My Journey With Weight Loss – Finding A Way To Celebrate Even When Things Are Tough

Today is my little brother’s birthday. Tomorrow marks 15 weeks that he has been in the hospital and during that time he has fought several infections, fractured his shoulder, had a femoral bypass surgery, had surgery on his foot all of which culminated in him having a lower leg amputation. You would think with all of this it would be hard to celebrate his birthday but nope, we have a lot to celebrate and doing so is far healthier mentally than dwelling on what has happened over the past several months.

So let’s start with the big picture, lil’ bro’ is still with us. They warned us when he under going the bypass surgery that he may not survive but he did. His shoulder has healed and his latest infection is clearing up. His stump is apparently shaped really well and today they will remove 1/2 his staples. Even more exciting is today he started using the parallel bars (side story, I asked how that went and he said at first it was really weird because he kept trying to step on his missing foot). These are all awesome reasons to celebrate.

My sister and I had hoped he would be at the local hospital by now and had planned on kidnapping him for a few hours to go out and see friends. When we realized that wasn’t going to happen we planned his birthday party at Abbotsford Regional Hospital. That included a big lunch (I will probably work hard for the rest of the week to get rid of those carbs and calories), his beloved cheesecake, a beer, cards and gifts from friends, numerous phone calls and a large bouquet of balloons (the one with dogs barking to the tune of Happy Birthday was my personal favourite). The family (including the pets) spoiled him with lots of gifts so all in all this was a fun celebration.

But doing this was really important for all of us. Yes, the past 15 weeks has been difficult for all of us, especially Drew. Having said that, looking at a fair sized list of positives instead of looking back at the negatives made this celebration mentally lifting. There is more to come as he continues along this difficult journey and I for one will keep looking for those things to celebrate.

Don’t let going through a tough time be your excuse not to celebrate the good things in life.