Excitement Building

As I type this entry, I am sitting poolside at the Safety Harbor Resort and Spa. My wife’s aunt and cousin have been staying with us and helping around the house for the last week and decided they wanted to go somewhere. They were nice enough to bring us along. It is really nice for us since I have been basically limited to my living room and the hospital for the last couple of months. The change of scenery is long over due. Although I must say that it is taking every ounce of will power I have to not jump into the pool right now. (Doctor’s orders.)
There is a feeling washing over me right now that is hard to explain. Perhaps it is watching the sailboats skipping across the bay in the distance, combined with the Jimmy Buffett music playing on my iPod. Perhaps it was the several glasses of the Safety Harbor Spa “healing water” that I had with lunch (Safety Harbor Resort and Spa). The more I think about it though, the clearer it becomes. I feel excited.
I believe that this newfound excitement is rooted in several different areas. Some time ago, I wrote about how I thought that the liver disease was taking away part of who I was, that I was losing my identity. It was not until now that I really understand how true that really was.
Saturday marked four weeks since the surgery. This is a key date in the recovery process. I made it those four weeks with little to no complications and continue to move in the right direction. Four weeks is also the time period the doctors gave me before I can begin to start some of my usual activities. I have gotten up everyday this week to go to the YMCA to do some light treadmill work to build up my endurance. I have been putting in time on our Nintendo Wii Fit, trying to build back up my strength in my legs. (It really is working, honestly.) It also turns out that Guitar Hero is really good Physical Therapy for my hand. (Thanks Doddy!)
At this point I would say that I am still only at 50% of my normal physical capacity. I still cannot lift anything over 10 pounds and my mobility is still very limited. My endurance is improving, but I still have a long way to go before I am back to normal.
The scary part is that even right now, only four weeks out of surgery and at 50% of my normal physical ability, I still feel better then I have for several months. It is not until now that I realize how sick and for how long I was sick before my surgery.
It was the middle of November, when I had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance from my office with what doctors described as a potential fatal septic infection that seemed to mark the time when I was really sick. I spent a week in the hospital and was unable to return to work at that time. Looking back however, I can now see that I was feeling the effect of the PSC for weeks, if not months before that.
In June I had surgery to remove my colon, which I thought of as a relatively easy procedure. After developing pneumonia which nearly killed me and internal bleeding while recovering from the surgery in ICU, a simple week recovery in the hospital, turned into two weeks in the hospital, and several more at home. I had yet to fully recover from that surgery when the doctors discovered that the PSC had come back. It was then several months of dealing with a deteriorating liver, before my body just couldn’t take the daily grind anymore.
I guess what I am trying to say is that it has been the beginning of June since I have really been myself. Now that I am beginning to get that back, I am overcome with excitement. There is still a long road of recovery ahead, but at least now there is an end in sight.
At the end of that road, is the beginning of another and I cannot wait to get there. The road we have been traveling has been unpaved at the best of times, and filled with potholes big enough to swallow a car at the worst of times. I anxiously look forward to a freshly paved road with the smell of asphalt still hanging in the air.
I cannot wait to put my climbing harness back on and scale a wall. I cannot wait until I can get the boat back on the water and try out our new wake surfboard. I cannot wait until my wife and I can continue to pursue our passion for travel and discovering distant and secluded beaches in the Caribbean. I cannot wait to get MY life back.
Considering my current location, I feel it appropriate to end this in the words of Jimmy Buffett.

“Yesterday’s are over me shoulder,
So I can’t look backwards too long.
There is just too much to see waiting in front of me,
And I know that I just can’t go wrong.”

-“Changes in Latitudes, Change in Attitudes”
Jimmy Buffett