Part II - The Real Story

Part I was the story leading up to the surgery.  And even the surgery itself.  Everyone's concern, love, well-wishes certainly gave Aimee additional strength to walk in the hospital doors, put her faith and future in strangers' hands and come through it.  Now that she's out and home recuperating, the next part of this story begins.  Actually, it's the greatest and longest part of the story, lest anyone think that whatever happens now is anti-climatic.   In Aimee's situation, the triumph isn't getting through surgery, going through recovery, coming home.  It's the next five to seven weeks of endurance.  To illustrate, I'd like each of  you reading this try the following "simple" three steps and try them each for a minute to see how you do:

1) clinch your teeth, close your lips.  Talk. Without moving your jaw or your lips.  The only vocal sounds you can make are with your tongue.  Aimee misses her "P's" and "B's" now that she can't say them lol.

2) Next time you're at a fast food joint, grab a straw.  Now put the end of the straw in your mouth.  Pinch your nose with your fingers.  Breathe.  That's all the air that Aim can get with each breath.

3) Get a glass of water.  Pinch your nose, clinch your teeth.  Drink the glass of water.  Seems like an easy thing to do, until you realize that you have to breathe. 

And that's life for the next five weeks at least.  No solid food.  Liquids only.  No talking in a completely intelligible sense.  But that's what she signed up for.  She's the strongest person I know.  I couldn't do it.