Clearing my head
Today we met with the Speech and Swallow therapist to discuss what life would be like while I had the trach in. Not an easy conversation to have. Trying to accept the insertion of a pipe down your throat ... trying to accept an open hole in your throat that leads directly down into your lungs ... not an easy thing to do. It's going to alter my daily living in so many ways. Not just cleaning the device multiple times a day but learning a whole new way to breathe ... to speak.
This all just keeps taking me back to my original diagnosis - when you're told you're really sick but you feel fine. I'm being told I need a trach to protect my airway but I feel like I'm breathing just fine. I know it's a precaution but it's as if someone said, "you need to step off the edge of this cliff to protect yourself." How do you let go of the solid ground beneath your feet for nothing but air in front of you? How do you swallow the fear of what is going to happen ... the fear of the unknown?
Tomorrow I'm scheduled for surgery around 8 am. When I wake up on the other side, I'll have entered a new existence. I won't be able to speak right away. I won't be able to breathe how I've been breathing my entire life. And I most likely won't be able to eat normally for a while as well, until I adjust.
Adjust ... adjusting. Constant adjusting and accepting of new normals. What I wouldn't give to just be adjusting to being a mother of two. What I wouldn't give to just freeze this in its tracks - press pause on it until I'm ready to press play ... when my kids are grown and I've seen them grown up.
I'm trying my hardest to not let these two worlds mix together - to not bleed into one another. Tomorrow will be the first time since we found out a week ago that I won't be able to ignore the collision. I'm going to have to be away from my babies for 5 days. Cam will have to come see me in the hospital. Mike will be bouncing between the two existences, trying to keep the threads tied together. My mom will be immersed with Nicholas in routine feedings and napping. I won't be able to hold my littlest one until I get home ... when I'll be changed into this next version of me.
Can I do it? I know I can. But do I want to? Fuck no - not even in the slightest.
As I sang Cam to sleep tonight I recorded my voice as it is now ... just in case. He's just started learning how to sing along with me and there's never been a sweeter rendition of Twinkle twinkle.
This all just keeps taking me back to my original diagnosis - when you're told you're really sick but you feel fine. I'm being told I need a trach to protect my airway but I feel like I'm breathing just fine. I know it's a precaution but it's as if someone said, "you need to step off the edge of this cliff to protect yourself." How do you let go of the solid ground beneath your feet for nothing but air in front of you? How do you swallow the fear of what is going to happen ... the fear of the unknown?
Tomorrow I'm scheduled for surgery around 8 am. When I wake up on the other side, I'll have entered a new existence. I won't be able to speak right away. I won't be able to breathe how I've been breathing my entire life. And I most likely won't be able to eat normally for a while as well, until I adjust.
Adjust ... adjusting. Constant adjusting and accepting of new normals. What I wouldn't give to just be adjusting to being a mother of two. What I wouldn't give to just freeze this in its tracks - press pause on it until I'm ready to press play ... when my kids are grown and I've seen them grown up.
I'm trying my hardest to not let these two worlds mix together - to not bleed into one another. Tomorrow will be the first time since we found out a week ago that I won't be able to ignore the collision. I'm going to have to be away from my babies for 5 days. Cam will have to come see me in the hospital. Mike will be bouncing between the two existences, trying to keep the threads tied together. My mom will be immersed with Nicholas in routine feedings and napping. I won't be able to hold my littlest one until I get home ... when I'll be changed into this next version of me.
Can I do it? I know I can. But do I want to? Fuck no - not even in the slightest.
As I sang Cam to sleep tonight I recorded my voice as it is now ... just in case. He's just started learning how to sing along with me and there's never been a sweeter rendition of Twinkle twinkle.
Love you 💜
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