Since I committed to pen this account of my fall and rise, I have a new appreciation for authors who summon the nerve to pen memoirs or autobiographies.

Reliving an experience is taxing enough but admitting your own behavior during your time of trouble means showcasing your flaws and fears, when our daily practice is to keep them hidden.    

In an earlier segment I mentioned that when a debilitating event occurs, you bring everything you are and have into the situation with you. In that context, I suggested physical health and pre-arranged legal decisions were matters which should be tended to sooner rather than later.

There’s another side—the emotional and mental.

Quite frankly, I had intended to skirt around my woebegone state during my hospital stay but changed my mind in the interest of truth in reporting.  

Here are the main internal trials I dealt with.

Let me add up front I am thankful my stressors were minimal compared to what some people have endured, and minor compared to how serious my difficulties might have been.

Personalities are different, to say the least, so you may find my concerns and reactions bewildering. Nevertheless, here’s what I struggled with.   

Change in routine. I’ve never been formally diagnosed with OCD, but I thrive on order and schedule.

I do not possess even one microgram of spontaneity anywhere in my being. Even though I no longer leave home to go to work every day, I still get up at the same time every morning. I never set an alarm…I just wake up…at the same time.

I won’t be so tedious as to go through my morning schedule of “brain training games,” exercise, and Bible reading, the same breakfast every day. But suffice it to say, being off track bothered me.

My routine gives me security…or perhaps nurtures the illusion of control. Whether or not that is a good thing, I am still trying to decide.   

Loss of control. I could not make the simple choices I made every day — when and what to eat, showering, washing my hair in the morning, taking a second shower at night.

I put on make-up every day. I iron my clothes every day.

Why? Because eventually, I have to walk by the mirror, and I like to be well put together. I think better if I’m “ready to meet the day,” and thinking clearly is essential to me. I also want to be ready to walk out the door, should anyone (i.e. my children) call and need help.  

Worst of all—going to the bathroom was out of the question, and due to all the restrictions on movement, was at times very difficult to achieve…lying in bed.

One nurse assistant came in to check on my fluid output and remarked on my lack of progress. He agreed it could be difficult at times and summed it up this way:

“Your whole life you’re told not to wet the bed, and now that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Sense of confinement. As I’ve had no formal diagnosis of OCD, I have had no formal diagnosis of claustrophobia either. However, being in one room, piled around with “stuff” and what I considered clutter (necessary medical equipment I won’t list or describe) was vexing.

Let me be clear: the room was kept clean. Housekeeping came in every day. The nurses kept order. My daughter Heidi straightened up every time she walked in, and kept me as straightened as possible, too. She brushed my hair and kept me in clean pajamas (my own cotton pajamas she brought from my house). She made sure I was able to brush my teeth several times a day.

Put all the above factors together, add discomfort, uncertainty, a drug-induced malaise, and confusion, and I soon realized why a person in a hospital is called a “patient,” because that is the mental state required.

I like to think outwardly I did pretty well in this regard.

I tried not to pester the nurses unless I was in abject misery from the incision throbbing or muscle spasms or being cold. I learned their names and asked personal questions about their families or, “Did you always want to be a nurse?” (I received a surprising variety of answers.)

We are a family that doesn’t take ourselves too seriously, so eventually, when my children visited, we found things to laugh about. My grandchildren brought in artwork and stuffed animals to cheer me up. Friends called or texted.

One of my favorite messages was from a longtime friend who sent this quote: Winners are not people who never fall, but people who never quit.

After a week, it was time for me to leave the hospital. I could have gone to a rehab facility, and I considered doing this…mostly because I could barely move, was completely helpless, in pain, fuzzy and weepy from medication, and yes, embarrassed about the way I looked, the way I was acting, and the fact that I had become “dependent” and “needed help” before I thought I should have.

Pride? Yes, certainly. And pride is good. Pride will get you out of bed in the morning, (and turn you around to make it) and send you to the closet for clean clothes, and to the bathroom to brush your teeth and comb your hair.  

After some discussion with the physical therapists, we agreed I would go to the Cross home the next morning.

And so it was on February 10, my 72^nd birthday, I woke up to hospital exit protocols. After breakfast, I went as usual to physical therapy. The staff brought me and another lady a chocolate cupcake, and those present sang, “Happy Birthday.”

Heidi came and began packing up. The nurses came in and explained how to take care of my incision, and reviewed medications. Proof that I could manage a trip to the bathroom was scheduled and observed.

After goodbyes to the nurses, off we went, me in a wheelchair, and all my stuff on a cart. Heidi went for the car, and after I lowered myself in, the orderly lifted in my poor legs.

My son Aaron met us at the house, and he and Heidi helped me up the porch steps. I straggled down the hall on my walker to the living room couch and eased down.

It didn’t take long for us to begin calling the house The Cross Rehabilitation Center, which some people thought was “real.”

The five weeks I spent there will be highlighted in the next chapter.

Why is this segment titled “Timelines”?

Because: as I’ve aged and wondered how my circumstances and situation might change…I decided (I know this sounds arbitrary and to some degree just plain silly) I would go on exactly as I was till I hit 75. Then I would begin to think about any adjustments I might need to make.

One night while I was lying delirious and befuddled in my bed, I said to myself, weeping, “I didn’t know this would happen so soon. I thought I had longer,” by which I meant I didn’t think I would have to ask for help of any kind till I was 75, but here I was…72…and three years ahead of schedule on my self-imposed Timeline.  

It sounds ridiculous even as I type.

But don’t we do this our whole lives long?

We say, for instance:

My child has to walk…be potty-trained…read…etc. by—whenever. (Every kid is different, and no age is “the” age for a milestone.)

I have to graduate from college in four years.

I have to get married the summer after I graduate from college.

I have to be in my career…own a home…buy a car…retire by—

Setting goals is good.

But our timelines may be different from what God has planned for us…different from other people’s…change as our lives unfold…

When the timeline was right, God put an end to Job’s suffering; He freed the children of Israel from Egypt; He blessed Hannah with a son; He let Naomi leave Moab to go home; He let Jeremiah out of prison.  

Best of all, when the timeline was right: God sent forth His Son. Galatians 4:4-7

God is charge of timelines.

And aren’t we glad He is?