Life After Brain Surgery

/ Kristen Ruchalski / 1 Comment

A week ago my family was all meeting up at a parking garage outside of University of Maryland Medical Center Baltimore, gathering our belongings necessary for the long day ahead, and rushing inside to get to where I needed to be by my 5:30 appt time. Sadly, the hospital sent us on a long run around until we finally landed right where we needed to be, but we got there. Tension was high among the group, of course. The nervousness in the air; palpable.

I was asked if I was ready, more times than a few. How do you answer that? How are you ever ready to risk leaving your family behind? How are you ever ready to risk not coming back to them the same as you left them? So I lied. I was ready, yes. I lied and said I was fine. I lied and said I was going to be okay. I was petrified.

Questions began, IV was started, prepping was moving at the speed of light, but I was still stuck. Lingering, waiting for my entire family to hug me all at once. What would be my last thing to say to each one of them? How do you decide that? You cannot scare the kids, Kristen. You cannot upset your sisters, Kris. And my God, don’t let my parents feel my fear.

Last night I was asked what I felt in those moments. What was it that I told myself to help me get through it and make the final decision to go through with it.

The answer is my life. I wanted my life back. The vibrant, exuberant, fly by the seat of her pants girl was gone. She was replaced long ago by a zombie of a woman that was barely surviving this world. She could no longer head out on grand adventures, planned or otherwise. She spent her days hardly able to make it up and down the stairs let alone to a school event with homemade brownies.

She couldn’t make it to concerts with her sisters anymore. She had to cancel plans with friends more times than a few. She couldn’t get outside and run around with her two sons anymore. Life as she knew it ceased to exist.

But this morning. 7 days after the scariest decision of her life, that girl woke up at 5 am without an alarm clock, went downstairs without a single creaking or aching bone (stairs are a different story), and made herself a cup of coffee. Do you realize how long it has been since that has happened? I won’t count the nights where sleep never happened and I got up at 5 to start a day after a night of no rest. I’m talking actually slept for hours, woke up, went down, and made my own damn coffee??

Let’s ask my little baristas when they wake. I bet ya it’s been a while.

Good morning, world. It’s good to be back.

Little Things

/ Kristen Ruchalski / 1 Comment

So yesterday I broke down several times. Surgery is one week away. So of course my nerves are a wreck. It’s normal. I’m told I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t worried. But let me explain why I broke down yesterday.

I was cooking more meals to freeze for the kids to have during my hospitalization and recovery. My oldest son was practicing his trumpet. (actually a 1956 coronet which is so bad ass) I decided to pick it up and wow him with some things. Ya see, I taught myself to play the trumpet when I was 10ish. Yep, picked one up and taught myself. I was incredibly talented. I say this not to brag, but just to say I am confident in that fact. My talent was passed to my kids, each knowing how to play but only my older son choosing to play. Anyway….

So I played a few scales, a little improv, and then it happened. The damn nerve in my face fired like crazy. Electrical shocks down my jaw. The hammering pain in my bones of my face. And reality hit me.

Even though I don’t play regularly, it is something I do enjoy. I love to just play and reminisce about my youth and my time in band, both concert and marching band. How I was chosen as a freshman in high school to play with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore band for commencement that year. How much I loved having solos during concerts. How I know it was something that made my parents proud. And it truly was a passion.

Now, I can’t play. And that devastates my heart. If they can’t fix my nerve disorder with this surgery I will not be able to play. Ever. A little thing with a huge impact.

My heart is hurting. My soul feels like it was a personal blow. She is weary. She is broken.

Little things can bring with them the misery of a thousand broken hearts.

Night Train

/ Kristen Ruchalski / 2 Comments

It’s not even midnight, but I hear it rolling through.

When I hear that night train, I always think of you.

The dreams I had, the plans we made, it all got lost somehow.

I try to forget your kiss, but I can taste you now.

The echo of the night train.

The memory of your touch.

The magnetic connection.

The ethereal rush.

Release me from this reverie, let me please let go.

Night train, take his memory, he doesn’t have to know.

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Screaming in Silence

/ Kristen Ruchalski / Leave a comment

Pain, ripping flesh, breaking bones, searing flames of agony.
This isn’t torture. It’s my normal.
Tears flow down swollen cheeks to meet the pool gathered on my pillow. How many more nights will this flare last?
The drill in my ear, pressure building. Electric shocks through my jaw. Someone stop it.
Turn off the power. Cut the nerve. Rescue me. I’m dying. Please help me.

I wrote that poem in the middle of a flare up of the neuralgias I love with. They are always constant, but some days they flare so bad I cannot function. It’s unbelievably frustrating. The pain is beyond what the human body should have to endure. 10 days to surgery. I am so ready for this to be done!

~Kristen

Night Thoughts

/ Kristen Ruchalski / Leave a comment

I often lay awake at night. Blame insomnia. Blame anxiety. Or blame what I call painsomnia. But whatever it is, I just lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering what this world has in store for me next. And why I was chosen for such a difficult path.

It often sends me down the path of wondering about religion and how certain religions would look at my situation differently. Some people say it is what God has intended and he wouldn’t give me more than I can handle. Or that he may be preparing me for something even more difficult so I must become stronger. You get the idea. Others might say it is my karma. A punishment of sorts for some thing(s) I did in a past life. I realize that there is also karma in this life, but I know I have not been a bad person. Not bad enough to warrant the life I am currently living.

Either way, regardless of why or how I got here, I am struggling. I wonder why I don’t have someone by my side as I take on such a difficult journey; why must I do it alone? Lately, I don’t even feel like my parents get it. I don’t feel that they truly understand the intensity of what I live with each day. Of course, nobody really does because I don’t allow anyone to see. Fact is though, folks, that I am having brain surgery. I can’t make up some mysterious condition that will convince a neurosurgeon to be like, “Yup, gonna cut her brain open and see what we find”. It doesn’t work that way. And in today’s times, we have a plethora of information at our fingertips. If you don’t know about something and choose not to learn more, that is out of pure ignorance, not for lack of access to information.

I just wish I had more people close to me that understood. It seems like those that understand are from online support groups and they are all over the world. It seems extremely unfair. I realize that I am one day going to look back on this and realize it made me stronger. And I’m sure there is some grand plan in this universe that I am aimlessly approaching. One day, this will all make sense. For right now, I’m tired.

Chasm

/ Kristen Ruchalski / Leave a comment

In the deep recesses of my soul, the darkened chasm of my existence.
You brought the light to guide me.
Showed me my destiny with your persistence.
The laughter that you brought echoed in the dark. My soul was warmed by your words, no longer cold and stark.
A burning ember, flickered in the darkness.
Igniting passion within the depths of nothingness.

I wish you hadn’t shown me, all that we could be.
I wish I didn’t know what was waiting out there for me.
I wish that you had let me tell you no from the start.
Now I’m stuck here alone again with an aching heart.
My wishes do not matter.
My heart was such a fool.
My soul was waking up again.
Back to sleep, darkened and cruel.
Never will I ever, fall for words again.
I wish that I had listened. I knew this was all pretend.

You can never say that I didn’t try.
I tried to make you love me.
I tried to make you see.
I tried to show you not all love is as harmful as it seems.
In the end you showed me, that I was just a fool.
Because the love I tried to give you, ended up hurting me.

You held up a mirror for me to see,
Every negative trait that existed within me.
I’ve come to terms with who I am and understand I can improve.
But you never budged, wouldn’t move.
I’m not the only one who’s broken. I’m not alone in this.
Your heart is also jaded, your head is still a mess.

You say I’m burning, aching, perishing in some way..
You circle like a vulture, waiting for dying prey.
The Phoenix in me is what you cannot see..
Rising from the ashes of what you’ve done to me.

~Kristen Ruchalski

2018

**Featured image retrieved from: https://www.deviantart.com/jullianpablo/art/Empty-Dark-Canyon-30min-Speedpaint-572509476**

Chronic Haze: The Sad Truth of Chronic Illnesses

/ Kristen Ruchalski / Leave a comment

For many years I have felt as if I’m living in a haze. A mere shadow of my former self. Not the woman I once was. And surely not the woman I intended to be at 35. Weak is an understatement. Tired doesn’t even begin to describe the level of exhaustion that I face. I want the old me back.

I want to go back to that vibrant and wild eyed woman who would drop everything for life’s next adventure. The girl that was always in the mood to dance with her kids or a perfect stranger if the timing was right. The girl who loved to spend hours in the kitchen baking treats and cooking extravagant meals.

I have become a zombie. A shell of a human. A remnant of the woman I once was. It is unfair. It is cruel. And it is depressing.

It is going to be a long road of recovery, and I am already fully aware of that. I just know that once I climb this mountain, I am going to find her again. Waiting on the other side. Ready to greet me with a cup of hot tea and a million ideas about what we can do next. She’s in there, she’s waiting.