Long Time, No Writing (AKA Full Body to Thin Body - But Not in the Way You Think)

My title of this post isn't exactly completely accurate. I've been writing, but not here. It's been hard to write much at all with everything going on - and so this has fallen by the wayside. But I've decided that I'm going to try to write here more often.

As you know, coming here is my go-to when I'm sad (or really happy) or have something that happened I need to vent about or just have something I realized I thought you might be interested in hearing it. 

So, this morning, when a bout of sadness hit me, seemingly out of the blue, I thought I would come back to the best way for me to process it. 

Setting: I'm sitting along the back wall of my church. My husband is practicing with the worship team. I brought my laptop so that I could get some stuff done these couple of hours that I don't need to worry about Mom. 

I had asked to be on the team this week but there was a miscommunication between my worship pastor and me and I wasn't included. As it often does, it worked out better that I'm not on it this week. I really needed to be home with Mom this past Wed night during practice. (It's like God knows what's going to happen in the future - amazing!) 

It doesn't make it any easier to hear them playing and want to be up there with them. Well, I just figured out the why on my sadness! Though I know logically it was better for me to be with Mom and honestly, that I'm finally able to get a blog out for the first time in months, I'm still sad that I'm sitting on the sidelines of something I love to do so much. 

I would have to go back and see if I ever wrote about the miracle that me even being on the worship team is. A few decades ago I gave up on church - too organized, too many issues, too much hurt. Around the same time, I also shut my heart down concerning music - all types of music, not just worship. I thought that if I just shut it down and tried not to listen to any music, it wouldn't hurt so much. 

During that time, I also gained a lot of weight. A couple of times through during those years, I picked up my guitar and tried to play. It was physically just not possible. My full-body and shortish arms weren't long enough to reach the guitar strings with my full-bodied guitar. 

So, when I finally started back to a regular church (not Deaf Church) a little over two years ago, I wanted to join the worship team, but I didn't think playing guitar, my favorite instrument, was a possibility. Instead, I tried to play keyboard, which I had been somewhat successful in the past playing. Not this time! I failed miserably.

But my worship leader at the time kept encouraging me to pick my guitar back up and I had the bright idea to get a thin-body (not myself - my guitar). My mom supported me and gave me the money to buy a cheap one... and I was able to play it! Not only could I play it, it was like I had never put it down!

Then a few months ago, after losing weight and having more a thin body myself, I decided to be brave one day and try my beloved Takamine guitar, one that was special to me for many reasons. One was that during a horrible divorce, my worship team at the time took up the money to buy it for me. It's a sweet sounding guitar and through my no-music years and no money, I thought several times about selling it, but just couldn't do it.

It was incredibly special to me to be able to play it again.

Combine that with sitting on the sidelines... I've had other loves in my life where I had to sit out for various reasons. I know this is a common theme with humanity - there's not a person who hasn't had that happen figuratively if not literally.

Plus, add in being more than extremely tired. I haven't been sleeping much lately - averaging maybe 3-4 hours a night. It wears on you more than you realize until it happens. So my emotions would be on the edge even if I wasn't on the sidelines.

I feel that most of my posts have been more positive lately and I feel a little bad that I'm going back to my all-too-common post that verges on a pity-party. But I also have made a commitment to be real with this blog - and today I'm sad. Today, even though I know why, I feel left-out and on the sidelines. Today, I wish I was rested and up on the stage doing what I love.

But I'm not, and it's really okay. One thing I've been learning is that with life, and especially with bipolar disorder, emotions come and go. This sadness won't last forever. Not being able to sleep won't last forever.

And sitting on the sidelines won't last forever. In fact, most likely in just seven days (or three if you're counting until practice), I'll be back up there. 

For all this I am incredibly thankful.

Size Shouldn't Matter... But It Does

Following is a question I asked my pastor, but first, some background.

Our church is like many now that has "merch" - coffee cups, baseball caps, t-shirts, etc. These items have the church's name on them along with an associated event or saying. In this instance, they came out with a design of a shirt that was very special to me, one I really wanted.

However, I was almost positive that they didn't have a size big enough for me. I try not to let it bother me but I do feel left out when I see so many others wear the merch to church events. Oh - I don't wear baseball caps so that's not an option, even though I know it would fit.

So, this is where the email to my pastor came in...

****************

What's the largest size of the t-shirts you are giving out next week? My guess is 3x - because that's usually the standard biggest one out there (if you even got any that big). 

But something I would appreciate you thinking about... 

I gave up years ago ever getting a t-shirt at a church event, a concert, or with a club because there wasn't ever a shirt my size. I thought it wasn't possible.

I battle feeling left out, even with a group where I KNOW I'm not. Not being able to look like those around me because I can't afford clothes my size doesn't help this. I wear whatever I can find, which doesn't fit right even on the best day - and since I've lost weight, they fit even worse. I used to just accept that fact but I'll admit, it's really difficult when other women wear such cute clothes and I can't - and church is the worst place I deal with it. Not because anyone looks down on me for it (I hope), but because I look down at me for it.

Every... single... time... I see one of these shirts on someone at church, I feel just a little left out. Every single time a new shirt comes out, there's a tiny hope that there will be one my size - or that I've lost enough weight to have one fit. And every single time, I'm disappointed all over again.

When it happened at the marriage retreat, I mentioned it to one of the leaders. Usually I try not to worry about it - after all, I could just put the one given to me (that was too small) aside like I have so many others. But because they wanted everyone to wear their shirts for the group photo, I had a rough morning. I so wanted to be part of the photo without standing out like a sore thumb that this was one of the very, very few times I tried it on, just hoping against hope that it would fit - 

It didn't.

Yes, I should have been able to let it go. Yes, I shouldn't have let it get to me... but it did, pretty badly actually. It sounds crazy if you weren't in my head, but that stress, combined with my camera messing up and thinking I had lost all the shots from the retreat plus the paid shoot I left the retreat to do that Saturday morning, left me somewhat suicidal. Yes, that's extreme, and the shirt was a small part of the problem (how it seems like everything keeps going wrong was the main reason) - but the shirt led to me feeling not a part and that made it take that much more effort to ask for help.

Back to when I talked to the leader... when I told her all this, she apologized and said that she could have gotten a bigger size, but didn't even think about it. Does this mean it's possible to get even bigger sizes when you guys order shirts? Does it cost a lot more? Is it possible, at least once in a while, to get one for me?

When I started writing this, it was going to be just a simple question. I didn't plan to go into all that. I didn't think it would be a big deal. However, I'm ugly crying right now, so much that it's hard to breathe. It's apparently deeper in my heart than I thought.

Anyway, like I said, something to think about...

On the Cusp of Another Year - New Year's Eve 2025 (aka: What I Thought Would be "My Year" Did NOT End Up that Way)

I keep spreadsheets for work each month where use Google Sheets to list the client's name, how much I made, mileage, when I was paid for that job, etc under the corresponding date. However, there's not a great way to find an old spreadsheet because this program has limited organizational options.

Because I'm a very visual person, I started putting a symbol at the beginning of the title of each month's addition. One year it was an asterisk, another it was an exclamation mark... you get the idea. This way I could scan the list to find all of the pages for a certain year quickly.

At the end of 2024, I got some business-changing news. My most steady client had to cut back and I was due to lose more than half of my income each month. However, as I had a feeling this was coming, I tried to be optimistic. If you know me at all, you know this isn't natural; however, I had been wanting to branch out. After getting this news, it was no longer a choice. I decided to be optimistic about where I was going.

In addition, my husband was studying to get certified as a paralegal. This was his major in school and he worked as a paralegal for a while after graduation. Then, for various reasons, he didn't stay in the profession, which meant that he had gone several decades without doing paralegal work. He wanted the certification to prove he was still able to do it.

So, I went into 2025 full of hope. It was going to be "my year" in my business. I was ready to get out there and make some money (and hopefully help others along the way). My husband was going to pass the certification test and get a really good job. For once, the pressure wouldn't be on me to make money as he should have a pretty good salary in that scenario.

To help keep that hope alive, I chose a dollar sign to start each 2025 entry. 

The year started off with a bang. 

I met with a friend who is also the head of a writers' professional group after telling her I wanted to pick her brain on how and where to start finding the writing work I had lost. 

I was floored when she offered me an amazing opportunity. The writer's group she was in charge of was starting to publish books. They were also having various staff write a book for a series of books on writing.

As an honorary staff member of the organization (because I'm their official photographer), my friend offered me the chance to write a book in the series with some type of photography angle.

What?! I had wanted to write a book since I was a child. This was an amazing opportunity.

However, the deadline was only a few months away, and I was trying to build up my paid work while working on it. It was a frantic, though fun time.

I was able to join my local Chamber of Commerce through a barter - photography work for the membership fee. I just knew loads of work in my suburban city would come my way as I was the only full-time photographer who was a member of the Chamber. I joined the local merchants' association and worked hard at networking with them and the Chamber, as well as attending other networking events.

There were successes. My book was published. I made a substantial amount at one shoot. I started writing and shooting for other publications. My husband was studying for his test. 

It was working out as expected... at first. However, two things happened that ended up changing my entire year. 

In January, my 87-year-old mother fell. 

That's not unusual in itself. She falls a lot. I joke that we should get frequent flyer miles at the ER. But this one caused her elbow replacement (actually the second one) to come out of the bone that goes into her shoulder. She was in horrible pain but had been told that if something happened to the second replacement, nothing could be done. There just wasn't enough bone left to attach it to in order to do it again.

She spent months in pain, simply trying to learn to use her left arm and deal with the pain. 

Though it would change the entire course of 2025, for months it was just (literally) a pain to deal with.

From April to June, my 26-year-old daughter moved back in with us. You can go back and read some of that story in earlier blogs. Just know that it took a lot of adjusting on everyone's part to make it work.

During that time, I was able to work some but it was difficult as the move was a major deal.

But back to Mom.

In April, she found the one doctor in our state who would take on such a surgery. We were able to get an appointment for mid-May. At every appointment, we held our breaths, expecting to hear that he couldn't do it.

But he could.

Her first surgery was in July. This surgeon had told us he would have plans A, B, C, and D - all of which he came up with after consulting with some of the top surgeons nationwide who do this kind of surgery. I don't think he knew we would end up with Plan E.

Halfway through the surgery, he came out of the operating room to talk to my brothers, my husband, and me. He told us that there was only one thing they could do - take out her current elbow replacement hardware. From there, we had a choice. We could either let it heal up, which meant Mom wouldn't have an elbow or a functional arm, OR we could take a few weeks for her to recover and go back in to do a total elbow-humerus-shoulder replacement.

We chose the latter.

This was when I became a caregiver - and when work became secondary.

The second surgery - about a 10-hour operation - was in August. She had to stay in the hospital for about a week and was at a rehab hospital for almost two more weeks. I was with her almost the entire time. I tried to work some from the hospital, but it didn't go well. She needed too much help.

However, she made it. She was extremely weak and needed a LOT of help at home when she was discharged, but she did it.

Then her arm became infected.

They went back in and did a third surgery - a "clean-out." This was in September. She was again in the hospital for about a week and spent another week in rehab. I was there the majority of the time, but I needed to work some, so I tried to do both.

Resulting tests showed that the clean-out worked. She got over the infection. But, for some reason, the wound wasn't completely healed. She had been opened up from her shoulder to her wrist, and about a 4-inch-long part wasn't healing.

This led to the fourth surgery - a debridement. They were hoping that they could cut away the tissue that wasn't healing to give it a boost.

She didn't have to stay overnight in the hospital for that one. Woo-hoo! Her surgery was on Halloween, and it was nice to be home instead of back in the hospital.

All of this wiped her completely out. Her body kept betraying her. Other issues throughout the four surgeries made everything harder. 

What this meant for me is that I was able to work less and less. I lost all of the momentum I had been gaining. In fact, I made nothing, nada, ZERO in September. 

It's been two months since her last surgery. That wound is finally healing. She's been able to use her walker for the first time in months. Part of this improvement was that she ended up going on hospice for pain management.

The ironic aspect of this part of the story is that after she decided hospice was a good idea, she found out she has lung cancer.

She doesn't want treatment, so there's no need to get a biopsy. As a biopsy is the only way to show what kind she has and whether it's fast-growing or slow-growing, she isn't technically diagnosed with cancer. She's technically on hospice for heart issues (though they know about the cancer and will address it as needed.)

With that news, work again became secondary. It took a lot of meetings to get her started with the hospice program and I had to be at all of them. She may be much more ambulatory now but she's at a huge fall risk and so it's more nerve-racking to leave her alone than it was before. 

This past month I made $25. Oh - and my husband never was able to finish studying for his test because of everything that happened. (He was the secondary caregiver as he was the only one who could pick her up when needed). 

I'm at a loss of where to go from here. I'm still needed as a caregiver too much of the day to really focus on work. Add to that, my back issues have gotten worse. It takes everything in me to complete a full event now. Writing is a better option, but writing opportunities are few and far between.

I have a few more days that I can procrastinate on any decisions, justifying it by knowing that the world is on hold for a couple of days. Businesses are about to close for New Year's Eve and many will stay closed tomorrow. Friday will be spent with issues that I've had to wait to deal with (medical bills make up most of them). Monday is my target day to try to figure out where to go next.

One thing I wish I had done when I started writing this blog is to get subscribers. I've looked into it since but never figured out how. But I do know there are a few who read this blog at least occasionally. As 2025 ends, I thank you - and anyone who has read any of my blogs. I hope I was able to encourage you through all of my ramblings... or at least let you know that you aren't alone.

Let's hope that 2026 is much better (at least for me). 

Depression, Anxiety, Mental Health... Do Bible Verses Help?

I’m at our weekly prayer time at my church. The person who did the devotion spoke about mental health. I’m not discounting her experience, but I believe differently. The advice she gave for those who are struggling is to reach out to others, to start back on an old hobby or start a new one, or to go to a Christian counselor. 

While those are good things, the very definition of depression (or at least major depressive disorder) is that you can’t do those things. There have been many medical studies of the brain that show that the areas that make a person have the ability to do those things are messed up, smaller than they should be. It is literally pretty much impossible to help yourself out of a true mental health depression state.

Now I’m not saying that God can’t work. He can heal. He can heal the brain (something I have never thought about until I was typing these words right now). Support from others can be a major part of that healing. Hobbies and counseling can definitely help.

But remember, with major depressive disorder and many other mental illnesses, the person who needs the healing can’t reach out. It’s up to the Church to do the reaching out. It’s up to the Church to pray for those who need help. It’s up to the Church to encourage hobbies by inviting those who are struggling to think of any themselves. It's up to the Church to provide qualified counselors at a rate that those with mental illnesses, many of whom have a hard time working and don't have the resources for such help, can afford.

As I write this, I’m in an “up” cycle of the bipolar disorder I still deal with. I’ve been awake since 12:30am, and while I might get tired later, I’m not at all tired now. I’m fully of “ready-to-go.” I couldn't have slept if someone bribed me with a huge sum of money.

I don’t know if the person who spoke deals with chronic mental illness. Maybe she said mental health and I translated it as mental illness. With mental health issues, maybe the advice she gave will work. 

Even if that’s what happened, the problem is that many others might do what I did - mix-up the terms. At the end of her devotion, she shared several scriptures about not being afraid, not being anxious, etc. I’m not saying the scriptures aren’t true, but it’s just… not… that… easy… If it was, I wouldn’t have struggled for the majority of my life with these issues. My husband wouldn’t be so depressed that he can’t look for a job. There wouldn’t be a need for psychiatrists and medicine and licensed counselors.

And there is.

There always will be.

Because putting the healing on the sick person isn’t what will heal them. God, through the work of the Body, is the only thing that will.

Waiting

Waiting is something everyone has to do, from the time of birth to the time of death. Sometimes waiting is predictable - like waiting for your birthday or Christmas to arrive. Other times it's unpredictable - like waiting for customer service to pick up. Sometimes it's over a long span of time - like graduating college. Other times it's short - like waiting in line at a fast food restaurant.

But having to wait is inevitable, occurring hundreds of times each day. 

Right now I'm waiting to find out the options available for my mother upon discharge from the hospital, which could happen as early as today. 

In an ideal world, going home would be the top choice, but she's really weak from fighting a post-surgery infection and I'm really weak from trying to take care of her while still managing the rest of my life. I don't know that she can come home and stay safe because there just aren't enough people who can take care of her at the moment.

I have plans this week - doctor appointments, church groups, and work - that I need to adjust depending on what options we have and what we decide. It's the uncertainty... the knowing that what I can do depends on information I don't have yet... that's killing me right now. I just want to have enough information so I can work out plans for the rest of the week.

But I can't.

All I can do is continue to wait.

Caregiving is HARD! (Especially When the Caregiver has Physical and Emotional Issues Already)

I've been a partial caregiver for my parents for years. However, the majority of that time, they were mostly independent, sometimes to their detriment. (Doing too much led to some of the issues we are facing today.) The only time I was really called upon to help in everyday life was for small things, like helping my dad put on his diabetes monitor or assisting mom with hard to reach zippers.

The times they needed more extensive help were after each of their many hospital visits. I was usually the one who spent the most time at the hospital, arranged follow-up doctor appointments, helped to fill out paperwork, etc. I have three brothers who were involved, but when they came to the hospital, they sat and visited instead of really helping with their care - and when each of my parents was discharged, a lot of the care fell on me since we all lived together.

After my dad passed a year and a half ago, I've had to do more and more for my mom in everyday life, but she has still been pretty independent. I suspected that this latest surgery my mom had would lead to doing much more than what I've needed to do before, but there was a part of me that hoped I was overreacting. 

It turns out I was right. 

In fact, it was worse than I imagined.

As much as we love and are thankful for the doctors who did the very involved surgeries she needed, they didn't help with the reality of recovery. In fact, they didn't mention what the recovery would be like at all. But I don't blame them... I really think a surgery this rare has never been done before on a woman of my mother's age. No one knew what would happen. 

Let me explain what the past two months have been like - and what surgeries I'm talking about.

It all started on June 5th. After hearing about this one-of-a-kind doctor, we had to wait a couple of months for this date to come. Mom and I were collectively holding our breath, thinking at any minute that he would say the surgery was too dangerous, too complicated, just too much for an 87-year-old with all of her physical issues.

It turned out that she was seeing the only doctor in Alabama who would even discuss doing this kind of surgery on her.

Backstory: My mom had crushed her elbow in a fall when she was 6-years-old. She found out about elbow replacements in her 50's. Still somewhat rare then, this replacement had gone well... at first.

Then it broke. 

In 2014, she had a second elbow replacement, with a surgeon at the time who was the only one who would attempt that procedure. The surgery went well but he told her after her recovery that if something happened to it, there was nothing that could be done. There was too little bone left to attach the prosthesis to in the future.

Early this year, she fell and broke it again. She went for months dealing with horrible pain because she thought there was nothing that could be done. That is, until she found Dr. Smith at UAB and made that wonderful June 5th appointment.

Dr. Smith laid it all out. He admitted that he wasn't sure how to do it but he had several ideas in mind. He explained the options and after scheduling a follow-up visit, he told us that he would use the time until that appointment to talk to some of his colleagues around the country and get their input.

There were several ups and downs between that visit and the first surgery but we made it. We were told she would need to spend one or two nights in the hospital before going home. I told them I thought we'd probably stay at least three.

I was right.

But what was really disappointing was that it wasn't even a longer stay because the surgery was more complex than they thought. Well, actually it was more complex than they thought. Much, much more complex. So much so that they decided they had to do it in two stages.

In the first - that initial surgery - they would take out all of the old elbow replacement hardware. Then, at some point in the future, they would put in a total shoulder/humerus/elbow replacement. Where the first surgery was a couple of hours, the second would be much, much longer... ending up with her being about 8-9 hours under anesthesia. 

This time they said she would stay in the hospital two or three days. I said it would be longer.

I was right - again.

She was in the hospital and then a rehab hospital for 20, yes 2...0 days. I stayed with her in the hospital every day and night, only going home twice to take a shower. Though I didn't spend the night, I stayed with her in the rehab hospital all day, every day, with the exception of one right before she went home.

It was exhausting. It was draining. It was HARD.

However, it was nothing compared to when she finally got home. 

My mom has a condition called ulcerative colitis. In her case, it causes diarrhea and makes her need to go to the bathroom often and very quickly after eating. In other words, she often didn't make it. 

Furthermore, did I mention that the surgery was done on the arm of her dominant hand? She had no use of her right arm and hand at first, due to major swelling and not being able to move her shoulder at all. Plus, it was difficult for her to use her left arm/hand.

I'm not a very patient or selfless person. I was a teacher - not a nurse. Teachers need these traits but it's totally different. However, I love my mom and would do anything for her. I tried to make myself become what I needed to be to take care of her.

Have I said it was HARD?

I'm sure it's hard on anyone, but you add back pain, anxiety issues, bipolar swings, auto-immune flare-ups and other similiar things to the mix, and it's HARD. 

But I did it - somehow. Still, I'll be soooo glad when she's able to be somewhat independent again.

Happy Birthday, Jack

 Last fall my sponsor, mentor and one of my best friends passed away. Today was his birthday. We hardly ever celebrated each others' birthdays on the actual days but we always tried our best to celebrate them in some fashion.

The main way we would mark the occasion was to eat either Chinese buffet or Japanese steakhouse meals. It was a special treat and a fun way to spend time together, especially when we went to a Japanese steakhouse and had them cook it in front of us.

This morning I looked at my calendar and saw his birthday at the top of my items listed for the day. It's the first birthday in about seven years where I didn't at the very least get to call him and wish him a happy birthday.

As we are both Christians, my hope is that this is the best birthday he's ever had - one where he's not in pain, where he's not dealing with his addiction that so affected his life, where he's not living alone in a house he had a hard time taking care of as he grew older. 

But I've been mourning all day. I miss him incredibly. My husband and I went to a Chinese buffet and ate in his memory. It wasn't the same, of course. 

So... happy birthday, Jack. I'm so thankful that you were a part of my life. I miss you.

I love you, big brother!