Day 23, How Can You Be Happy When You Are Facing Surgery?

 

 

My MRI at Invision Sally Jobe went well.  The radiologist found a rare epidermoid cyst near my pituitary gland at the base of my brain.  My neuro-ophthalmologist recommends surgery to remove it.  A bit reluctantly, I agreed to talk to the neuro-surgeon.

 

Miraculously, my vision improved this year, even before getting the MRI.  I wondered if the improvement was a result of my medication change.  However, my neuro-ophthalmologist does not think my visual difficulties have had anything to do with my medication.

 

 

I am left with a lot of data, unable to give it consistent meaning.  Perhaps my vision cleared up because of my friends’ and family’s prayers.  However, the supplications did not remove the cyst.  What should I do about that?

 

The next step is to talk to the surgeon.  I can stop worrying about it for now.  Instead, I want to put my effort into my blog.

 

 

My appetite has been out-of-control lately.  My doctor did not tell me this, but my pituitary cyst could be affecting that.  The pituitary gland is the body’s master gland.  If it is out-of-balance, a lot of other body functions are out-of-kilter, too.

 

 

I had abnormal fatigue yesterday.  Was it lack of sleep, or was it from the stress?  The medical dilemma stress interferes with my sleep, and that is probably causing my fatigue.

 

My husband likes my company at bedtime.  He sleeps on the living room floor; I sleep in the master bedroom bed.  Lest you think I have banished him to the floor, let me tell you that he has developed a fear of sleeping on the bed.  He is afraid of falling out of it.

 

I need to give my husband together time earlier in the evening to let me retire by 10:00 PM.  Last night, I was so exhausted I could not even change his clothes.

 

 

My Morning Power Questions give me a positive start.  I usually ask and answer them while walking.

 

 

 

MORNING PRAYER

Dear Lord,   Waking up very early, I still feel fatigued from yesterday.  Please, help me get back to my usual vitality level.   Reach How can I reach more people, Lord?  I have a 45-day weight loss log, complete with my diet diary.  It starts on Day 1 and ends on Day 45.  I could compile it into a book and probably will in time.   Your Will What is your will for me?  I want to be a better Christian.  My non-Christian friend tells me that I personify the personality of Jesus.  Even though he does not believe Jesus is God, he admires the character of Jesus, which he calls Christ consciousness.  Being a living example of Christian character is a start.   Values for Happiness I am still working on my seventeen values.  I am setting my goals to support my values.  Reaching my targets on all seventeen in a day is possible but a bit of a stretch.  I will keep working on them, though, because the process makes me happy.   Pituitary Cyst I have decided to consult with a surgeon about my pituitary cyst.  Is surgery the right decision for me?  I do not want to get sucked into it if it is not necessary.  For now, I am convinced that it is not an emergency.  I have time to consider.   My neuro-ophthalmologist thought the cyst was affecting my vision.  However, he tested my eyes in his office on Thursday.  Afterward, he changed his tune.  He did not think my cyst affected my vision.  Maybe it is not impairing it now, but what about the past and future?  Please, give me wisdom.   Of course, a pituitary cyst can cause more problems than visual difficulties.  Dr. Pham said that removing it would reduce the chance of seizures.  I asked him if he could tell from my brain scan whether my brain was healthy.  He said yes overall.  That is encouraging.  He thought my brain would serve me for two or three more decades as long as I did not perish in an accident sooner.   My First Second Opinion My retired-oral-surgeon neighbor drove me to Denver and sat in on the consultation.  He said the advantage to surgery now is that I will recover faster when I am younger.  He thought I should go ahead with it.   One Step At A Time Wow! What should I do?  I will take things a step at a time, praying I will not obsess about it.   Amen.

 

 

You can tell that the surgery possibility is weighing on my mind.  It is now 8:00 AM.  I am thinking of breakfast.  I already broke my fast with almond milk, but I have not eaten anything solid.  I am yawning.  Sorry to put you asleep, too.

 

I had Mini Joy for breakfast.  For a bazillion ways to prepare it, see Day 1 to Day 45. Today I used vanilla Orgain.  I did not add cacao, so it did not have a chocolate flavor.  I did not add ginger or cinnamon either, so it was plain vanilla.  

 

 

I cleaned up my husband and the living room.  Now I am getting him some breakfast.  I still feel tired, but I am moving.  I started the laundry to clean my husband’s blankets.  I have 63% of my cleaning target already done for today.

 

 

I have logged 56% of my happiness target.  However, my emotional level of happiness does not quite match that.  I must have been obsessing about the surgery too much.  At this point, I will probably get it.  If the cyst can endanger my sight, I need to take care of it.

 

 

The only value I have scored 100% or more for so far today is courage.  See Day 3, How Do You Get Into Action for the New Year? for a how-to on matching actions to values.  You may want to track them, too.  Doing it has increased my happiness level.

 

 

My highest value is faith.  One action that supports my faith is reading the Bible.  Though I confess I do not have a regular schedule yet, my Bible study time is 13.6 minutes on an average completed day.  On average, 2.1 of those minutes I read to my husband.

 

I have also increased the number of minutes I pray on my knees.

 

I understand that trust in God is the essence of faith.  To trust Him, we welcome his plan for our lives.  This relieves us from fighting against what is. Dr. John Dimartini said that failing to accept things as they are causes depression.  We compare what we experience to our fantasies of what we think things should be and deem reality lacking.  Curing this kind of depression means seeing the advantages of things as they are and the weakness in our fantasies.

 

 

Rest, sleep, and relaxation is my second highest value.  So far, for completed days, I have gotten 419.2 minutes of sleep, almost seven hours.  Add 8.4 minutes of napping, and I am not doing too badly.  However, not every day has been a completed day.  I need to commit to keeping a complete log.  If I do, this value will be taken care of automatically.

 

I also do 14.1 minutes of meditation on average, much better than before I started Vibractivity.

 

So I will just say, “Press forward” for this one.

 

I could go through each of my values with the activities contributing to each.  Rather than do so, I want to encourage you to list your values in order.  Here is my current set.