A New Perspective

I had a strange experience the day I was discharged from the hospital. Shortly after arriving home, my husband started a fire in the fireplace like he does most evenings in the winter. He then got me all set up with blankets and pillows so that I could sit by the fire and watch tv. As I sat there, quietly watching him going about his business, I was overcome by an eerie feeling that I was not actually physically present in the room. It was as if I was detached from the scene and watching from some other dimension. It was the creepiest thing - like I was getting a glimpse of things the way they could have been, or maybe even should have been. My husband alone; me gone. Maybe it was just the aftershock of the whole affair, but whatever it was, the feeling of gratitude it left behind stuck. It was some strange kind of magic that made me realize how lucky I was, and how much worse it all could have been.

After experiencing some insight from that perspective, I tried to find something positive to focus on every day and believe me, if you look, you`ll find it. I can`t say I didn`t have a few miserable moments after that, but those moments were short-lived. I just couldn`t help but feel lucky, despite it all.

I did my best to always have a smile on my face when my husband returned from work. I would wake up in the morning, wash up and get dressed - no lounging in pyjamas for me. In my view, if you dress like a sick person, you'll feel like a sick person. It`s human nature. And, the last thing I wanted was for my husband to come home to a sad and depressing place. Why should he? I wasn`t sad and I wasn`t depressed. And quite frankly, it wasn`t that much effort. After the first three weeks or so, I actually felt relatively good most of the time. I was uncomfortable to be sure, and I had pain from time to time, but my morale was very good, and that helped with everything else. I tend to think you have the power to actually decide how to feel about things. You either choose a negative perspective or a positive one. It`s your choice. A negative perspective will only bring you down. And it serves absolutely no purpose.

I would say the challenge in the beginning is to manage the pain. It`s not easy to be positive about things when you are hurting, that`s for sure. But if you can get a handle on the pain, the rest will be easier. While I was dealing with the infection in two of my pins, I also had an infection in my throat and ears. There is no doubt this made me pretty miserable for the first three weeks. That sore throat just hung on and on and was always worse at night. Thankfully, that was the last of the real complications for me. After that, I just focused on resting and eating well. I`m lucky enough to have a husband who gave me all the support I could possibly want, and he happens to be a great cook. What more could I ask for?