Seeing is Believing

We didn't even really believe, my husband and and I, so the tragic events turning out with a happy ending were nothing short of LIVING proof of His mercy.  Why He chose to bless us back in 2000, I will never fully know here on this earth, but as the clock continues to tick and each year passes, I begin to see glimpses of the plan God must have had for us back then.

Fast forward to this past weekend when I was able to spend some quality time visiting with some dear friends of ours Billy and Sherri. When we moved to WV, Billy and Sherri were two of the first people we met as we quickly signed our little five year old up for pee-wee football (and before anyone comments on the dangers of signing a  five year old up for football....it's WV guys, football sign ups are a requirement to continue living here:) and Billy was his coach.  They probably don't realize it, but initial contact with them was just another sign to us that we had made the right decision by moving here.  They were immediately added to our ever-growing list of over the top nice people we would eventually call our "football family'.   But over the last few months, tragedy struck these guys as they found Billy fighting to survive in the hospital. Watching them go through this has kept our events so close to my heart these past few months.......

On a cold early December day in 2000, The Protector and I rode to the hospital for his outpatient procedure.  The doctor had already assured us that this 45 minute procedure would be in and out, he could recoup over the weekend and be back in his business suit by Monday morning.  That is why I laughed it off when we passed a hearse and a chill ran through The Protectors spine and he made some ridiculous comment regarding dying. 

"Oh please," I scoffed at him, "I have been with you for over 8 years and have never seen you with so much as a cold, you will be fine!"

I was so convinced of this, that it never occurred to me to worry after an hour passed in the waiting room and no one had come to get me.  When the second hour passed I naturally just assumed there had been a delay in the surgery.  By hour three, people began leaving the waiting room to go see their loved ones and were replaced by new surgeries that were coming in.  I tried to contact a nurse or anyone who could help me, but received no response.  The day wore on until, after hour seven, I was the lone person in the waiting room when the surgeon finally arrived to tell me the simple explanation...the surgery had been a little more difficult than he had originally thought, and he finally had to stop, but my husband would have to spend the night and the procedure would be finished first thing the following morning. Naivety has always been one of my good or bad traits, depending on the situation...in this case, it didn't work so well in my favor.

I returned home to grab our six month old baby girl, K from the neighbors and we settled in so that I could start all over at the hospital in the morning.  I arrived before the surgery because I most certainly wanted to see the Protector before he went in.  To this day there are probably skid marks on that hospital room floor where I stopped upon laying eyes on my husband.  The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade had been a short couple of weeks before, we had been there, but here lay my over the top healthy husband so swollen, that if I had tied a string to him, he surely would have floated all the way from Massachusetts back to NYC.

"He is fine," the doctor assured me, "he just has some fluid left over from the surgery, but we are going to take him back in and complete what we started yesterday."  I did mention I can be naive right?

On the bright side, I didn't have to wait seven hours this time.  On the not-so-bright side, he looked even worse when I was finally able to see him.  Fourteen years later, it is difficult for me to recall certain specifics, I just remember next was the realization that his kidneys were not functioning, AT ALL.  He had gone into complete renal failure.  I called in his brother because at this point, I needed help figuring out what to do.  What I didn't know then because I didn't really believe in God, but I do know now, is God was about to use The Protectors little brother in a big way.  See, they were both businessmen at the time (these were my hubby's pre-Protector days), and his little brother JP had just had a BIG business meeting with the head of nephrology (kidney specialist - I didn't know what this was either at the time, and frankly, could have lived without learning a lot about a lot of things I was getting ready to learn about) at a major Boston hospital.  So JP put in a call to this doctor while we waited for the hospital we were in to take care of our loved one....the problem was, they never did.

Hiccups.  That is what was doing us in...renal failure and 24 hours straight of the hiccups.  Who gets the hiccups for 24 hours straight?????  Apparently someone whose pancreas has shut down gets the hiccups for 24 hours straight because that was what happened the next day.  My gut told me something was really wrong..JP's gut was telling him the same thing..The Protectors gut was just saying "CAN SOMEONE STOP THESE HICCUPS ALREADY???"  And yet, at some point, the hospital deemed him in good enough health to go home and come back for dialysis on a regular basis until....IF..his kidneys began working again.  JP said no way.  The doctor he was talking to in Boston wanted my husband transported by ambulance so that they could re-evaluate what might be going on with him.

At this point, all of my husbands many siblings and his parents were always at the hospital with me, and I couldn't keep pushing K off on the neighbors because I slept at the hospital every night.  My parents lovingly flew to Boston to get her and took her back to Florida with them.  We were without our baby girl for the first time in her little life, but honestly, I knew she was in good hands and I don't remember once having the time to even think about it.  And my parents could not have gotten her a moment too soon...I headed to Boston, and on the radio came our wedding song, "You Are The Love of My Life" by Sammy Kershaw.  I cried for the first time since the ordeal had started.  I suppose I should have prayed or something, but it never crossed my mind.

We had traveled to a different hospital thinking this was just going to be a second opinion of all that had happened.  Siblings went home for the night, I got as comfortable as possible in the hospital chair I would call home for another night (I know, who am I kidding right, there is ZERO comfort there!) and I began to relax a little, for one second maybe, before I heard "Babe?"  at least I thought that was what I heard...I looked over at The Protector and he was holding his throat.  He mouthed the words, "I CAN"T BREATHE" and his face was full of panic.  At least when the pancreas shuts down, you get the hiccups as a clue.  When the lungs stop working, there is only ONE horrible sign.  In what was way too long for my liking, they got him in ICU and on life support, his entire body was shutting down and no one could tell us why. It was with great dread that I called my brother-in-law, who had just finally settled into bed himself, and told him he was going to have to come back to the hospital.

The days that follow all sort of blur together to me...teams of doctors were working on my husband, but no one had any answers, no one knew how to fix him.  Days turned into weeks, we finally had out of state siblings fly in at the request of the doctors because it was not looking good at all. People kept telling me they were praying for him, and that they had other people praying for him, and I knew this was a kind gesture and I would nod my head and smile and say thank you.  The ultimate prayer came from my father-in-law.  Having already suffered the tragedy of losing two children, Grampy hit his knees and begged, "God, please don't take another one of my babies." But I am ashamed to say, even after hearing that, I never prayed at all.

Christmas was well on its way.  It looked as though we were going to be stuck there forever, so I went to the corner CVS with one sister-in-law and we bought Christmas decorations and decorated his ICU room, even though he was unconscious and had no idea I was doing it.  Snow storms came and went, but I never knew the difference as I stayed in that ICU or took occassional strolls around the hospital with a sister-in-law or two. And just when it seemed like it could go on forever, the doctors asked for a special meeting with JP and I because she knew we were the main two there in charge of my husbands care, even though previous doctor meetings had been briefings with the entire family.  We included one other of my husbands other sisters in on this meeting because she was still at the hospital that evening.

 "We have done everything we can." the doctor began, looking directly at me to be sure I was understanding her words, "We do not know what is causing this and we do not know how to heal your husband.  Tomorrow, we will be taking him off of life support and it is our belief that he will not make it."

I honestly do not even remember what I thought.  I literally went numb and can only remember that, as soon as the doctor walked out of the room, JP jumped up and yelled, "My brother is NOT GOING TO DIE." 

I left them both and wondered the hospital until I found my favorite place to sit.  A long bench perched in front of a wall made of glass. I came here often because I imagined it would be the Protectors favorite place to sit due to the fact that it awarded the perfect view of the Citgo sign and Fenway Park.  The sun had almost completely set and I remember thinking what a beautiful view.  Instantly I thought, who could have made such a gorgeous sight as the colors in that sunset, and I KNEW that it was God.  And in an instant I knew how important all of those prayers were, and in an instant I knew I had to say one myself.  I had never prayed before, so I did all I knew to do, I bargained.

"God, its me, if you will save my husband, I promise I will wash away the me of the past 8 years and be the best wife possible.  Amen"

In an instant, I knew I believed.

 John 8:58

“Believe me,” said Jesus, “I am who I am long before Abraham was anything.” (MSG)

If you stay in ICU long enough, everyone sort of becomes like family, so it was with great sadness that I awoke the next morning to find out that the gentleman in the room next to ours had passed away.  As I tried to comfort his wife at the elevator, JP suddenly rounded the corner, his arms lifted triumphantly in the air.  Apparently they had tried to take The Protector off of life support while I was out of the room, and, as suddenly as he had stopped breathing, he began breathing all on his own.

We went home on New Years Eve, almost a full moth after the first out-patient procedure.  Mom and Dad flew to Boston a few days later to bring K back home to us.  It took weeks and weeks after that for him to fully recoup and return to a normal life.  My life would never be normal again, for although I didn't commit my life to Christ after the harrowing events of that December, I saw Him for the first time, and I began what would become over the next two years, a walk that would save me from hard times yet to come.  I had seen the mercy of God in a time when I didn't even believe in Him and His mercy changed my world forever!

The Worst WV

One of my husbands sisters lives in FL.  She recently relayed to me how she had come across some bad news in an article down there about how West Virginia had been ranked the #1 WORST place in America to live!!!!!  I love that she had been here to visit and seemed perplexed by how “Almost Heaven” had obtained such a title!

But this got me thinking.  I didn’t see the article myself so I had to imagine what criteria must have been drummed up for WV to be looked upon in such a light…so, I made a list of things that it must have been to cause us to be named the worst place to live:)

1.        The People:  Our first night living here, The Protector had to run to the grocery store 2 minutes away for one item.  It took him well over a half an hour.  When he returned home and I asked what took so long, he replied “The people in line in front of me talked to the cashier for twenty minutes, and THEN they pulled out their checkbook!”  I won’t lie to you, it took him a while to slow down to the pace, and now, more often than not, when he is in the states, I find it is him holding up the line at the grocery store because he wants to talk to everyone too!!!!  Another WV phenomenon...... it is to be expected that a minimum of ten people a day will wave at you when you are driving around in your car, it does not matter that they don’t know you from Adam….they wave anyway.  FYI, proper West Virginia etiquette is to wave back.  Oh, but wait, these aren’t bad things, so that can’t be why we were named the worst place to live right?

2.       The Traffic: Yes, this must be it!  There are a million people in this entire state after all.  And do you know that every single day I find myself in a “West Virginia Traffic War”?  Never heard of it?  Well, they only occur at intersections, four-way stop signs and the like.  Two people inevitably pull up at the same time, then, two seconds later, they each wave each other on, “You go first” the wave of driver one says, “No, really, you go first” driver #2 replies with his wave.  The minimum length of time for a West Virginia traffic war is at least a full minute before one person finally concedes with a smile and a nod and moves on about their day. Oh, shoot, this isn’t a bad thing either….hmmm, going to have to keep digging to find the real reason behind this ranking.

3.        The High Cost of Living:  We moved here from Massachusetts in 2008.  At the time, we rented an adorable renovated barn here to live in.  Three bed, two bath, two story…maybe about 1500 square feet on 8 acres of land.  We paid LESS for that rental than we paid in Massachusetts in 1993 for a one bedroom apartment complex apartment that was about 500 square feet.  And our new house?  Half the taxes as we paid for our home in Massachusetts.  Gas is also cheaper, so are groceries, and, oh wait, I am doing it again aren’t I?  No one determining the “Worst place in America to live” could use this data.  Let’s move on.

4.        The Beauty:  I think I figured it out!  Maybe the author of the article doesn’t like curvy roads, even when those curvy roads lead you around the most majestic mountains and rolling hills this girl has laid eyes on since traveling to Ireland.  Fields of cows, sheep, goats, always with a backdrop of mountains lingering like something out of a movie set.  Eye-popping red barns, antiquated old barns falling apart at the seams, and it all goes and on and on as far as the eye can see.  That must be it, the author of the article must be a beach person, unable to have his breath taken away as so many do when they visit here for the first time. Or as I still do each day when I drive the children to and from school.

5.      5. The Pride:  It still gives me goosebumps to live in such a place…a place where people say “I am from West Virginia” as though it is a badge of honor..and if you are out of state and you run into another West Virginian, well then, you have made a friend far from home.  This past weekend we were at a band event for my daughter in a town an hour north of here. The band conductor introduced himself as a transplant, an Army brat, but mentioned that his father had been from WV.  He reminisced of how, growing up on an Army base, his dad would point at various soldiers over the years and say “That there is a WEST VIRGINIA boy!” and in honor of his dad, he had the band play “West Virginia Hills” as he read the words..and I know that I know, that I KNOW I was not the only one in the room that evening with goosebumps going up and down my arms!  But pride isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least not something worthy of being called the worst place to live, right?

 Well, I have explored every avenue I can think of, exhausted all of my options, and unless I am missing something, I still haven’t found a clue as to why we could be named the worst possible state to live in.  The Protector said it best.  One day, we were strolling along the Greenbrier River Trail (one of our favorite things to do when he is home) and we ran into a couple whose accent sounded surprisingly similar to my husbands.  “You aren’t from around here.” He said to them.

“I was just getting ready to say the same to you, “ the gentleman replied, “New Hampshire, how about you?”

 “Massachusetts” The Protector replied. 

“So, how do you like it here?” New Hampshire asked.

“”I have lived all over the world,” hubby replied, “and this is the ONLY place I have ever lived that has taken me in.  This state literally took me in and wrapped me up!”

I can’t think of another state that would take my Northern man and wrap him up with such southern hospitality that he would call it his favorite place in the entire world to live.  So, maybe being named the Worst State in America is a blessing in disguise…maybe articles like that one will keep people caught up in the WV stereotype and “Almost Heaven” will forever be protected from growing to be like the rest of the country.  And THAT would be GREAT news!!!

Stepping Up

I have a confession to make..and I believe it is a confession that most of you can relate to.  In the first 33 years of my life, I bet I attempted every diet known to man.  This included prescription diet pills in junior high, the low-fat craze of that era where a can of spaghetti-o’s was a staple because if I ate that with a salad, there was no fat involved (to this day I cannot even LOOK at a can of spaghetti-o’s without wanting to gag!).  As an adult, I tried Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers….I have done it ALL!!!!

Medically speaking, I am guessing my metabolism is as confused as can be.  Personally speaking, I stopped believing the giant lie that I was fat years and years ago.  Spiritually speaking, I know God wants me to eat right and take great care of myself.  How do I know this?  Because He TELLS me that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Now, do I always take great care of myself, NO, absolutely not.   I do not smoke.  I do not drink alcohol. I do not drink any beverages that contain added sugars to them, I am blessed to have not had to take any prescription meds for the last fourteen years, and I study healthy eating…A LOT.  We live in the second fattest state in the country guys!  I get really weird looks from folks when I tell them that the only fast food my children eat is Subway and Wendys, because at Wendys they will get chili or a baked potato.  Fast food literally makes my kids sick and they have realized this all on their own.  I totally allowed them to order hamburgers and fries, I simply ask that they listen to their bodies after, and once they did that, they stopped all on their own.

So, I don’t eat horribly, I don’t think I am fat, and we do a lot of basics around this house to make sure we stay healthy…so what is the point of this article?  I could continue the current line of thinking “Ok, we live in the second fattest state in the country and my family, well, heck, we are doing pretty good with this nutrition thing.”  And the instant I think that, THE INSTANT I tell you, God says to me, “Yes, but you aren’t doing what I tell you to do, you are not taking it all the way.”  And I know this….

I exercise, just enough to say I am a steady exerciser.  I eat right and study nutrition just enough that I know a lot about it.  But never, ever do I hold myself up to the standard God has put on my heart and actually go full throttle the way He has told me to do.

So friends, it is time for this blogger to step up to the plate (or in this case, maybe step away from the plate…lol!).  It is time to stop accepting the norm and push myself to what the Lord has called me to do.  Won’t you join me on this journey?  Hold me accountable day by day and share your stories here with me so we all know we are not alone, so we all know we can do this!!!

My game plan for now is this..NO SUGAR is my number one priority.  There are so many evils surrounding sugar that I don’t even want to go into all of that here. It is a medical nightmare.  As I go cold turkey on sugar, I will substitute with honey and stevia everywhere possible.  My next priority will be kicking the diet soda habit.  I know every last possible bad thing that can happen from drinking the three to four Splenda filled sodas a day that I consume. I am addicted to it. I do not like the taste of coffee or tea, so this is my caffeine of choice and I must break the habit….join me as I learn to do this.  Cold turkey doesn’t work well for me on this one, I have tried, and failed, a million times over.

And exercise……I have always been a walker.  I LOVE to walk and on a good week, my goal has always been to walk 15,000 steps a day.  Suddenly in January, The Protector (my hubby) challenged me to begin running.  Did I mention I love WALKING?  As much as I love walking, I hate running just as much.  But I wanted to be up for the challenge for him.  Our time together is so precious and this was just another thing we could add to our to-do list of things to do together…why have him go out for a run alone when he wanted me there and we have so little precious time together to begin with?

I kid you not, the first day we hit the Spartan High School track, this family of four, the mighty Spartans themselves would have laughed at my pathetic attempt, but I was doing it.  By golly, it was the first week of January and I was truly going to start anew, only, not only could I not make it around the track one entire time, neither could our eleven year old, hulking lineman of a football player son.  It was then and there I knew I had to do something.  Luckily, as I watched the Protector sprint around the track as though it was nothing for a 50+  year old to move in such a manner, I also watched the gazelle like legs of our 14 year old daughter and praised God that she had it in her to follow her daddy and do what he was doing.  But my son, he was watching ME and I had a big, big lesson to teach him, momma could DO THIS!

The next time out, I went a little further, and the next time a little further.  As I sit here, eight weeks to the date I first began, Spartan track no longer intimidates me, and twelve times around is my norm..yes, that is THREE MILES for those of you keeping count…three miles for this run hating, exercise loathing, crazy forty-something mom.  And our son…he goes and goes and goes.  I haven’t seen him tackle three miles yet, but he is in school all day and I am running the three miles while he is in school every day, so the chances we get on the weekends, he has improved to well over a mile and I think that is awesome.  I watch him push himself and I think, “Wow, where did he learn that?”  Then God says, “You know, he just might have learned it from watching you.”

So, I am stepping up my game folks, holding myself accountable to the Lord to do what it is He has asked me and given me the strength to do.  I don’t have so much of a weight goal in mind, I have a “get as healthy as the Lord would have you be” goal in mind.  I am not taking measurements.  I do weigh myself once a week out of curiosity, and am down three pounds since I began running in January..woo-hoo, bonus! The Protector has challenged me to a 5k the next time he is home. One thing that keeps me motivated is to imagine the pride on his face when he sees this woman he has been with for 23 years cross the finish line of a 5k…then I will IMMEDIATELY challenge him to a 10k for the next time he is homeJ  No sugar is a goal, no preservatives, and thanks to my beautiful niece Alex, I have dropped the lifetime fear that weight lifting will make me look like the female version of Rocky Balboa ,so as I learn, weights will also be thrown in there…who knows, maybe when I grow up, I will decide to be a personal trainer:)

 

I sincerely hope ya’ll will join me on this fun ride to be the best we can be for the Lord..he only gives us one body guys, one life, but praise Him, He is the God of second, third and fourth chances, so I am jumping on this one!