I’m back after a great long weekend at the cottage with my family! We spent the weekend opening up the cottage for the summer and cleaning up after the long harsh winter that we had. There is so much for me to do at the moment and quite frankly I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed about it all. If it isn’t this project it’s another and often I find myself worrying about how I’m going to get it all done. My body will only let me do so much and I can’t afford to higher it all out! Also you can only call on so many friends to help you out. Somehow and someway I will get everything done!

My pain this week has been up and down and we’ve made a few adjustments to my medications to take care of that. I’m still dealing with a little bit of surgical pain in and around where my new battery was implanted. Slowly things are starting to heal but I’m still struggling with my energy levels. I’m finding that by the end of the day I hit a wall and then my pain starts to creep up even more. So I’m trying to stay aware of that and take things a bit easier.

At the moment I’m reading a book called “broken dreams, fulfilled promises” by Carolyn Ros. So when I started to think about what today’s post would be about, I had to reflect on what this book talks about. In a lot of ways it’s my families story and probably many other people’s as well. It’s about a husband and wife, Johan and Carolyn Ross and their story of dealing with Johan’s lose of his memory after a brain tumour. After having surgery to remove it he couldn’t remember who his wife and kids where and had a vocabulary of only a hundred words. Though not identical their story parallels the struggles and journey that my family has been on. It’s a story about a long hard road that they faced together, and how God would rebuild their lives.

This book really strikes a cord with me and I can relate to so many different aspects of what they had to go through. What’s great about this book though is that their story is told through the spouses eyes and what she had to live with and deal with every day. It’s a side that we don’t see enough and in fact need to see more often. What people need to understand is that the entire family unit is in crisis not just the person affected by the illness. How often do people ask me how my wife is coping with all of this, or how my kids are coping? They are dealing with just as much as me in all of this, and as a family we will get through this with Gods help.

For those of you who aren’t married with kids you might still be able to gain insight into what other family members around you have to live and deal with as you go through your specific crisis. Often when my wife and I are talking she’ll say she can’t imagine what it would be like to live in pain all the time. Do I stop and tell her I can’t imagine what it must be like watching a spouse live with that pain? Do I stop and think about how helpless a feeling it must be to watch you spouse go through everything and not be able to help. Not as much as I should! Do I ask my kids how they’re doing when they look at me with a sad face and ask me when I’m going to get the use of my hand or foot back? Once again this is something that I should do more often.

This story is a reminder that we aren’t on this journey alone and that you need to look outside yourself when dealing with your illness! It’s also a reminder of the amazing things that God can do if given the chance. On Friday I celebrate my 16th wedding anniversary with an amazing woman who’s been riding right along with me through this storm. I want to thank her for being there right beside me through everything and let her know that I’m right there beside her as well! I love you!