Coming back!
Funny how life can sneak up on you.Little more than three weeks ago, I awoke at 4 a.m. with crushing chest pain. Heart attack maybe?
At the hospital I bypassed registration and landed in ER attached to wires and IVs. Not my heart. Massive infection of gall bladder. Partially collapsed lung. No warning that didn't look like my flu and pneumonia of weeks before.
From the la-la land of modern pharmaceuticals I spent four days getting well enough to even have the needed surgery, and another seven bed-bound and hot-wired to modern medical before I could come home.
I remember feeling a small warm hand in mind in the anesthetized post surgical days, my eldest granddaughter, warm and loving. Daughter and granddaughters perennially there. The eldest promptly moved into my home to help "take care of grandma" when I, weakened and still very hurting, returned home with a stitched up body.
And when that beautiful girl would hold my hand as I walked, I remembered how I used to hold my aging mother's hand, often weak, ever more frail, and how she used to tell me how warm my hands were when wrapped around hers. Time shape-shifted around me, and for a moment I was my mother.
I'm still young, and young at heart, and this unanticipated illness will pass, perhaps not as quickly as it would have 20 years ago, but it will pass. I will be back to my bouncing (okay, I really don't bounce -- not my style) and active, energetic self, perpetually busy studying, learning, working, writing.
But the view from the other side of the bedrails, the experience of being helpless, at the mercy and under the care of everyone else for one's most basic needs, is humbling. I think I would rather be the caregiver. I've been one for so many years.
A minister and good friend of mine succinctly suggested that I "let someone else have a turn at helping" and with those words in mind, I graciously accepted the help and kindness of family, friends and strangers who have been there for me through this unexpected physical trial.
In the corner of my mind, though, I still can't wait to regain my independence and mobility, and return to my familiar role as the "helper."
Comments (1)