A Beautiful Dream

A couple of nights before my November surgery, I had the following dream:

I was awake after my surgery on Tuesday, very alert and not in pain so it could have been many hours post-op or the next day, since the room was bright and sunny.  I was laying on my right side facing my doctors and nurses, who were asking me to get ready to stand up and try a few steps.  Someone checked the bandage on my incision, where I felt some rigidity in my body but no real pain or discomfort, and then I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and sat up easily. 

My walker was to my left, and I glanced at it, but the surgeon shook his head and indicated I should attempt to stand and walk on my own without it.  I set my bare feet on the floor, and immediately noticed it felt cold and that all the tingling was gone from my feet and toes, which I happily reported aloud to the team watching me.  Then I stood up, and began taking my first steps. My balance wavered just a tiny bit and my leg and upper body muscles remembered immediately how to work together to straighten and correct it, and then I was slowly walking, each step more sure than the one before it.  Everyone was pleased and looked like this is exactly what they had expected me to be able to do. I walked the hallway with my beaming husband beside me, a nurse on my other side, until I returned to my room, and the dream ended.

Some of you may not know this, but ever since I was very little, maybe about 3 years old, I have sometimes had dreams that later came true.  I never can tell if a dream is "that kind" of dream when I'm having it, the realization unfolds later when the dream events begin happening around me and I recognize them.  Sometimes I remember enough of the dream to know what will happen, others I remember the dream late and recognize them after they are done.  My favorite was the dream that told me where my big brother was going to steal and hide my favorite blankie from me, and my joy and victory at knowing exactly where to go get it made him so mad!  Sometimes the dreams are years in advance of the events, like when I dreamt in kindergarten of myself sitting at a group table with two of my friends, only I didn't recognize them, and we didn't seem to be doing the same activities I usually did at that group table each day.   It took twelve years and joining the Peer Counselor program to send me back to that classroom and sit at that table with friends I met when I was older, helping our little kid partners, before the dream finally made sense.  Needless to say I hoped this dream was one of those special ones, and that it wouldn't take years in coming true! :)