Being Dissociated is Gr--... I mean Being DISCHARGED is Great!!

Wayne was discharged from Harborview this afternoon & is home resting. I forgot from the 2009 cranioplasty how swollen his left eye & cheek became 2 days post-op. He's excited to get out of the hospital & be home but is uncomfortable & in some considerable pain.
     He's doing well & I am glad he's home!! Plus, that means I don't have to go back & forth between Harborview & home. Thinking back to 2008 & how I was up by 7am & off to the hospital everyday ASAP... I have absolutely no idea how I did that. None. I couldn't even get to the hospital by Noon each day this time around!! No wonder I have a lot of feelings & memories that are coming up & being realized for the first time--can you say DISSOCIATION?!?
     Now whenever a moment, or a thought, or a comment is too stressful for me, one quadrant of my lip goes numb & it spreads rapidly down my chin & neck & I start to hyperventilate. That's what my body was doing this morning before I went to see him.
     Great defense mechanism, I guess, because it allowed me to handle the newborn that I had in my arms and the critical condition of my husband and best friend, Wayne Bacon.  But the result is I'm still dealing with things from the first 3 days after his stroke, and 2 months after the stroke, and 18 months after the stroke.  Mainly the first 4 or 5 weeks, but it's a weird way of living when you don't know when another memory will flood in and take over your body.
     Like the consent form at Harborview--it was such a defining moment to be reading over that on April 2nd, 2008 with so many supportive friends around me, my mom, my 3 week old daughter, and Wayne's mum on the phone... but now when I see a consent form at Harborview, I suddenly have feelings and memories and emotions that I didn't even know I wasn't dealing with previously but suddenly those memories and feelings are preventing me from dealing with the current situation!  I told the Neurosurgeon, "You guys should offer desensitization classes for that consent form for the spouses of craniotomy patients. That consent form carried so much weight (the night of the emergency surgery to remove half of his skull to save his life) that the image of that consent form is burned into my brain and I have to really focus to not dissociate when I see that form again."
     Onward and upward though, right?!?!
     I do everything I can to ensure that we enjoy life, that we focus on the moment, that we are grateful for the memories and togetherness that we have everyday, that we let go of the things that will not have a drastic effect on our path and journey...
...and that I just keep breathing, just keep breathing, **deep inhale**, **slow exhale**... Oh, hello there left lower quadrant of my lip, chin, and neck! So nice to have feeling in that area again.  Welcome back.