And so I cried. 13 weeks post op.

 Things have been pretty stable around here, barring some issues with a medication that I don't think I need.  Letters have been written....trying to get to the bottom of it.  I have one more outpatient surgery to remove the IVC filter at the end of August.  Until then thrice weekly blood draws are on the calendar.  It's not terrible, but it is annoying and the bruising on my arms is getting old.  I am out of easily accessible veins, which makes everything just a little bit harder.

My brain seems mostly normal ( ha!  I can hear some of you laughing.)  My eyesight seems to have changed a little too.  Age? Surgery?  who knows. I feel a little like I am seeing things in a fractured mirror sometimes waiting for my brain to put all the pieces together and send the information.  It's only a split second slow but noticeable to me. I am still waiting for parts of my scalp to be less numb.  It's been an interesting study in nerve regeneration.  I am sure it would be fascinating if it was not also maddening.

I was prompted to post  by Seumas who suggested that some people might want an update.  I had to go back and count the weeks.  I  rarely think about the surgery it seems so long ago.  I actually went back and read through the avalanche of posts and well wishes. I was surprised to see that it has only been thirteen weeks.  Some days it feels like it happened to an entirely different person.  Then I get that stabbing pain in my scalp and the itching starts up.  Oh, yeah, not so long ago really.

A week or so ago  Doodle and I went up to Mt. Vernon to attend to Skagit Valley Highland Games.  I was slated to sing with Seirm and I was nervous. Ever since my surgery the  sound inside my head has been off.  My own voice has not sounded like me on the inside. Everyone has said that I sound just like myself, but in my own head things are different.

The neurosurgeon explained that because they  moved the bones of my skull around that the resonance might be different for a while and that my brain would eventually make all the necessary adjustments.  No one knew when that might be.   It has seemed to me recently that things have been shifting again.

So, there I stood on a sunny Saturday with a mic in front of me and friends all around. And I sang.  And I cried.  For at least a couple of measures of An Till Mi Tuilleadh a Leòdhas I had trouble getting the words out through my own emotions. It was not a virtuoso performance. But I did it.  My brain and voice reacted in the ways that they always have.  Somehow my brain DID make the leap and for a brief while the voice in my head matched the sound coming out of my mouth.

I am not a professional singer, but singing is a large part of me and a large part of my life.  Thinking that I might not be able to do it anymore had worried me.  Apparently more than I had let myself believe.  I was crying with relief and joy and with a great deal of gratitude. I hope that the audience thought I was responding to the song, but it doesn't really matter.  If it took a song of homesickness to help me find my voice again that's fine. But I guess I had better start saving for that trip to Lewis.