The Importance of Legs!! Total knee replacement

 Dear Readers,

With the New Year now upon us, and the recent surgery I have survived, I wanted to share with you the importance of legs. 

Now, you might laugh or scoff at me, say I am silly or redundant. But the truth of the matter is this: legs are life and life is legs.

People around me declared with a big smile and filled me with hope, stating "oh, you'll be fine! Total knee replacement surgery? Piece of cake."

One guy named Bob who is 80 said "They had me up and walking right after surgery and I walked right out of that place."

Another woman in the euchre circle who my boyfriend knows at the Wednesday night card games said "You have Doctor Chhirba? Oh, he's great. You just take the pain meds for three days and you'll be good as new."

What this woman failed to tell me was her dosage of pain meds and what medication was it? Because 5 mg oxycodone gave me a fever, sinus headache, nausea and did not fight the pain. My nerve block apparatus catheter running into my thigh to stop the pain post-surgery had mal-functioned, causing DEBILITATING pain in my knee and entire leg. I experienced pain on a scale of 10 out of 10 and likened it to the intense agony of being in labor with my first child.

December 28th was the surgery and by December 29th I was in full-blown agony that I called the ambulance to take me late Friday night. By 12:51 a.m. December 30th I arrived at the ER to find only one doctor on duty and over 70 patients in the packed waiting room. Running on 26 hours no sleep, I was finally seen by Doctor Adam and sent home with a needle of morphine in my left bicep and prescription for 1 mg morphine pills. There WAS, after all, a God! Ten hours from signing in to the time we called an uber, my ever-patient and kind boyfriend helped me into the car and down the steps (OUCH!).

I've been housebound since Saturday morning, and that is just fine.

Brother James has been a massive help, bringing me water bottles, herbal tea, snacks, and a big red pail to empty my bladder in. "You should've had it by your bedside since day one. Why are you killing yourself running to the bathroom in the middle of the night with that walker? You could fall and hit your head!" His concern was justified and warmed my heart.

Seriously, I've struggled so hard to walk in the last few days. Yes, I am doing the physio exercises just like the book tells me to do, and the first physio appointment is January 5th, but still, the pain and stiffness feels like my knee and entire leg is locking up on me. I feel so helpless! So useless! The simple tasks I did every morning, like wash some dishes, scrub my coffee and tea mugs, prep the hot water with the kettle, and make breakfast for my partner and I...well it's annoying and aggravating that I have to be knocked down a few pegs and basically be stuck in my room 90 per cent of the time.

Icing the knee every hour or so, yes, that too. It works wonders when I start to feel that familiar twinge of pain coming back. It's a nagging ache, especially when I've been on my feet a few minutes and worse at night when I lie down to sleep finally. 

What has saved me? Morphine pills. Oh God, what a lifesaver. Also, the constant support of my partner, who just today ran errands about five times. My phone charger failed, so he ran to get me a new one at the corner store. I had a craving for those soft and yummy Voortman blueberry cookies, well he went out just before his euchre night at the Legion and got me cookies. An hour before that, he went to the pharmacy to pickup my re-filled prescription that my surgeon's office had faxed in today. 

Last night, my guy was wonderful and brought us home takeout dinner of delicious roasted sirloin, complete with a homemade beef vegetable soup. The side dishes were mashed potato and gravy and peas. I'm immensely grateful that God sent me an ideal partner who not only loves me, but has the kindness and willingness to take care of me when I am down and out.

Legs! So important! I want to emphasize how crucial and vital they are. It's not as though I took them for granted, but this experience has been such an eye-opener to what patients must have suffered through during recovery. I mean, what a MAJOR surgery! Total knee replacement. OUCH!

Being housebound isn't really all that bad. I can watch old re-runs of my favorite Chicago PD shows, catch a cheesy Hallmark Christmas film, black and white Perry Mason episodes, or to update my blog. Yes, I am missing my independence of just putting on shoes and painting the town for karaoke. But those days will come again. For now, I need to hydrate, eat, practice self-care and show myself SO MUCH GRACE and compassion for the limited mobility I am currently addressing.

Remember, if you've got legs, never take them for granted and always take good care of them. Your legs are your ticket to a better life, to countless adventures, taking you so many places you have never been before.

I sure hope you enjoyed my spiel and wish all my good readers a Very Happy New Year as you embark on your own exciting times ahead.

Cheers,

RR xo

LOVE MAKES ALL HARD HEARTS GENTLE

 Dear Readers,

I am sorry I have been silent for a while. The past nine months have been excruciating for me, dealing with a deeply personal loss, so my soul has been wretchedly and horribly broken. Many times, I could not even leave the house. Most days, I forced myself into the bath and to get dressed. I asked God to take me, since I'd lost my passion and purpose, no longer wanting to tred this earth without the ONE who calls to my heart. The physical separation with my twin flame (Divine Masculine) has been unbearable. I went through the Dark Night of the Soul, which feels like you've "died a thousand deaths." It also feels like your limb has been cut off and you're perpetually bleeding out, with no end in sight of the pain. I don't wish it on my worst enemy.

But spring is here, April is my birth month, and alas, renewal!

There are things to look forward to, and I feel like I am coming out of that deep depression and mourning. Yes, I have been mourning deeply. Wearing black. Telling the world how broken and sad I have felt. What is the difference between mourning and grieving? Well, MOURNING is the outward expression that you are grieving a loss. It is the expression of an experience of loss or time of grieving that follows a loved one's death or serious loss. Depression, confusion, even losing interest in friends and social activities can occur when someone is in mourning.

GRIEVING is simply the act of going through deep loss and sorrow, and it may be done in public or private, depending on the person's state of mind. It is the FEELINGS you are experiencing over your loss.

I have noticed something very profound in my grief story. No one understands it. I feel so alone at times. When I joined a church recently, hoping to find some like-minded females who've gone through loss and mourning, all I found was complete IGNORANCE and stupidity. They kept doing the spiritual by-passing of "give it to God" or "let me lay hands on you and pray for you." 

Well, that sort of ignorance and mean behavior doesn't work, people! Loss is loss, pain is pain. The person grieving has to go through ALL the stages of that loss, and then PROCESS everything they are feeling. How does one heal from their loss? They acknowledge what they are feeling, then they speak of it OUT LOUD, over and over, til they are sick of talking about it. Then, guess what? One day, you're sick of hearing about your own pain and depression. You somehow come out of the fog and make peace with it, and reach a point of ACCEPTANCE.

Those ignorant people in the church have NO CLUE what loss or grieving is. I was fuming mad, I walked out of there, and a woman in that church had the nerve to badger me with phone calls and texts even though I firmly stated "I won't be coming back." She doesn't get it. None of them do. They dismiss my pain and just say "turn your eyes upon Jesus and let him be the master of your life."

What does that even mean???? Shake my head. They are walking Bibles, quoting verses and statements and ideologies, just like robots, and they can't even FEEL what I am feeling. Hello, are you even HUMAN? Is there a brain in there or a heartbeat? I've never been so angry and furious over one group of people in my life.

Needless to say, my attempt of coming out of my tomb and trying to get a social life again just totally backfired. I realized, though raised in the Christian church my whole life, I am not at all your average garden variety "Christian." I don't fit into the box or the mold of what those sheeple expect me to be. They are just followers with no real thoughts or feelings of their own. They have to be brainwashed into believing something and then somehow that makes it the Gospel Truth? There is also the arrogance so many of them have when they look at me and preach "it must be God's will, not YOUR will."

How do you people even know what God's will is? Do you have a direct line to his mind? Or a USB cable to his thoughts? Are you so chosen and holy that he only speaks to this one group of people? It's pure insanity, the arrogance that has been shoved down my throat. I cannot be in their presence while I am grieving this loss and feeling this hurt. 

Sorry that I went off on a tangent there, but I feel this topic needed to be addressed. Being among that flock just triggered all my old childhood wounds of religious abuse and control at the hands of my sociopathic mother who shamed me and broke me down. The anger that I felt in that congregation just set my temper ablaze and I finally asked myself after four weeks of attending that place, WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE ANYWAY?

I wanted to add that the Jesus I know is a gentleman. He doesn't force people to do something or think a certain way. He asks in a gentle voice for you to come to him. 

Love makes all hard hearts gentle, so I've been told. LOVE is what I need right now, not petty judgments or opinions about what THEY think God's will is for my life. The most hurtful thing this church did to me was try and dismiss my love and grief for my Beloved, my Divine Masculine, who is no contact right now with me. "Is he a Believer? Does he know the Lord? Don't be unequally yoked."

What a load of crap! It isn't enough that they kick me while I am down, but to throw salt in my wounds and mock me too...I am outraged!

God's Will IS to have us together. We have a Divine Mission. My Divine Masculine is my soul's counterpart, created by God, for us to come together in UNION. He is the master of this divine plan, for my twin flame and I to experience a beautiful union and raise the vibration of the planet!!!!! 

Separation is necessary for the Ascension process. Both twins must work through their wounding, their past hurts, generational and ancestral pain and karmic ties. Once we heal on our own, we come back together, in a beautiful and sacred UNION that blesses both us and the world. I have finally surrendered this love and given it up to God, knowing and trusting that in perfect divine timing, my Beloved and I will be together at last. There will be holy matrimony. There will be BLISS. There will be laughter again. But most of all, there will be LOVE, so much love.

My desk calendar for April 12th bears a quote that I love (from a man named "George" no less. He was my twin's father, who loved and ADORED me as if I were his own flesh and blood).

The quote says "Love Makes All Hard Hearts Gentle." George Herbert.

I like to revel in this. To sit with it for awhile and let it fully sink in, knowing that my love is powerful enough to soften the hardened heart of my twin flame who is dealing with so much loss (his parents both passed) and dealing with over 32 years of an illness in his body. Soon, I will see the wonderful and blessed outcome of how my compassion for him has helped him heal. That in itself will be a glorious day. When he returns to me, finally, I will welcome my Divine Masculine WITH OPEN ARMS. Because he was made for me, by the pure hand of God, and WE were born of DIVINITY, of that Sacred Fire.

Til then,

dear readers,

I bid you adieu.

Much Love,

RR

THESE ARMS OF MINE: a poem by Rochelle Renee

 

These arms of mine

are empty, so empty

since the day you left

This heart of mine

it echoes a pain so deep

The angels even weep

So please come back soon

and fill this space

I need your loving embrace

to warm

These arms of mine

--Rochelle Renee --

Oct 5, 2022

6:17 p.m.

FINDERS of LOST LOVES

Dear Readers,

SOMEONE has touched my heart --DEEPLY.

He did it many years ago. Unannounced. Without warning, without intention.

I don't think he planned on it. Innocently, he guided and mentored me on a path in which I needed direction. I'd been lost, hurting, betrayed, after a failed marriage blew up and countless other people had failed me. Left me out in the cold. Some of this was partly my fault. I'd forgotten to care for and nurture the NUMBER ONE person who mattered most: MYSELF.

In late 2011, he crossed my path again. We'd first met March 2009 but it was briefly, and I almost missed him! Thank God I slowed down a couple years later, and stopped to enjoy the scenery...and take stock of my life. Because, on a late October afternoon, the 28th to be exact, there he was again! He'd been working in the same office as a person I went to for an appointment. She called him over, and my heart melted. After two and a half years of running from myself, this man caused me to stop and assess everything. Just his presence alone, the kindness and velvety tone in his voice, the charismatic approach and riveting blue eyes, well you get the gist. I was a sinking ship in an ocean of possibilities and wonder.

This person gifted me with THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIFT I could ever hope to receive. He gave me his ATTENTION, his KINDNESS, his GENTLENESS, his TIME, and most of all...VALIDATION... that I was a SOMEBODY. That I truly mattered on this planet.

What emerged from the ashes was a thing of beauty indeed. My once stony heart suddenly blossomed, my writing that I'd long ago had locked away in a box somewhere soon was breathed back to life, and I had a novel that took form in a brief seven weeks, thanks to this wonderful man.

Mister Blue Eyes...let it be said that you've been my Beacon of Light since I met you, and the funny thing is, you never once asked for anything in return but my HONESTY, TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY. All you wanted was for me to SHOW UP with my battle scars, deep wounds, failings and mistakes and my own true self, showing you my soft heart and VULNERABILITY. I cannot tell you what this means to me, after 11 years of knowing you.

I feel a heart once broken has opened the floodgates, and fully opened them to you and you alone.

I know, I know...it's odd isn't it? You're probably smiling at me from the distance and reading this with a smug grin, thinking "here she goes again..."

But the hard facts are there: YOU have been the one CONSTANT thing in my life all this time, that BRIGHT LIGHT shining its luminescence in the dark over trouble waters, guiding me back to the shore.

You might think it's bizarre for me to feel this way, to salute you and praise you the way I do.
Frankly, you deserve it. I've been through a HELL OF A LOT in this life. You've been the ear to listen and the shoulder to cry on; that means a king's ransom to me.


There's a part of me that has just unwrapped a searing truth that is blinding and breathtakingly gorgeous: We were loves in a past life. There is no other explanation for this. I have to be honest, I am sorry if that is brutally honest to you.

I just beam all over with the revelation of finding one of my past life soul connections. God, I loved you way back then, and I love you even more NOW!

You even said so yourself, in your own blog, that love is not just reserved for loved ones, and immediate family...but also for those we encounter in everyday life, who impact us, enrich us, inspire us...so here I am, before God and the world, telling you what you mean to me.

What a thrilling revelation, to discover that we met lifetimes ago, and we've met again in this current life. Thank you, my beacon of hope, for showing up just when I needed you. Never stop showing me your kindness, your smile, your warmth. It's what I truly live for in these hard times and a rapidly changing landscape.

I LOVE YOU XOXO.

Now, I leave these songs for you. Dedicated to you and you alone.

Love always,

Your Rhiannon

P.S. The "signs" and pics posted here will be clues that only YOU will get! (wink wink)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71QrBOkCOeo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm0eA5Qi-Rw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCRwglZgNXI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3EJfIwZr88