It’s been over a year since I penned the last post. If you need to catch up.. go here, then here, then here, then here, and finally here.
All caught up?
So you know then that I fell asleep at peace, knowing I had been able to write my final thoughts for my babies. Our son was 2 1/2, and our daughter was 3 weeks old, being cared for by Todd’s Mom and my Mom, and my sisters, and church family. I could bawl thinking about the way our Camarillo community , and San Diego community rallied for us Tolson’s, with meals and child care, and donations, and prayer. It was too much, and just enough all at once.
My husband would come to the hospital every day, hunt down doctors for more answers, get mean male nurses fired from my room, bring me copious amounts of grape juice, pray with and for me, wash my hair every few days in a basin.
I don’t know if you know what love looks like.. but your 25 year old husband washing your hair, toweling it dry, and combing it gently while you lay helpless. That. It looks a lot like that.
Dangit.. these “I almost died” posts never fail to make me cry.
He told me that every night he would go home, and hold our kids. Newborn on his chest, and toddler by his side, and he would try to imagine what life would look like… raising those little squishes without their mamma, and he without his wife.
Because, we, all of us, me, husband, and all the doctors were planning on me dying. The doctors didn’t think the blood thinners/antibiotics/etc. would work. They were running blind on my case. Todd and I discussed my funeral wishes, and how soon it would be appropriate for him to get remarried.
For the record, it was to be lavendar roses everywhere, dance party Jesus songs.. oh, and he’d better wait at least a year before even thinking of dating.
Things got real up in that Critical Care hospital room.
And it went on that way for 2-3 weeks. Hubs would hug and kiss me goodbye every night, and we would both wonder if we would see each in the morning. I grew up in a faith based family. But St. John’s hospital is where I met the real Jesus.
He was with me when I wrote my goodbyes.
He was with me in a dark hospital room, my only earthly companion the beeping machines.
He was with me every time the docs gave us bad news.
He was with me for every painfully invasive test, or scary prognosis.
He was with me 3 weeks in, when I went down for an MRI, and it was discovered that my 3 foot blood clot had dissolved down to a few inches in each leg.
He was with me when Hope stirred, and we realized that going home was a possibility, and I might get another chance to be a wife to my husband and a mom to my babies.
He was with me when I realized that He loved me enough to save me. I didn’t feel worthy of His salvation, which is silly. Who am I to argue with whom God calls worthy?
He was with me when, nearly 4 weeks later, I was released from the hospital, with doctors declaring it a miracle. It was the day before our 4th wedding anniversary.
When someone has such an obvious victory, you would think that everyday would be a bright and shiny, I’m alive happy place. That gratefulness would never leave, and joy would be ever present. Yeah, it should be, but it doesn’t always go like that. There are definite moments of that sparkly space, but reality hits, and life is hard, and sometimes miracles are forgotten.
I still have two blood clots in each of my legs. They form a sort of upside down Y. This means I have very bad circulation in my lower extremities. Standing hurts. Sitting hurts. Walking a short distance hurts because the blood can’t move fast enough. I can never physically have more children. Because of the vast amounts of radioactive iodine that was injected into my body, my thyroid is completely dead, as in a non-working metabolism.
But I have to decide everyday that I won’t live there, in the place where everything is negative, glass half empty. I can’t live there. I went through all of that to learn something. I am alive. I can breathe. I can move. Every anniversary of that fateful ER visit, I am reminded that I am a walking miracle… a very slowly walking miracle, but hey.. I’ll take it.
Done. You happy? 😉