Spiritual Slide Shows

Today being a Sunday and a very important Sunday at that, I felt it appropriate to talk about the importance of mothers in the healing process. Strong and spiritual women are a blessing to me in my life, and my mother has been no exception. There’s something about a mom that can make the hardest of men (I’m actually pretty soft in many respects) reach back into their memories of what it was like to come into this world and be thankful for the gift of life.

My mother wanted children right away when she got married and had all four of her children as close together as she could. When her oldest was born (my older sister) she and my dad learned that it was necessary for her to have her by way of Cesarean section. This turned out to be the case with all of her children. I reflect back to the time in recent months when I had a teeny tiny abdominal insision for my vp shunt installation and how it immobilized me (in my smallish mind at the time - hah! I made a funny) and then having my mother tell me that after giving birth to us she would have to strain under great diress just to do things like pick us up and feed us. And here I was complaining about how to turn myself over in bed or pull myself out of bed just to use the bathroom. Multiply that by 5 for the length of the insicision (this was back in the 70’s before newer procedures have likely helped this) and then that by 4 for the number of children she had. My understanding is that she almost defied her doctor’s order in order to have my youngest sibling but I could be wrong. She wanted more than 4 children.

Now having gone through that, I have a very profound insight to what a parent (especially  a mother) goes through when a child is at risk for health concerns. Already having suffered much sickness, pain, and sorrow in giving birth to a healthy baby boy, that concern of a good mother can last a lifetime. Feeling powerless to do something about a strange health concern such as a brain tumor and leaving it to the hands of medical professionals is not an easy thing to do, and it hasn’t been for my mother.

During my first surgery 5 years ago she turned to the Lord in many respects and found strength in learning what was in store for our family as we discovered this new challenge. I still remember getting home from the hospital 5 years ago and in our own home finally learning to live with the results of a strange and new living condition. I hadn’t had a shower so I took one. Not really knowing what to do with my head because of the wound on top of it, I did the best I could to wash it. I couldn’t bring myself to touch my wound because for one, it hurt like the dickens, and two I didn’t want to mess with it.

After coming out from my shower and putting on clean clothes, she spent an additional 10-15 minutes combing my hair and pulling dried pieces of blood out of my hair…almost as if she was helping pick the broken pieces of my sickness out of my body. It was very symbolic looking back at it now. In younger years, applying first aid to a scrape, and in later years listening and responding in only the way a mother could has been a strong suit of my mother. We’ve had our differences, but her constancy and resolve to do the best thing possible for my well-being has been such a blessing.

Growing up, my mother did her best to be frugal with what we had, and she learned to cut hair. Her first attempts weren’t likely the best, but hey it was a free haircut. Tonight after honoring mom, dishes were done, and grandkids attended to, she willingly relented to give me a haircut just to get the hair off my ears and neck. (I like short hair) She has been a little out of practice but she did a great job. I still haven’t decided if I will get the rest of my head cut any shorter. For one, I want to know where I need to rogaine, and two, I don’t know what it would be like to go into a barber shop and not scare away their customers when they see how bad my radiation side-effected scalp looks. I may get brave this week and get the strangest crew cut of my life. I’ll be sure to get a picture before and after. I just need to find the right haircutting place.

Anyway, where would we be without our mothers, for good or for worse?

Well, having graduated from radation therapy, the only thing left on the plate is neuro-rehab. Without complaining, what I will say about that process is that it hasn’t met my expectations. Apart from an initial neuro-psych evaluation, I’ve only met with one other doctor at the barrow clinic. The report I got back from the evaluation initially was 3 weeks after I had surgery and naturally there were some deficiencies. Imagine someone messing with something you think with, and then be asked to use it in all sorts of strange new ways. It’s just not possible to get a perfect score unless you have some sort of superbrain. In a nutshell, the report said I was fine in my general knowledge and other areas requiring mental abilities that were attributed to parts of my brain that were NOT operated on. However, the parts that were have been slowly healing up and rewiring themselves with or without doctor visits. I’m not sure how important that is right now. (more…)