Category: Nature and recovery

Missing you, Dad

Published on by ostomyoutdoors16 Comments

I have been absent from this blog for a while as I have been going through the hardest time of my life. My family and I lost my father just after the New Year. I haven’t been able to find the words to describe the sadness, so I put off writing about it thinking that maybe it would get easier to write about in time.  It hasn’t. In fact, sometimes my brain has barely processed that he has passed away. Things happen during the day and I think, Oh … I need to tell Dad about that and then I remember he is gone.

I am grateful that—along with my brothers and mom—I was able to spend five weeks with my dad at my parents’ home in Washington before he passed away. As difficult as it was, I cherished that time. There were some good moments when we were able to talk about politics and history and some of my dad’s other favorite subjects. However, most of that time he was not very coherent—or at least it was hard to tell if he comprehended what I was saying to him. That didn’t stop me from telling him how much I loved him, or how thankful I was for his loving support, all that he had provided for our family and what a positive influence he had on me.

I still tell him those things today, hoping that somehow he can hear me.

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My family around the year 1985.

My father wanted to be buried in his home state of Wisconsin, so my family traveled back there for the funeral. During our week there, we spent time visiting many places that were significant to us including our childhood homes, places where our relatives had lived and other favorite sites.

One of my earliest memories as a child was walking with my dad and our dog on the wooded paths and railroad trestle at the Fox River Sanctuary in my hometown. It is interesting that out of the countless memories we make throughout our lives, there are some that contain moments that we later realize are incredibly influential to who we become. Those early nature walks in that special place were of that type.

So on one blustery morning during our time in Wisconsin for the funeral, Doug and I went for a run at the sanctuary and crossed the trestle. It had long been abandoned by the railroad, but other than that it looked exactly how I remembered it. I felt happy to be in the same place where I had once stood as a four-year-old. Back then, my dad would have been around the age I am now, and I wondered what he had been thinking about and dreaming of in those days. Moreover, what had been going on in my young mind? No doubt I soaked up the colors of the leaves and the scents of blooms along the river. Maybe I noticed the sounds of birds. Holding my dad’s hand as we strolled along the railroad tracks, the seeds of my future nature-loving existence were being planted. As I jogged over the trestle in January, I whispered a thank you to him for taking me there long ago.

Running along the trestle at the Fox River Sanctuary where I used to walk with my dad.
Running along the trestle at the Fox River Sanctuary where I used to walk with my dad.

Those trestle walks were just the beginning of the adventures my dad would take me and my family on. He loved spending time with us and it was a rare weekend growing up when we weren’t visiting a historic site, taking in a local festival or fair, or going on a camping trip. Later, our family bought a small RV and took multi-week summer vacations to national parks and historic sites (and amusement parks too–he loved roller coasters).  My dad had a passion for sharing our nation’s natural and cultural heritage with us. Those trips left a lasting imprint on me and made me who I am today. They also influenced my career.

My family enjoyed visiting the many lakes found in Wisconsin, including Green Lake.
My family enjoyed visiting the many lakes in Wisconsin, including Green Lake.
My family tent camping in the Wisconsin Northwoods.
My family (minus my younger brother who is taking the photo) tent camping in the Wisconsin Northwoods.
My dad loved trains and loved sharing their history with us. Here he is on a train museum trip with my brother.

Last week I was preparing an education program in the park system where I now work as a full-time interpretive naturalist. The trails were icy so I was scoping out a route that would be safe for participants to travel on. Even though I had been to the park countless times, every visit seemed to hold something new to discover. On this trip, the frozen lake was covered by a layer of meltwater that reflected the cobalt blue sky. As I took in the breathtaking landscape, I whispered a thank you to my dad for those early experiences that led me to a job I love. Just about every day, I get to help others make meaningful connections to nature and history, just like my dad did for me.

Devil's-Lake-for-web
Hiking at Devils Lake, Wisconsin, was one of my favorite childhood adventures. Little did my dad know then, I would learn to rock climb there years later.

When I was about five years old, my mom and dad bought land, had a house built, and moved the family out to the country so that we could roam the fields and forests instead of the city sidewalks. There my brothers and I happily played on dirt piles, chased grasshoppers, camped in the backyard and picked vegetables in the garden.

Staking out the new homestead with my dad.
Staking out the new homestead with my dad.
My brothers and I (and cat) camping in the backyard.
My brothers and I (and Kitty Jean) camping in the new backyard.
Exploring the backyard on our new skis that Mom and Dad bought us.
Our backyard felt huge when we explored in on our new skis.

Several years ago, I found a book of nature quotes on my dad’s bookshelf that had been published years before my brothers and I were born. In it, my dad had circled a quote by famed naturalist Richard Jeffries. It summed up so well the gifts that my father had had given me over the years.

“If you wish your children to think deep thoughts, to know the holiest emotions, take them to the woods and hills, and give them the freedom of the meadows, the hills purify those who walk upon them.”

Dad, I miss you dearly. I will always think of you when I am in the mountains, meadows and forests. You will travel with me always.

Hartman-Creek-for-web
My dad always sought out new and exciting experiences for weekend family trips–including a wade in Wisconsin’s Hartman Creek.

A Litany of Remembrance

In the rising of the sun and in its going down,
we remember them.
In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter,
we remember them.
In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring,
we remember them.
In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer,
we remember them.
In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn,
we remember them.
In the beginning of the year and when it ends,
we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength,
we remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart,
we remember them.
When we have joys we yearn to share,
we remember them.
So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us,
as we remember them.

-Poem by Rabbi Sylvan Kamens and Rabbi Jack Riemer

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My dad enjoying the great outdoors with his dogs as a youngster.

Slowing down time between stomaversaries

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Yesterday was Wilbur the Stoma’s birthday! I know the past five years since surgery have contained days and days of incredible adventures, but somehow the time has still gone by in a flash. With the sense of normalcy I now have with my stoma, the memories of  those early days are starting to fade.

I love looking back on my blog posts and videos as they help me to connect with who I was in those initial years after surgery, but so much of that time is also a blur. Life sprints ahead when I wish it would meander along in a stroll. It feels like summer was just here, and now the trees are already missing their leaves. Before I know it, I will be celebrating my six-year stomaversary. I want to slow down and savor moments more. Fortunately, I have found a secret for reaching that objective: nature journaling.

I first started nature journaling in the 1990s when my love of keeping diaries and passion for sketching merged and forever changed my relationship with nature. In my journals, I could playfully record natural happenings, curiously ponder what I was witnessing and write down my feelings about it all. At the end of a journaling session, a moment in nature and in my life had been noticed and preserved on the page (and in my memory)! Through my journals, I felt more connected to the natural world and to my soul.

The problem was, despite my best intentions, there were huge chunks of time over the years when I didn’t write or draw in my journals.  My post-surgery years were one of those stretches. What the birds, trees and flowers were doing during those moments I cannot say. And that made me sad.

I don’t get along well with unhappiness, so I am in the process of purging other things from my schedule in order to have more personal time to journal. As small details in the lives of box elders, woodpeckers, praying mantises and other flora and fauna are noted on paper, the hectic pace of my own life slows down and feels richer. Over the past two years, I have filled half the pages in a large sketchbook. That is a big improvement from when my nature journal sat mostly untouched after surgery, but I can do better. I aim to fill the second half of that journal in the next few months.

Mantis sketch

To further build my journaling skills, I attended a three-day workshop in the Marin Headlands of California last weekend with two of my favorite nature journalists, John Muir Laws and Clare Walker Leslie. The experience was beyond-words inspiring. We greeted the birds with our sketchbooks at sunrise, explored the coastline with pens in hand in the afternoon and captured the sunset on our pages. After a short break for dinner, we drew taxidermy mounts in the conference center’s teaching lab until bedtime.  At one point during the trip, I spent an entire hour sketching scat, tracks and other signs left by otters in their travel corridor between a pond and canal. Observing and recording the natural world that keenly for three days straight was remarkable and allowed me to slow down and ground myself in the present. Refreshed and inspirited, I left the workshop with a goal of writing and drawing in my nature journal more frequently.

Journaling on the coast

Otter trail sketch

One of the ideas that resonated most strongly for me was Clare Walker Leslie’s practice of recording daily “small wonders.”  When I didn’t have time to create an entire journal page of nature observations, simply documenting one exceptional image from the day could help connect me with what was happening in the natural world. Whenever I needed to recall those moments, they would be there waiting for me in the pages. I started my first series of these this week, and I am hooked.

Daily sketches

Time can’t actually slow down, and the 365 days until my next stomaversary will come and go whether or not I nature journal. However, closely observing and recording happenings in the natural world  helps each day to stand out. It’s hard for life to be a blur when you are looking with focused eyes. I might record tracks in the snow after winter’s first blizzard, the first blooms of spring, a spotted fawn in the tall summer grass and all the things that make the world so breathtakingly beautiful. Five years ago surgery gave me a second chance at life. It’s time I start paying greater attention.

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”

~ Mary Oliver

Nature journaling

 

Back in the wilds!

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Heart pounding, quads burning and lungs barely able to keep up — I could not believe I was standing at 13,000 feet again. Yet there I was! Doug and I spent the weekend in Breckenridge with his parents. Our rental was a mere two miles from the Quandary Peak trailhead, so yesterday we decided to head up the trail to see how far we could get.

Doug and I take a break along the Quandary Peak trail.
Doug and I take a break along the Quandary Peak trail.

I had no intentions of making the summit, and just wanted to be out in the mountains moving my body again. With the sudden onset of groin pain in mid-January and an MRI in February that showed gluteal tendinosis in my hip, I had been doing lots of physical therapy and taking a break from hiking. In fact, I was starting to think that my Rainier attempt in July might not happen. I tried to keep my fitness up with biking and swimming (doggie paddling really… I cannot do any overhead swimming strokes because it hurts my shoulder avascular necrosis (AVN) too much). However, those activities hardly replicated the intensity of climbing big peaks with heavy gear at altitude.

Fortunately, last week I got some good news at a much-anticipated appointment with a new orthopedic surgeon. After looking at my MRI, he didn’t see anything in my hip except for the gluteal tendinosis. However, he does not think that the tendinosis is causing the groin pain I have been experiencing because that type of injury typically causes outer hip soreness. This makes sense as the physical therapy I have been doing for the last two months has really helped some of the pain in the outside of my hip, but did little for the groin. The bottom line is that the doctor did not know what was causing the soreness in that part of  my hip; the joint looks healthy. He said sometimes they really can’t find anything and oftentimes these issues resolve on their own with time. He thought it was fine to start training for Rainier again as long as the pain didn’t worsen.

I also talked to him a lot about my shoulder AVN. Though I really liked working with the doctor that diagnosed the condition back in December, this particular orthopedic surgeon has more experience working with patients who have AVN. After looking at my MRI, he felt the AVN in my shoulder may not cause me any further issues. He said the necrotic area is small and that most of the cases he has dealt with have involved a much larger percentage of the humeral head. As a result, it is quite possible that I won’t ever need a joint replacement. Of course, he did say the exact progression is impossible to predict. The doctor said I was really, really lucky that I have not developed AVN in my hip. He has never had a patient that had it in the shoulder that did not also have it in the hip. (Could I be this lucky?!) Though he said it is always possible to develop AVN in another joint at any time down the line, the more time that passes after taking steroids, the better the chance is that this won’t happen. He mentioned that there are a lot of factors at play with steroid-induced AVN that doctors don’t understand. For instance, the window of time for developing AVN after stopping steroids appears to be a lot longer for some people and with some diseases than others.

It was a huge relief leaving the doctor’s office knowing that I had just been given the okay to get back to all my activities. And with my shoulder also feeling so much better, I happily started planning all my new adventures.

Unfortunately, my body wasn’t quite ready to cooperate. The morning after my appointment, I was bending over to pick something up off the floor and I felt a pull in my Achilles tendon. I was so disappointed. I had waited so long for that appointment with the new orthopedist and now I had developed an entirely new issue less than 24 hours later! This is so typical for me. There were many times when I was recovering from ostomy surgery when I would tell my surgeon everything was great at an appointment and then have something go wrong the following day.

Luckily, I had an appointment with my physical therapist that evening so I could at least discuss my latest joint woe with someone. He felt I had probably just strained the Achilles tendon a bit and gave me some stretches and strengthening exercises. Because my pain was minor, he thought I could still train as long as the movement of hiking didn’t irritate the tendon. Obviously if the issue starts to become more painful I will head back to the orthopedic doctor.

So, I wasn’t sure what to expect on the adventure yesterday. Much to my surprise, I felt great and ended up hiking around 5 miles round trip with a couple thousand feet elevation gain, making it to the 13,000′ shoulder of Quandary Peak. My Achilles did not hurt and my hip felt okay. A few times along the way I just stopped and listened to the beautiful sounds of being on a remote mountainside again. I could hear the wind in the tree branches and the snow crystals hitting my jacket and it felt amazing to be out there. I actually pinched myself a couple of times to make sure it wasn’t a dream. The feeling of happiness felt so similar to those first wilderness hikes after my ostomy surgery when I realized that I would still be able to do an activity I loved so much.

Returning from a post-lunch ostomy pouch swap. With the deep snow, I use closed-end pouches instead of drainables and then pack out the full one.
Returning from a post-lunch ostomy pouch swap. With the deep snow, I use closed-end pouches instead of drainables and then packed out the full ones.
Nope. I am not dreaming and pinch myself just to make sure!
Nope. I was not dreaming and I pinched myself just to make sure!
We reached a high point of 13,000' on the shoulder of Quandary Peak. The summit can be seen in the distance.
We reached a high point of 13,000′ on the shoulder of Quandary Peak just as another snow squall came in. The summit can be seen in the distance.

I look forward to the many mountain trips on the horizon as I start to train for Rainier again. If If I end up not summiting the big peak due to all the recent training hiccups, I will be okay with that. If the fun I had today is any indication, just being on that massive and beautiful mountain is going to be a breathtaking experience in and of itself.

Relaxing in the hot tub after our hike with a perfect view of the peak.
Relaxing in the hot tub after our hike with a perfect view of the peak.

Two years!

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November 8th marked the two-year anniversary of my ileostomy surgery. It had been a hectic week, and I was in the mood for some quiet reflection time. I climbed a mesa near town, took in the scenery, and sketched and wrote in my journal.

As great as it was to quietly contemplate my two-year stoma anniversary on top of the mesa, something more festive was definitely in order. Once I got back home, I threw a little party with Doug, complete with  homemade culinary delights: chicken pesto pizza and a cake decorated like a colon.

Looking back, I am still in awe that it has already been two years. In those initial months after surgery, time crawled by slowly and every bit of my attention was focused on healing and getting used to the changes to my body. I thought of nothing but my ostomy and appliance. Now all those hard times seem to have gone by in a flash. My stoma has become part of me, and large portions of the day go by when I don’t think about it at all. When I do think about it, it is often with a feeling of gratitude. It may sound crazy to say I love my ostomy — but I really do. This day marked a special anniversary, but everyday is a celebration of the health my stoma has given back to me.

Celebrating my two-year surgery anniversary. It is hard to not look at the cake and map out all the areas where I had colon inflammation over the years. I chose the cecum for my first piece of cake. 🙂

My ostomy is one part of a much bigger life

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My pencil skirted across the paper as I quickly tried to capture the pose of the mountain chickadee hopping across my campsite picnic table. The resulting shape barely resembled the lively little bird in front of me, but I didn’t care. I was happy for the quiet moment and the chance to draw.

A mountain chickadee kept me company during dinner and was the perfect subject for practicing quick drawings.

This uninterrupted block of drawing time was part of a two-day nature journaling course that I took a couple of weeks ago with the Rocky Mountain Nature Association. My days were spent sketching and doing journaling exercises at various locations in the park with artist Sherrie York, whom I greatly admire. I soaked up the inspiration each day and couldn’t wait to get to camp in the evening to spend more time practicing what I had learned. There, I took out my journal and watercolors and filled more pages with writings and drawings of my chickadee visitor, the boulders near my tent, and even my marshmallow-roasting campsite neighbors. As the sun dipped behind the mountains and my hands got chilly, I reluctantly put away my sketchbook. It had been far too long since I  had a chance to spend this much time drawing, and I didn’t want to stop. Art had once been such a big part of my life. Now things were so busy that I hardly had a chance to pick up my pens and paints. Even my instructor had commented that it had been a long time since she had seen something posted on my art blog.

Journaling at the Hidden Valley area of Rocky Mountain National Park.

So how does this all relate to my ostomy? I have read discussions on forums regarding the extent to which an ostomy defines one’s self. Some say that their ostomy has made them who they are. Others say that they refuse to let their ostomy define them. For me, my ostomy has absolutely been a defining force in my life. Going through the experience has made me a stronger, more appreciative person and has given me purpose.  I love showing what is possible after surgery and helping to give hope to those who are facing or recovering from ostomy surgery. It is hard to imagine my life without this new-found focus. Helping others through my Ostomy Outdoors blog is one of the most rewarding things I do.

On the other hand, I really need those moments when I am not thinking about my ostomy at all. Those times when life is about my family and friends, career, travels and other adventures. Those times when I am sketching in my journal or inking up a linoleum or wood block and rolling it through my printing press.

My printing press is starved for an inky block.

So yesterday I spent the daylight hours cleaning up my art studio. A block printing project I started before surgery sat coated in a layer of dust, and my art table had become a place to stack my boxes of wafers and pouches. Now that my space is straightened up, I am going to commit to working on art at least once a week–hopefully more.

Yikes- this mess might be okay if I was drawing a still life of ostomy supplies, but since I am not, it only interferes with my creativity.
Much better!

This may mean that there will be time periods when a week or two might go by without a post or when it may take me a few days to answer an email. Know that every message or comment means a great deal to me and that I will get back to you. My typing fingers just might be covered in ink at that given moment. To see what my artsy side is up to, you can always check out my other blog. My last post at that site is from over a year ago–but that will change soon!

Heidi:  wife, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, cousin, friend, naturalist, artist, writer, goofball, rock climber, backpacker, hiker, snowboarder, skier, fly-fisherperson, runner, nature and animal lover (especially elephants, dogs and baby donkeys), seamstress, blogger, ostomate (yes I like that word), lover of pumpkin pie, ice cream, and gummy bears, bad-but-enthusiastic whistler, fledgling guitar player and drummer, and pink-scooter rider. Each of these things is a piece of the picture puzzle that make me me. I am thankful everyday that my ostomy gave me the chance to experience all these things again. Still, I have been aware for some time since surgery that the art piece of my puzzle had gone missing, and that I was just too busy to look for it. Fortunately, thanks to an amazing art instructor, a feisty chickadee and hours of sketching time, I found it again last weekend. There it was–with me all along–just waiting to be rediscovered among my journal pages.

Drawing my way out of the doldrums

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My first mainly sedentary week has been hard mentally. I wish so much that I could go for a hike or run, but just walking around the grocery store makes my hip throb with pain, so that is not going to be a reality any time soon. I went swimming at the gym and did an upper-body weight workout. Both of those activities went okay, but it feels like all the amazing  progress I made working out with my personal trainer is going to slip away.

When sadness and anxiety start to take over and I can’t deal with the stress using exercise, I often turn to my nature journal to lift my spirits. Somewhere in those moments when I am looking closely at the pattern of veins in a leaf, and my pen is moving over paper recording what I see, my mind finds peace. Expect to see many drawings in the weeks ahead!

 

The New Year: looking back and looking ahead

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Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2012 brings health and many blessings.

As I set out to write my first post for 2012, I couldn’t decide if it would be best to look forward and write about my goals for the coming year, or if it would be better to reflect on highlights from 2011. As you are about to find out, I like to juggle a lot of things. I might as well keep up with that tendency and write about both in the same post!

I have never been a fan of creating a formal list of New Year’s goals. I have a lot of interests and love them all… everything from activities at work, working on projects involving ostomy awareness, artistic endeavors, fitness goals, to trips Doug and I want to go on. I get a little frustrated when I try to make a formal goal list because there is so much I want to do! I soon discover that it is probably unrealistic to accomplish it all. That said, there are a few things that are a high priority this year.

  • I want to do a better job of keeping in touch with my friends and family. To all my family and good friends who are reading this: did most of  you get a Christmas card from me??? (Rhetorical question!) I didn’t think so. The same busyness I mentioned above sometimes keeps me from answering emails, writing or calling people, and spending time with my loved ones. I want to be better about making sure these people know how much they mean to me.
  • I want to continue sharing my thoughts on this site. No need to elaborate much more on this one. I have a huge passion for showing people what is possible after ostomy surgery and hope to keep writing and creating videos.
  • I want to get back into working on art. My creative endeavors like drawing, painting, blockprinting and keeping illustrated journals are also big passions for me, and I keep another website covering some of those pursuits. If you visit the site you will see that my last post was completed in August. Not so good. And there is a printmaking project that has been gathering dust on my art studio table for over a year. Art needs to be part of my life again. I realize that may mean a few less posts here, as there are only so many hours in a day, but I am going to try to balance both…. all while working and doing outdoor adventures and exercising. Whew! It is going to be a busy year.
  • I want to go on a climbing road trip.  Two weeks, camping near the crags, waking up and firing up the camp stove, climbing routes all day and then coming back to camp to relax with a beer only to do it all again the next day — that is what I am longing for this year. When Doug and I were in college we spent a summer living out of the back of our truck and traveling the west, climbing pretty much non-stop. I am psyched to get back to that, even if it is only for a couple of weeks. I wasn’t strong enough for this type of trip in 2011, but I will be in 2012 and look forward to doing it with an ostomy!
  • I want to run in the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America’s Team Challenge Half Marathon next December. I am only up to running about three miles right now. However, I have almost a year to train and it seems like I am finally getting off the plateau I have been stuck on. I am feeling so much stronger on runs lately and plan to inch up the intensity a bit in the ensuing weeks.

Now to rewind and reflect on 2011– the first full year of living with my ostomy. There have been so many highlights this year and most of them have already been covered in posts. Great times with friends and family, fun outdoor trips, stellar surgery results– I could write a book on all the amazing things about this year. To keep this post from becoming as long as a large novel, I will cover just a few major categorical highlights. Here are the best of the best for 2011:

  • Discovering my body’s ability to heal. There are many, many examples of this, but there is one that sticks in my mind the most.  Ten weeks after my initial surgery, I had to have an operation on my  incision, and my surgeon ended up removing some sutures that my body had reacted poorly to and then fixing things up. The resulting wound had to heal from “the inside out” with the help of a wound vac. Seeing that wound for the first time was a surreal experience. It was 13 cm long by about 3 cm wide and another 1 cm or so deep. I had to detach mentally to view it, and when I did, it reminded me of an interesting dissection project from biology class. Actually, my scientist-side was pretty fascinated– it was certainly not a part of me that I had ever gotten to see before (and hopefully never would again). Right before my eyes I could see my abdominal wall and the layers of skin tissue on the sides of the wound opening. What happened in the following six weeks was even more captivating (okay… except for the pain of the wound vac which was really bad for me at times). The wound filled up with healthy red granulated tissue and then sort of zipped itself up from top to bottom. How did my body know how to do that?  It was absolutely amazing! I thought I would end up with a heinous scar, but it actually looks pretty great considering the wound that was there before. Now whenever my body is healing, even from something as small as a pulled muscle, I think about that experience. The body’s ability to heal is truly amazing and something that 2011 will always remind me to celebrate.
  • So many firsts! After I was sick for a while and then started to feel better, life just got so exciting! In the beginning, the firsts are so small. There was the first walk after surgery, the first time output came out of my stoma, the first appliance change. Things progressed from there… there was the first time I got brave enough to eat a peanut, the first try at putting my favorite jeans back on, drinking my first beer. Then there were all the athletic firsts… snowboarding, hiking a 14er, running, climbing. I am still hitting firsts all the time. Yesterday was the first time I climbed a 5.9-rated route at the gym. It was a delicate climb that required more balance than brute muscle power. Still, it was the first time that I felt like I was back in my old climbing body, doing some of the more athletic climbing movements that I used to. What a way to end 2011!
  • A new outlook. I write often about how being sick and going through major surgery has changed the way I view things. This has been one of the biggest blessings of 2011. I find examples of this new outlook in even the smallest moments of my life. For instance, a few months ago I was getting ready to lead a campfire program at work. It had been a long week and I was feeling tired and “grumbly” and not into it. Suddenly I remembered how much I missed my job last year and how much I longed to be out in the parks leading programs again. I immediately changed my attitude, got excited about the program and fully seized the moment. I got up on stage and shared information about all the amazing changes animals were going through to prepare for winter. I told stories, sang goofy songs with the kids and had one of the best programs ever. On the drive home I was overcome with emotion because it had felt so good to be out there again doing what I love. Life had given me back all I had ever hoped for and here I had been sulking just a few hours earlier. It was a big reminder to live with a spirit of thankfulness for what I had. Gratefulness, the ability to live more in the moment, the capacity to deal with uncertainty and change– these are just some of the ways I have changed for the better I have made in 2011.

As soon as I am done with this post, I am going to go for a run. I love the thinking-time running gives me, and inevitably, I always start composing blog entries in my head. I am sure as my feet hit the pavement and my thoughts drift off, I will think of hundreds of other things I could have included in this post. Suffice it to say that it has been an incredible year of recovery, growth and change. I am so excited to see what the next year will bring!

The Nature Nook

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Today I went in for a visit with my stoma nurse for a very minor skin irritation issue. Her office is right next to the hospital where I had my surgery and also next door to my surgeon’s office. As I was pulling into the parking lot, I realized I had not been back to this area of medical establishments since mid-March. Quite a record after driving there every couple of weeks for four months while I was preparing for and healing up from my ileostomy surgery. As I drove by, the tiny park next to the hospital caught my eye.

I had some complications after surgery due to my body being difficult and stubborn in its healing, which required some additional hospital stays. At first, I had no idea this little nature-nook-of-a-park even existed. One day, knowing of my love of the outdoors and my somewhat anxious state during one such hospital visit, my surgeon phoned my room and told me that the weather was gorgeous and that I should head outside to visit this place.

Though it was nice outside, it was a bit chilly and I had left my jacket in the trunk of the car before checking in to the hospital a few days prior. I also had a large drain hanging from my butt cheek. Not the most ideal situation, but I had been given permission to go outdoors!!! Nothing could have stopped me. As I headed through the gate of the park, and situated my sore butt carefully on the bench, peace came over me. It was winter, so there were no leaves on the plants, and I only saw one bird up in the branches. Still, this tiny bit of nature provided just the soothing effect I needed. For the first time since checking in, I found my mind wandering away from the hospital to thoughts of future adventures. I wrote in my journal for a while, soaking in the sunshine and fully enjoying the moment until the cool air finally hastened me back inside. I returned to my room feeling rejuvenated and hopeful.
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