Just keep moving

Hard day so far.

Both Ben and I are feeling it and aren't really sure why.

I woke up early this morning and felt like I really wanted to go for a run. Not really a run like I used to go on, but I needed to be moving and really exerting myself. I took Ben along and he showed an admirable amount of restraint by staying with me at my speed. I just went a mile and I wasn't timing it, but my guess would be about 14 minutes. My knees were acting up again. But it felt good. I had to pause and stretch for a minute about halfway.

I muttered, "I am so out of shape."

Ben replied, "I think it's more like you've been pregnant for several months and then your body has been through a whole lot of trauma since then."

Oh.

Yeah.

I guess there is that.

I know the hospital staff and Share Parents volunteers told my family to watch me closely for signs of depression. I honestly didn't think it would be an issue. I've been feeling a lot of peace and relying heavily on my Savior. But, I experienced depression as a teenager, so I kind of know what to watch myself for, and I have to say that some of the symptoms seem to be popping up.

The thing that a lot of people don't get about depression is that it's not feeling sad, it's just not feeling much at all. It's more like apathy. When things happen that you'd normally be excited about and you just don't feel excited about them anymore. When you start to have the desire to engage in more and more reckless behavior in order to get stronger feelings and emotions back to the surface. That's when you need to start worrying.

It's not like I'm gambling away our savings or jumping off the roof, but I recognize that I'm just not myself right now. So, I'm sorry if I just don't seem "right" when you talk to me. Don't worry, we're watching it. This is just a down time for me.

I'll come back to myself soon.

A wonderful friend of mine sent me a beautiful video as I was typing this. It was what I needed this morning. I needed to cry a bit.





I realized yesterday that my blog has made a lot of people cry.

Sorry about that, guys.

I've decided to try and throw in a little lighter spot at least once every post.

Because sometimes it's good to cry.

But, after you cry, you just need to smile.

So, here's a bit of a lighter story from my experience in the hospital.

I'd always heard that on the 0-10 pain scale, 10 was child birth. It never occurred to me that they couldn't include that as a level of pain in the Labor and Delivery unit, because obviously every woman in there would be at a dang 10 the whole time.

So when they asked me where my pain was on the scale, I was prepared to tell them 6 or 7 at first. Then they put it in perspective.

The nurse's exact wording was, "Where is your pain on a scale from 0-10, with 0 being no pain and 10 being having surgery with no medication whatsoever."

This gave me pause.

That was a level of pain I had never considered before.

And just what kind of surgery are we talking about here?

There is a huge difference between an out-patient surgery for an in-grown toe-nail and, say, a heart transplant.

But, as I lay there, pondering scalpels and such, I realized that, at that point, my pain really wasn't a big deal.

"I think it's around a 2." I finally said.

This experience, and several other things that happened, reminded me of a Brian Regan bit that my dad quickly pulled up on his iPad so we could listen to it.

That was, by far, the best laugh I had those few days.