need to start small. Something though.  Tonight before cooking or going through boxes or writing this blog or even relaxing and vegging on the couch, I needed and most importantly WANTED to try a dance workout on TV in my living room, and I DID IT! 20 minutes of belly dancing felt so energizing and empowering! And I've hung my belly dancing coin scarf, that I wore around my waist for extra motivation, by the thermostat so it is clearly visible and will remind me to try a little belly dancing every night after work.

Start small.

Apply love everywhere.

Recognize the richness of my journey.

Love my transparent wings.

Vulnerability As Strength

"Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness." 
~Brene Brown

I’m just going to put this out there: opening up in my writing and publishing these pieces on my blog is pretty scary at times.  Being vulnerable to possible criticism, misunderstanding, anger, pain is a real challenge.  But I have realized through past posts that the times I am most vulnerable and open in my writing are the posts my readers most enjoy.  It is compelling to read someone’s honesty, to see inside someone’s heart.  It can be rare to be given that opportunity.  There has been a lot of buzz about the word and concept of vulnerability lately, thanks to Brene Brown’s amazing work.  (I am super excited and grateful that my dear mom gifted me two of Brene Brown’s books yesterday!  If you haven’t heard of Brene Brown’s work, please check out her website here.)  

I feel a lot of resistance to being vulnerable sometimes, especially because of past hurts.  I’m trying really hard to let these painful memories go so I can free up space for new light and joy in my life.  Holding on to them weighs me down and makes me feel heavy and closed off to the world.  I want to feel open and passionate.  Having your guard up is a natural protection mechanism but it doesn’t bring any joy into your life.  It only stops everything from coming in.  I have been very adamant about remaining open despite getting hurt, but it is easier said than done sometimes, especially when you receive multiple blows and forget to stay centered, or in my case, your center is literally cut open.  This has affected me immensely.  More than I can describe in words.  

I have to reframe how I view what happened to me last year in a more positive light though, because thinking my spirit has been kind of broken from all the pain and suffering endured does not help me move forward and shed all the layers of painful memories from my back.  Only when I focus on all the strength and wisdom and awareness I have gained from the experience can I then begin to put one foot forward and then the other, slowly but at least in a forward direction again.  I must stop turning around to look over my shoulder at all that has happened.  And instead look at where I am right now, in this instant.  If I look too far forward into the future, fear can paralyze also, so my challenge is to stay in the moment.  Enjoy the present.  Be grateful for where I am right now.  Find peace in my heart that everything is going as planned.  Have faith that I am strong enough to handle anything with grace and love.  

I so want to embody this quote by Rumi:

"The wound is the place where the light enters you."  

My physical wound from last year has been healed for one year now.  The emotional trauma however is taking longer to get past, but as Rumi said, it is where the light comes in.  If you let the opening in your armor just be and sit with it, trusting everything will be okay and not fighting the fact that it exists, incredible things can occur in your life.  A light far greater than you could ever imagine can fill your heart and soul and transform the way you think and perceive life.  

I recently listened to a talk at Center for Spiritual Living online and Kathianne Lewis said that angels manifest in our lives whenever we have high thoughts or thoughts of greater awareness--epiphanies as I like to call them.  So even when we feel that we are not moving forward as much as we would like to, perhaps physically if we have had health challenges or with our life goals, if we are having these high thoughts and understanding humanity or ourselves a little better, we are being supported by these angels in our lives who help us understand what is happening and recognize the grace in each situation.  And through this divine assistance, we are growing and changing and moving forward as spiritual beings.

I will leave you with one more quote on vulnerability:

You don’t always have to be strong.

You don’t always have to fight off those tears.

Sometimes it’s good to let them flow and let it go.

All your holding back can just keep building it all up.

It’s alright not to have it all figured out yet.

Give it time to unfold.

~Karen Salmansohn

Getting My Sparkle On

Over the past two years, I have learned way more than I could have ever imagined about my physical and emotional body.  I thought I had been put to the test the year before but I had absolutely no idea what was in store when the Nutcracker hit.  Nearly two years ago, in January 2012, I experienced a very extreme case of pain one snow-day.  It felt as if someone or thing was stabbing me with a sharp knife in the lower pelvic region.  I worried that I might have something rupturing inside and thought of calling someone but the nausea and dizziness and pain engulfed me and I almost passed out.  My now husband called me right in that instant to check on me because I had felt kind of nauseous earlier that day, and he immediately left work to come and take me to the hospital.  Of course the first visit to the ER didn't find anything.  They thought I had possibly eaten something that caused this pain.  They really didn't know, even after doing several tests and four plus hours later.  Then the following month, another episode happened while I was at work.  My co-workers said I turned as pale as a ghost and I nearly passed out there too.  This time I was taken to an urgent care facility who referred me to a GI doctor, in case what they had said the month before was valid.  A few days later, I went for a CT scan where the Nutcracker was discovered.  It took several more months to confirm this but in the end, I had open abdominal vascular surgery to move my left renal vein down a few centimeters so it would no longer be "nutcrackered" by my aorta and superior mesenteric artery.  This nutcrackering effect had resulted in varicosities below my kidney region which were extremely painful.  Imagine a normal sized river trying to fit all its water through tiny streams when the river got blocked by, let's say, a beaver dam. (To read more about the Nutcracker Syndrome, read my Nut Notes blog from last year.)

I consider myself so very fortunate to have been referred to the right doctors in a relatively quick timeframe so that I didn't have to live with the increasing pain and discomfort, even from standing or sitting for more than 10 minutes, very long.  The active life I knew before the Nutcracker had almost completely come to a stop, my twice weekly zumba and other dance classes became almost non-existent as the pain got more and more plaguing.  But then came recovery.  The doctors had estimated 5-6 weeks after my open surgery.  They had not anticipated the surgical infection I got because I was so healthy and young, compared to many of their other vascular patients.  The infection was deep, probably happening during the actual surgery, and took a very long time to heal.  But the pain and suffering it caused as I had to have dressings changed twice or three times daily for four long months was even worse.

Within several weeks the actual infection was gone, but I was left with a very open wound that my now husband and mom took loving care of everyday, twice a day for four months.  The risk of further infection was great if this wound wasn't cared for properly and I am again extremely lucky to have such a loving and caring partner and mom in my life.  They took such good care of me.  Honestly, I'm not ready to write about all the painful details of the ordeal, but I do want to reflect on all that I learned from the experience, now that it's been one whole year since my wound finally healed completely.

Early on the doctors described to us what needed to happen for my wound to heal and they used a term that my mom and I couldn't quite remember afterwards.  My mom and I joked that fireworks or "sparklers" needed to happen in order to regenerate new tissue in the location of the wound, healing from the bottom up.  Now I can't even remember the actual medical term for this phenomena but since this wound was requiring so much love and care and energy from us all, I felt we should name her.  So "Sparkle" it was.  I hoped and prayed for the day when Sparkle would become a Sparkle Scar and I could put scar gel on her, rather than fill her with painful gauze and tape her down onto my tender belly skin everyday.  And that prayer was answered finally after over four months last December.  I had recently attended a church service at the Center for Spiritual Living on 12-12-12 with my dear friend, Julie and her family and we were asked to share prayer requests so I felt I had to say something.  I shared my story briefly and after the service, a woman--or I'd say an angel--approached me and told me that she did healing energy work and would like to sit with me for a few minutes.  I am a very open-minded person and welcomed any and all possible healing for Sparkle so I gratefully agreed.  She sat next to me for less than five minutes, putting her hand over my heart and near my abdomen while breathing deeply.  Within 4 days, Sparkle was completely healed and turning herself FINALLY into a scar!  I will be forever grateful for this anonymous and powerful healing.

So what did I learn from this experience?  Now that it's been one whole year and I'm still regaining my physical strength after being so inactive during the chronic pain from the Nutcracker and then from the long healing process of Sparkle--even 8 minutes of yoga on my TV this morning thoroughly tired me out--I can view the experience from a distance and instead of remembering all the pain and suffering, I can begin to see all the beauty and love that I received during that time.  Not only did I grow even closer to my dear mother who cared for me at every minute for over a month straight and then came to my house to care for my wound everyday after I moved back home, but I discovered and affirmed my soulmate and life partner and knew with all my heart how absolutely dedicated and devoted he was and still is to me. We married four short months after Sparkle became a scar.

Once I was able to walk around and drive on my own, I learned that despite almost all my body's energy going to healing Sparkle, I was still able to be in a beautiful wedding as a bridesmaid, even if I had to sit down during the ceremony on a little bench they provided for me.  I took a trip on my own as I travelled to Chicago for my dear friend, Rosey's baby shower while Sparkle was still healing, and I created 40 pairs of earrings to sell at the college's holiday craft fair.  I moved into a sparkling new apartment after being in my condo for seven years.  I sat by my grandma's side on her last conscious night here on Earth and laughed with her and held her hand as she began her transition to Heaven.  My life continued, I didn't stop for very long.  I remember every bump in the road, literally, but I am also grateful for not feeling pain every time we hit a bump in the road anymore.  I sometimes may not feel as strong as I really am but my strength is in there, it lies deep within me and helps me propel my life forward in new and positive directions everyday.

So the morale of the story is to never give up.  Never give in either.  Keep living, create beautiful experiences, even when your current situation isn't perfect, isn't exactly as you'd like it to be.  Because despite all the pain and suffering I felt, I have so much to show for that time in my life and so much to be proud of and remember fondly.

I learned to not take the simple things for granted. I learned to take things one at a time, and if I still get frustrated sometimes about not being able to do as much as I'd like, I've learned to be patient. I'm still learning to be patient. (This is a lifelong learning journey, but a very important one.) I now have great empathy for others who are in pain. I have the gift of putting myself in their shoes and almost literally feeling or imagining what they might be going through. I am extremely sensitive but also extremely aware. I have learned that not everyone will like what you say or what you do or what you share. But that what's most important to me is being authentic, being real, being open. Being open in the face of fear and uncertainty has brought me so many more blessings and opportunities than I could have ever imagined.

I learned how fragile life as we know it--and so often take for granted--truly is. I've learned how beautiful and delicate and graceful life can be, if we can enter into the mindset that all this is made for us.  I'm learning to trust all this wisdom from within and from others and take comfort in that trust, that faith.

I have learned to be grateful for all the little things--the little improvements, little epiphanies, little joys, little breaks, and the little sparkle we discover, recognize and share in our everyday lives.

A Strengths-Based Approach to Life

My mind has just been brimming with ideas of different possible applications for what I learned last week at a very inspiring and thought-provoking training called Dependable Strengths.  What are Dependable Strengths, you might ask?  Well, I think the definition may be a little different for everyone who experiences this training.  For me, the essence of the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process, which was created by the late Bernard Haldane back in 1945 after World War II, involves a group of individuals who share positive life experiences with one another and through this purposeful storytelling, begin to identify and uncover the inner talents and gifts that lie within each of us.  This process has been used with job-seekers, veterans, alumni, the elderly, church members, elementary-aged children, middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students, but I think the sky is truly the limit!  Through the careful discovery of our natural talents, we can then propel ourselves into a life that we long for, a life of fulfillment, a life of purpose.  It’s really a completely different mindset to live by.  Seeing yourself from a point of strength--multiple points of strength actually, you begin to see others from their points of strengths as well.  It helps build patience and understanding. Community. 

At a more personal level, I feel like I had to really work to uncover and reclaim some of my natural strengths, because we sometimes try to hide or deny our true talents as a result of painful events or criticism.  But once we can really own our true, authentic self again and believe in our talents and strengths, we can then begin to help others uncover their innate strengths as well.  That is one of my visions.  In order to heal old wounds, we must stir them up a bit so they can resurface and then be freed.  This process has definitely been a healing one for me, and I believe it can help others in this way too.  

Stay tuned for more. My creative waves are flowing freely once again and I'm plotting my next move. I hope to share the gift of this incredible experience with others very soon.

On Top of The Mountain-One Year Post-Op

I feel incredibly joyful today to be free of pain & suffering, one year after my major open, abdominal, vascular surgery. The ability to take a nice shower and snuggle with my handsome husband this morning and help prepare a delicious brunch with friends are all things I am so grateful to be able to do today! Last year on this day I began my long and difficult road to recovery by choosing to correct my compressed renal vein which was causing me extreme pain, a rare condition called the Nutcracker Syndrome. I was not able to eat for days, take a normal shower for months, hug my beloved tightly for at least a month, walk upright for more than a month and many other complications, but all that got me to where I am now: pain-free and healed! And with the utmost gratitude and love for my amazing caregivers during that time, my mom and my now husband. And we have been married 4 months today! <3 So I'm choosing to use this post-op-iversary to relish in all of Life's simple and beautiful joys: hugs, snuggling, showers, brunch & hiking! We hiked to the top of the mountain in celebration this afternoon--to Cougar Mountain! I am so blessed!

A special gift my mom made me after my "Nut"cracker Syndrome surgery last year.