Egull1's Journal, 10 April 2024

You need to extra aware of your own health at this time to be able to help and support Mom. Praying for you all. 💞 

Prayers for you and your family! 

💙 

Best wishes for a good outcome on your mom's surgery! Make sure to keep your strength up as you will need it post op to help her. 💜💜 

🙏🙏🙏 

Thank you redrose, and thank you all for the support. I genuinely appreciate the prayers. And, yes you are correct. It's definitely important to keep aware of the state of my health at this time. This is my mother's 6th joint surgery. She's had her hip replaced, a hip revision, two knee replacements, her left shoulder joint replaced, and now she is having the right shoulder done. In addition, she had a mild hip fracture and broke her wrist back in November. And, I have been care-taker for every single one of these situations. This is not my first rodeo. And, I can tell you now it's not the first time in one way or another I have asserted to myself and others in my family that space to care for and manage my needs is absolutely essential because if the MS rears its head - she's on her own. My brother is not in any position to provide what I'm providing. And, there is no nurse or caretaker that could or would manage what I'm managing. But, God has been so good. I'm not saying it's been the smoothest road. But, the grace provided has truly been phenomenal. Both, my mother and I have learned a great deal about each other and the distinct ways in which we choose to approach life, LOL. We'll just say, in some ways it's been amazing for my self esteem if not my sense of righteousness at times! HAHAHA! I really underrated myself for years. But, if there is one very distinct lesson I've learned from her experience is the absolute importance of looking at my task list as a set of processes not goals and approaching things in a manner that helps my future self get done what I need to instead of hindering myself or creating obstacles that will only exacerbate my suffering in the long run. Likewise, I can see that she is learning to slooooow things down, become a little more thoughtful about the visions she wants to achieve (she's an artist), and genuinely cultivate and care for the beauty and abundance she already has in her life rather than just chase the next project, vision, goal she wants to conquer. Does that make sense? And, thank you Diana! Yes, indeed! Strength and endurance plays a huge part of care-giving, which is why I refuse to sacrifice any training session no matter how late it is...I've told her time and again "I cannot do what I do around here without my workouts!" I see readily everyday how what I do in the gym feeds my capacity to accomplish things outside of it. And, I am fond of reminding her the muscle groups I work and the endurance I practice are set up to help my joints not wear them down. She doesn't question that premise anymore let me tell you. And, though she may be past the point of saving her own joints she, she is learning how to grab a weight or do exercises that develop the kind of strength and mobility that can only help to improve the quality of her life and already has to a greater extent. In short, she's beginning to see why I still workout whether I feel like it or not :-) Blessings to all of you and {{Big Hugs}}