grateful

i was planning to write this post before i realized how timely it was.

in no particular order, i am thankful for:

my friend kate, who let me stay at her place for free while i was scary and unintelligible. i usurped her couch for almost two weeks and was a general disruption to her normal way of life, but kate didn't complain.  she even didn't punish me when i turned up the heater above 65.

my dad, who really saved me from my panic attack by calling and talking me down the night before my surgery.  that was when i thought my insurance was not going to cover it and i would have to pay it myself.  he made me feel more confident about my choice to go ahead and do it and he was willing to provide the financial loan it would take for me to pay off the costs.  he really brought me down from a ledge in terms of my anxiety and i felt very supported and loved.

my mom, who drove by herself for ten hours to baltimore and brought me homemade soup, a blender, air mattress, all kinds of practical stuff that was hard for me to bring on the plane. she waited at the hospital for eight hours for me to get out of surgery and then i refused to see her when i was coming out of anesthesia (lol i'm still not certain why i said i didn't want to see her, sorry moomoo). she did stuff according to my demands like make a chart of my medications when i was crabbing that i couldn't remember when to take them, and syringe tiny portions of ensure in my mouth.

my boyfriend willy, who told me i still looked pretty when i actually looked like a royal mess.  he was very concerned about my condition and did everything he could support me when i was in DC including just sitting next to me and holding my hand.  he went with me from arlington to baltimore and back for all of my appointments, dealing with problems at work in order to do that.  now that i'm back in el paso, he still gives me tons of attention and makes me feel better.  he also drank the ensure flavor i thought was gross but didn't want to go to waste and ate mcdonalds when i forced him to because i actually wanted it myself.

my surgeons in baltimore (dr./professor gary warburton and chief residents dr. touraj (tj) khalilzadeh and dr. hessam siavash), who are fantastic. they output great results on my difficult case and have a nice bedside manner as well to assuage my worries.

my last job, which gave me a load of delta frequent flyer miles that i used to fly back and forth from el paso to DC.  this enabled me to go through with the surgery in baltimore with my original trusted surgeons after i moved.

my current job, which is not an hourly wage on the clock, and allows me to create my own schedule.

my boss catie, who has been very accommodating, allowing extensive leave time when i'm barely 3 months into the job, and encouraging me to take it easy and adjust back to work slowly by not working full days.

my colleagues, who have picked up the slack in my absence like champs (particularly carol) and dealt patiently with my slow return to productivity.

all my friends and family (including my colleagues), who have wished me well and/or inquired as to how i'm doing.

my generally good health, which makes my healing much smoother than it could have been.

split pea soup.