Well... I survived!

This is good news.

For those of you that don't know, I had my second VATS / pleurodesis surgery last Tuesday at the UCLA Medical Center. 

Let's just say - recovery is coming along... but much too slowly for my liking. 

Without getting too gruesome with the details...

This surgery left me with two incision sites and a chest tube for a 3 day stint at the hospital. This time I was smart and got an epidural.. so the pain wasn't bad with the chest tube at all.. this time.

  (I learned my lesson the hard way)

Let's just say, epidurals are AWESOME! 

Honestly, the worst part about chest tubes is getting them taken out. You are fully awake and they pretty much just count to three and yank. It's HORRENDOUS. But this time was my best experience (out of 4 experiences with chest tubes) mainly because it was the first time I had a hand to hold while it happened. 

My husband has been nothing short of SAINTLY through this whole process. I probably would have lost my ish if he wasn't there. 

To be honest, since I've gotten home from the hospital, it hasn't been easy, but I wasn't expecting it to be. However, after 9 days of constant pain and not being able to breathe comfortably, or laugh at anything... it starts to get to you. 

The not being able to laugh thing has been pure torture! (I'm a laugher.) 

So, now that I've reached the point where I'm not totally loaded up on meds that cause me to fall asleep every 10 minutes (It's taken me 3 days to write this post) I'll be a much more active blogger. Especially since I'll still be keeping things very low key for quite a while. 

(I'm about as swift as a snail right now)

So hopefully my recovering ramblings aren't too all over the place! 

Thank you so much to everyone for all the positive thoughts and prayers! 

Lame or Lovely

Week of 8.6.12 - 8.13.12

Lame

- No air conditioning in your house. Not ok during heat waves.

- Dark nail polish. Hellooo, it's still summer! That nonsense can wait till Fall.

- Wanting to make your famous beer bread, but the husband drank the last beer.

- Awkward variety of tan lines.

- Trying to unlock your iPhone while running on a treadmill. 

- Building anxiety over surgery. A.k.a. convinced impending doom. 

- Not having a job (or paycheck). And knowing I have to wait until after recovery to get one.

Lovely

- Sitting for hours on the beach by yourself. 

- Warm evenings / nights. At Disneyland.

- New (prestigious) job for the husband. Soo incredibly proud.

- Buying the perfect birthday gift for an adorable 3 year old. 

- New friends and their extremely warm pools. Fun night swims, in said pools. 

- Saint-like, extremely patient & forgiving husbands.

- Copious amounts of amazing wine, and shrimp scampi to die for. 

Marriage - The Harsh Truth of a Major Myth

Thanks to my dear friend Kim (check her out, over at her blog HERE!), and her incredible social media and Communications Major skills, I'm always benefiting from the things she finds and posts.

This morning it was a bit of 'food for thought' on marriage and the breaking of the 'Happily Ever After' myth. 

If your married, engaged, in a relationship, or completely and totally single - you should read this.

The Dream of Happily Ever After

I loved the frank honesty and down to earth attitude Sheryl Paul uses in this article - because let's face it, we live in a world that likes to sugar coat everything, and is so afraid to be real in efforts not to hurt anyone's feelings. 

Seriously? Since when did we all become little babies that can't handle things that are difficult?! 

I understand we have all grown up with the ideal 'happily ever after' shoved down our throats since we could blink, but there comes a time when you need to separate fictitious fairytales from true life reality, and I feel like being able to consciously realize marriage is not a fairytale, in any circumstances, is a skill that is becoming extremely rare. 

I admit, I had to learn this hard lesson myself. 

I was a major believer in the myth. Especially being such a die-hard romantic! 

So I had to learn this lesson when my husband and I were engaged, because I take marriage extremely seriously, and always knew that whenever I decided to get married, I'd be in it for the long haul. 

I had to really sit down with myself and give myself a huge reality check... Especially marrying a Marine, whose job has to come first! I mean, what is that?! That's not exactly the picture perfect, "riding off into the sunset" ideal I had imagined - especially with all the holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and other special days he would have to miss being deployed all the dang time! 

But forcing myself to separate the fiction from the reality was extremely freeing.

There was no longer any pressure to make the man I love into something he's not - into something society or fictional stories want men to be. 

He's human. He makes mistakes, and sometimes he bugs the crap out of me (and I do the same)

- but after accepting the fact that he's not perfect, it let me appreciate him for all he is, and just how great a guy he is- in the real world.

 And although he may not be perfect - I learned he's perfect for me.

So please do yourself, your marriage, and your happiness a favor and force yourself to take this lesson to heart. 

Because honestly, there are way too many divorce EXCUSES these days, and many divorcees (like J.Lo) look at themselves like the victim and not the problem. Which, to put it harshly, simply isn't the case. 

In my experience, a happy marriage is: compromise, communication, investing in each other, and always trying to perfect the balance between giving and taking. 

My husband and I are not perfect, and we don't have a "textbook perfect" marriage

-but we are so happy because we apologize, and forgive, and never forget what's truly important in the grand scale of things.

Life isn't about being happy for a single moment, it's about being happy for a lifetime.