Tag Archives: bowling

The Journey to Normal

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Chef Mickeys crop.jpgIn November of 2014, I had a tumor removed from my brain.  Hearing loss was my only symptom and the only reason it was detected when it was.  I have no idea how long I had been struggling with this hearing loss or when it even started.  I just know I put my finger in my good ear to scratch it in the summer of 2014 and noticed that the volume on the TV went way down.  It was a light bulb moment for sure.

I made the appointment with an ENT and had a hearing test, from there an MRI which showed that I had a 1.48 cm tumor sitting on my hearing and balance nerve.  I weighed my options and had my surgery in November of 2014 at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas.  Surgery went great, only took 5 ½ hours and 5 days later I got to go home!  All of the tumor was removed, there has been no facial paralysis, I still have “some” hearing in my left ear and I am not having any bouts with vertigo.  YEA!

Every day since November 20, 2014 I have been working to return my life to “normal.” Well I am fast approaching the 2 year anniversary of my surgery and returning to normal has turned into creating a new normal.  You expect things to be difficult during the first few months after surgery.  I mean, they did cut open my head and remove something.  Not a minor surgery by any means.

In my new normal, I understand and accept that roller coasters or rough rides of any kind are OFF LIMITS.  Oh and none of those that twirl and spin rides either.  I did ride on Splash Mountain in the Magic Kingdom and I even did the Star Wars simulator ride at Hollywood studios.  A time or two when I thought the simulation was a little extreme, I just closed my eyes.  Worked like a charm.

In my new normal, I have to be very careful with sneezing or coughing.  If either sneak up on me and I’m not prepared for a “controlled” sneeze or cough, I suffer the consequences afterwards.  The entire back of my head feels like it is going to explode.  It takes me 20 to 30 minutes to get things calmed down.  I have learned a lot of massage techniques for my head when the headaches come.

In my new normal, I also understand that my balance is different and I have to be very careful when going up and down stairs and I really don’t want to trip.  I have lost my balance a few times by tripping over something, usually my own feet.  Once I am knocked off balance, unless someone is there to catch me, I will fall.  A couple of weeks ago we went to Disney World with the family.  We were all standing on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom watching the fabulous fireworks at 10:15 p.m. when I decided to move over a little.  I tripped over the train track in the road and was headed down.  It felt like I was moving in slow motion and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it.  However, my husband who never moves very far away from me, caught me and I did not fall.  My hero.

Dancing was another area I was worried about.  Keith and I love to ballroom dance and I love for him to spin me.  That did not come easy, let me tell you.  We have worked on it and I’m very proud to say that I can do the double spin again.  Of course Keith is right there to keep me moving in the right direction.

I have not gotten back into running yet.  In fact, my entire desire to walk, run or do any form of exercise has been non-existent.  Yoga is completely off the table because it still bothers me when I have to bend over.  Downward dog would be so bad right now.   I have to be careful just bending over to pick up the dog food bowls twice a day.

I have been working for almost a year now to get in control or eliminate the headaches I have been getting since the surgery.  I am pleased to say that it appears I am on a good path with the headaches right now and I am trying to add back walking every day.  My headache regime is meds from neurologist, head and neck message every other week, chiropractic treatment and best of all, acupuncture.  I truly feel that the acupuncture has been the catalyst to make everything work together.  The headaches are mostly manageable now, fewer and farther in between.  I am looking forward to the day when someone asks me about my headaches and I can say, what headaches.

There are still a couple of things I have not tried yet because I just don’t know what will happen.  Tennis is one of them.  Since jarring things or sudden movements make my head hurt, not sure what will happen if I hit a tennis ball with the racquet.  The other sport that I dearly love and have not tried yet is bowling.  I had just gotten a new ball and shoes right before my diagnosis.  Fear has kept me from trying that as well.  I will continue my journey to create my new normal, taking each day one step at a time.  Who knows what will happen next.

Bowling – A Lost Love

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imageOnce upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a little girl who loved to bowl.  Yes bowl.  And it wasn’t really in a land far far away, but right here in my home town at Tenpin Lanes.  I spent the first almost 50 years of my life in a bowling alley.  My dad ran the bowling alley in our town so I spent almost every day there.  He would take me to work with him for a few hours when I was little and he would just put me on a lane with a ball and I would entertain myself for quite a while.  When I got into elementary school, we actually had a school bowling league.  The bowling bus would pick us up at Charles Evans Elementary every Monday after school and take about 30 of us to Tenpin Lanes and we would have a great time.  I still remember my first bowling ball, it was all of nine pounds, was black and had a red ace on it.  Wooohooo.  Over the next few years I honed in on my sport and my new 10 pound ball was purple.  That was after all Donnie Osmond’s favorite color.  Quickly I moved to an 11 pound coral colored ball and then on to a gold glittery 12 pound ball.  Hey, I’ve always liked color and sparkle.

My next move was to learn the correct approach and develop an actual bowling style.  No more running up to the foul line and throwing the ball as hard as I could with a back handed spin.  It was time for a four-step approach and a finger-tip ball.  Made all the difference in the world.  Now I’m a contender.  I told myself that someday I would be on TV as a professional woman bowler and maybe I could have.

All through junior high, high school and college I competed.  I loved it.  It was my absolute passion.  One of my best friends was also as crazy about bowling as I was and we bowled together every day and went to tournaments together.  For a short while we even bowled together in college before I changed schools.  I ended my collegiate career at Oklahoma State University as a bowling Cowgirl.  It was awesome.  She went on to compete as a professional woman bowler appearing on national television.  I have always been so proud of her.

I decided in college that I would rather get married and be a mom than travel the country working to make a living on the women’s professional bowling tour.  I would like to think that I could have made it, but who knows.  I continued to bowl league in the cities I lived in and when the kids and I moved back to Oklahoma, I joined a league with some girlfriends and we even went to our state tournaments.  It was enjoyable and I had a good time.

Not long after the kids and I moved back to my home town in 1991, the owners of my home town bowling alley, the people who employed my father, decided to sell out.  The new owners wanted to hire someone else to run it so my dad retired after 33 years.  They really should have let my dad stay because he was truly a legend in town and my local center went downhill afteLonie Haralsonr that.  I quit bowling for several years because it was just too hard to be there watching the place I loved so much be destroyed by someone who had no idea what they were doing.  I told my girlfriends, when the bowling alley sells and “they” are no longer involved, call me and I’ll come back.

Eventually it did sell, I got the call and I returned.  The local lanes changed hands many more times and the equipment was constantly breaking, the owner was not local and he kept hiring people to run the place that AGAIN, didn’t know what they were doing.  Our little Monday night league got down to 5 teams and I had had enough.  I hung it up about 5 years ago and haven’t looked back, until…..

Rumours have been swirling around town that a new bowling alley is going to be built.  Dare I dream, dare I hope.  What is this excitement in me?  Why do I feel this way?  What is going on?  Could it be that I could once again participate in something that at one time meant so much to me?  All these years I really didn’t care if I ever bowled again.  There was just no joy, no spark, no nothing.  It was something that was so tightly woven into the very fabric of my being and something that is my constant reminder of my dad, who passed away this past August.  In some way, I think my excitement about the possibility of bowling again will make me feel close to him again, will lessen the hurt and will keep him always on my mind and in my heart.  He would be so excited to know that we might get a new bowling alley, and he would be very proud of me for trying again.

So let’s get after it and get this thing built!