Getting Back to Normal?

This last week has been a good week. For the first time, I think I am finally taking more steps forward than back. I have been told by other people recovering from various surgeries that when this happens, you are finally on the mend. It is really encouraging to not feel like there is a new problem to overcome.
I have been home with the kids by myself this week, and we have even attempted to get back to homeschool, although school is much scaled back and less ambitious - we are just trying to accomplish the basics so we don't forget how to read and write! Jeff's parents have been coming over in the afternoons so that I can take a nap. It is such a help!! I am usually very worn out after a morning of just the basic activities, and I don't want to leave the kids to themselves while I take a drugged up two hour nap. I have started backing off of the heavy duty narcotic drugs, to non-narcotic prescription pain meds, and my other medications from the surgery are phasing out too. My leg pain issues are getting better with physical therapy. Apparently, the issue was not only atrophied muscles from being in the hospital bed for so long, but also nerve sensitivity from the lumbar drain and blood patch procedures.
So, are we getting back to normal? I realized this week that some of my frustrations are with the clutter in the house, the piles of clean laundry that never get folded and put away and being behind where we "should be" in homeschooling - and then I realized I had those issues before all this, so I guess that is pretty normal! (It just seems to bug me more now.) I'm sure the physical recovery still has a way to go, but I think that normal is more in sight than it was a few weeks ago.
Of course, "normal" is really all relative - it has a lot to do with expectations, and comparisons. What do we expect from life and how do we measure up to those expectations? How do we compare to what other people's "normal" is? I never thought that a brain tumor would be part of my life, and yet I know so many others who have had to deal with challenges that seem so much greater. So, I am learning about being thankful, no matter where God has placed us in life, whatever our challenges or our gifts. A passage comes to mind from the apostle Paul, some familiar verses - and especially powerful when read together in context:
"For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances... I have learned the secret of of being content in any and every situation... I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4: 11,12,13

It is also good to know that no matter what our "normal" - that God is in control.
"In Him we were were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory." Ephesians 1:11-12