BALENTINE MEMOIRS

I'm sitting this morning thinking about some of the middle of the night bathroom floor moments Amy and I have shared during our marriage.  This post will be heavy, but I promise to bring some hope. Last night I heard a truck loudly drive down our street and I barely shifted in the bed, slid my arm over to the night stand and grabbed my phone to see what time it was.  This instantly made me feel like my equilibrium was thrown into a blender.  I started convulsing like I was going to puke and my body started shaking.  I ran to the toilet. Amy did her best to assist and to console me as I hugged the porcelain and pressed my bare legs against the cold tile.  "I'm so sorry you have to go through this.  I'm so sorry you have to feel this way," she said.  She touched my leg, knowing I likely didn't really want to be touched in this moment.  But her touch just reassured me that she was with me.  Through another middle-of-the-night bathroom floor...

It feels like fog is slowly lifting from my mind, allowing me to string together consistent and coherent thoughts.  Slowly weaning myself off of pain meds is assisting my mental clarity as well.  Nine days ago I had a brain surgery called "Chiari Decompression."  My neurosurgeon cut open a 5-inch incision on the back of my head and neck, retracted the opening, and then drilled-out about an inch or inch-and-a-half size piece of skull.  He then reattached the skull and covered the opening, leaving plenty of room for cerebral spinal fluid to flow through the opening between the base of my brain and spinal canal.  The procedure lasted around 4 hours.  I was intubated and catheterized.  And very anesthetized. Incision 9 days post-surgery The four nights in the hospital were a bit of a blur.  I was doped up and coming off of anesthesia.  One thing I remember quite clearly was the hours following getting my catheter removed.  I felt like...