Getting back to good

So the verdict is in. After many MANY weeks of waiting, I can FINALLY go back to work! I called the doctor'f office on Monday (like I was supposed to) to get the results of my monitor. They weren't in (which I also expected...). So I called back Tuesday afternoon. They were in! The doctor said that I had a "significant" number of extra beats (yeah, no kidding...I felt them pounding away after all!) I had a lot of premature atrial contractions, but no prolonged tachycardia. I did not have any ventricular tachycardia...which is good, because that can be deadly. (Especially when you only have one ventricle!) As of right now, the only thing he said to do was just slightly up my morning dose of medication. I can't up or change it too much, because my blood pressure is so low. (It usually runs less than 100). I'm going to see him in a few weeks, and hopefully by then he will have some other options for me. In the mean time, I can go back to work (yay!!) He really wasn't thrilled about me driving, but as it is only 15 minutes away, I know the drive well and promised to drive safely, he said I could drive there. I still don't think I'm supposed to drive any where else for a while. I can probably drive to Lowell for the River Walk, but I'm sure I'm not supposed to go much further than that.
This, right now, isn't a problem. The weather is still quite cold (although we're expecting 50's+ this weekend!) and I don't want to be out in the woods somewhere with the dogs and then run into trouble. So for right now, we'll stick with the river walk. As every day goes by, I can do a little bit more and get a little bit stronger. I know that going back to work will wear me out, but hopefully it will make me stronger in the long run as well.
So, what does going back to work mean for us all? It means that I can get back into life's groove; get back on a regular schedule and back out into the real world. But going back to work has repercussions for life outside of work too. I'll no longer be home with my dogs ALL DAY. Their routines are going to change quite a bit too. But I don't want them to change too drastically. I have really enjoyed the daily things that we've been able to do together (while being trapped in the house) and don't want to change that just because I'll be gone from the house for 35 hours a week now. I'm going to try and make sure that we still get to do all of those special things; before or after work. I might not be able to do them all everyday, but...I'd still like to try. They're just little things, but they've definitely brought both me and the girls closer. They are things that we both enjoy. And not only am I going to be disappointing them by now leaving them every day for hours at a time, but try to take those things away too? I owe it to them to try and make sure that those little things still happen. They have done so much for me over the past few weeks; they deserve to still have special time with me when I get home from and before I go to work.
So I'm going to not only try and get the little things in (like brushing them every day, playing ball in the hallway until we can get out in the yard, etc.) but we're going to get some bigger special things in as well. When I was working before, my days off were Friday and Saturday. I'm hoping with every fiber of my being that these days don't change. It was nice because I would have one whole day to get everything necessary done (cleaning, food shopping, laundry etc.) and then the second day would be "doggy day". This was a special day where we did something or went somewhere we couldn't on the other days of the week. We would spend hours at the beach, drive to the mountains for a day of hiking and swimming, or go to a dog show. It was a really nice routine that we had; something really fun and special for all of us. I'm excited that I'll be able to do that stuff again. Spending so much time with the girls has been a really good and life changing experience. I've been shown how important we are to each other; how important they are to my health, healing, and sanity! I want to make sure that they are NEVER taken for granted and that they always feel special.
I know that going back to work is going to take some getting used to. For not only my body, but my mind too. I know that I will come back really tired for the first few weeks, and that I may not be able to anything too grand too quickly. But I'm OK with this; I think I would be having a harder time if it were warmer and I was able to drive further. Knowing that it was the first 60+ degree day and I could drive the 45 minutes to the beach would be torture for me if I didn't feel up to making and enjoying the trip because I was too fatigued. So hopefully this strengthening process with take me right up until the time when the warm weather does arrive and when I can travel extra distance it takes to bring us to our favorite places.

But something that is making the wait a little less easy to take, is something that happened the other day. My mom did something...a little crazy. And she did it for me.

I have wanted a kayak since I was probably 10 or 11 years old. I used to spend summers at my grandfathers camper in a really nice park on a lake in New Hampshire. I used to spend the long lazy days out on the water, both swimming and kayaking. It was absolute BLISS; heaven to a young girl who wanted to just escape the pressures of being a pre-teen and worrying about things that were important back then: boys, music and clothes. I just got to be alone with my own thoughts and really focus on what I wanted for MY future, without the input of my somewhat biased friends. Even back then, all I wanted to do was learn and think about dogs. I closed this love off for a while because it was an uncool subject to be interested in. Only when I was able to get into college did I really become comfortable with who I really was and what the passion was that was driving me. Those summers in New Hampshire let me be me for just a little while; it was liberating not having to pretend I was someone that I really wasn't. Trying to hide who you are and be something that you are not is exhausting. Although I still struggle with the insecurity of being a "loner" and being "different" because I spend my free time at agility class instead of bars, watch "It's me or the dog" instead of "The Bachelor", and spend more time and effort on my dogs diet than my own, I do feel more comfortable with who I really am. And that's been helped along by truly great friends (who actually ask me how my girls are...they acknowledge that they are MY kids!) and of course, my mom.

I didn't want this post to be too long, so In my next one I'll let you know just how much my mom knows me; what she has done for me and what she has given me...even if she doesn't know it.