Music Through the Pain, Part 2

I honestly don’t remember a lot of what happened during that first week of being hospitalized. I do remember being awakened all through the night for blood pressure checks and lab draws and injections in the abdomen to prevent blood clots. I do remember the pain, and trying to bear it for as long as I could before asking for pain medicine, then sinking into that dark and comfortable place of oblivion where there is no pain. I do remember being gotten out of bed early every day for the long wheelchair ride to Radiology for daily Xrays.  15 seconds notice is what I would receive, as my door was swung open and the light switch flipped on. So off I would go, hair a tangled mess on my head and with my NG tube pressing uncomfortably on the back of my throat. We would pass the hallway where the cafeteria is located, and the smell of bacon and coffee would entice me as we rode past. When the pain would ease, I would realize I had eaten nothing since the previous Monday and was hungry.

Each day, the parade of doctors would begin; sometimes there were minor role changes but not often. Each of them asked the same questions as they pressed on my tummy,  and each of them had a slightly different version of what had happened to me.

Some of them thought I had an intestional obstruction but some of them thought I only had peptic ulcer disease and part of my intestines were "asleep". So I was put on IV medication to heal the ulcer I may or may not have. One of them thought I had pneumonia, so an IV antibiotic was added to the mix, along with a cunning little plastic contraption for me to breathe into every hour.  They all agreed that I had developed diabetes, so insulin injections 4 times a day came to be part of my life.  And they all agreed that the Xrays from day to day looked ? a little better or ? the same. Meanwhile I was dreaming of red jello and inventing recipes in my head before I went to sleep every night.

I lived on ice chips to slay the thirst dragon but after a few days I grew very weary of them. Summer would swab my mouth with little sponges dipped in diet coke, and promised to bring me the biggest one she could find as soon as I got the green light from the doctors. She came every day to bathe me, gently washing me and helping me turn, powdering and lotioning my skin as if I were a newborn, brushing and braiding my hair to minimize the tangling. She was tireless, even spending the night sometimes to allow her dad to go home and get some rest. I have no words to tell you how it feels to be cared for by the same hands that you once held, or how it feels to have your child read to you the same books you once read to her. There is a role reversal that happens so subtly that it almost defies explanation.

My beloved husband came every day, while maintaining things at home too. He spent most nights with me, and I would sometimes wake in the night to feel his fingers intertwined around mine and hear him praying for me.  My sweet Sissy came every day and stayed with me as long as she could. Other than that, I have a recollection of lots of people coming to the door and being stopped by Summer as she advocated for me, telling them gently that I wasn’t up for company or that I was in pain or that I had just thrown up.

There was one day during that week that my doctor had the nurses remove the tube down my throat, and said I could cautiously try some clear liquids.  The first thing on my menu was beef broth, and I had never tasted anything so delicious. I didn’t want to overdo things, so that was all I had.

The smile is real; I was honestly feeling better and thought I was mending on the inside. However, this moment was short-lived. The pain gradually began to return, and by evening there was no denying that I was in trouble again.  When the nurse came to tell me the tube had to be replaced down my throat again, it was almost a relief.  This time the tube was bigger, and stiffer and scraped the back of my throat until it bled, but it was finally in place and reconnected, as tears of pain and despair rolled down my face.

As evening came on, I slipped into another kind of darkness. As the pain wracked my body and I was no closer to being healed, I began to ask God to take me home. Not home to my cabin by the woods. Home. My heavenly home.  This part is hard to write about; I had lost the ability to see beyond this temporary physical pain, and only knew that I didn’t want to hurt any more.

Everyone had left and gone home except my faithful Sissy, who sat by my side and held my hand while I cried and writhed in pain and begged God to take me home. I truly meant it, and just as Jacob wrestled with the Angel of God, I sensed a wrestling match of some kind taking place in another dimension.  God had brought me to a place where I could have let go; I can’t explain it except to say that it would have been so easy to have turned loose and slipped from the bonds of this world and into the next.

I sensed His Spirit standing in front of me, with a stream of running water between us. With Him were two smaller individuals whose features I couldn’t make out; it was as if I were seeing them through ripples of water or fog.  I remember asking Him again to please take me home, and His answer was "But you have grandchildren on the way….."  Somehow I knew that these little individuals with Him were the spirits of my grandchildren yet to be born; they were waiting until such a time as He would direct them.  My heart grieved to touch the

m and to hold them, but my physical body was wracked with unbelieveable pain.

I was jerked back to the present when the nurse gently touched me on the shoulder and asked me if I would please take some pain medicine. The vision was gone, and I knew that my decision had been made. "Yes, of course," I told her, and that is the last thing I remember until the next morning when I was awakened for my daily Xray. But the vision has remained with me, along with the overwhelming knowledge that ultimately it was my choice to return. There are at least two little spirits that are waiting for their perfect timing, and I think when our eyes lock for the first time, both of us will remember that moment in another world when we met before.

To be continued…….