listen to your body, that's all I'm sayin'....

I didn't go to work yesterday. I psyched myself up here... went and took a shower, got dressed, started drying my hair and just about collapsed from exhaustion. I had prayed through all of that and I knew that there was a reason. My friend Pam confirmed some of the thoughts that I had - without even saying anything to her - which I think is awesome, it's always a bit of a validation to me that God is hearing me when someone else voices what I'm thinking he's telling me.

My blood pressure is up. My anxiety is off the charts. I can't eat. I'm exhausted all the time and... I'm still in pain. I still have the feeling that I'm held together with stitches. I rested a lot yesterday. I read the book, "Killing Lincoln" by Bill O'Reilly which was a great retelling of the assassination of Lincoln  - more in depth than I have ever read and I read a lot of historical stuff. I sat up a bit - as much as I could stand at a time. I didn't OVERDO but I did try to move a bit more and regain some of my strength.

This morning I'm passing a little blood. Not much. Not scary amounts like before... but if you have spent the past month with your rear end stitched together... a little is a lot. Especially after suffering through all of this to end this sort of thing. If I wasn't going to the doctor already today, I'd be parked in front of his office first thing this morning. I'm not sure how I'll manage the drive down there and back today. I was thinking I'd be ten feet tall and bullet proof by now and when I made the appointment, I thought I was fine. That is a looooong drive when you haven't been sitting well and it will be a loooooong drive home after having the doctor up in my business.

I don't like seeing the blood but it does drive home an important point to me about listening to your body. I've been tough on myself all week about not being ready to jump back in the saddle right away, on the predetermined schedule i had set for myself. I have felt - well, worthless - and have carried a load of guilt that I'm not sure was really mine to carry. I knew that I didn't feel right. I knew that things didn't feel healed enough for me to be sitting all day long. I just thought that I was afraid of the pain - and I was - but sometimes that fear, that reluctance, is part of nature's way of keeping you from undoing two and a half weeks of healing.

Have you seen the news snippets about the 18 year old mom who killed the intruder? There's more to the story than what they were saying originally... I kept thinking that her home looked very mature for a young couple... and I kept thinking that it was so sad and tragic that her husband had just died from cancer "so young"... well, it turns out that her husband who died on christmas was 58. I'm not judging, I'm just saying. It also turns out that several things had happened over the past month, such as her dogs being poisoned and this intruder stopping by her house randomly not long after her husband died. Turns out the guy she killed was a prescription drug addict that knew her husband died of cancer and thought he could score some narcotics. Mercy. I don't know that I could live with myself if I killed another human being but I KNOW that I would do just about anything to protect my babies and definitely would have, even at 18. and I was a mom at 18.

Back before we were heathen unchurched people, when my babies were all babies we went to Tara Baptist church. (yes, Tara, like the plantation in Gone With The Wind). There was a sweet young girl who went there who just had her first baby yesterday - TEN pounds worth of baby! Yikes! Fortunately she was a planned c-section but I'm thinking at ten pounds, she was a c-section about a week late. She is precious.

Austin's married friend, remember, the one who didn't have a wedding night because they got married at the courthouse? I think I told you that this mensa candidate is expecting a child with his wife... I think she's due in May or June. I can't remember... at any rate... I woke up at 4am this morning and this young married FATHER to be is hanging out with Austin playing xbox 360. I thought we shook that element when we moved here... but... exactly six months after the fire... he tracked Austin down and got his mother to bring him out here. She will pick him up later today. I mean, I know it's a different world and truly, Logan and Hillary have turned out to be really good parents... they just play their video games while holding Dessa. A gamer doesn't necessarily make a bad parent. It's just... weird to me. Austin, however, who has spent this extra long Christmas break stuck out here with a slug of a mother has been delighted to have him here.

I'm sneezing this morning. How in the world do you catch a cold when you don't leave the house in three weeks? Sneezing while trying not to let your guts bust out of you is a really interesting process.

Ok. I think that's it. Please keep me in your prayers as there is so much uncertainty in my life because of this surgery. I'm trusting God and still anxious about the future. I shouldn't be... He never disappoints me, no matter how much I disappoint Him. It just feels like a heavy burden this morning.

Happy Friday.