Driving!

I should have entered this yesterday, to commemorate my first day DRIVING again! 🙂

I took a test drive with Michael and felt very comfortable the night before last, so yesterday I did my first solo! It makes me feel like I am finally returning to a normal life again! Just to be able to run to the store when I need something is such a joy to me!

Here is a small blessing I received today; I took the car to be washed. It hadn’t been washed since before I went into the hospital. Michael has no interest nor does he see the need for a clean car… So I went to our little car wash. The owner recognized me and I told her my story and how today was my first day driving again! She went out and had the guys do a ‘Super Deluxe’ on my car, rather than the ‘economy’ wash which I had paid for! My car looks like it’s brand new! 🙂

As far as the story of how my healing process is going, though, it all got muddled up when I had to have a root canal redone 3 times, and finally ended up with a tooth extraction (they concluded that it wasn’t working because the root was cracked)… It was a month long ordeal that about took my, normally, fairly good nature right over the edge. It hurt. And I was irritable. To make it even more challenging, I’ve discovered that I can’t take pain medication (well, the prescription kind) anymore! It makes me so sick! So, me and Ibuprofin, we made it through together. If you happen to come across this thing, looking for brain surgery survivors and what to expect, you might add that to your notes!

Once my mouth quit aching, though, I noticed that my brain had been doing some healing in the mean time. My balance is real good now. I am rarely dizzy at all. My strength is returning, again. (The tooth thing set that back). I can function longer without mental fatigue. My facial numbness has improved as well.

I should probably get a picture of myself here, but I had to have my hair cut off about a month ago. It was coming out in giant globs, and eventually there was just nearly nothing left. I looked like I’d been through chemo. What was left was dull and dead looking…like corpse hair… |:o\ So I went and had it all cut off. It made me sad. But now it looks more normal, and my hair has started to come back in real curly! The curls make it look a little bit fuller. It’s funny, it looks much like it did when I was about 2 years old.

I do still notice a little bit of sluggishness in my ability to call memories, or not often used vocabulary to mind. It sometimes takes a minute to catch on to subtle humor. But that’s all so minor. It’s hardly worth mentioning. I feel almost normal. A little fragile, in that I can pretty easily overdo and end up with complete ‘wipe-out’, but as long as I keep a good, conservative pace going, I feel really good! Mountain climbing or sky diving probably won’t be in the works for a while yet though.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to God about what He wants me to do with the amazing story of what I saw during that operation. I think I know the answer now. I’m simply supposed to share it. I share it almost every day. And almost every day, people tell me that it gives them hope, and encouragement, or comfort. I’ve had several people break down and cry as I told them my experience of glimpsing glory. They were people who had lost loved ones.

My life has been profoundly changed. Profoundly, in that I seldom have a moment when I am not fully aware of the workings of the Spirit of God in me and through me and in other people…and in nature. I suppose you could simplify it and call it ‘perspective’, but it feels a lot more profound than ‘perspective’ to me.

I’ve always taken issue with people who were in the habit of saying “God told me…this or that”, as though some auditory voice had spoken directly to them. I always viewed these folks as people who needed to feel special, or people who needed to control others and felt that they needed the ‘Seal of the Almighty’ to give their own personal opinion power over others. Sadly, I still think that is true of a large percentage of folks. But, the truth is, that, since my tumor ordeal, I hear God. (hang on, don’t run for the hills).. but the actual truth is that I hear Him all the time. But it is not an auditory, “thus sayeth the Lord” kind of thing. It is a crystal clear, gentle nudge, or sometimes it is a thought, that I know so clearly in the core of my being, is not my own. Usually the thought is like an impression, but on rare occasions it comes as a complete sentence.

The skeptic would easily dismiss these experiences as emotional, or self-illusionary…or the particularly cynical would venture to call out ‘schizophrenia’. I know and that’s OK. That doesn’t bother me. Since I glimpsed glory, there is a calm certainty within me that I have no need, or desire to defend. Something within me knows the Spirit of God like an infant knows his mother’s voice. I think that God was always talking and that He talks to all his children, but I am more in tune to it now. I also sharply sense when things are NOT from Him. (um… I think that I need to put a warning here, that to know God’s voice, you need to know His Word, the Bible. I don’t want to send anyone off trusting on ‘feelings’! I realize with this being on the internet, I never know who is going to read it.) In any case, I had that sense hit me very hard while watching the tv show about near death experiences recently. But that’s another story. I just know what I know. It’s wonderful, and it gives me great peace.

If it sounds like I think I’m super spiritual or some kind of guru, let me be quick to say that, “no”, I’m nobody special. I am just a woman. I am a woman who had an enormous brain tumor miraculously removed. I’m a woman with a lifetime full of mistakes, foolishness, pains, and many regrets. I’m still riddled with insecurities, and shortcomings. I’m just Yvonne. I feel more like the scripture where Jesus said to Thomas; “You see and you believe – blessed is he who does not see and yet believes.” I’m blessed to have seen something that few are given the opportunity to see.

Anyway, my big celebration yesterday was that I drove a car! I am getting well! And I am so thankful to God!