Forty-Four Years and the Birthday Blahs

It's my birthday. Today. The sun shines bright. Mom's Cavalier King Charles prowls in search of shadows. And plaster and gauze cover my right leg from the knee down, six days post ankle reconstruction surgery. Again.

Yes, I'm a little down. Even on my birthday.

Last summer, we celebrated closing our store Go Fish with a party on the premises about a month after my back fusion. My right ankle was loose and held together in a brace. Hazel, my grand-daughter, asked about the ankle and I explained how my ligaments get loose. She looked at me with big, brown, sympathetic eyes and said, "You're getting old, Susu."

She's right. And I feel it today.

Forty-four years old.

I have a life list: Widowed at twenty seven; single parented for ten years; mobility issues by age 36; mitochondrial disease diagnosed in me and my son by age 40; six major orthopedic operations by my 44th birthday, four on my ankles, two on my back. And depending on how I heal, my right knee and shoulder may require reconstructions sooner than later.

It overwhelms me today.

But 2 Corinthians 4: 8 - 10 states, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body."

I don't often think about carrying the death of Jesus in my body so that His life may revealed in the same. But Biblical truth makes it clear, through suffering, we become more like Him. And I'm certainly not the only one with a life list to share.

My friend Paige is facing a crazy surgery to insert wires in her face in an attempt to squelch the constant trigeminal neuralgia pain that haunts her days. Referred to as the suicide nerve, Paige never dreamed she'd be fighting frightful pain, just trying to maintain in her mid-forties too.

My friend Amy is the mother eight - or seven. I forget the count. Her youngest requires a feeding tube due to the affects of mito and several of her kids now show symptoms too. Amy lives with a cyst of fluid in her spine that could leave her paralyzed at any moment. There's fancy name for it, "syringomyelia", a medical term I'm sure she never dreamed she'd be researching in her forties either.

Lorna adopted two children from China years ago, not aware that one of them had a metabolic disorder that would lead to more hospital stays than I can count in recent years. Penelope is in Scottish Right Hospital today. On my birthday. In ICU. Fighting infections the likes I've only read about.

I'm not alone. In fact, before anesthesia affected emotions and logic, I relished the fact I live in a country and maintain health insurance that allows for surgery after surgery. My niece, Jessica, spent five weeks in Kenya last summer, serving at Tenwick Hospital. She came home with stories that humbled me.

The fact I live in a day and age where they can keep fixing my joints is quite miraculous. Painful and tiring, yes. But my ankles are strong today because two deceased people donated body parts that allow me to walk with cadaver tendons.

So, I'm breathing today. Carrying the death of Jesus and two other souls in my body to keep making whatever difference I can in this world.

So I will rest. Write. And enjoy another Happy Birthday to me.