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putting the trees together
I love, love, love family history work! I have neglected my research time lately as I have been so busy with my family, WUBA class, and healing. Today I decided to spend my Sabbath day working on Sarah Ellen Reherd’s family and listening to music about Jesus.
SO FUN!
I love solving all the puzzles and connecting families together. Whenever I am done dealing with my own problems, it helps me to spend time building family trees and feeling a bond with these long ago ancestors I have fallen in love with.
sacred sabbaths: always remember
A few months ago my mom sent me this adorable piece of wood. Last week I rearranged my room for my new mattress (yes, you heard me right, a better mattress is soon to be part of my life!) set-up and now as I lie in bed I can read the words over and over again.
I can hear her voice filling me with strength. I can hear my dad’s voice. Most of all, I can hear my Heavenly Father’s voice assuring me that I can keep going, that I am brave, strong, and smart. And most importantly, that I am loved by Him, by His son, by my family, and my friends.
Love has the power to change the world. I know, because it has changed my life and if it can change my life, it can change yours, and yours, and yours. And all those changed lives will transform our relationships, our decisions, and our solutions.
Today, as I celebrate this Sabbath in my bed and fully release the anger and despair that filled my soul just a few short days ago, I have made a decision to always remember I am braver than I believe, stronger than I seem, smarter than I think, and more loved than I know.
eat your enemies
I spend quite a bit of time in bed. Even on good days…my hips just can’t handle being upright all the time. This week I have been in bed since Wednesday and have heard lots of hilarious conversations. Here is one from today.
Annesley: God said you should eat your enemies. (giggle, giggle!)
Fisher: No, God said love your enemies.
Annesley: Why should you love your enemies?
Fisher: Because that is what Jesus said.
Annesley: But that is soooooooo HHHHAAAARRRRRDDDDDD!
Fisher: Lots of people asked Jesus the same question.
Annesley: Are we going to be enemies or friends?
Fisher: We are going to play a game together and play legos and do all sorts of things.
Oh, they crack me up. Fisher is so solid in his goodness. Annesley is so full of life and silliness and adorableness. I love being their mama.
earthlife is messy
This human state is such an interesting thing. Emotions, spiritual impressions, the challenges and joys of having a body, and how all three of those things interact with each other and with other people’s emotions, spirituality, and bodies can add up to one tangled web of amazing craziness.
On Thursday my emotions were all over the place. My body was sending me wonky messages of pain, confusion, and exhaustion. My spiritual impressions were getting trampled by the emotion and body messages.
I think this is normal. It is part of this experience we call life…it is messy and intense and joyous and twisty-turny and wonderful all wrapped up together. At any given moment I can be overcome with gratitude AND pain AND hope AND despair AND peace. All at once.
When I share the details of my life with the interwebs I strive for honesty…for several reasons. One, I am not really writing for the millions of possible readers out there in blogland, I am writing for me. Writing helps me process my thoughts and emotions and come to new perspectives. Two, I am also writing for my children and grandchildren. I want them to know the truth of my life, the good days and the bad, the triumphs, the every day ordinary rhythms of our lives, and everything in between. I want them to know how fiercely I loved them and how very challenging it has been to mother them through these injuries. My hope is they will see me as a real person who struggles just like they do and tries again and again AND again and that through my journey they will find the courage to keep trying in their own lives. Third, I do hope that when a person reads my words they walk away strengthened in their own life. I am not a Pinterest board, I am a messy, vibrant, chaotic, striving soul and if my life can bless another in the midst of their own journey, I am willing to share.
p.s. On tap for today is eating my delicious Valentine cupcake from Cocoa Bean, finding a walker to help me get around with this new injury, piles of laundry, the children cleaning all their bedrooms and bathrooms, and catching up on some school work we missed during this crazy week. I am going to take a bath for the first time in many, many days – I think Tuesday was my last bath. I stink! Last night I told Richard he smelled terrible and to move away from me. He apologized and kindly obliged my request to move to the far side of the bed. Welllllll, this morning after he left for work, the reeking smell was still here and I figured out it is me! So my goal for the day is to take a long, hot bath and get all this stinkiness washed away.
thankful thursdays 2/13
What an emotional day this has been…finally the anger, despair, and hopelessness are all cried out. The resolve, faith, and hope are back and it is time to focus on gratitude.
- Tonight I am grateful for Kat’s wise words of encouragement. She came and lied in bed with me for a bit this afternoon and helped me see things from a better perspective.
- I am grateful to Sheri for coming with me to my appointment this morning and taking such good care of me. That woman is a rock! She also rearranged her whole day and took my children to the Jazz performance they have been looking forward to all week.
- Tasha’s dinner tonight was delicious – yams, spinach and cucumber salad, and taco soup. She even brought it to me in bed with some words of encouragement. Best of all, she brought me a big bag of Lamoreaux family popcorn – this stuff is my favorite!
- All of my children made it to all of their different activities today.
- My dear husband came home and listened.
- I don’t know why my body is struggling so much and a HUGE part of me wishes I could wave my magic wand and make it all go away, but I can’t and I am choosing to be grateful for this experience. It is hard and it full of opportunities to grow and it is a blessing in many, many ways.
- I am grateful for the trees in my yard that I can see out my bedroom window.
- I am grateful for the fancy tape Jeremy used to hold my foot together. It is really helping.
- I am grateful for ice packs.
- I am grateful for birds in the trees and their chatter.
- I am grateful for my mom and her heartfelt prayers.
- I am grateful for my Heavenly Father and his abundant love.
- I am grateful for my iPad that allows me to connect to the world from my bed.
- I am grateful for water bottles.
- I am grateful for laughter.
i can’t go on
I process my emotions through writing, so just bear with me while I dump it all out into my keyboard. I am hoping that by the time I get to the end I will be able to have an attitude switch, but no guarantees, I may need to marinate in these dismal juices for a few days before I can smile again.
I get warm fuzzy emails, comments, and phone calls fairly frequently about my positive, faithful attitude. I appreciate them, but feel it isn’t always accurate. Today is one of those days where my attitude is anything but positive. In fact, I will say it straight out – I am angry.
Angry that a half-second collision with my foot is causing me this much pain. Angry that ONCE AGAIN there is a setback in the healing of my hip. Angry that despite my best efforts to be careful and not get injured, I got injured anyway. Angry that somehow I have to find the resolve to keep on keeping on…to mount up another horse and ride for who knows how long…and know there will be another horse to get on at the end of this ride.
I just don’t know how to keep going on with faith and courage and determination when it seems so many of my efforts fail miserably and my body seems to make one step forward and two steps back. It is hard. Really, really hard. I remember at the beginning of this hip injury wondering how on earth I would deal with eight weeks of bedrest and now it has been two whole years. Yes, next week marks the two-year anniversary of the labral tear. I remember when I broke my foot and being told I would be in the walking boot for at least 12 weeks and feeling it was impossible for me to make it that long. The seizures, the passing out, the injection pain, the racing heart, the gut-wrenching groin pain from the tear. Each time there is something new to deal with, I have been blessed to make it through, endowed with courage from on high, and given a fresh infusion of hope that I will get better – that I will be healed. I feel like I have been through the wringer again and again and again and I don’t think I can do it again. I can’t do this. I can’t keep my chin up and face another injury. It is too hard.
Oh Father, help me. Give me courage. Give me hope. Take this pain and give me peace. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee.
it’s worse than i thought
I don’t even want to type these words. I don’t want to see the situation clearly. I want to ignore it and talk myself out of it and convince myself it’s not real. But like my new hero, Patrick Henry, I am going to dig deep into my wells of courage and look it square in the face.
I am hurt.
I am in a good deal of pain.
I am so incredibly ready to throw in the towel, but I WILL NOT. I will keep trying.
Bright and early this morning Sheri came and took me to see Jeremy. After explaining to him what happened with the hippity-hop ball, he examined my foot and found lots of problems. The talus was shifted quite a ways out of place and several of the metatarsals were twisted. The ligaments are pulled and everything is quite sore. Putting all those bones back into place was intensely painful, but now that I am back in bed, it is back to a manageable level.
I often play this weird mind game with myself and try to convince myself nothing is really wrong. I look normal. I have great days. So I must just be a big whiney-face who is freaking out about nothing. Today was another one of those days which I think is designed to show me I am not a whiney-face. Sheri said as soon as Jeremy took off my socks she could tell my foot was misshapen and Jeremy told me this isn’t a matter of being tough or thinking the pain away – the bones were not anywhere close to where they belong and yes, it should be hurting. I believe them. At least mostly. Some of me still thinks I just need to breathe the pain away.
We don’t know what the forecast is yet. It may heal fairly quickly or I may need to go back in a walking boot or have a custom orthotic made to wear while the ligaments heal. Unfortunately, there are quite a few challenges with any of these approaches.
If I go into the walking boot on my right foot, my left foot must be in a shoe that is level with the walking boot, otherwise my hip will be even more unstable and we will cause piles of damage…and seizures, passing out, etc. But my left foot is still healing from being broken for 16 weeks and has to be in my super-stiff running shoes…which are not level with the walking boot. Trying to make them level causes almost as many problems as it solves, so we are going to try to avoid the walking boot if at all possible. But, if the right foot doesn’t heal quickly, we may need to go down that road.
A custom orthotic that would hold my right foot into a neutral position and allow the bones to be held in the correct place while the ligaments heal is another option. But, again, my hips must be level, so whatever we do to one foot, we have to do to the other. And the left foot doesn’t need the same orthotic the right foot will need. CRAZINESS.
I want to cry. Or eat piles of ice cream. Or sleep for the next month. The thought of being injured again for any length of time longer than a few days is nearly overwhelming my state of mind.
Screaming is the answer, right? I can’t really scream because it alerts my nervous system, but I can scream on here.
I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS. I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH ANOTHER INJURY. I WANT TO BUILD MUSCLES AND STABILITY AND WORK MY BUTT OFF. I WANT MY LIFE TO BE NORMAL AGAIN.
And it isn’t going to be. It’s just not. It’s not something I can beat.
After Jeremy put all the bones in my foot back in place, he taped me up with his fancy tape and then got to work on my pelvis. Although I was lying flat on my back, the right side of my pelvis wasn’t even touching the table – so torqued out of place! Jeremy put all the the bones back where they go and helped the adductors and inguinal ligament relax. Then he worked on the sacrum. Sheri held my hand the whole time and helped me stay calm through the much-needed torture. I didn’t pass out, but boy, howdy am I sore. I feel like I have been pummeled by a gang of five-year-old boxers (you know, because they would punch at pelvis level) and am going to spend the day in bed with ice packs.
Our day (and perhaps our week, month, or year?) have been turned upside down, but it is okay. We will rearrange and friends will step in, and life will go on. Sheri is going to take my children to their field trip to a Jazz performance, Kat will come and get my little ones this afternoon, and Blythe will drive herself and Kez to our group music lessons later today. Then she has Youth Symphony tonight and Kez has a City Council meeting to attend for her Key of Liberty class. But all of this will work out without me. Dear, dear friends will step in and take over my mothering duties…again.
Ohhhh. I am ready to cry.
I am grateful, so very grateful for the love and help that surrounds me and fills in all the holes in my children’s lives when I am unable to do what is needed. (But dang it all, I want to do those things!)
a silly little bump that made me collapse
Remember how just a few short days ago I said no shaking episodes had ever happened at iFamily…well, nix that one…I guess there is always a first time for everything. At the end of the day some boys were bouncing around on one of those big balls you can sit on and hold on to a handle – anyone remember what those are called? I am too tired to go look it up. Anyway, they were bouncing around and having a grand time and one of them landed on my foot…my good foot, but my right side which is my bad hip…and glanced off my leg. As the pain shot through my nervous system, I tried to convince myself I was okay and even started to walk away from the boys and insisted to everyone around me I was okay.
And then I collapsed.
I wish I could make my body believe me when I insist I am okay. It isn’t being very obedient lately. Or maybe it is me that isn’t being obedient to my body? I don’t know.
What I do know is instantly people were on the floor with me icing my hip, rubbing out the cramping in my quad, giving me sips of water, and oodles of love.
After a priesthood blessing, being helped to the car by a small army of people, including poor Jen who was trying desperately to hold my hip into its approximate location so I could walk on it and several men who held up most of my weight, I made it home to my bed. Now my foot is throbbing and part of me is worried it is broken, all the muscles in my pelvis are sore as can be, and I am exhausted.
Jen insists I need a bubble suit to protect me from bouncing children, patches of ice, and most of all, my own recklessness. I think I need a strong body that can handle being bumped around a little. Maybe a combination of the two would be best?
Now I am going to fall asleep while reading about Abigail Adams and dreaming of a body that can take a little jostling.
update on my body
I think it is time for an update on my general well-being…things are improving, but my body’s issues are fairly complex, so it is hard for me to give a simple answer when asked how I am doing.
Pubic Bone
The separation is healing and doing TONS better! There were several days last week with NO pubic bone pain. Jeremy gave me the go ahead on Friday to start bridging and ball-sitting-hula-dancing. They are the simple exercises we started back in November, but within a month I had progressed to far more difficult stuff, so I am hoping quick progress happens again.
Pelvic Floor Strength
Basically I have none. The muscles throughout my pelvic floor do not fire often or easily. Sometimes on the fourth or fifth try Jeremy can get an eensy-weensy response, but it takes all the brain power I have AND isolating all other muscles from firing to make the pelvic floor muscles fire. The rest of my body compensates for the lack of pelvic floor muscle strength and we are working on building the muscles and retraining my body to not compensate…my feet, IT band, and adductors especially love to compensate and they must learn to stop. However, if they stopped right now, I would fall right over. At the beginning of January, Jeremy asked me to get some Kegel Cones. I had never heard of them and asked him all sorts of questions. I said something like this, “If this product is to help me have better bladder control, I’m not really interested in spending the money or the time, because I have been peeing my pants my whole life and I don’t really care anymore. What I care about is my hip! Let’s focus all of our attention on my hip!” Jeremy chuckled to himself as he so often does at my ridiculous protestations and explained that the pelvic floor is the KEY to core strength. He said there is no way I will ever have the core strength necessary to hold my hip in place if I don’t have a SUPER STRONG pelvic floor. The core muscles are a giant interlocking web from the diaphragm to the pelvic floor and the attachment points for all the fascial layers are in the pelvic floor. Soooo, in short, I need to stop focusing on my hip and put all my efforts on my pelvic floor.
Needless to say, I decided to listen and order the Kegel Cones. They came back at the beginning of January and I started using them right away. You insert the lightest weight cone into the vagina and see if you can hold it in place for 2 minutes. If you can, you move up to the next heavier weight and see if you can hold that one in place for two minutes. You do this until you cannot hold a weight in place for two minutes and then you go back down to one lighter weight than the one you couldn’t hold. Then you work with that weight until you can hold it in place for 15 minutes at a time while you are walking, coughing, and laughing. Then you move up to the next weight. There are six weights in the set I got, ranging from 25 – 100 grams/1 – 3.5 ounces. I know I am dense, but I really didn’t understand how incredibly weak my pelvic floor is until I inserted the first cone. It took all my concentration to hold it in place and even with all that focus I lasted about ten seconds before it fell out. TEN! I didn’t get any better at it before the pubic bone separation and haven’t done it during the recovery because voluntary surrender to a torture chamber is not my cup of tea. So, now that the pubic symphysis is reattaching the two sides of my pelvis, it is time to try again.
I read several women’s reviews of these cones and they said they had noticeable results in just a few short weeks. I am hoping for that kind of success, but gearing myself up for the long haul. I don’t want to be disappointed if I am still on the lightest cone come March. Investing time and effort in my body is absolutely worth it and I need to know quick results might not be my reality.
Some may wonder why my pelvic floor is SO weak. Well, I don’t really have all the answers to that one. I do know that my core was incredibly strong all throughout my childhood and early adult years. I was a gymnast and did 200 crunches easily. I could lift grown men…including my husband…pretty easily. My body did anything I wanted it to do. In spite of that strength, I have always had laughter-induced incontinence. Once I start laughing it is pretty much a given that I will pee my pants. I don’t understand how my core could have been so strong and still have such poor bladder control. I know when I was in the car accident at 40 weeks pregnant with Fisher my pelvic floor was severely damaged. My uterine ligaments were torn and the connective tissue holding all my parts and pieces in place was thrashed. Since then, my pelvic floor has gotten weaker and weaker…and certainly, the labral tear, bedrest, and months of inactivity contributed greatly to my now non-firing pelvic floor muscles.
It is time to build them strong again. I have to work slowly and consistently and THAT my friends is the hardest part. Slowly and consistently has never been my way. I am more of an all-out, all-night-project kind of girl. Can’t I just procrastinate something for months at a time and then tackle it with gusto? Nope, not this time. The process of building muscles has to be slowly, methodically done so the existing muscles don’t fatigue too much and the hip or pubic bone aren’t yanked out of place by spasms. It is so, so hard for my brain to deal with this reality. It is an everyday, little spoonful at a time sort of deal, and my desire to hurry it along will only cause damage.
Outside of the cones, all my PT exercises are designed to strengthen my core and train my brain to fire the right muscles to do the job. My brain ignores me most of the time and does whatever it wants to do to get the job done, but Jeremy sees the compensating and makes me stop and try again and again and AGAIN until the right muscles fire.
Labral Tear
The tear is doing really well. It feels like the healing we accomplished with the Prolozone injections is holding strong. Our goal is to not do anything to open the tear back up…easier said than done…but I have figured out how to modify my movements quite well so as to not irritate it.
Sympathetic Nervous System
This is certainly improving, but we are not of the woods yet, not by a long shot. I haven’t had a full-blown episode for a while, but lots of mini-episodes happen all the time. It seems the tiniest of things can trigger the shaking, racing heart, numb hands, or passing out feelings…making a comment in Sunday School, disagreeing with someone (even if only in my mind!), not drinking enough water, not getting enough sleep, not eating enough protein, thinking of a stressful situation, dislocations/subluxations anywhere in my body, slipping on the ice, getting excited about something, touching or irritating the femoral nerve. All of these things tip my nervous system over the edge and my body goes into save-Tracy-mode. It happens all the time and I am so very tired of it. I feel like a wounded, fragile flower that can’t feel or do anything without triggering a response. At church yesterday in Relief Society, I asked a new girl who her father-in-law is and immediately my heart rate shot up to 130. I tried breathing exercises and thinking calm, happy thoughts, and finally, hobbled out of the room and held on to the wall till I reached the couch to lie down on before I passed out. Anytime my heart rate gets above 130ish, I collapse, so I know I have to get somewhere safe before that happens. It is so strange to me. My normal self is bouncy and spontaneous and loud and emotional and full of passion. Now I feel I have to be on guard all the time to prevent an episode from happening. It also seems episodes happen in certain places. For some reason, church is a big trigger for me. iFamily and Gym are not. Nothing has ever happened at those two places…they must feel like safe places to me because my body is able to step away from the ledge and relax. I don’t understand this whole thing completely. Jeremy says it is going to take time to help my body learn it is safe. He says the labral tear and resulting nerve pain trained my body to feel like it was like being electrocuted for months at a time. Now that the electrocutions are mostly stopped, my body is still on guard for the next electrocution. He says no one can know how long my body will be on guard, but with energy work, meditation, prayer, and consistently sending a message of safety to my body, it will calm down eventually…at least somewhat. The other piece of the puzzle is my systemic weak connective tissue. Because I am not held together very well, my nervous system is hit with a constant barrage of messages that body structures are not where they belong, this ligament is being stretched too much, that muscles is being pulled tonight, the bone is out of place, etc. So, my nervous system will probably always be at some level of red-alert. The goal is to bring that red-alert level down from the precipice so I don’t tip over the edge so easily.
Foot
My left foot is still healing. Most of the time it feels strong and capable and free of pain. Sometimes there are twinges of pain and sometimes there are big-time aches. It hurts to stand in one place so I am often seen pacing back and forth or walking in circles. I don’t know how much longer I will have to be in my special super-stiff running shoes and I don’t want to pay for an appointment with the podiatrist to find out, so I am trying to be patient and observant and figure out when my foot is all the way out of pain before I start looking for the next pair of shoes. It has been almost 17 weeks out of the boot and it was 16 books in the boot, so we are 33 weeks since the break.
Weight
I have never had a weight problem, never been super thin, just a nice muscle-y body. I have always eaten what I want to eat, gone up and down with my pregnancies, and generally been about a size 8. Sometimes as small as a 4 (when I was vegan for 2 years) and sometimes up to a 10, but generally an 8. During the last two years and especially the past 6 months or so, I have gained 25 lbs. None of my old clothes fit. I have a large double chin, a sizeable belly-roll, and saggy skin around my knees. I think most of it is due to a general lack of activity, a severe slowing of my metabolism, and poor food choices. I desperately want to turn this around, but I don’t know how. I can’t exercise and burn lots of calories. I can make better food choices, but I have been eating green smoothies for breakfast, salads for lunch, and then usually some sort of chicken dish for dinner for the past 7 weeks, and it hasn’t made a lick of difference on my waist line. My body is not strong enough to do any sort of cleanse and I have to eat quite a bit of protein on a daily basis or I feel really weak, so I don’t really know what to do to solve this problem.
Mindset
Overall, I think my mindset is pretty healthy. I have finally figured out that this is a long-term issue and have been making peace with the reality of a new life. Most days, I feel acceptance, courage to keep trying, and hope that my efforts will make a difference. There are really hard days when the pain is overwhelming or the long road ahead looks far too daunting, but for the most part I am resolved to keep on keeping on. I have made peace with how ridiculous I look most of the time, the fact that others don’t understand what is going on and I can’t explain it to them in a five second soundbite, and that I must learn to take care of myself in the way my body needs. I have learned that with God, I am strong and can do really hard things. I have learned God is with me each step of the way, teaching me and holding me up. I have learned to smile again.
Life is good. Really good. This is not AT ALL what I would have chosen and I certainly could not have foreseen any of this happening to my body, but I am grateful for these lessons.
My goals for the rest of this month are to do the following every day: get sufficient sleep, eat lots of protein, do my PT exercises, use the Kegel Cones, state ten things I am grateful for out loud, and send messages of safety and peace to my nervous system.
My friend, Cameron, just posted this on Facebook…it is the perfect thought for me to focus on:
But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day! Habakkuk 2:3, LB
thankful thursdays 2/6
It’s Thankful Thursday! Wahoo for gratitude.
- Sunshine and blue skies! It is freezing cold and most of the schools are cancelled, including Richard’s school, but it looks beautiful from my window. Sunshine brings me happiness every time.
- My new haircut is super cute! I love the color and the cut. I have more bangs than I have ever had and I actually like them oodles and gobs. I usually hate bangs and have only tried them out twice in my adult life, but Mikelle worked her magic and they look really good.
- My new cute purse! My friend Amy did a Thirty-One show for Moola For Muscles and gave me the purse I was swooning over as a prize! Thanks Ames!
- Richard’s school was cancelled this morning he was able to sleep in and snuggle me for a couple extra hours this morning. Any extra time with my sweetie is something to be grateful for.
- Martin Luther and his boldness, fierce dedication to the doctrine of grace, and adherence to his principles.
- The Holy Ghost
- Our safe travels this week.
- Soul-filling conversations.
- My big bathtub.
- The power of love.
- Smiles and hugs.
- Music lessons.
- My ancient phone that keeps working in spite of its many, many spills to the ground.
- My pubic bone is healing and I am feeling great!
We watched The Ultimate Life the other night for family movie night and one of the principles taught is to state out loud ten things you are grateful for each day. I am going to start implementing the practice and help my children to implement it as well.
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
