Did you know you can still eat when you have a feeding tube in?? You can! I had no idea. I kind of thought my throat was totally filled with the tube. It’s not.

Anyway, because of the semi-paralysis on the left side, the doctors aren’t sure I can swallow or chew. So the speech therapist brings in a variety of things to try. I ate itty-bitty bits of crackers, applesauce, and jello.

Oh man, solid food is SOOOOOOO good! I couldn’t eat very much because the feeding tube keeps the stomach pretty full, but I was loving my first meal.

Liquids are another story. Did you know that “normal” liquids: water, juice, milk, can choke people if their esophagus isn’t working quite right? Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure. Due to this potential hazard, I was on thickened liquids to start.

The juices are like drinking partially solidified jello. That’s pretty tasty. Thickened water and milk, on the other hand, are not. It’s nasty, nastiness. It doesn’t help that the milk isn’t really milk (shelf-sustainable, soy stuff), and they stir in cornstarch or something to thicken it. I guess the flavor really isn’t that different, but texture makes a big difference.

I pass my evaluation which allows me to eat real food. Yay!

I continue to have twice daily physical and occupational therapy sessions, and the nurses try to encourage me to get out of the bed as much as possible. Honestly though, it was completely depressing to get out of bed. If I got out, not only did it take a ton of effort on my part to sit up, hold my head up, and attend to stuff around me, it required several people to get me up. I couldn’t just get up when I wanted. I was completely dependent on other people to get me out and about.

I’ve never felt so helpless in all of my life. It is not a fun feeling to be so incapacitated. At times, the nurses would say, why don’t you look out the window for a while? It was early December, miserably gray, and snowing. I did not want to look out the window. When I did all I could think about is how difficult it was going to be getting back to real life. My biggest concern was the snow. I was already nervous driving on snowy roads, would I feel even more nervous if I was handicapped?

While I wasn’t totally depressed or in the dumps during this time, I wasn’t exactly happy and motivated either. I still felt ill when I sat up or tried to stand, so I was never too excited to try again. An event is coming though that turned my attitude right around. God’s hands are always working even when we don’t know it.

After making Hawaiian Pizza and a couple other recipes with bacon, I had a handful of leftover ingredients: bacon, Canadian bacon, pizza sauce, spinach, mozzarella cheese, and some fresh tomatoes. So I decided to throw it all on a pizza crust, and let me tell you, it was awesome!

Leftover Pizza

• 4 oz. pizza sauce
• 4 oz. mozzarella cheese
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 4 small tomatoes, sliced
• 4 slices of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 4 oz. Canadian bacon, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 bunch fresh spinach, washed and patted dry
• 1 pizza crust

Preheat oven to 425 with pizza stone inside.

Begin by slicing the cheese and tomatoes

Slicing the onion

Chopping up the Canadian bacon

and then frying the bacon.

Whip out whatever leftover sauce you have on hand. Others that I think would taste good are pesto or a light layer of honey mustard (Bernie O’s anyone?)

Roll out the crust, put the crust on the cookie sheet/pizza handle and layer on the toppings: sauce, cheese, tomatoes, bacon, Canadian bacon, spinach, then onions.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and crispy.

Mmmm…can’t get enough of that yummy goodness!

The first thing we made was an Apple Peach Spinach Smoothie. We’ve heard you can add spinach to just about any smoothie and not even taste it, so we though we’d give it a go.

Apple Peach Spinach Smoothie

• 1 cup water
• 1 large apple, cored
• 2-ish cups frozen, sliced peaches
• 1/4 bunch fresh spinach, washed

Place ingredients in Vitamix in order listed.

Turn on mixer at variable speed 1, quickly increase to 10, then turn on high. Use the tamper to push fruit and spinach into the blades.

In about 1 minute, you will have a delicious green smoothie!

I know you’re wondering, and no, you cannot taste the spinach. In fact, the peach flavor is pretty muted too. The apple is what stands out the most. It was delicious!

Enjoy!

On Saturday, we checked out the zip line. These pictures aren’t quite focused as it was quite hard to focus at the speed we were traveling. Of course, it felt way faster than it actually was! Here’s yours truly trying her best to slow down. I’m scared stiff because my little brother gave me a big shove that I didn’t expect as I jumped on. Let’s just say I cried like a little girl on the way down.

My little sister was very composed as she rode the zip line. She just enjoyed the ride!

After a little coaxing, even Dan took it for a spin. Poor fella, he bottomed out on the way back up though. This is how high he jumped off the seat after his butt hit the ground. Hehe…

Some pretty weeping willows by the lake:

On Easter morning, we went to the beach to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful!

The path down to the beach…

Watching the sun peak over the horizon…

The best part of the weekend was worshiping with other believers at the Tenebrae service (Service of Shadows, the Good Friday service at my parent’s church) and Sunday morning’s Easter service. We serve a RISEN Savior! He loves us so much that he would take our place in a gruesome death that each one of us deserve.  If you don’t know him, I challenge you to let him transform your life. He’s transforming mine.

How did you spend the Easter weekend?

First up, a new pizza recipe! I just L. O. V. E. pizza. I think I could eat it every day. Seriously. One of my favorite chain pizza places, Jet’s, makes the best Hawaiian pizza. I mimicked their flavor in this recipe.

Hawaiian Pizza

• 1 ball of pizza dough
• 8 oz. tomato sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 4oz. fresh mozzarella
• Fresh pineapple
• 4oz. Canadian bacon
• 4 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces

Preheat oven to 425 with pizza stone inside to warm up.

Mix up the sauce. I just add the basil, oregano, onion powder, and garlic powder straight into the tomato sauce can and stir it up. I’m lazy like that.

Mix up a batch of pizza dough or buy a frozen ball from the grocery store. Don’t kill yourself if you don’t have time to make it from scratch!

Chop up the pineapple, bacon and canadian bacon.

Fry the bacon in a pan over medium heat until crispy.

Now just because it’s good, toss the Canadian bacon in after removing the bacon.

Remove the Canadian bacon from the pan and let drain on a paper towel.

Pour out the grease from the pan and wipe out the excess grease with a paper towel. Return the pan to high heat and toss in the pineapple to until slightly brown. Remove the pan from the heat.

Slice the mozzarella cheese. No picture of this step…I forgot.

Roll out the pizza crust. I’ve had the best success by manipulating the dough in my hands to get a fairly large circle then rolling out on a floured surface to get the desired size.

Here is the tricky part. If you’re using a pizza stone, time is of the essence for assembling and transferring the pizza to the stone. If the pizza is left on the cookie sheet/pizza handle too long then it will stick and not slide off properly onto the stone. Move quickly!

Have your cookie sheet/pizza handle dusted with cornmeal and ready to go.

Toss the pizza crust on the sheet and slap on the sauce and toppings as quick as possible.

Gently shake the pizza onto the stone. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.

Look at that beauty!

Mmmmmmm…

Physical and occupational therapy were now scheduled twice a day until I leave the hospital. I have now successfully sat up, mostly on my own. Well, I held myself in the sitting up position. I am not able to get myself sitting up by my own strength yet.

Next Step: Walking

The therapist gets me sitting on the side of the bed. The bed is low enough that my feet touch the floor. I’ve got three people around me to help me stand. One on my right with one arm around my back and the other holding my arm, the second on my left side doing a kind of bear hug around my torso with both arms (my left arm is too weak to be used to lift me up), and the third person is behind me on the bed to stabilize.

That’s a lot of people to get one little girl out of the bed!

Much to my surprise, all of those people were needed! I was so weak I couldn’t bear any of my weight on my own. Since this was my first time standing in weeks, I was quite dizzy just from being upright. I could barely keep my head up straight let alone keep the rest of my body standing up.

For a while we just stood there next to the bed letting my body get used to being upright. Looking back, it was probably also to give those poor therapists a breather before trying anything further.

Once I was feeling more balanced, we started to “walk.” Walk is a very generous term. It was more of a shuffle with me leaning heavily on my human crutches. I could mostly move my right leg on my own, but my left leg had to be pushed forward by the therapist on that side. The muscles in my right leg were so weakened they couldn’t lift my foot much off the floor at all. In fact, I’m not sure I could lift it at all. It was quite the sorry looking shuffle, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mom so proud. Dan was sleeping during the day so I don’t think he saw my first “walk.”

Mentally, I was still in a little bit of a daze, probably due to the high doses of pain and anti-seizure meds, but I don’t remember being excited about this progress. I was more overwhelmed my how hard everything was. The thought of moving on my own and getting back to normal life seemed impossible. It was exhausting to think about trying to go back to living on my own. I couldn’t sit myself up in bed. I couldn’t walk a single step on my own.

How in the world did I make it on my own before?

I couldn’t remember how I managed before the surgery. It was shocking how much energy it took to just sit up. It looked like it was going to be a long road to recovery.

The therapists left exercises for Dan and my parents to do with me in between my twice daily sessions. All of these were done while I was in bed. For my legs, we began moving my leg out and back from the hip. I could do this on my own for my right leg, but Dan or my parents had to physically lift and move my left leg for me. For my left arm, there were similar range-of-motion exercises.

I could not move my arm or leg on command, but in order to get the brain to start recognizing those body parts again, they needed to be moved. The doctors still aren’t sure if the right side of my brain is just swollen from the surgery or if permanent damage was done.

The good thing is God created an amazing brain in each one of us. The brain is divided into two hemispheres, and each side controls the opposite side of the body’s motor function. In a normal person, the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and the left side of the brain, the right side of the body. So it makes sense that my left side is affected when the AVM was located in my right frontal lobe. Here’s the amazing part: if one side of the brain is damaged, the other side can take over.

Isn’t that amazing? How did God know to create our brains in that way? Maybe because he is a God of second chances. Maybe it’s because he wanted to show his all-knowing creative powers. I don’t know the reason why he created our brains that way. I’m here to tell you that I’m glad he cared to put that much effort into his creation.

To this day I don’t know if both sides of my brain in the area of physical motor movement are functioning. I could get some tests done to figure that out, but it’s not a good idea to undergo medical tests without a good reason. Curiosity is not a good reason. I’m still not back to 100% coordination on my left side. Does that indicate which side is working? I don’t know.

I don’t dwell on trying to figure this out too much anymore. I mostly focus on praising my wonderful God for restoring my health and life to me. God has done an amazing work in my life, and I can’t wait to share the rest of my story with you.

Anyways, this record heat has caused all of our flowers, trees, and such to bloom early. I think we’re a full month ahead of schedule right now. Here are some lovelies from a walk around the apartment complex just this week.

Honeysuckle (at least I think that’s what it is)

I’m pretty sure this plant is a pest, but isn’t it purty?

We live near Holland, Michigan which hosts Tulip Time every year, and it looks like there won’t be any tulips in bloom for this year’s festival. So crazy that they will all be gone by then!

I was out walking in the evening so all of the flowers were closed, but even closed they seemed very small this year. I know there are a bunch of varieties of tulips so maybe these are always small. I wonder if the early bloom is affecting them.

Aren’t the spotted leaves on this one cool? I’ve never seen anything like this before.

This poor baby is already on it’s way out.

Delicate purple and white tulips…

As I was enjoying my walk in God’s creation, I thought I’d try to capture some pics of my wonderful pooch, George. I now understand why family pictures are such a chore I never understood until now. Mothers, I sympathize with your plight.

That’s it buddy. Look anywhere BUT at the camera! I give up.

How’s spring looking in your neck of the woods? Do you have flowers and buds on the trees galore? Or are you still drowning in snow?

Oma, Korean word for “mom”, is teaching me how to make Korean dishes, and I will post the ones I learned this weekend once I can put some measurements to them. Oma cooks completely by taste, so I take notes and pictures then try to recreate the dishes in my own kitchen. It’s when I recreate them that I add proportions, measurements, and step-by-step pictures.

To hold you over though, here are some tantilizing pictures from what I leaned this weekend.

1.  Teggi Bulgogi – Spicy Pork

The marinade…

The meat…

The finished product…

2. “go chew jung”

This is cooked beef with garlic mixed with the red pepper paste called go chew jung. Oma calls this dish go chew jung, but go chew jung is just one of the ingredients. She used to make this for Dan when he was in college. To eat it, just make rice and wash lettuce then wrap up and eat!

The meat…

The finished product…

We made lots of meat this weekend.

The other thing we did this weekend is relax. The one who relaxed the most, of course, is George. He loves Oma and Odeshse’s fireplace!

Sometimes I joined him…:)

It was a lovely weekend. How was yours?

Here’s the before, I cut off about 6 inches. It’s quite the change!

I was inspired by the girl who blogs as The Small Things. Her hair tutorials are amazing. I’m more inspired than ever to try to fix my hair! Now my hair isn’t as full as hers, so it’s a tad flat, but I’m working to learn how to fix it!

Yay for a new look just in time for summer! It already feels like summer here though. We’ve had record high temps in the 80′s. How’s the weather in your neck of the woods?

 So my physical condition isn’t so great, as I explained in my last post. The goal once I was fully conscious was to get me up and moving.

There is a white board in every hospital room that tells the date, nurse on duty, diet, husband’s name, and goals for the patient. The first goal I can remember is to sit up in a stretcher chair. The chair is called such because it can lay totally flat so the nurses can lay you in it, then they slowly sit you up.

I needed to use this chair because I couldn’t stand or walk yet. Physical therapy hadn’t officially started yet, so the nurses weren’t taking any risks before I had further evaluations.

My goal on the board was to sit up in the stretcher chair for 1 hour. Being a Type A, goal oriented person, I was determined to meet my goals in the timeline given by the doctors and nurses. I wasn’t going to be the slacker of the class!

However, I was SO tired. I was still sleeping a lot during the day, and at this time, I still thought every time I woke up was a new day. I was getting more and more dejected because I thought I was failing my goals! I really don’t know how long that goal was on the board, max 2 days is my guess, but at the time, I thought it had been up for a week without me even attempting to leave my bed.

The first time I was put in the chair was Tuesday night so I could watch The Biggest Loser finale with my mom and dad.

Dan wasn’t there when they put me in the chair, and the guy holding my head dropped it roughly on the chair. That didn’t feel go to say the least. When Dan joined us later on during the show, I told him what happened. I think I even teared up telling him that this nurse was rough with my head.

I made it 1 hour and 30 minutes sitting up! It may not sound like much, but that is a LONG time when you’ve been flat on your back for weeks on end.

My dad sat next to me and held my hand throughout the show. I love my mom and dad.

After the show, Dan gently held my head as the nurses put me back in the bed. From that point on, I only wanted Dan to turn me or transport me out of the bed. Which is quite a change since I didn’t trust him to turn me prior to surgery.

Shortly thereafter, I began physical and occupational therapy in my room. Physical therapy focuses on gross motor movement, mostly walking and moving your lower extremities. Occupational therapy focuses on life skills (cooking, getting around your house, grocery shopping, etc.) and upper extremity movement.

In physical therapy, we started with sitting up. It was such a process just to get me sitting on the side of my bed! Once I was sitting, the therapist asked if I could sit here for 1 hour.

One hour?!? How about 1 minute?

It is massively different to sit up with your own strength versus the stretcher chair, and after being on my back for so long, at this point we are going on 1 full week of not even sitting up coupled with weeks of bed rest, it is a very dizzying, strange feeling to sit up. Kind of a nauseous, lightheadedness is what it feels like. The only thing you want to do is lay back down.

She decided that we could sit up for 20 minutes instead. It still felt like forever!

The weirdest part for me as therapy began is the realization of the weight of my body parts. When you weigh yourself, and you see the number, say 100 pounds, you don’t think, “That could mean that each of my legs weighs 25ish pounds.” I’d never thought of my head as weighing any amount at all. I’m here to tell you it’s heavy!

The first few time sitting up I had to be reminded to hold my head up and look straight ahead. I just let it kind of dangle forward toward my chest.

The physical therapy was exhausting. I went to sleep immediately after sitting up for 20 minutes. It’s so tiring!