The Lighthouse

I have been constantly amazed by the powerful ebb and flow of emotions that have arisen the last couple of days.

I have been feeling like I've been cast adrift out to Sea recently. Visits from friends and family have dwindled now that they have all checked, that despite my half working face, I am still essentially me.

It is not as if I expect people to still run around me. I don't want that at all. Life has to get back to some sort of normal. It needs to. Whatever Normal is these days.

However, normality brings in itself a sense of bittersweetness. I am glad for the peace and the solitude, the time to get to know who I am again, my work in the garden brings me a sense of grounding that I so much need right now. But what I wasn't prepared for was the huge sense of abandonment I felt when I was alone. The overwhelming fear that came in waves, wondering if this was it. This was the end to my whole life that I thought I knew.

My feet were barely treading water, Instead of riding the waves of love that I experienced before, I was now desperately paddling against the tide. I thought I was drowning.

Outside influences further impacted on it all. Drug induced emotions, Other peoples hurt feelings and here was I. Me with a broken face. A Severed Nerve. Scared, wondering if I'd ever get my smile back again. That, is true fear.

One minute I could be strong and full of hope, the next I would be climbing the walls, ready to rip anyone's head off and then sleep would beckon me the next.

Today is a better day. I have re-set me course for the Lighthouse. If I can't reach the shore, my lighthouse will guide me the way until I do.

 I have been working all day in the garden. Peace comes in tiny ripples where I bathe in the calm. Take each moment as it comes, step by step. minute my minute.

I am reminded that anger is just an emotion, left unexpressed it'll only cause more pain in the long run. 

Anger does not have to lead to violence. I used to be that person a long time ago. It's hard to believe looking back. I learnt tools and techniques. I am now an EFT practitioner and I run art workshops for young adults with learning disabilities. I am grateful for everything that I learnt because of my dark side. I am grateful that I could experience the darkest parts of my soul and learn to not be afraid of it but to embrace it and use it for the greater good.

We are all essentially good eggs with a bit of rotten in all of us. The difference is. Is that some people are too afraid to acknowledge their own rot. But out of decay, death and destruction brings beauty, and new life. It's a choice we can make, either we let the rot set inside us, to never let it escape. Or we choose new life every time every second, every moment and every day.

Frozen

It's easy to remain in good spirits when the sun his shining.
This  weekend has been a good one. I even managed to get out in the garden to mow the lawn and trim a hedge yesterday. I feel as if I have finally emerged from my bath.
Today we took a mini excursion out to a nearby village flower festival.
This afternoon has been spent illustrating and writing a new story idea I woke up with.

Despite having half a frozen face life is ok. I do of course get frustrated, but when something in your body stops working, it's all the little things that really begin to matter.
I am still waiting for physio appointments to come through, but every morning I lie in bed moving my face in the most peculiar of fashions. I have come up with nicknames, Like the Mick Jagger & Elvis lips. I even practice the Anne Robinson wink, I still can't wink yet though.......
On the plus side. I am managing with much muster to close my eye and keep it closed when sleeping. I think I have a little more movement in my lips, I am certainly not dribbling my cup of tea in the morning now.
One big let down though is the inability to whistle. I was out with the dogs yesterday and out of habit went to throw my belter of a whistle which I learnt to do years ago using my thumb and forefinger. All that came out was a pathetic whine before petering out to dribble. Another thing to relearn.

Now that I am resurfacing from my dreamland, I am beginning to remember what life I had before it became frozen along with my face.
Before I went into hospital, I had began a campaign to raise money for planting 14 tree's in our village. I had raised £200 by the time I had my op. I am  keen to get the ball rolling again to gain permission from our City Council having received the blessings from our Local Parish Council.
I signed up for more singing & Yoga lessons. I want to return to them as soon as I can.
But life has changed. There is no doubt about it. The little annoyances, the disagreements, all the bullshit. none of that matters. I have cleared my page. I am starting anew.
The words 'Never and 'Victim' act to me as a red rag would do to a bull.
No one will take away my power because it will alway's be mine to use.
My Seashell from my first dream when all this began, is vibrating with sounds. They are getting louder as I am getting stronger. My nerves are tingling with anticipation. New horizons are on its way I can almost see them. And I am standing tall. I am smiling, my face no longer the frozen atlas that it was. Instead, the scars glow a warm light. I am more than those old wounds, they are only part of my story, but they are not the whole.

Photo from Privett Church Flower Festival

Falling

I woke up from a dream this morning. I have been dreaming a lot lately, all with a reoccurring theme. I am falling.
This one though was a bit different. Metaphorical.

In my dream, I found myself back at my first real proper full-time job I had when I was 18. Only in this dream, I was the age I am now.
I reacquainted myself with all my old colleagues and I remember saying to them that it wasn't a step back returning to them because I had grown. I had evolved and I could show them what I had learnt.
I remember seeing a path lit with candles. As I drew nearer I could see people taking off their hospital wrist ID bands and placing them on the ground with a tealight. I looked at my own wrist and saw that I still had mine on. I took it off and gently placed it among the sea of flickering flames. I stepped back and could see the path grow into the distance, I wanted to follow it but instead, the mountains began to enclose around us. A storm was brewing. We all got separated and in the end it was only me climbing the mountain.
A loud boom came from the skies which triggered an avalanche. Rocks were falling over my head and people were shouting directions to me, telling me when to duck for cover and when to go.
The ground was shaking and I was afraid. I called out to people to come over but they were unable to and as my subconscious began to awaken, I watched as an outsider the image slant away and I felt myself falling until I woke up.

Instantly I understood. This path I am currently walking, is rocky, I have support, but ultimately this path is mine to walk alone. I will gain new tools and learn new skills. I will become stronger and I wont always feel like I am falling. As I make that conscious decision, I lean over to my bedside table and write a note to myself; Remember the Wings next time!

Change Ahead.

I woke up feeling pretty down this morning. I took a shower and then cried. I felt better afterwards.
I am beginning to resurface from my bath water slowly but surely. The length of time is getting just a little bit longer before my body is immersed back in the water again later in the morning where I will remain for the rest of the day. I hope that soon the plug will be pulled. The water is cold and stale now.
At lunchtime I had an online appointment with a fellow EFT/Matrix Re-Imprinting colleague who specializes in Meta-Health. I met her briefly during my training a few years ago now and I have great admiration and respect for the work that she does. You can find out more about Penny Croal's work here
My session with Penny was enlightening and heartening. My spirit began to sour once more as the trauma left my scar ridden body. I still have a journey ahead but it's a start. It is a change ahead and it is something that I do not need to fear but rather to be embraced.
Of course, I will get moments of doubt, sadness, anger, fear and grief, but they are all worthy of acknowledgement. I can choose to let them flow in me and through me until they find a way out. I can guide them all, just like little children needing to be loved. I am not afraid to hold their hands.

This afternoon I was so wiped that I slept for an hour. I honestly feel like such an old woman at the moment. My only consolation is that in rest, the body heals. I still wake up forgetting the recent physical traumas. I wish that I could stay in my dreamworld.
In other news I have created a new 'Quirky Cow' illustrated storyboard. I don't quite know how my mind conjures up the images but conjure it does and they make me laugh out loud. I am so excited by them.
The beauty of being so tired and stuck at home all day, means I have no distractions to divert my attention from my artwork. What do other people do when they don't have creativity though?.........

Facing reality

I have been waking up every morning bright eyed and bushy tailed looking forward to what the day might bring. But now, the anesthetic is finally starting to ware off which brings in itself a bittersweet experience.
The dreamlike world I was in, is leaving me, bringing in it's wake, a cold reality.
To add to the sadness, my Dad who has been with me almost everyday since i came out of hospital is returning back to work tomorrow. I will be left alone for the first time in over a week.
I know that I shall have to face my emotions buried underneath my coat of armor.
Disappointment being the main one right now. Frustration of not being able to control my face as I once did. Exhaustion by the adaptations that I have to make everyday.
Ones that haven't quite instilled into a habit yet so it's still a constant conscious battle to remember that I MUST protect my eye. The eye that never blinks, the eye that cannot close on itself when peeling an onion, or shampooing my hair. The pain that is inflicted upon it when I towel my face and the towel rubs into my eyeball. It's enough to make me want to cry, but I don't because it just spurs me on to make sure that I will make a full recovery.
I tell my Dad off for explaining to family about what happened to me and then adds at the end, 'She will never get back to how she was'. I remind him that just because the Doctors tell us so, it doesn't mean that it has to be so. I spent all my childhood proving people wrong and that fight has never gone away. I shall utilize it once more and I SHALL rise victorious.

Today we went to see my Uncle. he is on the Autistic spectrum and didn't even notice my wonky face. He just talked about his endless home improvement projects surrounded by lawnmowers and power tools inside the house.
He was looking disheveled and unkempt so my cousin and I set to work washing his hair and trimming his beard while the other cousin set about sewing up some holes in his jumper and buttons on his coat.
But he is content. I have never known anything to phase my Uncle. He is never ill and in his late 70's he is still climbing ladders doing his roof.
I have to admire him really. Among a sea of chaos and a mountain of jobs, he is an oasis of calm. He doesn't understand or even have the concept that other people around him might be a little frustrated with him. He will do things at his own pace in his own time and you can bet your bottom dollar, he will get immense pleasure and joy from whatever he will end up doing. He kept telling me about seeing the bigger picture because it will make the ending all the more worth while.
And so today I have taken that snippet of advice. My picture has only just begun, but it will get better and it will get finished just like the greatest of Master Paintings.

Prelude: Resilience

Before I write further posts, I want to mention something that happened 10 days before my original operation.
A close neighbour of mine lost his life recently, leaving his wife and adult disabled twin daughters behind. As I visited him in hospital I recognized that I was looking at the face of a dying man. I had seen similar before.
Sure enough, shortly after he crossed over the bridge.
His family are all in varying degrees of vulnerability and I happened to pass them in the village after they got off the bus from hearing the news at the hospital. What I witnessed was raw and unadulterated grief in all its messiness. It was all I could do was to sit with them on the village bench, just holding them while great violent torrents of grief stricken waves washed over them.
Eventually after time, the grief slowly ebbed and finally they were ready to go home. Tea was made in the best typical British fashion and as more tears were shed, I sat, just being until light turned to dark and more people came through until I felt they were safe to be left.
Not wishing to make another families tragedy about me, what took place though was relevant to the stories of now because it taught me some valuable lessons about human resilience.
I popped in everyday after that until my operation day. Each day, Through them, I witnessed human resilience get a little stronger.
I watched and heard other people around them come together to help support an extremely vulnerable family. Communities working together for the better.
Today was his funeral. I got my outfit out but as the hours ticked on by today, I found myself struggling more and more until in the end I made a decision that I would not go.
I know the family have a long way ahead to heal from broken hearts. But I have also seen strength in them that nobody could have possibly have foreseen and it got me thinking that it is sometimes in the biggest adversities that we finally begin to shine our true light.
Lesson number eight. Never underestimate the power of human resilience.

An extremely rare case

Today was my post Op check-up. Dad drove me to Southampton Royal Hants with some kick ass tunes playing at my request. I needed the pick-me-up as I was feeling a little apprehensive as to what would be said.
As it turns out, given the circumstances it was all promising. My wounds were healing up very nicely if not more so he stated, having just undergone 2 invasive procedures in the same place.
He had a good old delve around inside my ear while my Dad looked on at the monitor screen. I wondered why he was looking a little peaky.
My consultant took away my stitches and then my dressing inside my ear where momentarily I was able to experience a huge pressure relief, only to have it almost immediately return after he threw some ointment back in the depths of where it cannot be reached.
And so my head still feels like it is under water. My voice is so loud that it hurts to speak as is my breathing. Every sound inside my body is reverberating against my ear drum and it makes me want to hide away.
On the whole he was very nice to me. He asked how I was sincerely and so I asked him if he had ever been under anesthetic because I was tired all the time. He nodded but I think he was telling porkies to make me feel better.......
Once he sorted me out he led me back to his consultancy room. twice he omitted that his colleague had made a 'big mistake' and 'a serious error'.
I'm not ready to tackle those legal consequences yet. My priority is get better, So I just said that the important thing we do is learn from them and left it at that.
He told me I was an extremely rare case, never have they seen someone like me before and what they did know they read only in text books. I always knew I was special!
I have been referred to his Physio's now and an appointment with the consultant again in 2 months time just to check up on the healing process.
Tonight I am at home. Tired. But that seems to be a reoccurring theme for me at the moment.
As well as my hearing, I find it hard to talk on one side of my mouth. I think all these new ways of adapting is exhausting in itself until I get used to things a little more. I keep forgetting that its not even been a week since my last surgery.
I told my consultant that it looked like I was finally having to make friends with patience. He smiled wryly.
However, he did shorten my rehabilitation from 9mths to 6. I give myself two.
Next time I see him I want to be able to give him my big smile and who knows, if I practice hard enough, I might even summon a wink!
On a serious note though, he gave me a prognosis of up to 2 years before I would resume any kind of normality. But he doesn't know me and its about time I discovered more about myself. I'm feeling positive that I can be full of surprises.

On another note. while I was in hospital today, my Mum was given a bag of oracles to draw out. She was obviously thinking of me at the time and the three oracles that she ended up drawing were so apt that I wanted to include the photo as a reminder.
I have also been re-visiting my Quirky Cow and Kiwi illustrations  this morning. A whole new storyboard is evolving. I can't help but think all this is leading me onto new beginnings that could help others. My Seashell is softly whispering. My task for now is to just listen.........Ironic given the topic of why this all started!