A Couple Pirates Walk Into A Bar.....

I bet you were waiting for the punch line....

Let me back up a bit. I was meaning to post another blog issue in March, but a health matter prevented me from doing so.

Near the end of March, I started to experience excruciating pain in my head, neck, and shoulders. This pain progressed and after numerous trips to my doctor and others, I was seen by a neurologist. He diagnosed me with Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension.  This mimics a brain tumor and causes a build up spinal fluid in the brain. The amount of pressure affects your vision and causes the pain in the muscles I was experiencing. A spinal tap is a way to relieve this pressure. As soon as I had mine, I had instant relief. My pressure was very high and to have it come back down to normal levels felt amazing. Since this whole ordeal I've been left with the effects of the double vision I was having. I need to sport an eye patch to strengthen my eyes and get my bearings about me. Eyes are slow to heal, so the estimate was around a month of wearing the eye patch. My medicine has helped to keep the pressure off my eyes, and day by day I can notice some improvement. I am hopeful I will make a full recovery and can put this behind me.

I like to deal with these types of incidents with a sense of humour, so with my birthday only a few short weeks away after my diagnosis, I decided my birthday theme should be Pirates. I told everyone to do their best to dress up, wear an eye patch and help me feel less weird about sitting in a bar with my own eye patch on. I was so impressed by everyone who took the time to show up, and sport pirate gear. It was hilarious to hear comments like, "How do you wear this ALL day?" or "I can't see with this thing!" I'm so thankful I have such amazing friends to laugh about this whole ordeal with. That's what this ordeal has been for me, its caused me to wake up and view life differently. We all have struggles, we all have tough times. But how we react in those moments can define us. Knowing I have the greatest support system in the world certainly keeps me going. And the fact that I can carry on, keep my independence, despite the one eye, is proof  I can certainly handle anything. This helps me grow and learn and carry on.

So a couple of pirates walk into a bar, and "cheers" each other and laugh at the craziness that is life. We all know that things can change in an instant. But I get by with a little help from my (pirate) friends.

Cheers to your health!
Xo
KP

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