Something to look forward to

General General TN & GPN (Old Site)
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Sometimes I spend so much time thinking about my current situation and pain I forget that there will be life after this. So I made myself a little list on face fool and thought I would share it here too. It helps to have things to look forward to.

Things I will do as soon as I get my TN into remission:

First thing is to finally allow myself some visitors I miss my friends and I’m having more days where I’m up out of bed and can shower so I’m presentable. The problem is that I never know which days they will be. (This is really pre-remission but deserved a mention)

Bust my non exist any balls to finish school with as close to a 4.0 as is possible and apply to both med school and other grad school opportunities. Depending on how it goes trying to get into med school I may take just a little time to take a trip to somewhere I’ve always wanted to see, even if it has to be short. Stress is not great for TN, so gotta stop and smell the roses sometimes.

At some point I would like to purchase both a nice boat and a decent RV (the bus type). It doesn’t have to be all pimped out, but I’m passed the age of thinking sleeping in a fire ant mound with my head on a rock in a tent that may or may not blow over at night is fun. I may have turned into camping Barbie, but lets just see how many of you want to stay in there with me with my shower and toilet when the time rolls around!

I want to return to continue Radar’s amazing traing because he is so good at it! I will probably enroll him in a nose work class (sorta like the pre curser to drug sniffing and bomb sniffing work) and maybe an advanced tricks class. He could use a refresher on his manners when new people come over, but with age comes calmness (we hope lol). Abby needs her first basic manners class. She does most things at home, but classes are really to each them to concentrate on you with five other dogs in the room that they all want to play with. Plus, I love doing the classes and meeting dog people.

Speaking of dog people… I want to get more involved with trying to help the poor animals waiting for homes at MCAS with great people like Lynette Buckley and Roxanne McDaniel I have a really great idea for an event but I need to be ready to wrangle dogs outside for it to happen and I’m not there just yet

Notice that I put this at the bottom of my list on purpose. Lose weight gained from all these surgeries and being bed ridden in pain for WELL over a year. I will never again judge anyone for weight issues because you really don’t know what they are going through. I don’t really have an eating issue in the sense that I don’t over eat. Yes, I could eat healthier, but I’m on AT LEAST 4 different medications that cause weight gain and I’m still on restricted activity. There’s not a lot I can do right now. I’m starting to do what I’m capable of when my condition backs off a little on the pain, but this has got to stop being the thing that stresses me out. Oh yeah, forgot to mention all the stress hormones I’m releasing because whatever misconstrued information is out there about what I’m going through, I’m under a kind of stress you will never understand unless you have had such a painful life altering diagnosis. So, anyone who is super judgey about people that are too heavy or too thin, just realize you never know what is going on in that persons life to make them that way and back the eff off.

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Share your lists too!! Get them down in writing so you can look at them and remember that there are things you aspire to other than pain!

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right on.
And I have learned that not all people who wear two wool hats on warm breezy days are not off their rockers:)

If you get out to the west coast head on over the boarder, I am not far.

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So true Bellalarke! People in general are way too judgey. I’m totally guilty of this. I used to be the thin blonde girl drinking in the corner with all her other pretty friends people watching and fully making fun of people we bought we weird to us in some way.
I will NEVER be that person again. Well I hope to be the skinny blonde again someday, but no the other stuff lol

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Well Heather, it is in our nature to be sizing things up. But when a person goes from judging to discerning, that’s a big leap.

Really glad you are feeling well enough to make that list. It’s a good one.

My list mostly has to do with recovering my favourite activities. I want to jump in the ocean again. Go sailing again. In the meantime I am teaching myself a little about playing the piano.

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I love the ocean too. I don’t have a pretty usable one closeby so I wakeboard and wake surf. I’ve had several concussions and whiplash from wakeboarding in the past 8-10 years. My surgeon found a lot of scar tissue on my nerve and we think it may be from the wakeboarding. Guess I’m done with that. The falls aren’t as bad surfing so I may be able to do that again. I’d like to pick up paddle boarding too. Nothing beats the ocean though. I lived just outside of Clearwater, FL with my grandmother for awhile during my teenage years (I was a wild one lol) and nothing compares. I’d love to move back to that area someday.
There I go, rambling again! If I ever make it west I will be sure to drop in. I can’t imagine getting on a plane in my condition yet!

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My mom taught me how to crochet during my last recovery. Really helped to have something to do. One of my best friends JUST found out she is pregnant so I think I’m going to crochet a baby blanket for her. She’s just 6 or 7 weeks. She and her husband have had a really rough go trying to conceive. She had one miscarriage and then one that made it really far and then they found out it had do many problems it wouldn’t livened than an hour at most after birth and wod endanger the mother’s life so they had to make the gut wrenching decision to end that pregnancy. I’m not a religious person, but she could use all the positive thinking in the world right now that this baby is going to be perfect! :slight_smile:

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Costa Rica has been high on my list for a loooong time. I have a friend who runs a wakeboard school on Lake Arenal. Australia and New Zealand are high on my list also. That’s a great pic Shindig!! I also have loved the water since I was very young. We didn’t have a boat but I was always in the pool or on a friends boat at the lake as long as I can remember.

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How did you post the picture right in the pot instead of uploading files???

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Never mind I remember simple HTML. You just need to have the pic hosted somewhere you can link to right? I’m highly medicated so I could bd way off here lol

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Whenever I just add the file it makes people click on a little link to see the picture.

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Of course I couldn’t even get my picture straight for my little avatar so I just left it sideways lol

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Sleeping on the right side of my face. That will be the day

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Omg I’m so with you, but the left side of my face! Sometimes I roll over on it in my sleep and when I wake up it’s both glorious and then horrifying.

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Here’s an old school shot of me wakeboarding. I probably can’t go back to this because of the whiplash and concussions I received learning new things. Don’t want to jar anything back out of place or cause more scar tissue. I will probably wake surf though. The falls aren’t nearly as hard and it’s much more chill.
356-image.jpg (74.5 KB)

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Oh me too! That’s real skill and strength.

What I can’t say? I did sail 80 nautical miles from Trinidad to Grenada on a 42’ sailboat in 15’ seas heeled over hard for 17 hours, strapped into the cockpit, but I was just holding on. My accomplishment was to not barf:)

If you can wakeboard like that, you can lose the weight when the time comes.

It’s good to remember that not all days are like these.

Shindig, sweet shot of you in the boat back in the day.
Are you going to have your girlfriend update us?

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shindig said:

I'd like to go fishing with my amish friends in Ohio. Haven't been back there in 4+ years.

Not sure where your friends are at, but being an Ohioan that set of some memories. The area around Millersburg is simply beautiful. Gentle rolling hills with quaint family farms as far as the eye can see. I would love to have a pain free day and visit there again.

I always wanted to move out there or at least to a rural location and simplify.

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My list is simple.

1. To be able to go out with Grandkids to the beach,

2. to have the energy to clean my house top to bottom.

3. To socialise with friends again.

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Beauty in simplicity. Love it.

I have my first grandchild coming very soon. Want to be one of her birthing coaches and will do my best but also am in serious doubt of being about to hold up:(

And yes, clean the whole house, get down on my knees with my head bent forward and my hands in the earth.

Socialization with reliability.

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GARDENING! Oh how I miss gardening! Killing time in between doctors appointments and went to one of my favorite nurseries to look around. I had to sit down on a bench and get cold water half way through. This is the longest I’ve been out of bed in 8 weeks and it’s pretty warm here in Texas. I would love to get down on my hands and knees and plant something! So many beautiful flowers!

Bellalarke, I really hope you get to be a birthing coach! What an amazing experience. I’m sure everyone will love you just the same even if you don’t make it though!