One time in particular Mark and I were truly challenged by my physical ailments. In September 1991, on the Friday before my twenty-sixth birthday, I was in a car accident. A semitruck I was driving behind had a load of huge metal pipes that extended beyond the trailer. A few years before, a friend of mine had been beheaded when he ran into a truck with a similar load, so I took note of those dangerous pipes and intentionally kept a safe distance.
It was a God thing.
The truck driver had to come to a sudden stop, and so did I. The woman following me, however, didn’t. (I found out later she was tending to a child in the backseat.)
She was going 45 mph and rammed into the tail of my car, shoving me forward and right up to the metal pipes, which almost came through my windshield.
I was taken to the emergency room at Grand View Hospital in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, but it appeared I was fine, just badly shaken.
Monday morning while I was at work, I couldn’t speak clearly and the right side of my face was contorted. Paramedics took me from my office at the hospital to the ER. I called Mark and told him I was ill, but I didn’t know exactly what was going on. Would he come?
Mark had recently been laid off from Ford Motor Company as a result of the recession combined with the union rules of last hired, first fired. He had a great work ethic, but that wasn’t a factor in deciding who kept their jobs at the plant.
He was home caring for our two children when the phone call came. He responded with anger and frustration and asked how he was supposed to get to the hospital when I had the only car in running condition. Being prone to self-sufficiency, he didn’t want to ask anyone for help. There is such a thing as compassion fatigue. Add to that Mark’s longstanding, visceral, utter dislike of hospitals in general, and the relationship sparks were about to start a forest fire.
I hung up, knowing that my hospital stay was getting on his last nerve. I wasn’t sure he was going to come. I lay on the gurney in the ER, tears flowing as I asked God to heal me quickly so Mark would not be unhappy with me or worry about new medical bills challenging our finances, especially while he wasn’t employed. I felt so alone and helpless.
Mark did come to the ER but not for a while. A couple hours later he came in with Sarah and Jonathan. They were strapped in the stroller, and I knew immediately Mark had walked the three miles to the hospital. He was fuming.
At that time in our marriage, he saw my physical ailments as a ploy. I had overheard him saying to others, “She has a flair for the dramatic.” This cut me to the core. It made my pain, difficulties, and illnesses seem like a cry for attention when, God knows, deep down I wanted to be attended to but not in such a negative, burdensome way.
When Mark came into the ER, he saw that the right side of my face was drooping. The admitting physician and the neurologist didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they ordered test after test and were exploring all possibilities, including the big one: brain tumor.
Actually seeing my deformed expression with the right side of my face limp and contorted and hearing the doctors’ concerns curbed some of the annoyance Mark had had over the inconvenience of hauling our kiddos to the hospital. Turns out a brain tumor was not the cause of my stroke. It was caused from the car accident I’d had three days before. The whiplash injury I sustained caused a slow leak in my left vertebral artery, which hemorrhaged over the next three days and resulted in the stroke Monday morning.
Mark was unemployed, and now I was, too. Disability covered part of my paycheck for the next nine months while I recovered, and it became an awful yet also wonderful opportunity to trust God in ways we had not had to do previously.
The aneurysm didn’t claim my life, but the generalized disruption of my autonomic nervous system has left me with daily challenges. Not a meal goes by when I don’t choke. To put it politely, coordinating swallowing efforts with breathing is not something I do well. I have learned to sit at the end of the table so I can make a quick exit if necessary.
The next seventeen years gave us more opportunities to trust God as well as deal with physical health challenges. Crazy enough, in spite of severe health issues, I gave birth to a total of eight children, and our lives continued to move along.
6
THE BROKEN VESSEL
When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
—JOHN KEEN, “HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION,
YE SAINTS OF THE LORD”
In October 2008, when I was forty-three, my health started a steady decline. One morning at 3:00 I stumbled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, hemorrhaging from my uterus and reeling from the intestinal spasms the cramping provoked.
The pain was so severe that I needed Mark’s help, but my breath was taken away by the cramping so I couldn’t call loudly enough to get his attention. I stood up to go to him and pitched into the corner of the bathroom wall, hitting my head and falling on the floor in a faint. Mark woke up when he heard the loud thud as I fell. He quickly got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. By that time I had managed to stand up again and was propped against the sink, but when he asked me what was wrong, I couldn’t answer intelligibly and fainted once again. He caught me before I fell over and carried me to our bed.
I came around again, but because of the lump on my forehead, I lost my memory in the short term, and this confusion on my part scared the man something fierce. He called 911, and I was taken to the hospital and admitted.
The neurologist came to my room a few days later and pulled up a chair next to my bed. I was heavily medicated for the undiagnosed abdominal pain but still recall the conversation and have laughed about it. It was the one lighthearted moment in the midst of such a mess.
“So, tell me what happened,” he said.
“I fainted in the bathroom and hit my head when I fell,” I explained.
“How did you get up?”
“I guess I tried to walk but fainted again, so Mark carried me to the bedroom.”
“He carried you?” the neurologist asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
Not understanding his confusion, I repeated, “Yes, he carried me. I couldn’t walk because I kept passing out.”
“He picked you up and carried you, seriously? Dead weight?” The doctor was flabbergasted.
“He does this all the time, because it’s not unusual for me to black out in the bathroom.” I scrunched up my face and narrowed my eyes at him, asking, “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“No, no,” he tried to convince himself and me, unsuccessfully. This doctor might not be able to haul his wife around, but my husband has some strong guns. He works out in part because he never knows for sure when he’s going to have to haul me up the stairs or out of the bathroom. I had no clue how unusual this talent is in a husband. I’ve got myself a real keeper!
I was in and out of the operating room for exploratory procedures three times in the next couple of months and was finally admitted in December for a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding. The underlying cause of my physical ailments was yet to be discovered. To recover from all the surgical procedures, I received heavy-duty antibiotics and consumed enough narcotics to knock a 350-pound football player on his rear. This resulted in even more GI spasms.
In January I had a follow-up appointment with Dr. H, the ob-gyn who did the hysterectomy. While waiting to see him, I had to use the restroom, which had muddy puddles on the floor tracked in from other people’s boots. Intestinal cramping caused me to have another spell where I grew faint. I detested the idea of landing on the dirty floor, and I managed to stay upright by clinging to the safety bar next to the toilet.
When Dr. H came in to see me, I told him, “I’m so tired of falling on the floor when I have to go to the bathroom.” My shoulders were hunched forward; I felt weary and defeated.
He whirled
around from the desk where he was getting ready to put my information into the computer. “What? What? You mean the concussion in October wasn’t the first time that’s happened?” He was shocked.
“Uh no! I’ve been fainting and falling like this for thirty years,” I said. “Isn’t that why women go to the bathroom in pairs? If one falls off the pot, the other can call for help?”
I was serious about that inquiry.
My doctor was beyond confused. “Why didn’t you say something about this years ago?”
“I did,” I protested. “I told the cardiologist when I was working in the ICU I had these spells where my heartbeat flipped out of sync. He told me it’s not unusual for people to have transient irregular heartbeats. He looked at me and said I looked pretty good and not to worry about it. I don’t want to be whining about every little thing I have that’s wrong with me. Shoot! I’d never quit complaining.”
What a sweet thing to hear Dr. H say, “I think you’ve got neurocardiogenic syncope, and you need to get that checked out ASAP.”
I was amazed to think there was an actual name for what I was experiencing. I wasn’t alone in having fainting problems. The outcome of that conversation resulted in a cardiology appointment where the doctor ordered medications to help with my low blood pressure and heart rate. The medications weren’t effective for me, but it was a sincere try.
I fell off the toilet time and again in the next three and a half years. Many episodes resulted in a dreadfully embarrassing and expensive trip to the ER via ambulance. The emergency medical service (EMS) guys would burst into my bathroom and find me in a sweaty, disheveled, half-dressed, disoriented mess. They would then transport me to the hospital again where symptoms could at least be managed.
Food and I had a mostly hateful relationship. Just about everything I ate made me nauseated and caused intestinal spasms. I would come home from work at night, drink a glass of milk, take my meds, and go to bed. I was inadequately nourishing my body, and while I didn’t know it at the time, milk is not my friend and actually was doing more harm than good.
I had a colonoscopy around this time, and even though I was heavily sedated to the point of unconsciousness and the pain was supposedly blocked, my gut was so ravaged and inflamed that my body was trying to get off the table. My GI doctor told me he had never seen that happen before.
I was always praying, asking God to fix me. I had a home to run, a family to care for, and a job I loved, but my continuing health issues were royally getting in the way of how I wanted to live my life.
God answered those prayers but not in a way I expected. I found He does not answer prayers, fervent ones, halfway. When I told Him through song and prayers to “take my life and let me be consecrated, Lord, to Thee”—oh boy. The hour before the dawn is the darkest. And the “hour” doesn’t mean sixty minutes when it comes to God’s perfect timing.
God has also actively controlled the circumstances and people necessary to tumble me head over heels into my worst nightmare where I heard:
“I cannot deal with you.”
“I am helpless to do anything for you.”
“Why can’t you just be okay?”
“Why can’t you just do your job?”
“Why are you the way you are?”
“Pull yourself together. You’re such a mess.”
And I was abandoned by those who were not meant to stay.
I believed my life would never be different. I believed I would always be in pain and, worse yet, falling short of expectations that I not be ill.
Emily and Andrew, my two youngest children, at eight and ten years old respectively, were out to eat with my dad and me one evening. As we sat in the booth waiting for our food, we could see a bunch of teenagers goofing off in the parking lot. One of the guys picked up one of the teen girls to show off his male prowess. He was carrying her in his arms, racing around in circles, while she laughed herself silly and begged him to put her down.
Andrew turned back to the table and asked my dad, “What are they doing?”
My dad said, “Being silly. Guys do that when they’re young and dumb. Married men don’t carry their wives around like that.”
Both of my kids said simultaneously, “My dad does!” And Andrew added, “He carries my mom all the time; only she’s not laughing.”
Sigh.
I was sick and tired, really sick and tired, of being sick and tired.
By the fall of 2010, my health grew worse, and my ability to cope exhausted itself.
I felt it would be better not to be here at all than to be continually creating frustration, anger, or disappointment in those I most wanted to please. I was failing miserably. Even more insidious were the doubts that my prayers mattered or that God was listening or cared. It certainly seemed as if He couldn’t be bothered with me, and maybe He was even terribly disappointed I had turned out to be such a wreck. I wondered if He thought I was all “wrong” and if in spite of all of the wonderful blessings He had bestowed, He wished I were different and better too.
I am now fully convinced that the silence of God in that hour of need was His blessing in disguise. Hello! I had threatened to check out and somehow quit life—not just my job—if He didn’t keep His end of the bargain and make my life manageable.
I judged my life as expendable if I couldn’t be fixed. I was at the end of my rope and my resources. There appeared to be no hope.
God didn’t just allow my trials to linger, but I fully believe He created the perfect storm in December 2010. All the pressure I had been feeling mounted and crashed in with an unprecedented intensity.
At work seven babies under my mantle of care were miscarried or stillborn, and I met with all of their families in my role as a bereavement specialist. Emotionally it was an incredibly taxing week; a typical week had around three or four preterm deaths.
Thursday rolled around, and I got caught on the OB floor with a family whose baby passed away. I needed time and patience to be with them while they grieved and worked through their options for the color of blanket, design on the outfit, and who they wanted to be present for delivery and afterward. In the hours after the baby’s death, making decisions was critical to their well-being in the moment and for the rest of their lives. Providing ways to make memories helped alleviate some regret and couldn’t be accomplished quickly. I was sweating bullets because I was not able to get to the time clock in time to punch out until two hours after my allotted time was up for the week.
I went home that night with a crushed spirit. In spite of my best efforts to scramble and get the job done—and done well—in the given time frame, I had failed.
On Friday I was dreading a call from my boss telling me I had blown it one too many times. I didn’t feel as if the hospital directors or the managers who reported to them cared about the reasons I was over my allotted time. All that mattered was the fact that I was. It didn’t matter that I had tried.
I was in such despair. My gut was aching and spasming. I couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep.
The call from work I was praying for didn’t come. I wanted someone to tell me I had been forgiven for the hours I was over or to tell me I had blown it for the last time. I had no resolution on either front. The pressure valve was firmly in place, no leaks allowed.
On Saturday I tried to put one foot in front of the other and attempted to homeschool my younger kids. My nine-year-old sat back in her chair with her arms folded defiantly across her chest and huffed, “I don’t know why you’re even bothering to try and teach us. It’s not like we’re learning anything.” This was not a new criticism. Good grief, I had been a mother for twenty-one years and endured many a look or comment about my being the world’s worst mom. But that day it was the last straw—a light straw to be sure, but the camel’s back was already breaking.
Late that afternoon, Mark and I had an argument over an extended family dinner that I did not want to attend. I felt my health issues were considered an undue burden to them,
and I had been told I wasn’t carrying my end of the load and Mark was doing more than his fair share. A few of his family members had expressed irritation over my weaknesses and the ongoing drama of my being in and out of the hospital.
I didn’t just have burdens; I was a burden.
Mark didn’t know how fragile I felt or how inaccurate I was when evaluating my ability to contribute or be productive. I was in pain, and even worse, I believed I was a pain. The certainty that life would never be different loomed over my soul and made me desperate.
On the spur of the moment that evening, I decided to get in the car and drive. I went west. About sixty miles from home I pulled off into a truck stop parking lot.
I sighed as I turned off the engine. I was going to sleep, and I was going to wake up in heaven.
I reached in my purse and found the bottle of Ambien. I fiddled with the cap and spilled out a handful. Just before I swallowed them, I wept, and the little girl inside of me said, Jesus, please don’t be mad at me.
God was not done with me yet even if I had decided I was.
I woke up several hours after I had swallowed about thirty of the sleeping pills. The front of my coat, in addition to the car seat and door, was covered in vomit. I didn’t slip away and go to heaven in my sleep. Instead, I had only made things worse.
I was still too drugged to drive but not fully conscious enough to realize it. Only God knows how I did it, my fingers fumbling about, but I managed to completely wipe everything out on my phone except for my home phone number. I called Mark and managed to tell him what I had done, but I couldn’t process what he was telling me.
I drove down the road while talking on the cell phone. My vision was impaired to the extent that all was blackness when I tried to focus my eyes on the road ahead. But I had a little peripheral vision and was able to see a road sign off the passenger’s side of the car. I told Mark what the sign said.
I Will Love You Forever Page 10
