Four weeks ago, this was me:

Smiling in the recovery room because I was so thrilled that surgery was behind me!  And I was blissfully numb! With people bringing me warmed blankets! And endless refills of Diet Coke!  I was so optimistic and full of confidence that I was about to ROCK this whole recovery deal.

I’m Type A, remember.  When I do things, I’m all about doing them well and exceeding expectations.  So there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to power right through all of my healing and recovery.  No problemo.  Except that it has been.  Crap.

Y’all.  I’ve hit a WALL.  Mentally, I started falling a wee bit apart last week.  Matt might argue that it was a lotta bit.  Semantics.  Anyway, as I hit the four week point, I gave a little cheer and then realized that OH YEAH I still had at least FOUR remaining weeks of not using my right arm.  Four weeks.  28 days.  At the very least.  For the love.  It was too much for my already-overwhelmed brain to handle.  So I gave Matt the response any pastor’s wife would give to her sensitive, loving, compassionate husband.  “I love you.  And I love the Bible.  But I need you to stop with the Bible verses right now and just tell me how much this sucks.”

Holiness just oozes from my pores.  Obviously.

Eventually, I moved on from this point.  Because today!  Today was my one month post-op visit with my surgeon, and I just knew that she would heap praises on me.  For my awesome range of motion.  For impeccable control of swelling.  Because I AM TYPE A, you guys, and I was all over this.  Never mind the fact that my pain was starting to worsen.  And my shoulder was feeling tighter. Whatever, I was so rocking this thing.

Wellll.  In short, NOPE.  Actually, I’m worse off than I thought.  I was told that my shoulder’s not where it should be.  That things are actually going DOWNhill rather than uphill right now which earned me some strong steroids and a new physical therapist.  A new physical therapist who, might I add, is located one. whole. hour. away from our house.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.  On the other hand, however, having a frozen shoulder doesn’t exactly fit into my best-laid plans either, so I’m choosing the lesser of the evils.

Like I said, this wasn’t in my plans.  I totally intended to be ahead of the game, not having the words “RESCUE” scrawled on top of my referral form for physical therapist #2.  Only failures need rescuing.  Don’t they know that I’m an A student?  I DO NOT FAIL at things like this.

I don’t have any deep words of wisdom to follow this.  Nor will I follow all of this with scripture.  Rather, my point tonight?  Some things just suck.

Today, I called Matt at work and let him know that I fully intended to mope for the remainder of the evening and that he was free to stay at work late if he wanted to avoid that preciously melodramatic scene.  I stayed true to my word, changed into my moping clothes (if you don’t have moping clothes, you need some.  for such a time as this, y’all.), and I spent a few minutes (okay, hours. hush.) feeling sorry for myself.  And sometimes that’s okay.  For a while anyway.

I know we’ll make it through this.  And in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that huge of a deal. But right now, it feels pretty big to me.  And overwhelming.  And just HARD.  And, like I said, that acknowledgement and those feelings are okay.  We don’t always have to follow up on our whinings and wailings and complainings with immediate “BUT GOD” proclamations.  That will come.  And God’s position as, oh, ruler over all isn’t exactly shaken by our hemmings and hawings.  His throne is pretty secure.

Moping clothes totally have their place in this world.  And in my week.  Because, like I said, some things?  They suck.  Like today.  But I fully expect to be back in jeans tomorrow.