Tag Archives for journal

Gratitude and Creativity: Inspirograph

Yesterday, Christmas day, while I was resting I became a bit bored so I went clicking through the interwebs to ease my boredom. I was fortunate to find a site that brought back some great childhood memories about toys my cousins and I begged for when we were children. The specific toy I remembered yesterday was Spirograph. It was amazing to create colourful designs using plastic discs that looked like cogs with holes in them and coloured pencils and pens. With those few things it was possible to spend hours hypnotically filling the white space of sheet after sheet of paper.

The site I spent a couple of solid hours on yesterday is Inspirograph. Inspirograph is a website where you can use a digital application to mimic the movement of the Spirograph discs. When you open the site in your computer’s browser, you can create designs as intricate and colourful as if you were using the toy from your childhood.

These are only some of the designs I created yesterday using Inspirograph. If you find yourself with some free time on your hands check out the website. I’m certain I’ll be using Inspirograph again to occupy my mind creatively.

I Won’t Let Pain Stop Me From Comforting A Child

I love my cousin’s children. It was incredible witnessing the birth of her third child a few months ago and having been there makes me feel a strong connection to him. However, her older son – he turned three recently – is working on staking a permanent claim on a corner of my heart. He is one of the sweetest, good-natured children I’ve ever known. He’s affectionate, empathetic, already fiercely protective of those he loves, and hopelessly irresistible. So irresistible, it’s impossible for me to say no to him.

When I spend time with him, my lap becomes his favourite place to sit. He plants himself on my lap for comfort, play, and conversations I sometimes have to pretend to understand – after all, not all three-year-olds have perfect pronunciation. I also become his go-to person when he needs to use the potty. He comes to me, no one else, tells me he has to go, then takes my hand, and leads me to the bathroom. I have to hold him in place so he doesn’t fall into the toilet bowl while he does his business then clean him up, and help him get re-dressed. This may not be my favourite part of spending time with him, but the trust he places in me feels like an enormous privilege.

The only problem with not saying no to him is that it adds to my pain levels. Unfortunately, he weighs more than his newborn brother so having him sit on my lap is one of the best and least enjoyable parts of spending time with him – if that makes any sense. There’s also the issue of how often he needs to use the potty because it means standing and sitting back down for the countless trips with him to the bathroom; or wherever else he feels like leading me: getting snacks from the kitchen or finding his toys. All of this added activity puts a strain on my legs and pelvis; and is most likely the reason I had the intense pain flare I wrote about in my last post after an overnight visit to celebrate his birthday two weeks ago.

Still, no matter how I try to justify it, none of this feels like a good enough reason to deny this little boy the physical closeness that gives him comfort, makes him feel secure, and happy. I also have to admit that even with the added pain; I don’t want to change how I interact with him because I want him to feel loved by me always.

 

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Teach Your Children

How Do Some People Do It?

It’s been about two weeks since a significant pain flare up locked my body in its grip. I’ve been trying to block out my pain through numbing my mind by mindlessly watching a copious amount of movies (all six of the earlier Star Wars) and entire seasons of TV shows, while keeping my legs elevated as much as humanly possible on my couch; then sleeping when my body allowed. Roughly translated, that means sleeping when the pain exhausts me. I’ve also talked to as few people as possible, on the phone, or in person because it felt like talking required energy I didn’t have and added fuel to my pain. Fortunately, somewhere inside me the same question kept surfacing: How do some people do it?

How do people with unbeatable diagnoses and/or prognoses beat them? Over the years, I’ve seen countless stories about gravely ill people who inexplicably recover from an illness, for which there is no cure; recover from accidents, when the odds were heavily stacked against them; or learn to walk again after breaking their spines. How do they do it? Are there people blessed with superhuman healing? Are they resilient in a way that science is yet unable to explain and capture in a treatment or deliver in a pill? What is it about a person that makes them so tough they can fight through the worst life throws at them?

I want to know. I need to know because I want to be one of these people. I want the strength to heal my pain, even if it initially causes me more pain and because I want to get better like these people worked so hard to do. This illness that still causes my doctors confusion more than two years after it started and four months after major abdominal surgery, well, I want to figure out how to beat it – with or without a positive prognosis. I wish I knew exactly what I’m fighting to better understand the options I can apply and how to find more if the first set don’t work. But I don’t know; yet, I don’t want to limit myself to what my doctors tell me I can or cannot do to heal. I don’t want to limit my life at all.

I don’t know how other people do it, but I want to beat the odds that seem so highly stacked against me, even if it means approaching each day as if it was the biggest battle of my life. I don’t want to spend more two-week spans feeling helpless or that I’m trapped by pain. I’ve lost a lot because of this illness, but I know it’s time to figure out how to regain fully at least one of the things not completely lost: my fighting spirit. I’ve had to fight for everything my entire life, but I lose a little more of that spirit each week I spend lying on my back.

 

Bon Jovi – It’s My Life