If you know me well, you know that my mind is always spinning. My physical activity, or lack thereof, is no indication of what is going on in my brain. I am in a constant flurry of mental action during every waking moment and often in my dreams. For example, I spent all of last night in a never episode of Lost minus the blood. There was no fighting, but the constant issue of food appearing in weird places was the theme. I should not have started counting calories. It's warping my psyche. Anyway, I digress.
A year ago this week, my back went out. This is usually a sign from God that my stress level is too high and I am pushing myself too hard. This year, God is slowing me down in a different way. Bart is having neck surgery and I'm going to have to play nurse. Not in my skill set for sure.
For those of you who haven't known what is going on, Bart hurt his neck a couple years ago pulling a Christmas tree that got caught in a door. He never saw anyone for it (although, as I'm sure you know, he was encouraged to do so by his never-nagging, always-caring wife). Fast forward to last November when you might have known about him falling out of the bathtub and landing on now dead Gizmo, though his landing on him had nothing to do with the dog's death. Anyway, he hurt his arm and shoulder, and once again, despite the gentle nudging of his loving wife, he didn't go to the doctor... until about a month ago when we both finally went. Him for his shoulder, me for my back.
The results were awesome for him. Temporarily. He got a shot that immediately fixed his shoulder pain, but then his neck started to hurt. He followed through with physical therapy for his shoulder, and after the first appointment he was in more pain than I have ever seen him in. So by the second physical therapy appointment last Wednesday, when he described his pain and everyone went into "Oh crap we are going to get sued" mode, things started happening fast. They got him in to see the shoulder doctor in Lynchburg who is booked solid for months by 8:00 the next morning. The following morning he had an MRI and then on Monday he saw the neck specialist. His pre-op is tomorrow and surgery is Tuesday.
The surgery involves cutting his throat as they are going to approach the neck that way, so we have made several jokes about him getting his throat cut. I know, we're weird.
I realized yesterday that there are times in life when God wants us to slow down. He knows we need it and may try to gently nudge us, but sometimes we don't listen. So while I don't believe God causes bad things to happen, he uses those bad things to get our attention and make sure that we are taking time to be still, slow down, and recognize that He is God and we are not.
My typical response to all this is to get even more stressed out and internally spin more than ever. This time I'm going to try something new. For next few days I'm going to remind myself to be still. I'm going to consciously choose to stop spinning and learn what God wants me to during this time where speed will not be helpful.
But if Bart says to me one more time when I'm helping him with some routine chore, like putting on his socks, "You didn't do that right.. You really shouldn't change careers you would be a horrible nurse" I might have to smack him.
Because, after all, just because you have a pain in your neck, doesn't mean you have to be one.
That was clever. I'm funny.
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