A Painful Loss

 This past Friday my family lost one of its treasured members. I'm afraid he died of an undiagnosed heart condition (we believe). We are deeply saddened and pray for his wife. We love them both dearly.
I will definitely be writing about this later as it is a deep and painful subject that I know all too well. I want a little time to grieve. We loved you, Mark. We miss you already.

Sanctuary, "God Bless This Home"

Searching for Home

  Have you ever had enough and wished that you could just retreat to a bubble where no one can ever bother you, upset you, or hurt your family in anyway? Home is something that almost everyone longs for at some point in their life. Home is something that I long for with all of my heart. It has been years since we had one of our own. We had a home, that we eventually lost when my husband became crippled with Chronic Fatigue (Fibro-Mialgia) and herniated disks. We lost everything. We also had emotional baggage that made our life and especially our marriage an intense struggle. We did not have the tools to heal. So we uprooted our family and moved across the country in search of healing and home. We are finding healing... with the help of an absolutely amazing therapist. She is helping us let go, forgive, and heal. and move forward with healthy communication.
  My advice... for everyone... is to learn how to communicate. it is truly the only way to have a good, productive, happy life. You have to grow and develop a way to feel without hurting those around you.  I had reached my limit of sorrow, pain, frustration, and fear, and I believe that God said... "Okay, you have had enough.  It's time to heal." This is when we felt inspired to move on. We had to get away from everything that was hurting us... our past... our baggage... our trauma... and the negative influences in our lives. Off we went. We are almost completeness passed our individual therapy and we are moving on toward healing our family. It feels like we are ready to move on to a happier life. Now though... I am longing for home. I am truly struggling to know where to go next... do we go back to where we left? That is the hardest decision. Do we risk going back to where we struggled the most in our lives and hope that we are strong enough? That is what we are trying to decide.
  I need a home. My oldest daughter dreams of having a family of her own. I ache over that. It is not my greatest desire.  I love my children so much... I do not want to be separated from them, but at the same time I want to see them grow and add to our family and our capacity for love. I dream of grand babies, but I struggle with letting her go.  I lost three of my children to Muscular Dystrophy... She is the one of the ones who stayed. How do I part with her. I love to hear, "I love you", and "Mom... can I talk to you." Those are some of my happiest moments. To know she still needs me. Being a parent is not easy.  There is so much sacrifice and reward, and it is worth every moment, but it isn't always easy.
  Home... I need a home. I am so very grateful that we have a good, solid home that shelters us from weather, trauma, struggle, and life. It is our sanctuary from the world, but it is not ours.  We can't make it ours. I long for home. I want to grow our family, and have a safe place where we can love, learn, laugh, and grow. I need a home. Maybe the hardest decision is where do we go, and my greatest fear is... can we find what we need? Can we find that home that will give us all that we need? I dream of home. I just pray we can find it.

Pain and My Search for Relief

Hi guys. Sorry it has been a while. I have been recovering from my spine stimulator implantation surgery. I have struggled with chronic, sever, and constant back pain from a number of crippling conditions. This has not been easy. I have had years of injections, radio frequency, physical therapy, etc, but nothing has ever relieved the pain to the point that I could live any sort of a normal life... outside of my bed. I did the trial for the implant, and it was great. Now... my (emotional) therapist has a theory that the idea of hope causes a false sense of hope, because when it was all said and done... it helps, but it is not the same as when I did the trial many months ago.
The pain was excruciating, Surgery pain, plus the normal, crippling back pain that I have every day was way to much.  I did not think that I was going to survive it.  I also had the difficulty of working with the pain clinic that I had used for my relief for almost 2 years. The front desk "Pit bull" as I affectionately call her gave us a ton of trouble... claiming that I was misusing my medicine, because I had to ask for more Morphine and Percacet because I asked for another prescription.  Mine had run it's course and I was due for another one. They were under the assumption that my spine stimulator was turned on right away.  It was not! I had to go to the surgeon who did my surgery and we explained our situation.  They had not taken into consideration that I would need to ween off of the heavy medications that I had been taking for years. It was an all around humiliating, frustrating, painful, and confusing situation. I ended up having severe withdrawals and wanted to strip off my own flesh to get relief. It was a nightmare. I have great sympathy for people who go threw

withdrawals; it was truly horrible.
Sadly, once I healed for 2 weeks, they turned the stimulator on for me.  I struggled for the next 6 to 7 weeks, but now I am finally healed, only now I am still in an incredible amount of pain. I am back on my medication and I use the stimulator as needed.  It helps a lot when I am out and about.
Now I want to put out a disclaimer that I am NOT saying that this would not work for other people. I cannot predict what would happen if you think that it is right for you. I just feel like I need to share my story.
I will say though that my general practitioner has had many patients who got the stimulator and had the same results. One woman went as far as having it removed.
It does help my recovery (a little), and it does help when I am out (a little), but I cannot claim that it is the same for everyone.
Anyway, I am sort of back to square one, but my attitude has changed. I am trying to move forward. I try to learn, and develop my talents. I found a wonderful chair that has a great padded, curved shape. It is a chaise so I have leg support all the way through. I also have an orthopedic pillow that relieves the pressure on my coccyx, which is the end of your tailbone. So I continue to struggle, but I am living my life more fully now.  I am grateful for my life, my loving children and husband, the talents that God gave me, and the ability we have as humans to learn and grow. I am grateful to live beyond my pain.
I know that some of you are back to the grindstone with kids back to school and such, but what I want to ask you is... "How are you going to be spending your time? Are you going to make yourself a better person, or are you going to settle for your life and circumstances or are you going to try to learn something new about yourself today?"
What do you have to lose?
Good luck my friends. -Gail