Most of America is either celebrating (or avoiding) Valentine's Day today. We celebrated it yesterday, because today, February 14th, has different significance in our household. It was one year ago today that I was hospitalized. I can't really say that it was medically the beginning of our hard times, since I've had this condition for several years. So ... instead it was the climax (hopefully not the pseudo-climax!).
Even though being admitted to the hospital isn't ever a "good" thing, I was relieved that I was in a place where hopefully they could figure out what was wrong with me, and FIX it. But, instead, over the next couple days, bad turned to worse, and even worse, and ... well ... it turned into hell. God was with us through all of it, and in retrospect we are able to see His mighty hand of protection and provision. But there are so many memories that we just want to obliterate because they still hurt too much. Part of the grief cycle is that anniversary dates are hard - lots of memories come flooding back - and the first anniversary is generally the most difficult. Well, we've started our (three week long) first anniversary. I'm totally expecting this to be an emotionally packed three weeks full of thoughts/comments like "today is the day I was intubated," "today is the day the nurse accidentally gave me too much of the iv medicine and I had to be sent back to the ICU," "today is the day Harrison was discharged and I wasn't."
Please join me in praying that we can continue to healthfully work through the emotions of last year as we live through the next three weeks. A girlfriend is going through a rough time right now, and when her struggles hit their climax, she had flashbacks to another traumatic experience in her past. I was talking with her yesterday, and she re-iterated the grave importance of working through this (and not just stuffing it and moving on) because life will always throw you a curve ball. Getting blind-sided unexpectedly is hard enough without being confronted by the unresolved past at the same time.
A couple nights ago the whole "anniversary" thing started to come to the surface, and Aaron and I talked and cried until the wee hours of the morning as we verbalized different memories we each had. I don't think enough time has gone by to distort those type of memories - a lot was written down as we went through the experience (thanks to my mom's insight). But we finally got up the courage to tell each other some of our thoughts at some of the really tough times - like as I was being put under so they could intibate me and I was looking at my husband standing in the doorway talking to the doctors (was it for the last time when I would be un-sedated enough to know what's going on before we were parted by death?). (By the way, that was the idea of the thought - the actual "words" are too private to share publically.)
During the next hours - after I was intubated, and before I was stabilized - I regained "consciousness" twice - both times I was suffocating. One time I motioned to the nurse(?) that she needed to squeeze the bag faster to get me more oxygen - and then I was immediately put under again. The other time was what purgatory (in Catholic theology) must be like - I was conscious of the fact I couldn't breathe (like a pillow was being held over my face), but had enough sedation that I couldn't open my eyes - or move anything. I can still hear the voices of people talking around me, while I was unable to let them know. Finally I willed (or God helped) one of my fingers to move a millimeter or so - and Aaron happened to be looking the right place at the right time and told the doctors I was coming out of the sedation. (Even now tears are streaming down my face as I remember.) During that dark hell I begged God for one more breath - and one more breath - and one more breath - even though the breaths weren't enough to satisfy my oxygen-starved body. It's been a long time since I've relived that nightmare at night while I slept. But last night I woke up in a panic because I dreamed it was happening again.
I know that this type of brutal re-visitation is expected around anniversary dates, and that helps somewhat. There are so many horrific memories that we have that we're trying to effectively work through. Please pray for both of us especially diligently over the next couple weeks as we relive so much. ......I've just re-read what I've typed and wondered if it's too personal a memory to share this openly and in this type of forum. I don't plan to load on you all of the hard times, because there were thousands more good times since then. But maybe me "speaking the memory" so to say, will help make it a bit less painful.
This past year has been a continual series of "one more breath" thoughts and experiences. Some breaths come easier than others, and these days they come more easily for me than they did two years ago (a full year before I was diagnosed). Praise God for how far He's brought me! But life itself is a series of taking one more breath. And the distance any of us have from death is just that - the time will come when we don't have that next breath. It may be "expected" because you're sick - but for the majority of us, it will be "unexpected" - a heart attack, a car accident, a plane falling from the sky and hitting your house while you sleep. Part of the human condition is the fact that we all die. If we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, then we're promised an eternity in heaven. Christian theology describes hell as a lake of eternal fire. My personal hell (or the closest I hope to ever come to it) is being quasi-sedated and suffocating, and not being able to let anyone know I'm cognizant of it.
But none of us are promised one more breath. Having a terminal lung condition, and fighting to breathe has taught me to appreciate each and every breath (literally - not just figuratively!) that God gives me. What are you doing with your breaths? Are you wasting them just trying to "survive" life and find "happiness"? Or are you making them count and using them for the glory of the one who created you? (Don't give me that evolution excuse - even Darwin himself concluded it wasn't even possible before he died - people just keep clinging to it because it's the only other "possibility" if you take God out of the equation!) I've learned the tough lesson that this breath (the one you and I each just took) might be the last. If it is, then what comes next? ....... Don't waste this next breath.
~ Julia
p.s. I've included a photo taken of me last year in Pittsburgh - it was the first time I sat in a chair after being bed-bound for almost 2 weeks.
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