I survived the surgery.
I wish I could tell you everything that happened next.
I really can’t. According to medical records and what little I can remember.
They told me that when they got in there, the bleed had stopped. So they had to drain all the blood and fluid that had filled up around my brain and then had to remove the mass.
I got a beautiful metal plate attached to my skull to hold it together, with 4 fabulous screws.
For years, I thought I had lost maybe a day or two after surgery. But now, going back through the medical records I somehow managed to keep for more than twenty years—and all the notes Grandma kept—I realize I lost a week or two.
Just gone.
It’s such a strange feeling to read about your own life and not remember living it.
According to the records, I was admitted to the hospital on November 10, 2002.
I was discharged December 7, 2002.
Almost four weeks.
I knew I’d been there a long time, but I don’t think any of us really remembered exactly how long.
Now we know.
Going through it now to write this story, I’ve found the sweetest get-well notes from people I love. Little pieces of a time in my life that I don’t completely remember.
I’ve always been blessed that way.
I’ve had a lot of people who have loved me.
And still do.
According to Grandma’s notes, those first days and weeks after surgery weren’t easy.
I was having problems with my feet and legs. My balance and coordination were affected, which made sense considering the hemorrhage had happened in my cerebellum.
But I don’t remember most of it.
Some of my first clear memories are much simpler.
I remember my mom.
She was sitting in a chair by the window in my hospital room.
She had made it.
Before surgery, I remember lying there wanting my mom so badly.
Now she was there.
And I was so damn glad to see her.
I remember Shane and Wendy bringing Shaylee to see me a time or two.
She’d come rolling into my hospital room in her stroller, so happy to see me.
My baby.
But here’s something strange.
I don’t remember holding her.
Not once.
Maybe I did.
I hope I did.
But I don’t remember it.
While I was in the hospital, Shaylee became pretty attached to Wendy.
And if my baby was going to become attached to somebody while I couldn’t be there to take care of her, Wendy is exactly who I would have chosen.
Still, writing this now makes me wonder about something I’ve never really thought about before.
Shaylee and I have always had a very different/strained relationship.
And I can’t help wondering…
Was that where some of it started?
Was there something about being separated from me for so long when she was so little?
I don’t know.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
There are some questions you can ask about your life that simply don’t come with answers.
I don’t remember much about Colton and Taylor visiting me either.
I want to say maybe they came.
But I honestly don’t know.
I don’t think Todd brought them up much, if at all. And there may have been very good reasons for that. They were only five and three. Maybe everyone thought it would be too scary for them to see their mom that way.
I just don’t remember.
And I’m not going to pretend I do.
Every day, though, I was getting a little stronger.
I had the middle of my head shaved and what looked like railroad tracks from the top of my head to my lower neck.
I had I don’t even know how many staples and stiches on my noggin’ I did however look ridiculous!
I do remember my Uncle L taking out a few left over stiches at Christmas time when he came to visit.
My mom had to shower me a couple of times.
There I was, a grown woman, sitting in a shower chair while my mother washed me.
It was almost like she was bathing her baby again.
Except this time her baby was an adult who had been lying in a hospital bed forever and probably needed a bath before I stunk everyone out.
Very touching.
Very full-circle.
Also, probably very necessary.
I had to work on balance.
Coordination.
Getting my legs to cooperate with the rest of me.
I remember having to do a lot of walking around the hospital in my gorgeous gown and Iv’s hooked up to me,
Trying to get everything working the way it was supposed to.
My body felt like Jell-O.
It was such a weird thing. I do remember that feeling well.
Suddenly something you’d done your entire life without thinking about it became something you had to work at.
One foot.
Then the other.
Balance.
Keep going.
Eventually, it became clear that leaving the hospital wasn’t going to mean going back to my old life.
I couldn’t go home to Richmond and live alone with three tiny kids while I recovered.
So while I was still in the hospital, my Mom and my wonderful Aunt P—Uncle K’s wife—did something enormous for me. I think a few other people helped, But I really can't remember.
They packed up my house.
All of it.
While I was lying in that hospital trying to recover, my life outside those walls was being put into boxes.
They moved me out of my home in Richmond.
And they moved me and my three babies in with Grandma in Newton.
I didn’t have to figure it out.
My family figured it out for me.
Because sometimes that’s what people who love you do when you can’t do it yourself.
Then finally…
Checkout day.
December 7, 2002.
I remember being tired.
Grouchy.
Ornery.
Maybe that’s where my grouchiness started.
No.
Just kidding.
I’ve always been ornery.
Apparently surviving brain surgery hadn’t fixed that particular personality defect.
Grandma drove us home. In I believe her cute little purple colored Dodge Stratus.
Mom sat in the passenger seat.
I was in the back.
And I swear to God, my grandmother managed to hit every pothole known to man between Salt Lake City and Newton, Utah.
Every.
Single.
One.
Bump.
Pothole.
Bump.
Pothole.
My head had just been operated on.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore.
I poked my head up toward the front seat.
“Grandma, do you have to hit every damn pothole?”
I remember Grandma and Mom looking at each other.
And rolling their eyes.
And off we went.
Apparently I was going to be okay.
Because I was already complaining about Grandma’s driving.
Eventually we pulled up to Grandmas house.
God, I loved that place.
I loved being out there.
I loved that house.
More than anything, I loved the way I felt when I was there.
Safe.
My life looked completely different than it had less than a month earlier.
I’d left my own house.
Someone else had packed my things.
I couldn’t take care of myself the way I had before.
I had healing left to do.
Probably more than I understood at the time.
But I was there.
And my babies would be coming soon.
A few weeks earlier, I’d been lying in a helicopter while each of my children were brought to me so I could say goodbye.
Five. Three. One.
I’d wondered if I would ever see them again.
I’d wondered if maybe they’d be better off without me.
I’d wondered if that goodbye was forever.
It wasn’t.
I pulled up to Grandma’s house with another chance.
My kids would be coming home to me.
I would be home with them.
And Grandma—the woman who had been there when my head first started hurting, who drove me to the hospital, turned the car around, cried with me, held my hand, fought for my pain medicine, waited while they operated on my brain, and gave me and my babies a home when I couldn’t go back to mine—
God, I miss my grandma.
But Grandma and my Mom got me home.
I made it.
I survived.
What did I learn from all of this?
You’d think absolutely freaking nothing, judging by how the next 24 years went.
But that’s a story for another day.
Apparently, this is growth.
A few years later…
My beautiful Momba and Grandma
Me and Grandma
