Accept today.

It's been five whole years since I had open brain surgery! It was a summer so vivid, yet so blurry. Words can't describe it, but when I close my eyes, I can remember so many different sensations: voices of visitors, the taste of oramorph, how uncomfortable my skull felt against the pillow & the smell of the recovery unit. Waking up and seeing my parents, always a comfort - my eyes were like slits - so puffy, I could barely see. Then falling asleep, and hearing them creep out ... There's so much loneliness in hospital, I was one of the lucky ones. It's a lot for a 20 year old to go through. Some experiences were so terrifying they often actually haunt my dreams. 

The other day when I realised it had been five years, I was suddenly swamped with emotion. Present emotion and past emotion are so very different. At the time I felt so strong minded, I felt like my spiritual and emotional 'strength' could over power the intentions of my body. This was not to be. The operation did not work. My surgeon came to me very early in the morning and told me, there was nothing that he could do to help me, and that if they tampered with my brain anymore I could have a stroke, be left paralysed, lose my memory - and the list goes on. I never liked the man much, but in that moment he was so sincere, and so sorry. At that point, I understood, but I was too physically sick to move, let alone grieve. That came later. The crazy thing, though (and I put it down to immense love, prayer, and a mother who is a true guardian angel) was that I somehow stayed strong; when my dreams of being and feeling normal were shattered into a million pieces, I held onto this hope that things would be normal, one day. After you go through a traumatic experience, counselling is necessary, however my arrogance and immaturity wrote it off quite quickly; I just kept telling them that I knew I would be OK, one day. 

What I did not know was, that me being 'ok' or 'normal' or 'cured', didn't mean that I would be sickness-free. It didn't mean that I would ever be free from pain. It meant that I would take on and ACCEPT my trials and heart break just like all of you do. It meant that even though it is often raining in my little life, I would somehow learn to dance in the rain. <Look at me now.>

I have managed to work with what I have, and that is the healing process that I never understood when I was too busy thinking up ways to change what God had given me. And God has given me so much. 

Am i saying it's easy, heck no. I am sick more than I'm healthy and I cry too much about that. Even though my body appears to work, most days I am in chronic pain, that's the truth. I have come to ACCEPT that even though I take a nap when my baby does, instead of doing chores, that doesn't make me less of a mum or a wife, It just means I am taking responsibility- otherwise I can't function. If I ever seem unadventurous, overly structured and routined, there are many reasons why;

Tonight we went to the New Forest water park. We had such fun with family jumping in and out of the lake, on and off inflatables. I was in a lot of on and off pain, and most of the time I was in the water I couldn't feel half of my body. I don't regret doing it, it was my dancing in the rain moment, and I probably won't be that silly or reckless for a very long time. Sometimes I have to do these things to have special moments with my husband, do you understand? Whilst feeling abnormal among my fit and healthy relatives, I would have felt more left out had I not participated. Even though it's frustrating, I am trying not to let this thing rule me; accept it, laugh at it, one day I hope I can even be grateful for it. Not sure when that day will come....

With hindsight, knowing it would fail, would I have surgery on my brain again? Of course. We always had to know. Never live life thinking 'what if' - my sister in law once told me, at the end of the day, 'hair grows.' There had to come a point where I was told, you are Madeline Langston, and you have epilepsy. Deal with it. So that I could stop living in a world where I was merely epilepsy Langston, disintegrating gradually. Now I have a point, a purpose, a vocation, a family. Even though it's so much harder than sleeping all day, and feeling numb, I'm a mamma and there's more to me than just additional electricity in my brain. 

Even though I've accepted the sick life, it does not mean that I am comfortable with it <I am eagerly awaiting a cannabis trial!>. I just feel today, and tomorrow and every daily challenge I face is a battle between self acceptance and denial, and today I choose to accept. Because, what else. 

Be understanding to those around you who might be suffering, smiling doesn't mean they are ok. If you know anyone that suffers with epilepsy, or any other chronic condition, please share this post. I don't know why I decided to write this today... But I felt it. I have had this blog for ages and never once shared with my own social group, not even my husband. It's been 5 years, enough time to know that I don't mind talking about it, and I want people all over the Internet who are about to go under the knife to know the true extent of it... Or even just to relate to someone else a far who is suffering with their condition. We'll be going on a journey back in time. More to come x