Gift of life!

Whenever I need a reminder of how precious life is, I resort back to my carepage blog for Troy. It brings me back to a place of such appreciation for life, and for such minor things we take for granted daily. Life is definitely difficult now, but not unmanageable. Things are different and I so wish they were back to easy like before. Now, if you were to ask me before he accident if I thought life was easy I would probably respond, "no". But, having been through almost losing the love of my life and dealing with the affects of a brain injury, it was a walk in the park! I know it's hard to realize what you have when you don't know the true feelings of the alternative. They are feelings I wouldn't wish on anyone. It does, however, give you an appreciation others don't have. I'm still unsure of what is better. 

Some of the most frustrating parts of this life with a brain injury is Troy not understanding important things that deal with his well being. I feel like a broken record explaining things to him. It's a lot  like a small child who asks "why?" about 100 times in a day. I also have a hard time being his punching bag (not literally). I get it, I'm the first, go-to for him. To him, it's me that is standing between him and his success. I try my hardest to make him happy and to make safe decisions but lets be real, you can't make everyone happy. It definitely takes a toll on my feelings. I don't want to feel like his nurse or his mom, I want to be his wife. That's all. However, that's just not possible all the time. Sometimes he needs boundaries and sometimes those boundaries send him stomping to his room. It's often times quite similar to a parents/child relationship. As the years pass, I notice more and more that my parents were always working on my behave. As much as I thought they were trying to ruin my life, that just wasn't the case. I really wish I realized that growing up. 

Troy says on occasion that he thinks I hate him. It's hard to hear because obviously, that is no where near true. It's the exact opposite. I get it to a point, he wants unlimited freedom and no rules. That's what he had before and that's what he remembers. His brain can't make up reality of his world now. I want so badly for it to be different, but that's just not my reality anymore either. It is what it is and you learn to live with the new reality. In all honesty, life could be so much worse. What we have been given is a gift of new life. And it might take a while to ajust but we can make it happen. 

The latest on Troys hours at work is not what Troy would like (shocking, right?). He is currently working at 6 hours a day and the nurse has graciously let me allow Troy one 8 hour day a week. Troy is really his own worst enemy in this department because he thinks that proving himself by pushing himself will make him gain grounds. Not how it works with Vandenberg or a brain injury for that matter. So, we stay at six hours until he can handle days without needed naps. Often times he needs a nap to keep from terrible twitching when he gets to exhaustion which happens a lot quicker now. He claims he never takes naps but I'm starting my documentation on how many days he actually takes naps and forgets about them. Napping is OK, good actually. Especially because of the extent of his injuries, his brain needs to heal and regroup more than a normal brain. In Troys mind, naps are linked to some kind of failure. It's impossible to talk him out of that. So, when he sleeps, I let him sleep as long as possible. It's quite cute, he plays on his phone and try's so hard to keep his eyes open but it's like there are bricks tied to his eyelids and there is just no going back once he let's them fall. 

On a new and exciting note; this might be old news by now but, Troy and I are expecting a little Bosch in November! Were so excited and so shocked at how life has panned out for us the last seven months. Blessings definitely come when you least expect them to! We won't complain, we are extremely blessed to have this opportunity and seven months ago, I thought this would never be an option for us again. We are totally overwhelmingly excited and blessed with such a huge gift of life.