Have you ever had one of those mornings where life gets messy and the hard stuff gets thrown in your face? That was this morning. (Sunday, Aug. 13th.) I promise there is good stuff to share but because it just happened…well it’s part of my story. The good and bad stuff.

I had just had a conversation in talk therapy about the kids going back to school, how was I feeling about that. This summer I asked my kids to just help a little more with helping me get out of bed. I serisouly think that is the only thing that consistantly irritates me with Matt as my care taker. (Sorry Matt! I’m so, so, so very thankful for what you do everyday, but I’m human.) So, the three kids at home rotate who helps me. They just make sure that I’m safe.

Over the last few weeks we have gotten pretty good at it because…

I got an electric chair! This was a picture of the first time I sat in it. I am still using the demo because it’s not officially mine, yet. I now know, looking back, I should have come home in an electric chair but pride and not understanding how debilitating my injuries were. I opted for a manual chair. I am thankful I chose the chair I did because it really gave me something to “achieve”.

It sits a few inches higher than my other chair helping me when I try and stand. And the freedom…to just be able to leave a room, or change locations on the deck. It’s WONDERFUL!!! It has really helped me to want to try some more things. Like cooking a meal for my family again. It might have to be really, really simple and easy.

We did make a trip to Meijer in the new chair. I didn’t run anyone over! 👍😁 One goal met!! Yes, NOT hitting anyone or anything was a goal! The joy stick is way senesitive and I have only gone to speed 3 of 5. Just not super confident in driving yet. But the ability to move myself from one place to another…wonderful! It brings me such a childlike happiness. It will often catch me by suprise how happy I am to sit in the kitchen watching my family make dinner. There are so many things I am grateful for with my family.

My children were sitting at a table with my cousin in the picture below, so my husband and I joined their conversation. BIG mistake. HUGE! I don’t even remember what exactly they were talking about, but my kids were picking on my cousin. My kids were making jokes and saying funny things I started laughing so hard, I ended up moving my chair backward.

If you don’t know my laughing noises or faces, it can look like I’m really having a problem.

This is a picture of my grandma and I trying to talk and give hugs. 2 Wheelchair users with limited movement, one can’t hear and the other can’t speak clearly or loud enough. I actually thought this moment brought a little laughter to my heart. We tried. My mom’s sister and my cousin are also in this picture. It is such a wonderfully sad picture. Just hated that we couldn’t be saying hi under better circumstances.

I don’t know about you, but I love having so many faces I love in one room.

Sept.19th.My youngest turns 13?!? It’s also the 6 year anniversary of me really “waking”.

Here I go again trying to go back in my memory to write the super fun and hard stuff that happened weeks ago.

If we go back to the week before that first camping trip…so June 19…wow that’s a long while back. I had just started working on taking a shower with one of my occupational therapist. In preparing for this next adventure in relearning, I really wanted a win here. In my head I often feel like if I try something one time and it doesn’t work, I have been defeated. Not giving myself grace 🙄 to relearn and strenghen. I just wanted an “out of the gate win”. Right?!? I mean who doesn’t love drive through change, be it physical or mental or in any capcity? I would LOVE some drive through change! But much to my dislike it takes time.

So for that win…my beloved hair stylist decided she needed to stop doing hair, I completely understood and still do, but, man do I miss her. 😢 I needed to find someone new. Thankfully, she put me in contact with one of her friends salons. And I went to Spring Lake to do something that would help me shower… I cut what I thought was 8 inches of hair off. The wonderful woman who cut my hair said it might have been more like 12 inches!

She thinned it out so much too! It was wonderful to get some of the weight off. While I am still working on the shoulder strenght to wash all of my hair, I am really close. I always miss a sliver on the lower left side. So, I have all these moments that stick out to me in the areas like in speech, drinking through a straw for the first time, or repeating “Don’t think, just walk”. Occupational therapy hasn’t yet had a shirt made for it in memory of where I was when I started therapy.

I have had so many wonderful moments in OT too! I will share a few. While still an inpatient at Mary Free Bed I remember telling, and showing, anyone who walked by my room that I could FINALLY lift my right hand up to touch my nose. It still is so crazy that even in my happiness at being able to finally do this small task, I still didn’t really understand how bad my injuries were and how big of a task it really was.

I feel like this is so often what I realize about my recovery. My mind remembers when I could just move the hand at will I never fully understand the lack. I think about how often this finds its way into my daily routines still today.

So, do I make a shirt that says…”I can touch my nose with my finger”? All I can see in my mind is a finger picking a nose. Which leads me to think how when I finally “woke up” my face would get an itch, not even sure they were real sensations, and I would chant in my head “Ignore the itch. Ignore the itch.” Over and over again for the whole 3 seconds it would take me to fall asleep.

Or another shirt idea “who has cut 12 inches of hair off, just to wash to the end of their hair? 🤚Me! I have!” Nothing has really stuck yet. But I do feel like it’s close.

So, after the hair cut my family came to MI…Quick, thought about my family time then, back to some fun camping stuff.

On the Tues following my mom’s memorial we, my dad, brother, sister, brother in law, and my husband, were just sitting around talking at our camp site, and my brother in law asked a question about something that happened in high school. It caught me way off guard. I have lived in Michigan since 1998 and outside of my sister this was the first real conversation I had with someone I had actually been in school with. So many times over the years I have listened to stories about this happened in middle school or high school from Matt or other friends. I had forgotten we had gone to high school together. It was just kinda weird how it really throw me off.

I think I shared in the last camping post that I had to nap and they left. It was sad and hard. I wanted to have more conversation with them but my brain…

We saw all the weather that week. 😃
It was sunny and warm, smoky, we had been “downwind” from the fires they were having in Canada then. It’s very strange to see smoke and smell smoke and know it’s not from the camp site down the road.

Then on the day we decide to head to the pool, it rained. I mean rained!

I wasn’t able to get a good picture but there was standing water on the concret. After about 20 minutes of trying to wait out the storm we decided we should get back. That led to conversations between Matt and N & K about what the best options were to get back to our sites. Matt offered to drive around the community building that we had been hiding by (that was an entrance for the pool). On the front of the building was a drop off covered area. Matt was offering to drive around in our golf cart and pick me up there so I wouldn’t get so wet.

I asked him if we could just go the short trip with me getting into the golf cart in the rain and then just head back to our camper. I said I never get to do these fun, silly things anymore. So we did. I still had my manuel chair so he had to push me to the golf cart and then help me get into the camper. It might have made more work for him but I am so thankful.

It rained for the rest of my day time. I say it that way because I am usually in bed by 9, my family not so much. The next few days were beautiful. The play ground that included a blow up trampoline and a 3 story water slide were basiclly in our back yard. Matt brought with him a newly made cornhole boards, he set the out for having N & K and another friend and his son.

So, in the blow up trampoline picture is a man who had never been on a trampoline is his life. This was so it would be memorlized.😁 I really just thought the idea behind a blow up trampoline was kinda cool. I had never seen one before.

There was lots and lots of this…and…

The puppy who is not supposed to be on the couch. She is not spoiled.

Overall it was a wonderful camping trip, to kick off the summer in June! When we got home we got the new chair brought to the house. There is more summer to share, but I’ll share in another post…

♡TeamGavrilides ♡TBI Survivor ♡Faith to walk in the middle ♡Seed of Hope