Thursday, April 23, 2020
Monday, April 20, 2020
Forest of dreams
I keep seeing this forest in my dreams, but I can't get the colors right. I am the duck and there is purple light coming out of my heart. Also, sorry for the bad photo quality...I use my flip phone camera. lol!
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Unexpected Blessings
Life. What a ride. Some storms come unexpectedly, but they reveal blessings. This week was full of unexpected blessings.
Easter Sunday evening, I fainted and faceplanted on my wooden porch. My neighbor saw it happen and gave me first aid. I didn't break any face bones or my hands or wrists when I fell, and I didn't break my teeth or cheekbone from landing directly on my face.
I had a horrible headache the next day, so I went to Doctors on Duty and they said I had a minor concussion and wanted to do an MRI.
The MRI showed a cyst in my brain...
The thought crossed my mind that it was a blessing I fainted and hit my head so I could find this out. I never would have gotten a brain MRI otherwise.
I had my appointment with the neurologist. He said the cyst isn't impeding the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, so I don't need surgery (yay!); he said it is the kind of cyst that is benign, so it doesn't have the cells for cancer (double yay!). I was surprised by how big it is (the size of my whole eyeball right in the middle of my brain!). He said I might have had it since I was a child. I have to get another MRI next year to check the size, or sooner, if I get bad headaches and then reassess if it needs to be drained. If it grows larger and blocks the canals for my cerebrospinal fluid, then I will get something called hydrocephalus which would require drainage through a shunt.
However, he wants me to contact a cardiologist to see if there is anything wrong with me heart. I fainted a few times when I was a teenager, but not since then.
A symptom of this type of brain cyst is fatigue. I have felt increasingly tired since 2017. I had a gut feeling something was wrong, but I chalked it up to stress. I got to the point where I stopped competitive paddling, stopped swimming, and even walking to the beach was too much after work. It will be interesting to see the MRI next year to see if it grew at all and if there really is a correlation between the cyst and my energy levels.
It was really cool to see the MRI and all the lumpy bumps of my brain. I noticed my right hemisphere is more bumpily at the edges than the left hemisphere (the right side of the brain is more creative, the left side is more logic-based). I will call that one bumpily part my Melissa imagination.
I didn't tell a lot of people, because it seemed less scary that way. However, I am very thankful for the blessings - prayers for healing and courage, rides to appointments since I'm not supposed to drive for a while, broth and yogurt deliveries, and phone calls to give me company. A friend even came over and trimmed my hedge so the sun can shine on my seat on my porch. It has always been very difficult for me to accept help or being taken care of, so it has been a blessing in my heart to show me that I am not alone. My heart is very full with gratitude.
This week was definitely an exercise in faith and it helped me realize how blessed I am and I am so glad it wasn't worse. I am resting in the truth that I am loved. I am very thankful to God for giving me peace and courage this week when I was waiting for answers. I know that He loves me and I will never be alone, no matter the storms that come. I wrote this poem to describe how this has made my faith deeper:
"With all my heart I sought in vain,
A pleasure to relieve my pain.
Hours lost in searching wide,
How to fill the void inside.
What of life has anything
Lasting, peaceful, comforting?
The only truth that I have learned
is love and forgiveness isn't earned.
The price He paid and freely gave
was done with love and so I'm saved."
Easter Sunday evening, I fainted and faceplanted on my wooden porch. My neighbor saw it happen and gave me first aid. I didn't break any face bones or my hands or wrists when I fell, and I didn't break my teeth or cheekbone from landing directly on my face.
I had a horrible headache the next day, so I went to Doctors on Duty and they said I had a minor concussion and wanted to do an MRI.
The MRI showed a cyst in my brain...
The thought crossed my mind that it was a blessing I fainted and hit my head so I could find this out. I never would have gotten a brain MRI otherwise.
I had my appointment with the neurologist. He said the cyst isn't impeding the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, so I don't need surgery (yay!); he said it is the kind of cyst that is benign, so it doesn't have the cells for cancer (double yay!). I was surprised by how big it is (the size of my whole eyeball right in the middle of my brain!). He said I might have had it since I was a child. I have to get another MRI next year to check the size, or sooner, if I get bad headaches and then reassess if it needs to be drained. If it grows larger and blocks the canals for my cerebrospinal fluid, then I will get something called hydrocephalus which would require drainage through a shunt.
However, he wants me to contact a cardiologist to see if there is anything wrong with me heart. I fainted a few times when I was a teenager, but not since then.
A symptom of this type of brain cyst is fatigue. I have felt increasingly tired since 2017. I had a gut feeling something was wrong, but I chalked it up to stress. I got to the point where I stopped competitive paddling, stopped swimming, and even walking to the beach was too much after work. It will be interesting to see the MRI next year to see if it grew at all and if there really is a correlation between the cyst and my energy levels.
It was really cool to see the MRI and all the lumpy bumps of my brain. I noticed my right hemisphere is more bumpily at the edges than the left hemisphere (the right side of the brain is more creative, the left side is more logic-based). I will call that one bumpily part my Melissa imagination.
I didn't tell a lot of people, because it seemed less scary that way. However, I am very thankful for the blessings - prayers for healing and courage, rides to appointments since I'm not supposed to drive for a while, broth and yogurt deliveries, and phone calls to give me company. A friend even came over and trimmed my hedge so the sun can shine on my seat on my porch. It has always been very difficult for me to accept help or being taken care of, so it has been a blessing in my heart to show me that I am not alone. My heart is very full with gratitude.
This week was definitely an exercise in faith and it helped me realize how blessed I am and I am so glad it wasn't worse. I am resting in the truth that I am loved. I am very thankful to God for giving me peace and courage this week when I was waiting for answers. I know that He loves me and I will never be alone, no matter the storms that come. I wrote this poem to describe how this has made my faith deeper:
"With all my heart I sought in vain,
A pleasure to relieve my pain.
Hours lost in searching wide,
How to fill the void inside.
What of life has anything
Lasting, peaceful, comforting?
The only truth that I have learned
is love and forgiveness isn't earned.
The price He paid and freely gave
was done with love and so I'm saved."
Friday, April 17, 2020
In the works
These paintings need more detail...but I'm just painting from the ol' imagination...sometimes I feel like that little duck, wandering in the woods of life.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Your butt is in my face
I found this old sketch I did a few years ago about dinosaurs trying to be astronauts. It reminded me of my four siblings and I riding in the family suburban growing up. I can still hear it now: "Your butt is in my face!!" Ah, the good old days when I actually longed for social distancing...
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
My Patch of Sunlight
Some days, I feel like someone should send me a volleyball so I can have my own Wilson to talk to. Other days, I sit in the patch of sunlight on my top step, read a book, and enjoy the warmth of the sun on my skin and the wind that rustles the page. Everything in me feels hyper sensitive to everything right now, the good and the bad. We have to learn how to weather the bad in the right way so it doesn't destroy us. Enjoying a small patch of sunshine on the top step is a start for me. Every day will have a new start. I know, someday, I'll run through a sunlit forest, I'll make sand angels on the beach, and I'll sit on a rock in the middle of my favorite river with the curling clouds above me. These are the things I think about when my patch of sunlight is my world
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