It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

Pity Party...that is. Call me impatient and uncompassionate. Whatever.

Okay, maybe I am. But when he won't even LISTEN to any of my suggestions is what drives me CRAZY! Mark is really mourning his losses. His life, as he knew it, is DRASTICALLY different. I wouldn't say it's "over", just not remotely the same. He wants to feel productive and useful. He wants to go to work and support his family. He wants to live in his own house. He wants his life to have value. But what he doesn't understand, or can't see at the moment, is that his life DOES have value. I am very sympathetic to his plight. It's just frustrating when he only wants to whine and complain and not be willing to change his circumstances with even the smallest activity. I tried to tell him that he wouldn't "feel" so bad about things if he'd just get a little physical activity. It's amazing what that can do for your psyche. I know I need to be a little more patient. I try to imagine myself in his shoes and wonder if I'd be doing even HALF as well as he is. I'm sure I wouldn't be. So I bite my tongue and try to offer encouraging words instead of letting out my own frustrations.



Living with a brain injury is a very difficult thing. Mark is not the same. I have my husband, but I don't. I mourn losses, too. I want the man back that you see in this picture. He is not the bright, vibrant, passionate person he used to be. I long to see his huge smile and sparkling eyes. I miss his laughter, his giggle, his playing with the girls. They miss him, too. It's just not any fun. It's stressful, emotional, sad, frustrating and exhausting. I'm trying to keep my chin up for all of us.

We saw Dr. Cook, the facial reconstruction surgeon, today. He said he wants to take out the screws and plates in Mark's face. The bones have all healed and they tend to be like sheetrock screws and can work themselves loose, or even out. So in a few weeks he'll go back into the OR and have them removed. That makes me very nervous. I got the OR notes in the mail today from the 11 hour brain surgery. I quote: The contused and lacerated lateral temporal lobe was coagulated. The macerated brain was removed. I went down to the white matter (under the grey matter). There were 3 different pockets of intracerebral hemorrhage and these were removed (blood clots) and the macerated brain was removed until we got back to what appeared to be more normal brain. The macerated contused brain with intracerebral hemorrhage was like toothpaste. Instead of having a custard like consistency of normal white matter, it was almost liquefied.

The mere fact that he can argue with me is a miracle in itself.

Blessing of the Day: patience