DATE WITH DOUG

Doctor's orders -- Doug and I are to go OUT for a meal together. I thought you can't be serious. I'm not even 3 weeks post op. So yesterday out we went. Many of you will be very happy with our food choices -- totally off the regime. Out choice was not so much the food as the accessibility of the front door, the crowd level and then the food. Our restaurant of choice was 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. YES!
WE chose against organic Thai just to make some of you happy that we had broken down at last. I had a juicy burger with the best fries in the world. If I had been Carissa I'd have had a great photo to make you all drool. After this we went beyond nutrition to a double chocolate yogurt cup. Is everyone happy with this?

The date started with learning to get into the car. Have you ever gotten into a car without moving your back - no twisting, bending etc? I'll let you ponder how to do it.

The drive was so familiar yet so lovely. The sky had the big puffy white clouds and lots of wind. I felt like a kid enjoying my senses.

My walking routine is 6x a day at least in my hallways is getting lackluster. The day was beautiful so we took off for Levelland Trail -- not the one in the mountains but the one outside my front door. The walk was so beautiful and so enjoyable.

As I knew rehab would be harder then signing the papers to agree to surgery. I wake up each morning aching knowing that most of the day will be the same way - achy. Everything is weak and trying to rebuild and the only way is to tax it and make it carry weight that it finds too much. I try different tricks to give myself gold stars. I write down each little hall walk, each rest period -- just things so that I see that I'm progressing. I am reminded that 3 weeks ago I could not roll over AT ALL in the hospital bed. Wish progress were like so much of life -- immediate. It is not and this process will be the long hard work of the whole thing.

As I look back on symptoms I was having but didn't realize what they were, I know now that my body was showing all the signs of collapsing. The doctor told us with all certainty that I would be wheelchair bound within 10 years and that breathing would be difficult and inadequate. I think of being in a wheelchair or worse confined to a bed to breath and know that whatever inconvenience and discomfort is minor compared to having a restricted life. I am so grateful to have humanly "stumbled" upon Dr. Horton (but divinely guided). My spine is one that the majority of ortho docs will not operate on. Dr. Horton is like a fighter pilot -- he only wants those that are challenges and that others won't touch. It is a great story of how I came to find him -- and I am so so grateful.

My "love-slave" (Doug) is fantastic. I've worked him pretty hard. The first couple days home his calfs burned from using the stairs at home so much. He is running things here so well -- all new stuff. He didn't even know where I kept clean sheets. He's been the pampered boy -- and now I'm getting to be the princess.

Pray for me to work hard and faithfully walking. It's not my favorite activity right now. Pray for the graft to be working and pray for me to slowly to be able to ween myself off the narcotics. I'm making progress with that but I'm not there yet -- too much discomfort still.