ramble

there was a situation that needed to be taken care of for a while and it had to do with my female body parts not wanting to cooperate. this is a situation i have dealt with for 19 years now. 18 years ago was my first surgery to remove the devil they named endometriosis. and while it's not the worst thing to happen it sure is not convenient. i went under the knife in October to have the stuff removed, again. this time it was causing the strangest symptoms. like i thought i had neck problems for a year and tried every chiropractor/massage/MRI/steroids solution possible.  and then i get referred to a specialist and he's like, hey you have endo growing on your diaphragm and that causes your neck to hurt, and let's take your appendix out because you have cysts rupturing on your right ovary and the statistics aren't in your favor of keeping the appendix happy while that business goes on. and i say, hey specialist, there are some other pains going on and they are strange so how about you investigate.

and so he does. and i wake up from surgery and no one looks at me sorrowful in the recovery before i can hear what i lost and what they found so i figure i will live. the report is that the endo was growing everywhere it could but not on my uterus and ovaries and that's a warm fuzzy. but also, an irritant. lucky am i because i have four kids and that is always an impossibility if this stuff attacks your major female parts. irritating because it causes the most awful pain and makes me think my necks a mess, i have weeds growing in my colon, my leg has a blood clot every month, and my ovaries could spontaneously com bust at any point.. good news, he burned the heck out of the enemy. only, it has kind of made everything worse and apparently it takes a while to heal and that was not on my planner. so there is this funk and mist that makes me cry when i can't do normal things or go a day without having to lay down. i think somewhere i read that that is not allowed if you are the mother.

and so days pass and i am "recovering" which involves everyone to constantly ask "how are you", "you don't look so good" and the like.

and i have come to a moral issue. i don't feel good most of the time now while my burns heal up and all, but man i don't want people knowing about it. i want to feel alive again. i want to forget about how torturous i feel and how hopeless it feels to think i might feel like this forever/another day. but when someone can see on  your face that you had a rough night that required medication, i don't want to lie. and so...

when the bishopric asked me if i would make breakfast for our ward christmas party in two weeks, i knew that god loves me. because really, i am mostly on invalid status as a mormon for a while. the relief society sometimes gets involved to help and that makes me feel real bad about what it's all come down to. but god, he knows me. he knows that while i don't have a lot of strengths of offer my LDS ward congregation, i can feed them. i know how to make a lot of tummies gathered at a ward house happy. and, i like doing it. he knows that for some reason, i took to the kitchen. i developed a talent as a young mother on a tight budget and i also developed a talent of recognizing how much god loves seeing us eat a meal together. how when there is a plate of food before us that someone filled with love and time, relationships are strengthened. you feel loved as you partake of good food. and god knew that i needed to be taken off the invalid list. when i was asked, i had been on my third sleepless/tear filled night because the recovery isn't complete. but when i was asked, i was able to ignore that misery better on behalf of my ward members breakfast needs. i was giddy thinking of a menu ALL BY MYSELF! the most tortured part of serving as a mormon is sometimes you have to have your rough edges knocked off by serving on food committees and that always opens it up to opinion. i get to say what, how, and they even let me choose the when (time of the party)! now, those are circumstances that will facilitate healing.

also, my mother helped me come up with a purpose to gathering for breakfast. we will fill trailers up with food for the local food bank. she was able to go to the facility and make a goal to help them no matter what! so we will ask our neighbors to help and bring a can of food and come share a meal. it will make christmas creep into all of our hearts and for sure heal wounds of many shapes and sizes.