The Gift of Breath and the Dance of Time

Apparently I was at Spectrum Health Butterworth for surgery and recovery for 7 days,  I was then transferred to an Acute Care Facility called MaryFreeBed for 7 days, My surgery was on October 8, 2014 and I was released from MFB on October 23, 2014 to go home with continued home care.  To me it only felt like a few days....mostly aware of the MFB time.  It is most strange to me how time continues to escape me......like fleeting granules of sand, falling through this hourglass of my life.  How can the time disappear so easily.....so quickly....not remembered...like it never existed at all?  You hear people talk about the events, the conversations, that sound like they are describing someone else entirely.

I remember sitting up, to take what I remember as my first walk after the surgery, when still at Spectrum Health Butterworth. They were surprised but encouraging about me "wanting" to take that walk after such a "major surgery" as the therapist described it.  They said most people don't walk that early.  What can I say, I have always been motivated to get better  I had to walk.  I had to.  It was a short walk to me....though they said it was longer than they expected me to be able to do YAY!!!  When walking with my cane, about half way through the walk, I stopped to stand and catch my balance.  I paused my thinking and focused on what would be my first conscious Deep Breath.  I inhaled through my nose as deeply as possible and it was simply.......amazing.....NO PAIN with breathing for the first time since the wreck.  I didn't know if it would last....but for that one solitary moment I enjoyed the feeling of life filling my lungs and was determined to finish that walk.  Though admittedly, I probably did walk a little too much, because by the time I got back to the room I could barely stand and was wiped out energy wise.  However, I could breathe, and that made a world of difference to me. 

Then I found out that my right lung was still not fully inflated and I would have to use several different breathing devices to help reinflate that lung back up, since they had to collapse the whole lung for surgery to plate those ribs on the R side.  Just imagine,  I thought,  how I could breathe with BOTH lungs inflated.

These are the memories that stick out to me.....the rest is a blurry and sketchy experience in which time didn't exist until I got transferred to MFB.

Grateful to be alive though and wish I could have told the Surgeon that to his face....but he never came to see me.....or I should say...not that I remember.