Good and Bad Days: We All Have Them

Matt. 13:48 (KJV) “Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.”

Good days and bad days: we all have them

I’m sure we all have our good days and bad days; we know they’re bad when things go wrong and we see them as good when everything falls into place like a row of dominoes. While yes, I admittedly suffer from PTSD, I myself see more good days than bad and to me, they are all positive steps toward my healing. 

Jer. 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

As home slowly becomes more familiar to me, I feel the healing in the core of my being. The first few weeks though, of being home, felt like an unending carousel ride. That very first Monday I was Mrs. Popular in that everyone wanted a piece of me. I had calls from the home health nurse, the physical therapist, my oncologist office and the Cancer Center’s radiation office. Emails were sounding in from my mother in law wanting to come see me, sister in law auntie and uncle, everyone wanted a piece of this broken woman and how do I tell them all to just SHUT UP in a polite manner? 

My first Monday morning was an assertion day, I was going to take hold of my surroundings, my activities, and my appointments. I was not going to be TOLD to come here, or do this or do that, I would tell THEM what I was willing to do! I was going to take back what I lost!

First up, the home health nurse, Mandy, the woman I had only met on that day I was exiting in an ambulance, yes, she could come. Physical therapist, yes she was allowed. The oncologist? I’ll see you sometime next week. The radiation nurse, I asked if it could be put off for a week as I regained my bearings now that I was home. They were fine with that, setting me up the following week for my two (week) five-day sessions. Ten treatments in all to the healing left femur.

The emails were more targeted to my husband than me because it hurt to type on my laptop. I didn’t have a bend and stretch out mobility, I had a stiff-as-a-board-lay-there-and-be- good, semblance. Computer stuff would have to wait for a spell. I’d send out a 'hey' to friends and let them know I was still alive and as I knew they would be, they were more than understanding and just happy to know I was home. 

Monday was going along smoothly except for me missing my husband who had to go to work with worry on his mind trying to remember if I was set up well enough to be alone. Since we fibbed a little to get me home, I assured him I would be fine, and I was. As scary as the surroundings were, I was HOME and that was good enough for me! 

Now keep in mind, I had not bathed in twenty days. A wipe-down at the hospital but not a thing at the nursing home! Not a wipe, not a rag, nothing! I even used my own kleenex when I had to do my business. So when my mother-in-law wanted to bring his uncle to the house because he’d be ‘in town’, I had to say no way! I was not up to ‘visitors’, I needed to HEAL. I needed time! It all felt so rushed and the kaleidoscope began with its pretty colors and I was getting dizzy.

She said she understood but could her friend from church bring out food? I think she mentioned cookies or something. I told hubby to gently say, NEXT WEEK! Dang. I loved that everyone was so concerned, but I felt like the people who just lost a family member and friends would clamor to come over and bring food at the most inopportune time. Not to be rude but please send love, condolences and give them some space and time. Not a month, just breathing room. Please, don't turn this into how you lost someone and loved those people doing that for you. I appreciated EVERY bit of stirring also. I was suffocating and I needed to BREATHE! 

All appointments set, I slept. I slept and slept some more. Now it was time to move onto healing. The home health nurse brought me a hair-washing cap. You place it on your head, rub your fingers intensely and voila, your hair is water-free washed. It worked marvelously! She supplied an ample amount of body-wipes, and hubby he produced a bucket of water and a rag where I felt refreshing water on my face for the first time in twenty some days! Moving right along. 

I did have the nurse in tears, not bawling because they need to maintain distance and composure in their job, but her eyes were brimming at the sad painful story I’d tell. I had to get it off my chest so each person, professional or family, my story spilled into their ears and leaked from their eyes. They were shocked, then amazed at the strength I carried. I made it perfectly clear it surely was not me, it was God that they saw IN me! 

My healing was nothing short of astonishing to all who were witness to me. The radiation nurses saw me go from gurney to wheelchair within a week. From assisting me onto the slab to minimal help to no help needed at all. This was happening in a ten day period of time! 

My oncologist even showed signs of wonderment at my speedy recovery time. Not only my Oral Chemo and blood cell count healing time but my physical mobility healing time. All were displaying awe and wonder and were quite vocal in letting me know that this was nothing short of amazing. Doctor’s will not touch the ‘miracle’ label, but here I was, in their face, a living breathing healing miracle!

So as I have good days and bad days, it is all a part of the intricate veins of healing. People sometimes think healing happens in the blink of an eye but they need to know and understand how to appreciate the time and effort that goes into producing a work of wonder. Noah’s Ark wasn’t built in a day, the great Pyramids didn’t appear out of thin air and Jesus Himself took nine months to make a physical show. One step at a time is truly meant to be one breath at a time, and it is never our time, it is always His time. 

All praise and Glory to God! AMEN! 

Ecc. 3:11 (NIV) “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Settling In...PTSD

1 Sam. 10:26  "And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched."

Settling in...PTSD

Settling into my home was not as easy a task as you’d imagine. Happy-go-lucky Joni was a shell of a being. The nurses had noticed in the hospital and nursing home, and they didn’t even know me, the physical therapists saw it, and my family just assumed I was sad. No, the trauma I had experienced was a little more than depression or sadness, it had all the earmarks of PTSD.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not a light analogy of depression or sadness, it is a severe trauma that is triggered ever so lightly by sounds, pictures, faces, or names. It is a fear so intense that not even the Light of God Himself standing beside you can wash away, it is THAT severe. People who don’t have PTSD will never comprehend the magnitude of pain a person suffers through.

Last year is almost a complete blank to me, except for the trauma. Have you ever opened an MS page and saw a blank screen staring you straight in the eye and you felt a trembling panic for a few seconds not knowing what you were there to write? Every morning I open my eyes a blank page lay before me; what I put on that page shapes my day physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. What people say or do become triggers like a bullet waiting to be tapped and released from the barrel, words can shoot a person down. Without even knowing the triggers, friends, and family set off a ticking time bomb inside the psyche of a person suffering from PTSD. Anger, fear, frustration, guilt, and shame all become an open floodgate in the way of tears streaming down my face at any given time. At home, the doctor's office, the physical therapist office, or even in the food store, tears unleash without warning.

When my home health nurse noticed my PTSD along with my physical therapist, I was put in touch right away with a counselor. While I liked Dee, she was more about telling me her story than hearing mine. It was fine because that is the kind of front I put up, I’ll help you, you can’t help me; it’s an unbreakable barrier. I basically thanked her for listening and sent her on her way as I cringed inside. I was broken.

I could see the pieces of myself scattered on the floor. I wanted ever so much to take a whisk broom and scoop the particles onto a dustpan and toss them in the trash but I was immobile, disabled. There was no scooping going on any time soon. I would sit in the silence of the house, meditate in the quiet of aloneness, and pray to the only God I know and worship. Only He could get me through this, in time. HIS TIME, not my time. Here we go again.

Settling into my new surroundings would have me fearful of nightfall. Sounds would ricochet off the walls while shadows would pirouette. You would think that home was familiar surroundings but to me, I felt as if I was an orphan dumped off to this house with a family I didn’t recognize.

As the fragments of my life lie on the floor, images of last year shine like a mirror swaying in the sun, blinding me as I see good and bad portions flailing about. This trauma was not a phase I was going to laugh my way out of as if nothing bothers me. Each step I take would be like tiptoeing in a minefield, a trigger to tears or to laughter, to pain or to joy. I don’t have a choice in the matter, I just tread lightly and make every day a new day, every step a step toward healing.

God's time is not my time as I stroll along the healing path. I’ll endure the steps I needed to take to get me to the healing sea where I will eventually take a luxury dip and swim like a fish in open waters. Right now I’m still in an saltwater aquarium awaiting release in the open sea. God tells me ‘patience’, ‘faith’, and most of all ‘TRUST’, and in Him is where I’ll find my healing. The Joni I remember is still there in the windowed world… it's just going to take some patience, faith, and trust to find her again.

Lam.3:23 "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

Rehab Story Continues: Mistakes Happen

Pss. 112:4 “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.”

Rehab Story Continues: Accidents Happen

As I said in the last post, my chemo meds never arrived after my hubby waited all day for them. After visiting me on Friday, he went home and placed a call to the online pharmacy where we get the chemo meds from. Turns out, the order was NEVER PLACED by my doctor’s office. So he went ahead and placed the order, they would now not arrive until the following Wednesday. Go ahead, you’re allowed to let your jaw drop. If me taking this Oral Chemo is so important, what on earth happened with the ordering? I don’t even think my doctor's office gave us an explanation. Hey, accidents happen, right?

Anyway, here we are on Saturday. My son would come before three if he had a 3-11pm. shift,  six o'clock after Steven left if he had an 11-7am. shift. Now with my son in his new apartment, he was closer to the hospital by about twenty minutes. His place was safely tucked right up the road from the Home, and a good thing because when hubby locked his keys in the car, my son still had a spare key from when he drove my car, to be able to just run the key up to the Home.

I thought Saturday would be a rest day in the Home, but no, the Phys. Therapist arrived about eight o'clock (before breakfast) to assist me in my fifteen minutes of physical therapy. Yes, you read that right, fifteen minutes of PT. I took it upon myself both at the Hospital and the Home to do PT throughout my day on my own. I was determined to make it to that commode without assistance! Back home, when my brother injured his hip his PT therapy sessions were well over an hour, he told my mother. Not for me, I get fifteen minutes. 

My son came and went for a visit by three, and hubby arrived for his visit after he got off of work. He works right up the road too, so no sense in going home, out of the way, when we had such short visiting time. I told him how my meds were never on time and asked if he could bring me some from home. Pain is pain as everyone knows and we NEED something to relieve the gnawing grip. If the Home wouldn’t supply, then my meds from my home would!

This would be my first weekend here and already I’ve seen differences. Well, the obvious is that the Administration nurses were off for the weekend and the young aides were left to fend for themselves. This home had a North and South wing, around thirty residents to each wing, two aides to each wing. It was under construction so the rooms were doubled up with patients, meaning four to use one bathroom, if they were able. They still needed a nurse to assist no matter what.

The cries in the hallway were deafening, the lady across from us kept yelling, “Can someone help me to the bathroom?” What seemed like forever the woman kept being told, “In a minute.” Then there were the televisions blaring, the visitors who thought it would be a good idea to bring their six-year-old to a nursing home, not knowing if it would traumatize them for life! Then the elderly men playing some kind of video games where beeps and whirs echoed.

Ray was in her wheelchair when she called for the nurse to get her into bed. It was about seven o'clock. The aide came in and told her, “Ray I’ll be with you in a minute, we have a situation out here. We’ll get to you as soon as we can.”  I saw no use in telling them that I needed to pee because I know I’d get the same thing. We’d sit and wait. We talked. I tried keeping the conversation light but Ray unleashed some bitter traumatic stuff from her past. I listened. Then she grew angry as her pain was heightening from being in the chair for too long. She pushed the button again, eight o’clock and ticking, the aide popped in with the same words but added, “Please be patient, there is only TWO of us on duty for North AND South, and lights are lit all over the place. Bert fell out of his chair and we have urine all running down the hall, it’s a mess out here, literally.” You could hear the pill cart being wheeled down the hall amid all of the commotion going on. She closed the door and left.

Nine o’clock came and here we were both still needing a tending to, Ray still in her wheelchair, in pain and I in my bed helpless against helping. Ray was now crying, and I too was silently allowing tears to stream down my cheeks. “Ray,” I cried out, “I am not going to sleep until they take care of you.” She sniffled and said, “You don’t haft ta do that. You’re tired too.”

“It’s okay Ray. I’m okay. I want you to be okay!” It was the best I could offer seeing I’m as bedridden as her, except she was left in her chair.

“I’m thore,” she cried. Her lisp could sound so endearing at times. It broke my heart. “We’re frendth aren’t we?” 

“Yes, Ray, we’re friends.”

A smell started permeating the room and I said nothing but knew, Ray had gone to the bathroom in her diaper. I could hear her mumbling under her breath how she had *expletive* herself and wanted to be transferred to another facility and how she paid to be in this place and they are PAID to take care of her.

She hit the call button again, it now being nine-thirty. “We’re almost there Ray,” a head popped in to say, “just a couple more minutes.” and the door closed. Ray was now sobbing loud and I tried so hard to comfort her but I myself needed comfort at this time.

This was hell. This is what the hellfires felt like surrounding you and you clawing to get out into some fresh air but you’re smothering, suffocating from lack of oxygen. You could feel your limbs going numb, sweat now pouring from your forehead. The screams now constant whispers as the echoes were in your head, tapping you on the shoulder mocking you and laughing saying, ‘I’m still here.’ 

The door swung open and a loud sigh came from Laura, the oxygen was leaking in, slowly, it was now ten-fifteen. “We’re so sorry,” I allowed her words of explanation to drift off as they finally tended to Ray. She needed two nurses too since she had to be placed in bed with a lift. She had sat in her feces almost two hours and she was extremely sore by this time.

One nurse came to the other side of the curtain to tend to me and I sat with my gait belt in place ready to be lifted. Only one nurse was tending to me, I said nothing when she appeared with no gloves or gown and she proceeded to lift me. I twinged in pain, “Easy please, my hip, it’s still sore from my recent surgery.” With some assistance from me, she lifted me to standing, I tightly grabbed my walker, as she let go of the belt. I said, “Oh no, please, you have to hold the belt until I’m seated, this is how my femur was broken in the first place.”  

I whispered as tears were now rimming my eyes, “Please, please be gentle with me.” She took hold of the belt and as I was almost seated, she let go. I almost plopped onto the seat but my strength and my prayer placed me gently on the commode. She just stood there, waiting for me to pee. A watched clock never runs, but my floodgates opened from holding it in for hours!  

I had my own Kleenex because they offered me nothing. I was ready to be placed back in bed. Again, amazon woman lifted frail 88-pounder me by the gait-belt, I pivoted and sat on the edge of the bed, I told her I could make it from here, I was good, go finish up with Ray.

Ray kept telling them that I ‘Thtayed awake for her’  and that I wath her real fren. I smiled my tears away and lifted my legs onto the bed. The nurses bid us a good night and wouldn’t you know it, the meds from the charge nurse finally arrived. With meds down the hatch, we both let out a sigh of relief.

“We made it, Ray.”

“We did, didn’t we! You thtayed awake for me. Thank you!”

“Not a problem Ray, we’re friends.”

"That’th right, we are. Okay, goodnight.” She was out like a light before I even got settled into bed.

I had been texting my husband the entire time we waited for the nurses/aides/whatever. He was calling left and right to the front office, he as helpless as I was. “Goodnight, Ray,” I whispered as I shut off my little nightlight.

Matt. 14:14 “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”

My Story Continues: The Nursing Home

Pss. 136:1 "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever."

The day came where it was time for me to be transported to the Nursing Home/Rehab center, I cried for more than one reason, I was losing all the familiarity I had for ten days, the closeness of the nurses and physical therapists was something I hadn’t expected. I think that was the reason they changed nurses every single day. The rotation of nurses didn’t allow for intimacy to grow between patient and nurses/physical therapist etcetera.

The Tuesday morning came when I’d await the arrival of my ride to the nursing home. No gurney was necessary because I was now semi-mobile in a wheelchair and I was commode mode so setting me loose was what my insurance called for. My husband and son were not allotted the time to look around at rehab places because conveniently a room had opened up for one woman, at St. John’s, I would be the one woman that the insurance insisted I take. 

Sadness, anxiety, and fear had all crept into my being as I was loaded on the van lift and taken to the nursing home/rehab across from the hospital I had called home for ten days. Gone were the days of very regular delicious meals that arrived between six and seven a.m., twelve and one p.m., and the dinner at five to six. Water refreshed and medication, always on time. The hospital was now a thing of yesterday.

My husband and I were escorted to the entry hall of the Home. A nice carpeted room with overstuffed chairs lining the walls, a fake fireplace was the central focal point and it looked cozy enough at a glance. We were met by a small older-than-me woman with tight curly blonde hair and a nurses uniform hugging her petite body.

“Welcome, Joni, let me get your vitals and we’ll wheel you down to your room.” 

I sat silently gazing off into space wondering just where it was I was being left. The vitals were fine and off we went, down a crowded hallway with patients lined up against one wall and equipment lined on the other wall. The patients looked helpless, hopeless and immobile, looking at me as if I was an alien that landed smack dab in their territory. 

I’ve been in nursing homes before so I knew kind of what to expect, but I honestly thought that there was a rehab wing that separates the long-term patients from us short-term patients that were just here for rehab. This was not the case. You’re not in Baltimore anymore, Joni. Back home my grandmother was placed in a similar facility but the long term/ short term patients were not together. The nurse I’ll call Bird because to me she resembled Big Bird but much smaller, she was the one who was in charge of the nurses on staff, her office was where we came in the door at and she met us there. 

I was wheeled down the hall as Bird explained that they were building a new wing to the home and for now the patients were being doubled up in rooms until construction is completed. Lucky me. Room number twelve is where we paused and she announced it as my room. Outside the door had a name and the picture of the tenant and below her was my name with no picture, just the note on the wall CHEMO PATIENT! Chemo protocols necessary. Gait belt needed.

I was wheeled into a tightly packed room of the current tenant. The room was about twelve by twenty-four, and I was wheeled back to the window where my bed was set and a side table all in about six feet of space. A commode was sitting against the wall where there was a bureau with a television on it. The home did not reek of the normal nursing home odors, for now anyway, so that was a plus.

My husband looked at me with pain in his eyes. He was horrified of the place where he had to leave me, where we had no options. This is the place where Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, also known as PTSD would set in. There were two metal chairs in the corner and I thought, at least I can have two visitors. I was already traumatized by the whole broken femur and surgery, now this. The story continues.

My husband went to work in getting my flowers from his truck to place in the window for me and to bring me my blanket that the church ladies made for me, he wanted it to feel as nice as the hospital environment but knew full well, this was not the environment neither of us envisioned. The comforter that currently covered the bed looked old and wrinkled and the sheets had a clean but well-worn look also, but I wasn’t here for sheets and blankets, let’s move on. 

“Will you be dining in the cafeteria this evening with the others?” Bird lady asked.

“No, not tonight, thank you.”

She went on, “Dinner is served at six in the cafeteria, and if you eat ‘in-room’, you have to wait until the others are back in their rooms. About seven your meal should arrive.” She was looking at her clipboard, “I’ll let you get acquainted and come back.”

Eyes filled with brimming tears I whispered, “Thank you.” My date with hell was beginning.

My son entered the room. He was finagling his time between work, moving into his new place, and visiting me often at the hospital. Husband and son were both trying to get back to a routine of working and visiting me after work. My husbands only problem was that he needed to be home before dark since he cannot see at night to drive. My son would stay until seven maybe, if he could, then it was me, all alone in what felt like an asylum. 

My husband ran off to the store and came back with a new quilt for the bed. He was not leaving me in that mess. Both husband and son went to work to make the place comfortable for me as evening was drawing near. My commode was set next to my bed on the left in a tight space with the curtain of the other tenant pressed against it. On the right of my bed sat a nightstand and the wheeled tray? That barely fit in front of the nightstand. 

I was still basically immobile, I could not bend my leg and the pain was still evident with each move. I did wonder how well I would be taken care of here. The tears...puddled the floor only to be dried by the sheet hanging down off of my bed. 

The night was closing in and the goodbyes were the hardest thing any of us have ever been through in our lives together. I would be alone. Alone in the dark, only sounds of the echoing hallways would be heard and all that the hallways held in them. I would be strong for my two guys. I would be out of here in no time. Right? I have to be.

the story continues...

"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!” Psalm 57:7 (ESV)