I tell myself I'm lucky....

It dawned on me this morning that, instead of trying to get back to a pre-surgery pattern in regard to managing my nerve damage, I'd benefit more by accepting the apparent new pattern that has emerged.

Pre-surgery during my "good" weeks, I'd have consecutive "good" days in a row. Up to like 21 days? That is no longer the case. It's not that I don't get relief, but rather the relief is bumpy, up-and-down, instead of consecutive.

Used to be the typical pattern was:

I'd get my epidural/neck-shot combination. I'd get relief within the first week. Then once it was in full force which would begin in post-weeks one or two, I'd get consecutive daily relief up until post-week four or five at which time I'd have to boost my daily prednisone from 1.5 mg to around 6 mg and then tritrate back down to 1.5 mg to then receive my neck shots at post-week 6 which would take me to post-week nine or ten before I'd have to boost my daily prednisone to 15 mg and then tritrate down to 1.5 to take me to post-week 12 when I'd receive my next epidural/neck-shot combo. (How's that for a long, boring, run-on sentence?)

The new, post-surgery pattern is:

I get my epidural/neck-shot combo. Like with my pre-surgery pattern, I feel the relief within the first week. But I'm not sure when it reaches full force. Kind of seems it never arrives, and neither does the pre-surgery consecutive-days relief pattern.

I have a "good" day and then have one or two "bad" days which I push through trying to re-establish my pre-surgery pattern. And I end up frustrated and more fatigued than if I hadn't tried to re-establish that old normal. Since surgery I've also had to  apply my two routine prednisone boosts earlier in my twelve-week cycle, at post-weeks two to three (as opposed to four or five) and again post-weeks eight to nine (as opposed to nine or ten).

My "good" weeks are relative and do not mean that my body functions normally; but rather, my body performs better in comparison to my "bad" weeks which I may start referring to as my "count-down" weeks putting a more positive spin on the label.

All that said, it appears that since surgery I am getting improvement in my back. And maybe also in my neck and jaws and arms. I'll just have to wait and see how this 12-week round unfolds.

I tell myself I'm lucky, most incredibly lucky....
Sometimes it doesn't work...
And I cry...

Today, it's working.

~*~

"You try to tell yourself that you've been lucky, most incredibly lucky, and usually that works because it's true. Sometimes it doesn't work, that's all. Then you cry." ~Stephen King

I get it, completely.
I think most people who have lived their fair share of this life get it.
If not now or yet, they'll most likely get it at some point.

King's quote is from his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, page 263 in my version. The context is a few weeks after King had been hit by a minivan while he was walking in 1999. He was still in the hospital and hadn't yet started rehab. It was a horrendous accident. If he hadn't landed right where he landed after the collision, he would have most likely been killed or permanently paralyzed.

Dad wasn't as lucky as King. Dad didn't get killed, but he was rendered a quadriplegic for his remaining twelve-and-a-half years of life. Dad was in a vehicle in his head-on collision in 1983; he wasn't walking.

~*~

If there is a loving creator, I don't think s/he/it would demand a temple from men's hands to be built for him or her or it. Nor do I think s/he/it would demand worship. What good parent would ever demand worship from their children or relics to be built to a parent? A good parent doesn't demand credit be given them. A good parent (or person who's lived enough experiences/years) knows that the fruit of their labor and/or loins and/or life is enough.

Are not the beauties of creation enough for a creator?

I read from the Amplified Bible earlier today, the introduction and chapters one and two of the Book of Hebrews.

~*~