I Can Do Hard Things

I have been trying to post the following for 3 days and there's been a problem with Blogger. I'll get another posted probably later tonight.

I'm sorry I've been incognito for a few more days than usual. I had to prepare for and run the Ragnar Wasatch Back this last weekend. For those who don't know what that is, it's a 192 mile relay race from Logan to Park City, Utah. We have a 12 person team that shares those miles. It starts on Friday morning and we run through the night and into Saturday evening. It's the craziest thing I've ever paid money to do. But it's truly the greatest achievement.

So, it's a little hard to go back to what happened this last week. But I'll try. Mark finished up his testing on Thursday morning (4 hours), and we'll be meeting with the doc tonight to go over his results. He'll be giving us the good and bad news. We're both nervous and excited. We want to know where we stand and what it's going to take to get Mark back to his regular life. We've been warned that it's going to be a slow process, and we know that, but we're very excited to start that journey. No one more so than Mark. I hope he's not discouraged by the test results. The tests were very difficult for him, so he already knows he didn't do very well. I just keep reminding him that it doesn't matter because we have to know what we're dealing with and where we're starting from. We can only go up from here since we're praying there won't be anymore seizures or issues.

Mark did really well without me this weekend. He had a lot of help from my mom, but he still managed pretty well. He took the girls to the movie by himself. I'm sure that was a bit of a challenge, but he did it. He missed me terribly. Sent me several text messages. I'm glad we had this seperation. It was good for me to get away. While my "vacation" was not relaxing in the least, it was time for me to do something just for me. And it felt really good, if not extremely exhausting.

One of the girls in my car hadn't heard about the assault. So after everyone had asked how Mark was doing and how things were going, I had to fill her in. She was, of course, completely astounded. And after talking about it for a few hours, we were lying in our beds at the hotel on Thursday night and she asked me what I had learned the most from this experience. At the time I couldn't really give her an answer because I've learned so many different things. After giving it some serious thought, Saturday morning I told her it was that I can do hard things. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and if I do say so myself, I think I've handled it pretty well. I have my moments that can sometimes turn into days, but overall I know that as difficult as it's been, I've dealt with it and endured it well. I'm still enduring it well. I've had so many people tell me they don't know how I've been able to get through. And I used to think that I really had no other options. But each and every one of them has said, "Yes you did. You could have curled up into the fetal position in the corner and chosen not to deal with it at all." And you know what...I'm starting to believe them. I'm proud of what I've done. It's hard and I'm doing it. I can do hard things.

Blessing of the Day: support of others