Shampoo is better, no conditioner is better!

It's time for a bath.  My parents physically carry me up the stairs and put me in the tub.  My mom washes me off, and starts shampooing my hair as I am slumped over the side of the tub, oxygen blasting and my eyes barely open. I'm a dead weight, but none the less, my mom's voice stays uplifting as she tells me what beautiful hair I have and how nice it's going to feel to lay on the couch all fresh.  My dad's preparing my clothes and new fresh sheets for the couch, which has become my living space... This was our life.  This became normal to us.

But not anymore.

I recovered. I came home. I was walking. And then I started washing my own hair.  I couldn't believe I had the strength, the energy and the BREATH to do it.. but I did.  I didn't cough, I wasn't tired and I didn't have to stop to catch my breath because it never left. Instead of sitting in the tub hunched over toward the outside, I was outside of the tub, leaning over it, using my new fancy shampoo (thanks Kate Arian!).

Then, after all the staples were out and everything was healed... I could take my first legitimate shower.  I remember stepping in and praying because although I was told I could do this... I was scared.  Flashbacks of how things used to be popped into my head, and as I pulled back the curtain to step under the rushing water, I prayed.  "God.. please make this be ok because it just feels so weird."  Taking a shower felt weird.  I began to slightly panic wondering if my chest was really healed enough to take the water pressure, or if the temperature was ok for my new lungs.. after all, I couldn't breathe in humidity at all before.. then memories of my last showers started flooding my mind... how every shower, even if I felt ok, inevitably led to watching the blood that I coughed up spiral down the drain... 

I stepped in, feeling a little crazy for being so worried over a shower but nonetheless clutching to God.  The water was just right, and as it pounded down on me, God reminded me of those daydreams I clung to on ECMO -- of standing underneath a water fall, feeling each water pellet strike me individually, and yet all at once, drenching me and dripping down my face without ceasing.  And as I stood there, the water not only washed me, but washed away everything I was fretting over, and I was reminded yet again, the GOOD that the Lord has for me.  The "simple" gifts he's given me, like hot water, and my senses to feel it.  He reminded me of how nice it feels to wash my own hair, and use girly scented body washes.. How I forgot the days of turning on the radio louder than I should so I could hear it once I turned the the handle that made the shower head suddenly spurt... I was reminded yet again that it is Jesus who is the Living Water, and how it is Jesus who washes away my sins, and my fears.

And after I finished actually showering, I stood.  I didn't do anything but listen to the water spraying with all its force.. closing my eyes and tipping my head so I could feel the warmth and pressure beat against me and drip down my face, and realize that all the while... I was breathing.

"'For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD. 'They are plans for good...'" Jeremiah 29:11a

The LORD has GOOD things planned for us, even when our feelings tell us that it's scary, and weird and wrong... If it's leading you to the Living Water, you'll soon discover that waterfall of goodness He's been waiting to flood you with all along.. and I say flood on purpose.. because this is just the beginning.

I'm going to go take a shower because God is love.

i'm WALKING on Son-shine

I FINALLY got out of CT-ICU and graduated to the 7th floor which is strictly transplant floor. In between this time, I passed my speech and swallow test, which meant I was allowed to eat soft foods and finallyyyy drink! This also meant that I was allowed to swallow my pain meds so I didn't have any negative side affects like paranoia anymore!  (I still got a little loopy.. but to me everything was the funniest and greatest thing I'd ever seen, and I'm pretty sure my happy delirium entertained my nurses and family haha. my favorite nurse came to visit me.. she walked in laughing and said "enjoying the drugs are we?") I still had trouble sleeping, because my mind still got scared that if I fell asleep, I'd stop breathing, but other than that, things were pretty good.. until I realized I couldn't move.

At all.

I couldn't lift my head on my own,  I couldn't roll to my side, I couldn't move my legs no matter how hard I tried.  I could move my arms and hands, but that was it.  I was in shock.  I got these new lungs, and now I can't even use them!  The docs and nurses assured me that this was normal, I was young and would bounce back quickly.  My transplant friends also reassured me, telling me how their legs were like spaghetti and look where they are now.  It helped for a minute but then I'd naturally go to move, and not be able to and get frustrated all over again.  Physical therapy started in CT-ICU and was so, so painful.  They wanted me to develop my core muscles again, and of course try to walk, but I couldn't.  So they'd pick me up and sit me in a chair.. So incredibly painful.. they way most therapists picked me up tugged on my incision line, and made me feel like I was literally being torn in half.  On 7th floor, we did more bed exercises, and soon I was practicing standing up.  They'd pick me up, and hold me while I tried my best to lock my knees, and we'd just stand for a half a minute and then sit and do it over again.  It was shocking to me how I had to relearn things just because my muscles were so depleted.  I had no balance - when I got strong enough that they could start to let go holding me and try to let me just stand, I'd start leaning in one direction about to fall over.  It took a long time to get walking, but when I finally started taking those first steps, it was such a victory.  I had to walk with a walker, the therapist holding onto me, and someone (usually my mom) walking right behind me with a chair incase i fell.  Many days were depressing.. I still couldn't stand up on my own.. someone had to physically pick me up and put me on my feet.. and even though I was glad to finally be able to hobble along with a walker, some days I didn't do as well as I wanted to, or was so exhausted afterward I could just cry.  "It will come, it will come" they kept telling me.  But it wasn't... I was stuck in this phase of walking like a penguin while clutching a walker so tight my knuckles were turning white.  I was referred to go to acute rehab which is basically a more intense physical therapy, and I thought and prayed a lot about it, but ultimately decided to go home.  When we got home, I couldn't go up the stairs so my parents basically carried me haha and it was a little tough for a few days, but so much better than the hospital.  Eventually I started walking without the walking but holding onto the wall or furniture as I walked, and then one day... look ma, no hands! 

Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” - John 5:8

I can walk because God is love.