2 Year Hiatus

     Just about two years has passed since I was here last. That must be the period of time it takes for me to get my jumbled messy thoughts into a state of alphabetical fluency. The final entries in 2015 were an attempt to capture the events that had grace unfolding for us. The opening of our hearts eyes. Reading these 11 entries brings a rush of memories flooding my mind. The entries only touched on the many events and happenings that were taking place that Fall. There was so much more but the focus of those entries was to highlight grace and its unfolding. 
     Am I ready to write again? A question that remains. For now the jumbled thoughts I have in my head are coming together enough for me to get them out of my head and down here. Looking back, 2015 seems like ages ago, far away in the distant past. Even though its only been just a few years. My husband and I are aged. Feeling older then our physical years. For me it is more mentally then physically but for my husband it is both physically and mentally. So many changes and adjustments. Some we already knew, some are very new and foreign to us even still, after 2 years.
     By the last surgery in 2015 and the events of that year, the toll that had been taken on us required more or less a rebuild for each us. Not relearning things about ourselves but a learning of our new selves. I did not realize this until much later in 2016. When I was trying to find my peace. Believe me I was looking pretty hard but just couldn't seem to get my finger on it. Little did I realize that the peace I was searching for was my old peace. After everything we had been through in that last year I was changed and a very different person. The peace I was searching for was my old peace and I wasn't peaceful there. I had to allow myself to get to know what my new peace was. 2015 had left both myself and my husband completely broken and undone. Used up. It was time to rebuild and put what pieces of our old selves were left into their new places as we rebuilt and aligned ourselves with who we had become. Getting to know our new selves. This is something we are still working on. Some days are really, really tough. Others are good. But each day that passes is healing and improvement. A step in the right direction. Each day is a blessing and many days have had us seeing rain. Rain in the form of Grace. Grace like rain.

   

Grace Unfolding - Part Eleven

     The next 3 days that we were in the acute care wing of the hospital were busy and quiet days. Busy with physical therapy and resting. Lots of walking the halls and getting my husbands strength and balance back. Lots of naps from all the walking that exhausted my husband. Oh eating too. Getting back on solids again and giving his body fuel to burn. A good bye to our good nurse friend who was going off shift and then on vacation for two weeks. We didn't plan on being there when she got back. She didn't look forward to seeing us there either. Her trusted assistant and our friend was still there and made sure to visit a little bit each time he came to the room.
     Looking back on our days there I wondered why I encountered the people I did. A mother that I happened to ride in the elevator with one morning spoke to me. She told me all about her daughter who had just had a pretty serious surgery. That it was really hard for her daughter right now and her as well. I let her talk. After she finished I shared that I understood how difficult things could be. She told me she knew I did because we were both with our loved ones on the same floor. I then told her our only option right now is to be strong. To dig deep and find our strength from the depths of ourselves because that is what we needed right now as well as our loved ones. She affirmed that and thanked me for saying it. It was exactly what she needed hear.
     As I look back and go over my encounters and the events I realize none of it had anything to do with me personally. I was only a vessel. How things were handled, the quiet strength that others claimed they felt while in the company of myself and my husband, the encouraging words shared with strangers who were there doing the same thing I was.......it was all grace. Grace that had been prepared for me and given to me in perfect time. I had only to recognize it. Once I did, it didn't matter that I was speaking encouraging words even though I was going through my own challenges, or offering quiet strength for others to feel while I felt like I was running low because amidst those demands I had the quiet flutterings of reassurance, gentle grace and strength laid at my feet as my foundation to grow on. I just had to see it. I knew it now. I had to allow Grace to Unfold.

Grace Unfolding - Part Ten

     Trusting Him. Having active faith. Christ already has a plan for us and knows before we do what we will need and the perfect time that we need it. Grace has been prepared for us. We just have to accept it and take the time to know it.
     Day 5 in the hospital and 2nd day after the big surgery. Transfer papers from the ICU to the acute care wing in order. Patient prepared and moved to a transport bed. Our good byes to the wonderful nurses that cared for my husband in the ICU. The move up two floors and to the east wing of acute care involved literally stuffing the bed and people into the elevators and a maze of hallways and back entrances for moving patients though the hospital. Arrival to our room in the acute care unit was like a home coming. The two nurses and their assistants who had done such a big part of my husbands care for his prior surgery a few months before were there. Some coming on shift and others going off but all made it a point to stop by his newly assigned room. They were happy to see us but not under the circumstances. We had hugs all around and confirmations that the ones going off shift would be seeing my husband soon in the next days. Then it was our nurse who had become our friend and her assistant who had also become our friend left in the room with us. We visited and got caught up. I was relieved as well as my husband to know that we had these two to care for him for his first day in the acute care wing. We didn't have to tell our stories again about how my husband processed pain. They already knew and had witnessed it. They had seen my husband at his worst and helped me to process through it all. Kept me strong and bolstered my husband. We had prayed together, laughed together and cried together. We had become friends a few months before and now in their warm embrace and tender knowing care my husband was on the road to recovering again except this time it was with trusted friends. Grace had been prepared for us.

Grace Unfolding - Part Nine

     Afternoon of day 4 and 1st day after the big surgery I was back in my husbands ICU room visiting him. His surgeon came to check on him and gave us word that if things continued going as they had been my husband would be transferred to the acute care floor the next day. I confirmed that he would be transferred to the same wing that we had been to on our prior visits. After the surgeon left, my husband asked if I could find out if the nurse that had been such a great help to us before was still there. I had also been thinking the same thing and told my husband I would do some investigating to find out if she was still there. But I had to eat first. I was so hungry.
     As I was finishing my meal in the cafeteria I looked across from my table and saw a familiar face and wondered if he would recognize me. A nursing assistant who was also a very integral part in helping my husband heal a few months before from his prior surgery. I got up to clear my plate and then approached him. He did remember! He gave a big smile and put his hand out to hold mine. I told him we were back and just had surgery the day before. He asked if it was for the same thing and I replied that it was. Then I asked if our nurse was still there on the acute wing and he said that she was. We said good bye and then I took myself up to the acute care wing and sought out our nurse. I asked for her at the nurses station and they said they would call her. As she came down the hall it was like seeing an old friend. We hugged for a long while. She asked where my husband was and I told her he was in the ICU and would be coming to her the next day. She was sad that we were there again under the circumstances of surgery. I agreed of course. I asked her if we could request her as our nurse and she said yes but couldn't guarantee that she could be.
     Soon after I arrived back at my husbands room in the ICU. That evening the fellow of the surgeon was in for a visit and confirmed that we would be making the switch to the acute care wing in the morning. I mentioned to him the nurse that we would like to have and my husband gave him the history of why. The fellow couldn't guarantee it but noted it in the transfer papers and said the transfer would take place by mid morning. I allowed myself to sleep in the next morning until 630a.m. and went and had a light breakfast before going to my husband. When I arrived preparations were underway for the transfer. The fellow came in and said that everything was in order. Then turned to me and said "I went ahead and called to the nurses station and told them what nurse we wanted on your husbands case. It's all been handled." Just like that. Just like grace.
   

Grace Unfolding - Part Eight

     Day 4 in the hospital and the 1st day after the big surgery was quiet. This was good. My husband was resting with nurses in the ICU checking on him through out the day. This day our nurse was different. The nurse who specialized in pain management had worked with us over the 3 days she was my husbands nurse and we had come to an effective medicating schedule with meds that worked and intervals of administering them that kept my husbands pain in check. I spent a few hours with my husband in the morning but then left him to rest. I was in need of clean clothes. We had packed only for a few days. That was our expectation when we were preparing for my husbands appointment that then turned into hospital admission and then to a full 8 days in the hospital. I was on day 4 of  2 days worth of clothing. Lucky for me the Inn in the hospital had a washer and dryer available for guests.
     Back in our room at the Inn I had put together a load of laundry between my sons clothes and mine and the washer happened to be free so I quickly loaded our clothes and started the wash. When I went back to check the washers progress, there in the little laundry room was the woman I had encountered a few days before at the Inn desk. She had already transferred our clothes to the dryer. I said hello and thanked her. I looked at her and she seemed so on edge and stressed. I asked her how she was doing and she replied with an almost inaudible "okay." I responded "I know things are overwhelming for you. I understand completely. I can say that things will get better, stay strong. I am able tell you this because this isn't my first time here. I've done this before, twice." I told her a little about why we were there and then put my hand on her arm and looked her in the eye and told her "You've got this." She sighed heavily and quietly said "thank you." I turned and left the laundry room. Grace unfolding.

Grace Unfolding - Part Seven

     Surgery day.  My son and I arrived in my husbands room before the flourish of activity. We had a nice talk together and gave hugs and kisses. Then it was on. The surgeon stopped in for a pre surgery visit along with his fellow. We spoke briefly and then it was time for the surgery suite transport and anesthesia docs to do their thing. We met everyone and then they were off. Wheeling my husband from his room down to the surgery suite. Surgery was short in comparison to the others and by mid day we were all back in the ICU. Early that morning I had called my mom to let her know what was happening and by early afternoon she had landed at the airport and was at the hospital to help out. She and my son took care of getting her settled in her room at the hospitals Inn. Another stroke of grace. While I went back up to the ICU to be with my husband. Things went well.
     Day 4 in the hospital and day 1 after surgery. I arrived early that morning. My husband was still asleep so I sat quietly and drank my coffee while I watched the sunrise. During this time I started praying for miracles. Just that, "Lord we need miracles". Then I stopped. I had a prodding in my heart that stopped me. I realized I wasn't praying in the right way. I shouldn't be praying directively and telling what we needed but instead be praying for courage to have active faith because in having faith, I would have endurance to wait on Him to provide us with what He already knew that we needed. So that's what I did. This is when grace fell into the place that God had already prepared.

Grace Unfolding - Part Six

     Afternoon of day 2 in the hospital was mostly uneventful as hospital stays go, except for the hurricane like weather that was going on outside. Word came later in the afternoon that my husbands surgeon who was out of state at a conference would be coming in to see him as soon as he landed at the airport. The surgeon came straight away from the airport to the hospital to meet with us and arrived in my husbands room that evening to discuss with us the course of  treatment. Which happened to be surgery first thing the next morning. Surgery that early in the week isn't typical so the importance of the surgery was made quite clear. Readying my husband for surgery the next morning was the evenings plan. We met a young, sweet nursing assistant in the process. She asked if she could tell us something and we said absolutely. She said to us this: that the feeling that she got when she came in the room from us was so tremendous that she had to tell us what she felt. She said she felt a strength and calmness from us that she had not felt before. She felt good energy and didn't want to leave the serenity that she felt in the room. She told me she could feel my strength especially and a calming presence. I thanked her and she gave me a huge hug and came away with tears in her eyes. Grace. ( I had been told this before at my husbands first surgery by the surgeons physicians assistant. She had told me that she felt an enduring strength in us and a calm that was palpable.)
     It was time for me and my son to go back to our room at the hospitals Inn. Try to sleep. The next morning would be early and it was already very late in the evening.