Operation “Royal’s Reign” ~ One Year Update

Royal’s Empire State Mind

Photography: Royal Yates @ Royal Creative Studios © 2013
Video Creator: Willoweagle @ Living ~ Not Just Surviving ©2013

Yeah…so proud I’m leaking out of my eyes!! He’s made it safely to NYC and I am now just waiting for the text/call letting me know he’s at the apartment that just so happened to open up two weeks early. So no couch hopping for the next 15 days either!! I gotta get a kleenex…THIRD GENERATION SURVIVOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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This was my exact post last year on August 23, 2013. I’d just attended his University commencement less than two weeks before. He’d still managed keep up his studies, work a full time job, complete all his therapies post-stroke and still graduate within a just a mere semester later than planned. Then he was on to the next phase of what I secretly refer to as “Royal’s Reign”.

In ‘celebration’ of the pivotal one year landmark post stroke, a much anticipated, hard earned, very much deserved trip was taken. As a media student, there was a definitive destination for this adventure: NYC!!! Within that one week, he feel totally in love with it. On returning home, he worked like a madman to obtain his next plan of action. He was going to go back to the city he had so desperately fallen in love with, make his presence known, and, in time, reign over ‘his’ Empire.

You see, his entire outlook had changed. Not just on one, but on so many levels. Dreams, aspirations, achievements, and Life as a whole became opportunities to be grasped with both hands. There was no time for regrets. Regrets, for him, became defined as opportunities not taken.

It’s now nearly a year since he left middle America for the largest city in the US. In this year, his accomplishments have been many, and his star has risen rapidly. Not that it’s been without it’s difficulties and sacrifices, but it has been amazing!

As a mom, he makes me more proud than words can express, he gives me more reasons to gush and brag than should (and probably is) be tolerated, but most of all, he continues to awe and inspire me daily. Operation “Royal’s Reign”, although still in progress, has, to date, been a completely and utterly successful undertaking and I’m confident it will continue to be until it’s fully achieved!

 

 

 

 

 ♦♥  Royal’s Related Links:  ♣♠

 

A Mother’s Story:
I reflect and share my son’s stroke experience from my point of view on the two year anniversary of the event.

Reflections ~ A Mother’s POV

A Dad’s Tribute Song To His Son
A Father puts pen to paper and composes this song in retrospect and reflection after his eldest son suffered a life threatening stroke.

Watch “I Am Here” written and performed by Bruce Yates ©2013

 

 

Royal Yates’ Profiles:

Royal Yates ~ IMDB Profile

Royal Yates ~ LinkedIn Profile

Royal Creative Studios ~ Royal Yates: Facebook

 

Two Down… One To Go!!!

As I lay here wide awake (I’ve now got my sleep schedule flipped, guess it’s bound to happen when you have no where to be) I couldn’t help but notice what date and time it is. Two down, one to go. At this time 11 months ago, I wasn’t asleep than either. Although, I WAS totally incoherent of my surroundings and the frenzied activities going on around me. I still don’t remember any of it. I’ve been told that I don’t want to, but there are several who will never forget.  I was a guest on not just one, but two med-evac helicopter flights which ended at Barnes-Jewish in St. Louis. For the third time in less then a year, I was again fighting for my life against my own body. Next month will be the last on of my one year clotting anniversaries, and yet it’s the most significant due to the fact there’s been no recurrences this time. A one year recovery mark is huge for any survivor. It’s as though you’ve held your breath just waiting.. hoping… praying… that when day 365 comes around you’ll be in the clear. Right now, it’s bittersweet… I’m happy to have made it clot free…. Yet, I also know that my recovery is still ongoing due to the circumstances those clots incited. I’ve made it quite the distance to get to this point, and even though I know there’s still so far to go, today I WILL NOT let that be my concern. Instead, I will just ~   BREATHE IN…. BREATHE OUT…. REPEAT and continue on with Living ~ Not Just Surviving!!!!

The Quadriplegic Rockstar | Gerald Christian

While having another one of what has now become a not so unusual occurrence of a restless night, I was again watching recorded shows from my DVR playlist. One of these, The Talk, is one that I watch religiously. On this particular airing, the guest of the day was John Stamos. During his interview, he mentioned meeting Gerald Christian during a recent Beach Boys concert and what an inspiration he was to him. Needless to say, when it comes to Greek yogurt and an inspirational story, John can’t be wrong… Right? Here is Gerald’s post referring to rockstar moment. Rock on Gerald!!!

Gerald Christian: The Quadriplegic Rock Star

Willoweagle

Butterflies, Faeries & Unicorns

 

You can either blame or credit my mother-in-law, Betty, for it. She could plant dirt and grow more dirt!! The Spring/Summer after she was diagnosed with cancer, shortly after completing a cycle of chemo/radiation, and so physically frail, she STILL would get out and garden a bit. After a couple of times having ‘caught’ her green thumbed, I decided that if I couldn’t stop her, might as well join, help when allowed, and be her extension when she was unable to do it herself. It was in doing this, that I learned to love dirt under my finger nails, the difference between perennials and annuals, nurseries in Spring and Fall, and more. She was the one who helped me plan out what i thought was a ‘small starter’ spot, (HA!!! What a joke!!!) which plants would be kind to a newbie, and a garden ‘theme’ (Butterflies were a shared favorite). She passed away the next July. Since then, some of the plants fell prey to my ignorance, but were changed out with new ones. Some are literally transplants from my Dad’s ‘yards’ as I may actually have at least one from each house they’ve lived in since then, some are from trips to Lowe’s for a few of my birthdays where the entire time I’m driving my stepmom nutty with all my inquiries and indecision, and last, but not least, those I was brave enough to start from seeds and they survived!! It’s been nearly 8 years since then. Each year I’m still amazed on seeing it come back, bigger and better than the year before. It’s definitely been an unexpected project that I totally love!! I like to think she would really like how it’s turned out…..so far..

 

For a retrospective look from the summer of 2011, click here to see an exported post from my first feeble attempt at blogging:

Angi’s Musing Mind: My Fairy-Tale Garden

 

This is NOT ‘The End’

Sometimes, my mind gets caught up in my feelings and emotions, as it can with most, or so I believe. I can’t always express them directly as or maybe as clearly as I’d like. One of the ways I’ve been able to let out and let go of these things is through poetry. There are times when the words overtake my brain so quickly I can barely get them on paper before they disappear, and others where they flow soft and gentle like a light summer breeze…

I thought I’d start sharing some of them with you too.  This is the most recent one.

This Is NOT ‘The End’
A Willoweagle™ Original
©2014

I try conversation.

You barely talk.

Why do you run?

While I barely walk.

Is it that I’m broken?

Is it something I did?

These thoughts I ponder

While you remain hid.

We’ve traveled too far

Too long this path as friends.

I’ve seen our whole story,

This is NOT ‘The End

Willoweagle

 

 

 

©2014

 

Please leave me your comments below if you’d like to see more posts like this or anything else in general… Even just to chat it up if you’d like….

 

Thanks for following and/or dropping by…

 

Will you? Do You? Did you?

 

Will you still love me though I’m broken?

Will you still care though I’m not whole?

Will you proclaim it like you once did?

Or from your heart am I now hid?

Did you ever really love me,  just a little..

Maybe not at all

Will you still love me though I’m broken?

Or from my pedestal did I now fall?

A Willoweagle™ Original
©2013

 

Will You? Do You? Did You?
A Willoweagle™ Original
©2013

 

 

Questions never vocalized but felt everyday by survivors like me…

 

Willoweagle

 

New Fangled Pen Pals

© 2013 Willoweagle (unpublished)

The inspiration for the above written poem came with the arrival of these beautiful flowers sent from two wonderfully inspirational, hysterically looney, super supporters,  who have been there for me the past year whom I’ve never met face-to-face, but we’d know each other anywhere.

Blown away, overwhelmed, amazed

Ohhhhh…if you only knew how right thezs two got it….
Ok…so I’m REALLY gonna go small town on ya…READY?!?!?!

HERE IT GOES!!!!
.
The flower shop you ordered those from, just HAPPENS to be owned by one of my best friends/ex-daughter-in-law’s (we’re 3 months 16 days apart…sigh….I’m older..and we graduated HS same year)…hold on

mother-in-law!!!
.
I had spoke with her about 6 weeks ago and we were to meet up for lunch…we hadn’t laid eyes on each other in nearly a year…I KNOW!!

ANYWAY…The plan was to change that..BUT she had some medical issues (she has Crohn’s) that needed be dealt with…then it was MY turn…

So imagine how delighted I was when I thought she’d stopped by quick during a delivery AND brought me flowers…THEN found out she was delivering them from YOU GUYS!!!

It was better than any Publishers Clearing House Ed McMahon Presentation could ever make up!!!!

Made my day!!!!

Another Year Without Her

Three ATIIIs

When I was a child, I never questioned that my Mom would be there for me when I needed her. When I was hurt, she’d make it better. When I was happy, she’d listen and join in with my giggles, and when I was sick, she’d nurse me back to health. The hours I spent with my head in her lap, her stroking my hair as I lay on the church pew while Dad preached were times I felt special. She knew exactly the precise touch that let her fingers slide effortlessly through my long hair and trailed her fingers lightly down my back. If someone would’ve told me then that as a 43year-old woman, I would literally cry and yearn for her, I would’ve thought you crazy.

Yet, here on the Eve of 14th anniversary of my Mom’s passing, that is where my thoughts are. As the years have passed, and I lose the little memories of the everyday things about her, I’ve come to realize what my special memories are and what made her special to me.

It really came early, fast, and hard these thoughts and memories of her. I’ve missed her and yearned for her so badly over the last two and a half month’s that I’ve cried…wait no….wept for her. This last clotting experience has hit me hard both physically and mentally. Like the child I was….’I want my Mommy!’

See, it’s not just because of being sick or because I’m being childish that I want her, its because of her strength, her courage, her knowledge, and her experience of dealing with and living daily with this disease. I want someone who understands the mental and physical aspects of this better than I do. I want to let her know that I now get why we never saw her cry, be frustrated, and just be plain angry at the blood disorder ‘that shall not be ‘named’ and that I so do it too. But I would also ask who was with you when you’d been so strong for quite sometime, but had that occasion day where everything hurt and your brain was tired and your legs wouldn’t cooperate and all you wanted to scream ’WHY?WHY ME???’ When the doctors themselves were clueless as there was no information wide spread at that time. Who was there for you besides Dad? What did you tell Dad as he hovered around concerned and worried that would put his mind at ease and that everything was fine, even if it wasn’t just because you didn’t want to see him that way? Why did you wait so long? To the point that Dad literally had to carry you to the car to get you to the ER as you had no strength of your own.

Then I’d have to thank you for the last lesson you taught me…not to do what you did by shaking it off and not getting it checked out earlier when everything was available to you. You worked for a physician, your husband was the hospital chaplain, and your youngest daughter worked in the hospital laboratory. Everything was available and less than 10 miles away.

Because of what you didn’t do, I did the exact opposite. Yes, I knew I had bilateral DVTs, and that they wouldn’t show up in an ultrasound just then, but never dreamed I had also thrown a saddle clot. The similarities in our instances has not gone unnoticed to me. Yet, I’m still here. I’m still trying to come to grips with it. I made it through….next time…no guarantees.

So, yes, this 43 year-old woman is missing her mother in a very bad way this evening, but am reliving memories of singing in the car, taking you to lunch once a week as my treat just so I could have you to myself. Christmas spent sleeping around the tree as you couldn’t take the stairs, just to name a few. We definitely had moments where we didn’t like each other much, but we still loved each other and that’s all that really matters in the end.

I love you and I miss you! ♡♥

Saw the video of this little girl during a rough day last week and though of you. Which brought me brief happiness between the two.. ッ

So many people knew and loved Mrs. A, General Judi, Judi, Mom…and so many other titles. Let’s celebrate her by sharing memories, anecdotes, reflections, etc with each other and passing them on

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Affairs Of The Heart

Blood Is Thicker Than….

As we celebrate love’s ‘holiday’ tomorrow, remember that it’s all an affair of the heart and blood is thicker than water….

and for some, our own lifesourcefights our very existence it supports.

We are strong!We are SURVIVORS!!! ♥

 

Go Red For Women ♥ American Heart Association

Power To End Stroke

Stop The Clot

 

Sisters

My sister and I on one of our Girls’ Weekends This particular one was in Memphis to see Kid Rock in concert as I had won the tickets thru a local radio station. These are weekends that I anticipate for months and the memories last a lifetme! This is life worth LIVING! ♡
via PicsArt Photo Studio