Last Things in Hospital

Finding Mental Balance:

Every thing spiraled downhill fairly rapidly.  Go in for a fever.  Find a blood infection. Debride and then amputate the foot.  Possible heart condition. Overly salinated, etc., etc., etc.  It seemed like if something could go wrong it did.

My normal response to pain, fear, or any unpleasant experience is humor.  I try to find the humor in everything.  Sometimes it comes across as inappropriately dark, but I figure it is better to laugh than to cry.   At times, I won't say what I thinking out loud because I figure people wouldn't understand, but I am ROFL on the inside.

One of the fun things I did was nickname most of my doctors depending upon their characteristics.  I had so many doctors that I couldn't keep track of their real names, but I could remember their nicknames.  One was named, Field Marshall.  He gave orders and they were carried out with military precision. Another I named Flounder because like the fish he was hard to get to move off the bottom.  One I named Ralph Waldo Pickle Chips, that name is hard to explain, but if you ever saw the old movie, "State Fair", he was the pickle judge.

I also rely heavily on my Christian faith and trust in God to get me through. Boy, I was being challenged in this one.  I'll let some of my later posts explain this more, but I will tell you one thing that helped me get through.  I couldn't sleep at night so I would put on my headphones and listen to my MP3 player.  I had a long playlist of christian music that would last about 5 hours.   As I was listening, one song struck home and became my theme song.  Casting Crowns has a song called, "Praise You in This Storm."  I would play that song over and over and over again.  It is about a person caught in the storms of life and he express that he thought that by now God would have rescued him out of the mess--but it is still raining.  In the midst of the storm, he hears God's voice saying "I am with you."  The song declares that God gives and takes away.  My help comes from the Lord.  I was living this song!!!  At night, I would play this song with the headphones on and sing at the top of my lungs, interspersed with sobs and tears as I trusted God and submitted to His will.   I usually don't raise my hands in worship, but with this song, I would raise my hands to the Lord.   My room was near the nurses station so I know they heard me.  You know how you sound when you sing with headphones on--maybe you don't know--but your friends know what you sound like--and they agree that it ain't pretty.  But I didn't care.  That song helped me reconnect with God, re-calibrate my faith and trust in Him no matter the circumstances.

Here is the Link to "Praise You in the Storm"  http://youtu.be/MUWbmtbzDno

Discharge:

I was told that I might be discharged on Friday, December 6th.  Flounder and Pickle Chips were hesitant and thought I would have to stay longer.  My surgeon felt like I might be able to go home on Thursday.  That sounded like wishful thinking to get all of my doctors to agree to an early discharge.   One concern was that I needed to stay in the hospital to continue my IV antibiotics for several more days.  I agreed that if discharged, I would return to the clinic for an IV treatment for as many days as I needed.  On Thursday about noon, my nurse came in and said that I needed only one more doctor's signature for my discharge.  She told me to get ready and she would track down the doctor and get him to sign off.  Within an hour we were discharged and started for home.  Free at last!!