Thursday, April 16, 2009

Life after sugery # 2

So after my surgery my parents made the drive home... it took them like 14 hours.... the roads were TERRIBLE!! Luckily for me Justin and I stayed in Edmonton... I was supposed to stay near Edmonton for a couple days just to make sure everything was healing properly. We were able to stay at my Grandmas and it was nice to be around her. She was such a busy lady, she owned a ranch and had alot of horses. She was constantly doing something... whether it was cleaning the barn, riding, moving hay etc.... not your typical "grandma". She took special care of me... she wouldn't even let me do the dishes... "You just need to rest" she would say... I feel very special to have such great family support in my life. I remember the last night that we stayed with her she had a banquet to go to. A few weeks prior to my visit she had been in a bad wreck with one of the horses and she was severely hurt. She was still in alot of pain but she wanted to go to this banquet. I remember her not even being able to sleep lying down so she was sleeping on the couch... but she "cowgirled up" and got dressed to go to the banquet. I remember thinking to myself how stunning she looked. Such a beautiful woman.....

Justin and I had tickets to go see the "Dixie Chicks" in concert so after staying with my Grandma for a couple days we went and stayed in the city to go watch the concert. It was not a very smart move on my part... I mean the concert was great but all the loud music, bass, and cheering was a little bit hard on my head. I got an extremely bad migraine that lasted for a couple days.... despite the tylenol 3's that I had been taking. But it was fun....

Once we returned home I was not allowed to go back to work. A major part of managing my disease is to keep the stress out of my life. When your stress levels increase so does your cortisol. I had to try and keep the stress down so that my cortisol levels would stay lower... I also had to take ketaconozol. The ketaconazol is to lower my cortisol levels. They have adjusted my dose so many times that I cannot remember exactly how much I was taking after my 2nd surgery.... I think it was 200mg, three times a day. It is important that I take my medication, if I don't my levels get all messed up. It was difficult for me at first to remember to take my pills... but if I forgot I noticed I didn't feel well. I would get tired, my hands would get shaky, and I would be very easily irritated and I would have terrible mood swings.

After being at home for a short bit I started to get bored. I mean I was not allowed to go back to work yet, all my friends and family were working... I started to feel a bit depressed. My mom didn't want me to get into a slump so her and my Dad bought me a new horse. I was now the proud owner of High Sweet Lady... otherwise known as "Luci". Luci was a mare that was sired by my Grandmas World Champion Stallion, High Limit. My Grandma had sold her to a lady and we bought her back after things weren't working out. I didn't know at the time what an important role in my recovery that this mare would have. Again I couldn't ride for quit a bit because my balance was not very good. Also I found out that my lil' Miss Luci had some issues of her own that we were going to have to overcome.

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