Suffering, Surrender and Some Surreal Stuff - A Year in Review

It has been over a year since my last blog post. I believe this is my longest stretch of blog silence since I started posting in August 2012. I have some legitimate "excuses" for not posting in so long but also, admittedly, I have been a slacker too. I am going to attempt to summarize the last year as best I can in one post but some of this stuff is worth going into greater detail about, so I guess we'll just see how it goes...

I don't remember much about the end of 2016 and the start to 2017...because most of what I remember started on Monday February 13th when I came home from Bunco and just wasn't feeling well. By morning, I was full on miserable. Knocked on my booty miserable. I could hardly get up to go to the bathroom for the next several days. In fact, I was pretty sick for next several MONTHS. There was never one official diagnosis...but several things one right after another including influenza, mono, and just for fun a stomach infection called h.pylori AND some unexplained abdominal pain for months that culminated with the removal of my Lap Band in July. I had CT scans, ultrasounds, upper and lower GI's, lab draws (too many to count), became a regular at the infectious disease doctor's office, made a few trips to the ER and/or urgent care and spent a LOT of time in bed or in my recliner. By May, I had met my insurance deductible for the year and met my out of pocket maximum shortly after that. Somehow, in the midst of all of this, I also had to deal with filing for FMLA and short term disability, fighting to get it, trying to stay on top of medical bills AND try to be a mom, wife and homemaker...because we ALL know that mom's aren't allowed to get sick and if we do, we can't just lay around and do NOTHING, especially for months on end. Through all of these illnesses, one right after another, I learned a lot. I learned to humble myself and ask for help. I learned to accept help. I gained friendships that I would not have otherwise gained and some grew stronger. I learned a lot about myself and a lot about the people in my life. I learned a greater amount of empathy for others going through similar circumstances and hope that I will know exactly what to do when it's happening to someone else.

In the middle of all of this misery and suffering, I was reading and trying to stay focused on God. It turns out that laying around doing nothing for months leaves a lot of time to be still in His presence and to spend time in His word. I read "Not a Fan" by Kyle Idleman for the 3rd time. This book gets me fired up to truly follow Christ every time I read it. This time was no exception. This time, in the midst of everything I was going through, I strongly felt God telling me it was time to give up something that I have absolutely not wanted to give up and had been resolute for years about...our house. When we bought our house, it was with the intention of living there forever - or at the very least until our kids were done with school. I loved our home and our neighborhood even more. We had recently (finally) painted the white walls with color, gotten some new carpet and appliances and lighting fixtures and we really were enjoying living there more than ever. I did NOT want to move. None of us did. But...I felt very strongly that God was telling me to move, to downsize, to live more simply. I reminded God that I was sick and figured He would let me wait for a while before doing this...but I felt REALLY convicted so I told my husband one night. He about lost his mind. He's the one that had been saying for years that we should move and now that we had finally done some things to the house that we had talked about for a long time, he wasn't about to budge. I told him that I really felt that this is what God was telling me to do. First, he's not a believer...so that really didn't mean anything to him. Secondly, he said that the ONLY way he would even CONSIDER a move is if we got a certain dollar amount for our house. I literally laughed out loud at the figure he said. "There is NO way we'll get that much for this house" I told him. "Well, then we're not moving" he said. So...I had a little chat with God and I basically said to Him that if this is what He really wants me to do then He will have to make it happen. Less than a week after that conversation with my husband, on a Thursday afternoon, I was lying in my bed exhausted and miserable and the doorbell rang. My youngest son went to answer it - I figured it was one of his friends but he came back up and told me that it was some lady and she was asking for a parent. Tired and annoyed, I went downstairs in my PJ's and all disheveled, opened the front door. A realtor was standing there and started talking about how she is working with a couple who is really trying to buy a house in our neighborhood and they have lost out on 2 homes already and she's just knocking on doors on the off chance that maybe someone would be interested in selling. Needless to say, I invited her in, we chatted, I showed her the house (which was a disaster because...hello, I had been sick for over a month by this point) and she asked if I would be willing to let her clients come see the place on Saturday. Well God, I thought, I guess you really do want me to do this...so I called my husband and I told him this has to be God and he said "this isn't God, it's Satan because I don't want to sell our house." Somehow he agreed to show it for the price he mentioned during our initial conversation so the realtor drew up a permission to show with that amount and we spent the next 2 days trying to get the house in semi-show condition. Saturday came and I went over to my friends house 2 doors down to chat with her while these people were looking at my house that wasn't even on the market. They were there for over an hour. By later that evening, we had an offer that I countered...and long story short, we had the opportunity to sell our house for just $2,000 less than the outrageous figure my husband threw out. He STILL didn't want to sell. I again went to God and told Him that if this was His will, He would have to change my husband's mind. Monday night, hubby said yes and the contract was signed. He was certain we wouldn't make it through the inspections and/or the house wouldn't appraise for the sale price. Meanwhile, I started packing our house of almost 16 years. I started selling furniture and donating things we didn't need/use anymore. Everything fell into place. I was certain that we would have to move to a trailer park or some other cheaper area in a different part of town in order to afford something "big enough" for all of us that would fit the bill of downsizing and cutting costs. I was certain my middle school son would end up at a different school and had prepared him for that. But again, by the grace of God, we found a home maybe a mile away from our neighborhood that was still in his current middle school boundary and that we would all fit into and that would save us money. The way that happened is another story in itself!

So we moved into the "new" place a couple weeks after we moved out of the "old" house to allow time for some remodeling (new paint, carpet, flooring, etc) and the daunting task of unpacking was pretty much all mine once again. I did manage to get back to work for a while in the middle of all of this moving business...which felt great while it lasted. Then, after consulting with my Lap Band surgeon, I was down again for a while after having the surgery to remove the band and recover fully. In mid-August I was trying to organize the garage and attempted to hang my husband's set of golf clubs on a nail that was already in the wall. Clearly, I should have checked the nail first to be sure it could handle the load, but alas, it did not and the entire golf bag (with all the clubs in it) came crashing down on my right shoulder. I spent the next few months in pain but I was finally back to work and I just had to deal with it because 1) I knew I couldn't miss MORE work and 2) I knew that eventually I was going to have the "revision" surgery to my Lap Band removal, which is gastric bypass, and would need to be off for another 4 weeks or so for that. So, I'm working and having pretty much constant pain in my right shoulder. I iced it nearly every day and took ibuprofen when I needed to so I could make it through my work day. Since I'm a nurse, I need to be able to physically lift, push/pull etc up to 50lbs per my job description (although there are definitely times where it's been more than 50lbs). Working was really hurting my shoulder and my chiropractor was not able to fix me. I went to see an orthopedic surgeon and, after trying a steroid injection and physical therapy with no relief, I ended up having to schedule surgery as the MRI showed a tear in my labrum (Google SLAP tear). Not the way I wanted to end 2017, but clearly with the way the year had gone, I should not have been terribly surprised. As I am writing this, I am in the recovery process from this surgery - which - thanks be to God, was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It turns out that I had "partial" tears in the labrum and rotator cuff and some other issues that did not result in needing the arm to be immobilized for 6 weeks as originally thought (or else I would not be able to type this post unless I used the "hunt and peck" method with my left hand, in which case I would likely not complete it until February). Praising God!!

Backing up a bit...I found out in the middle of the night on August 26th that my young cousin (32) had been brutally murdered during the afternoon of the 25th. It turns out, by an ex-boyfriend at his home, where she went to retrieve some of her personal items that he still had. The really crazy thing is that on the 25th, in the morning, I had noticed that she was at the top of my "Facebook" messenger - the ONLY person on there. I had been busy getting ready for work but I remember pausing for a moment just wondering how she was doing. She had gone down a pretty rough path over the past 10 years and had become a drug addict and basically estranged from the family that loved her so much. This news was so devastating...and to find out that she had recently contacted a friend about coming to stay at her rehab facility and seemed like she was really trying to turn her life around...made it that much worse. Then the fact that I saw her on my Messenger and didn't reach out and all the "what if's" that ran through my head if I had only sent her a message that morning to see how she was doing. It is hard to wrap my mind around how someone could take another's life. I prayed that Jesus would receive her and I believe that her heart was good and she is with Him now, free from the addictions and suffering she experienced here. I will miss her forever, but I still believe that God is good and He's not the one that caused her death. He hates to see our suffering just as much as we hate to experience it, if not more.

A couple of days before my scheduled surgery date, I found out that my mother in law was in bed not feeling well. I decided to go over and check on her. I ended up calling 911 because her oxygen was very low and her lungs sounded horrible. I figured in addition to respiratory issues, she was also very likely dehydrated due to effects from the antibiotic she was given at her MD office 2 days prior for what they "guessed" was bronchitis. I can't even begin to describe what took place over those next two weeks...but here's a little summary: she was in ICU, my entire family (besides me) got a stomach bug, I had shoulder surgery, my brother and his family came to town, we had our family Hanukkah party at my sisters house...Christmas came and went...as did my sister in law's 30th birthday while her mother was lying mostly unresponsive in the ICU bed on a breathing machine (over the course of her stay, she was bad, had gotten better, had gotten worse...and then unresponsive and unable to follow commands). The day after Christmas, we had a family meeting with the ICU doctor, Nurse Practitioner and Social Worker. The reality of how sick she was really sunk in when they asked how she would feel about having a tracheotomy and feeding tube...because the breathing tube HAD to come out no later than 14 days after it was put in and that was fast approaching. With her unresponsiveness, there was grave concern that she would be able to breathe on her own and cough up the secretions that they were suctioning via the breathing tube. With my husband and I as her named DPOA's...and with me being the nurse in the family (she was also a nurse), I knew that although she had her wishes written down, this decision would ultimately fall to me and I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. I knew that she didn't ever want to have a trach or a feeding tube - but I also knew she never wanted to be intubated or be on dialysis, both of which she had agreed to do over the past year or so since her last ICU stay. My husband and sister in law and myself all talked everything over. I discussed all possibilities with the doctors...and I hit my knees. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I prayed that God would lead me to make the decision that she would want me to make. I prayed that He would give me a sign so I would know for certain. I prayed and prayed and prayed that she would be able to recover and breathe on her own when they took out the breathing tube. I prayed more than anything else that whatever God deemed to be best for her would be what would happen. I prayed for the best, while trying to prepare for the worst.

My mother in law and I did not start off on the greatest terms 23+ years ago when I started dating her son. As I found out years later, she had determined that she would NOT be nice to his "next" girlfriend no matter what because she had been so nice to "all the others" and then they broke her son's heart. For all the difficulties of the first few years of my relationship with her, she and I ended up becoming pretty close and I truly have grown to love her like a mother and I do believe that she loved me like a daughter. All this to say, she trusted her life to me...and I was feeling so overwhelmed and scared because I wanted to do what she would want me to do. On December 30th, 2017...the day the breathing tube had to come out...we were all to gather in her hospital room to be with her for a while before they took it out and I was the only one that managed to get there early. I called a friend and asked her to pray with me before I went in to be with her. As I sat there, holding her hand, playing Christian music on my phone and just begging God again to let me know that I was making the right decision...she suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at me. She had opened her eyes before but it was as if she wasn't seeing us. This time, I felt that she could see me and I started to explain what was going on, all that she had been through and about the breathing tube and that it was coming out today and that the doctors asked me about a trach and a feeding tube and - I can't even type this without tears streaming down my face - she gave me this sour look that I've seen so many times before as if to say "are you crazy???" So I told her I didn't think she would want that and I asked her if she would...and she shook her head to tell me "no." That was the first time in her unresponsive state that she had done that. I told her that is what I thought and that is what I told the doctors and that when the breathing tube came out, we would leave her in God's hands and trust her to Him. With that, she relaxed and went right back to sleep...just about a minute before the rest of the family got there (my husband, his sister and our 2 boys). I was standing over her bed holding her hand and crying and told them they would not believe what just happened. A little bit later, they took out the breathing tube. When she started to struggle, we gave the nurse the ok to keep her comfortable. She passed away peacefully with all of us at her bedside 4 hours after they took the tube out. It is still all very raw and very surreal. Although I miss her and I am so sad that she is gone, I know where she is and I know that she is free of pain and suffering and with Jesus. Another amazing God story in all of this is the fact that just a week before I called 911, I had this feeling that my youngest son and I should go visit her after youth group. It was 8:30pm on a school night and I would never just randomly decide to go visit her on a night like this, but obviously God wanted me to go. She was standing at the stove cooking, she was happy and excited about Christmas and having the boys spend the night on Christmas Eve. She had been cleaning the house and decorating for Christmas...it was awesome to see her like that and I'm so grateful that this was my last memory of her before she got sick. Even though my son isn't quite as grateful as I am because he never did get to celebrate Christmas with his Grandmother, I'm certain that one day he will see what a blessing this was.

2017. Literally I think the worst year of my life. Filled with illness, injury, tragedy and death. In all of this...I have suffered. In all of this...I have seen God's hand at work. In all of this...I feel blessed and have a stronger faith than when it all started. In all of this...I am grateful for the suffering because I know that without it, I would not have had this tremendous spiritual growth spurt. I am not afraid to publicly share my faith. Not with strangers, not with friends, not with my family. I am who I am. I believe what I believe. I KNOW the truth and the truth...has set me free. Thanks be to God.

It's taken me several days to get this post written...and today, this was one of my daily devotional readings. Could not be more appropriate, and so I will end with it. And so begins a New Year...

From a devotional titled "Live, Love, Lead" by Brian Houston

“Part 2: A Difficult Path - Navigating Storms”

There are times when the path of life is difficult. We must learn how to navigate the ‘storms’ that come, the process of pain and its role in our progress along the path. I have had to learn to navigate some very forceful storms in my life. It’s probably safe to assume that you have had storms to face as well.

We can take great strength and wisdom by looking at how Jesus handled himself in the midst of suffering. Jesus had the option to take the easy way out and yet he didn’t. That’s worth meditating upon. As a man, Jesus wrestled with what was ahead, which is evident in Matthew 16 when he explained to his disciples the difficult path that awaited him. His response to Peter’s objections reveals something of the intensity he had to engage to continue on and to the cross.

Jesus humiliation, death and victory over death, paved a way for us, enabling us to endure and overcome the trials that we encounter on life’s difficult path.

In John 16:33 Jesus said, I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.] (Amplified Bible)

Unfortunately, everyone faces storms in life. But with God, there is always hope and he does not waste anything when it comes to finding ways to benefit us. Life is a difficult path, but the path keeps going forward. When you face a season filled with pain and heartache, remember to keep moving forward. In order to do so, there will be times when you have to lighten your load so you don’t become ‘stuck’. When you release the baggage of your past, you learn to walk in authenticity and freedom from fear.

In a nutshell, the keys to navigating the storms in your life are: - Keep making right choices - Believe in God’s love for you - Understand that some things take time – it’s a process - Surround yourself with positive support - Stay in God’s Word.

What storms are you currently facing? Are you able to look at them with different ‘eyes’ today? Commit each one of them to Christ afresh this morning, and believe in your heart that He will not only give you wisdom to walk through them, but sustain you as you do.

Prayer: Father, I commit to go the distance with You. I ask for Your grace to carry, empower and sustain me. Where there is life, there is hope and today, my hope is in Jesus.