A FUNNY THING (OR 3) HAPPENED ON MY WAY TO HEALING AND A NEW LIFE

As my introduction states, I planned to share my experiences on my way to "healing, growth and a new life". I started it after surviving critical injuries sustained in an accident, in which my husband and one of our best friends were killed almost instantly. I wanted to tell a story that was all onward and upward. Silly me. Of course there were setbacks. The worst included 3 more major surgeries, as well as numerous outpatient surgical procedures. I don't want to bore you with medical details, but I must say that each of the major surgeries had 2 annoying things in common. Contrary to what the surgeons promised, they were more complicated and thus involved a longer hospital stay. The docs meant well, but during the surgeries they discovered they were a lot trickier than they thought. For example, the 1-night stay lasted 1 week; the 2-inch incision extended to 8 inches. This left me with a vertical scar down my abdomen that makes me look like I was gutted like a fish. (At least it's fun making up stories about how I got all the scars.) Then there was a 3rd spinal surgery. Contrary to expectations after the 1st two, the pain kept increasing. The rods felt like they were slicing up and down my spine like steak knives, but I was told not possible, nothing movable by then. Nevertheless, it was thought that removal of the rods might help with the pain. (It didn't.) Turned out I was right. Due to lack of healing in parts of the fusion, the rods were loose. So to review, the rods went in, the rods came out, the rods played pinochle...sorry, I mean they went in again, and finally came out. This 3rd spinal surgery was followed by the worst post surgical care yet. I called my friend to come pick me up after 3 nights so I could leave AMA. I was not zonked on morhpine this time. I was lucid and livid. My friend did come, but she got the latest mishap straightened out so I stayed until discharged. You might think my back would be grateful after all I had gone through for it. But the initial damage and then a lot more from all that digging around to get the rods in and out, left it extremely vindictive. You also might wonder why I so miraculously survived the accident and defied the initial prognosis of paralysis, just to endure all this further trauma. I believe it's because the Universe had to give me a bigger kick in the behind to get my attention. I now can see how beneficial the setbacks were. For example, I was still making futile efforts to go back to work. Only after the 3rd spinal surgery did I realize this would not lead me to "healing and a new life". Prior to "retiring", some said I must have had so much faith to get through the loss of my husband and so much physical trauma at the same time. I don't understand that, but it did take a lot of faith to give up my 30-yr. career as a professional workaholic with no idea how I would survive. (There's that word again.) At least I'd learned enough by then to know that it would all work out just as it should, however that might be. It is two years later, and I can confirm that I've had everything I need when I need it. This includes most significantly the time to focus on transforming my life. I'd like to share more about that in future posts.