Its been a wild week, from finding out my pelvis is broken and needing replacement to setting the ground work for my next photo-shoot. One of the things that has happened this week is a significant outpouring of support for my impending procedure and not a little bit of fear regarding all the things that could go wrong while getting ready for the surgery sometime this fall.
Regarding the fears, I am not worried right now, I learned a long time ago that nothing I do is going to change how this is going to end up, I need a new pelvis, its a fact of life. The only way to give me a new pelvis is via massive surgery, again nothing I can change about that, I am getting a custom built titanium pelvis that is actually sized to my body unlike the “close enough” pelvic graft I got earlier. It is hoped that once that is in I will be able to get on with my life, again if that doesn’t work out I will deal with that when it comes. My only real regret is that someone had to die in order for me to get the pelvis I have right now, that part of their story ends with me, I will say that while I was in the hospital I did wonder about the person who gave me their pelvis, where they younger or older than me, did they run or were they confined to a wheelchair, what did they look like, what was the reason that found them in a situation to donate their body parts. Mrs. ZM asked me if this changed my opinion of donating my organs when my time comes, the answer to that is no, I have assisted in several organ harvesting en devours over the years and the horrible fact is that harvesting organs requires them to be removed from a biologically alive body, one that still has a pulse, the transplant teams I have worked with have always reminded me of disrespectful body snatchers, that being said I honor those people who make the choice to donate their organs, they are living beyond their bodies time so i applaud their immortality,l for me just stuff me and the rest of my innards in a box, bury near a big tree, and let the flowers grow, i hope they have thorns. I think my mentality in dealing with this can be related to how we clean an ambulance after a bad call, yes you are traumatized, things didn’t go well, and you are looking at a hell of a mess; start where you stand. That’s my secret, I can look at the huge mess in front of me, but it wont get better until I start cleaning it up, so I start at the doors and work my way forward, when the job is done I can look back and see what I accomplished. So thats what I did this week, I have a huge mess ahead of me and it is going to take a long time to fix, so this week I called my disability company and found out how FMLA will work for me as well as short term disability, in the near future I am going to suggest we start buying Christmas presents for the family this summer so that we aren’t nailed with the costs this fall. Next week I will get scanned and work on becoming really mobile in a wheelchair, and then the week after I will do something else, and when the time arrives I will have my surgery and deal with what comes next, I hope they let me see my new metal pelvis, I may have to ask really nicely for them to let me stay conscious enough when they roll me into surgery or maybe they can get me a picture or something, yes this is truly what I worry about – not getting to see my new pelvis.
This weekend the boy and I will be starting on clearing out crap from the house and trying to get our lives back on track, its a monumental feet but will be worth it in the end.