Tag: healing

Just breathe

On 04/28/2023

I realized today that I have been holding my breath for four years. Yes, I’ve obviously taken in oxygen but not with my body really moving, not taking a true deep breath.

I realized this while laying on my side on a massage table as my friend used a type of bodywork called craniosacral therapy on my back and ribs. We thought she was working on tightness from my shoulder surgery and wearing a sling. That is until she moved to one spot in particular on my right (non-surgery) side and, as it softened, I had the thought, “That spot hasn’t breathed in four years!” I was seriously giddy as I left her house.

An hour and a half later, my lungs are still suddenly taking deep breaths, like they just can’t believe they are actually free. To celebrate, I decided to try a little cup of gelato that’s been in my freezer for weeks…and as I ate (the whole thing, sorry family), my right arm would just float up in the air with the spoon. I don’t know ballet, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it was doing.

Here’s the thing: I know how to breathe. I can do it in my sleep. I also know how to encourage my body to calm down, breathing into my abdomen and expanding my rib cage. I just taught a breathing exercise to two other women recently, for cripes sake! And yet, I wasn’t really breathing myself.

I’m done listing our traumas. I have written about many of them on ComeSoAlive.com, so if you’re just tuning in, you can find them there. But they need to float away just like my arm was doing. Like balloons, it is time to release them.

Healing hugs and chickadees

By Carrie

On 11/18/2022

In Gratitude

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Covid hit our house this week.

We had all still been wearing masks this fall despite the world around us seemingly going back to “normal.” I really didn’t want to get covid before our fundraising concert though and risk missing it, so at school, work, and errands we stayed masked.

We made it 2 ½ weeks after the concert, of going back to unmasked life, before Cody brought covid home from school.

Thankfully covid didn’t hit Cody harder due to his epilepsy nor did it cause problems for Chuck post-stroke. I got hit the hardest.

I’m actually typing from my bed, day 6 of being here. But I am feeling better.

I was so smeared for a few days that I barely got out of bed, so Chuck and Cody adjusted Cody’s bedtime routine. We always share what we’re grateful for from that day before we go to sleep; this week, we did it with Chuck and Cody sitting next to me in our bedroom instead of Cody’s.

The first night I was sick we said what we were grateful for, and they got up to leave the room. Cody walked to the door, then stopped and ran back to me, jumping on top of me.

“Healing hugs!” he exclaimed.

And he gave me a big, wraparound hug. He invented healing hugs after Chuck’s first open-heart surgery, being much gentler with Chuck back then than he was with me now, of course.

The next day he made me a get-well card. Cody loves birds so he drew a chickadee family in their nest. The littlest chickadee is on its back with its skinny claws in the air because it’s so happy that “mommydee” is healthy.

Awww.

It got me thinking about references to feathers and wings in the Bible.

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.
Psalm 36:7

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by.
Psalm 57:1

He shall cover you with His feathers,
And under His wings you shall take refuge
Psalm 91:4

Jesus even uses this imagery when he says,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”
Matthew 23:37

God wants to gather us in and care for and protect us – isn’t that a wonderful image? To have the Creator of the entire universe wanting to pull me under His wing. That’s what I thought about when I looked at Cody’s drawing.

I found one more verse about feathers and wings when I looked up those words.

But to you who fear My name
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings
Malachi 4:2

Healing in His wings. And that reminded me of Cody launching himself on me to hug me, wrapping his arms around me and settling in to make me feel better.

I think Cody was on to something when he dubbed them “healing hugs.”

I’m one fortunate (and healing) mommydee!

Anticipation, Part 2

By Carrie

On 10/28/2022

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy), His Vast Strength (stroke)

I woke up Sunday morning reciting a verse in my head: “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.”

I have a reminder on my phone so that verse, Isaiah 61:1, pops up every Sunday morning, but this week I thought about it before I even reached for my phone. Actually, I know that verse so well that I don’t really need the reminder to know those words. I have lived those words.

Last week, I wrote about anticipating my peonies popping open every spring. Lately though, I’ve been anticipating another yearly event, although I guess dreading it is the more accurate way to describe it.

You see, Sunday was the 8^th anniversary of Cody’s epilepsy diagnosis.

My greatest joy was born in October.

Four years later, October ushered in my greatest heartbreak.

Obviously, I knew it had been coming for…well, since the 7^th anniversary. But this year, we had scheduled our fourth fundraising concert on the same day so at least something good would come from something bad.

But once the planning and preparing were finished, I spent a day depressed. Because no matter how much we were eagerly anticipating the concert, the dread of facing one more anniversary and starting one more year of epilepsy also loomed ahead of us.