Lessons Learned Along the Way

My mother is still in a nursing facility, receiving wound care and IV antibiotics.  I still visit her every day and take her to doctor’s appointments 2-3 days a week.  She currently has 5 specialists participating in her care – this doesn’t count her primary care physician or anyone she sees at the facility.  She has received some new diagnoses – new infections, new complications – which are all being treated.  But there is no clear end in sight.

It’s hard to be in a situation where you don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.  I’ve had to rearrange my thinking and change the way I look at this - this is no longer a “crisis” – this is my “life”.  And I need to figure out how to make all the other parts of my life work with this in it.  When you’re in a crisis, it’s ok to let the laundry pile up or go out to eat three nights in a row or run out of milk in the fridge.  But when you accept that this is now your life, you have to get a handle on it. I’m in the process of doing that now.

I have found that I can be giving myself pep talks and feeling ok about things as they are, but then I will bump into someone who says “I can’t believe what you’re going through”, which brings me back down or makes me think that maybe I should be more upset than I am about this.  I look around at people I know who are suffering far more than me with sick children or unimaginable loss and feel silly for even entertaining the least bit of self-pity.  But then there are times that I burn with anger and resentment and just ask - why?

I am learning through this – learning about myself – about what I thought I could handle and what it turns out I can.  And I’ve adopted some new rules for myself.

1.       I’ve received lots of advice admonishing me to put me first – you know – the typical adages like “you must take care of yourself!” and “if you go down, the whole ship goes down with you!”  The best way I’ve found to deal with this is to practice saying yes.  When someone offers to help, I figure out a way to say yes.  Whether it’s bringing us a meal or taking care of the kids or offering to visit and spend time with my mom, people have been very generous in trying to help.

 

2.       You have to embrace the gray.  I have always been a black and white kinda girl.  I spend very little time in between.  I usually know exactly how I feel, what I want, and where I’m headed.  But in this situation I don’t.  Often, during this experience, I have discovered I am at war with myself in my own head.  I have found I spend time beating myself up for feeling a certain way or NOT feeling a certain way. I have engaged in some self-flogging over the fact that I SHOULD feel one way when I feel another.  All enough to make things a little busy in my brain – so much so that at times, I can’t bear to have the radio on in the car – there’s already too much background noise…why would I bring in more?   I am getting better at living in the gray – not knowing what’s next, not trying to plan what’s next – just accepting uncertainty and trying to be present – whether that’s with my mother or with my kids or my husband. 

 In a recent conversation with my husband about how each of us handles crises, he pointed out that typically, when faced with one, I try to “plan” my way out of it.  Well, guess what?  All the planning in the world isn’t going to fix this one.  I’ve also been known to try by sheer will and determination to force the unpleasantness of a crisis to be over.  That’s not gonna work here either. I’ve learned (and re-learned, and usually re-learn every day) that you just have to walk through it, one day at a time.   Don’t look ahead, don’t look behind, just be where you are, without expectations.

 

3.       For the rest of my life, I will get up and open the door of any restaurant, doctor’s office, or office building if I see a person in a wheelchair trying to get through it.  Trying to get around to two and three doctor’s appointments a day with a wheelchair, a 4 year old and everyone’s accompanying paperwork, bags and purses is a challenge. The people who get up on their own and help by holding a door for us – well I basically want to hug them on the spot.  And as for the ones who don’t, have no fear – this girl isn’t afraid to ask.

 

4.       Stay in gratitude.  I often try to remind myself of all the hard things that have happened in my life.  Loss of a parent, financial difficulties, children’s illnesses, my own medical issues.  In each situation, God has seen me through it without fail and I’ve come out the other side better for it.  Why should this be any different?  As a result of these experiences, I learned lessons, I grew as a person and I was better able to relate to others going through similar circumstances.

 Besides, I feel without a doubt, that God has been preparing me for this.

 Over the past 6 months leading up to this, there were so many signs to me that something big was going to happen in my life.  This past spring, I felt a strong sense that I should start clearing the decks, getting things off my plate and making room for something big that was coming. I had no idea what this might be, but I followed suit anyway.  I stepped down as head of MOPS after recruiting my successor, I purposefully didn’t sign up to be room mother for either of the kids, and I decided to go out of business with my eBay business at the end of this year.  Even in late July, when I was approached by the Women’s Ministry at my church to head up their huge Winter Women’s Conference, I felt led to turn it down.  One Sunday morning, I sat with the lady who had approached me about it and told her I just didn’t feel like that’s what God had in mind for me at that point.  My mother went in an ambulance to the emergency room the very next day.

Right now, I am clinging to the saying that you sometimes hear:  “If God brought you to it, He will bring you through it.”  I’m not sure what God has in mind with this one, but I can tell you that He is transforming me through this, moment by moment.   And while I’m sure in time, I will thank Him for this experience as I have other experiences in my life, I’m trying very hard to thank Him for it now, while I’m in it.