Part 1 - Unanswered Prayers
Part 2 - Surgery and Recovery
I do remember that I was in pain, I do remember being embarrassed, I remember not being able to do things I wanted to do. But I don't remember how any of that felt. I don't ever re-live those negative aspects. What I do remember was the way everyone in my life at the time cared for me. What I do remember makes me feel so very loved.
Looking back, I am incredibly grateful to so many people in my life. This experience gave them an opportunity to show me how much they loved me in tangible ways, and when I remember my scoliosis surgery, mostly I just remember the way they cared.
1. My Dad - From the initial diagnosis to the final day of surgery, my impression of my father was that he never stopped researching, he never stopped asking questions, he never stopped advocating for me and making sure I got the very best care. I remember him ordering several boxes of books from Amazon and wondering why he didn't just get them from the library. I saw them sitting on his desk, flipped through, underlined, with sticky notes, and while I felt nervous about what the books said, I felt loved and safe knowing my dad was so thorough. I remember him going to meet with the surgeon with a leather notepad with multiple pages of questions to ask. When he didn't like the answers, he found another surgeon and got a second opinion, and we went with the second one. I didn't want to do the second opinion because I didn't want to go to any more doctor's visits, but of course he was right. He took care of me, and I will never forget that. I remember that as I think about advocating and caring for my own children.
My dad shows his love by his actions, and I have never had a moment of doubt about how much he loves me.
2. My Mom - who surely put up with all of my teenage sulkiness, took care of me while I was recovering, took me to all my appointments before and after, and never gave me a hard time about giving her a hard time (which I'm sure I did). I think it's the nature of mothers that we're never sure exactly what all they did for us, but we know that we would miss those things if they weren't there. She was a constant. She took care of the house, homeschooled all three of us, and found time to wait on me for weeks as well. And then as soon as I really could be doing school, she reminded me of that fact and brought me my textbooks where I sat in my armchair and pushed me so that I wouldn't fall behind.
When I think of going through something like this with my own kids, I am overwhelmed at how hard this must have been for her. I am a complete mess if my daughter has to have a blood test, so I am just so impressed that not only did she go through this with me, but she kept it together and was there for me both physically and emotionally the whole way.
3. My Aunt - My aunt was my own personal nurse while at the hospital and then for weeks after. She made me fancy drink charts to make sure I got my 8 cups of beverages in each day to keep from getting dehydrated, and she managed to make that fun somehow! She looked over my prescriptions and caught things that weren't right and got them changed. She told me that I could get up, that I could walk around, that I could get up and down the stairs, and I believed her. She was there constantly through that time.
Some of my fondest memories are of swimming laps at a rec center with my aunt after a couple months had passed. I wasn't ready to start dancing yet, but I needed exercise, so we went and swam together several times a week. It was a wonderful thing to do for me that I still remember today.
4. My Siblings - They managed to treat me as if nothing had happened, with the exception of they were extra nice to me for a month or so and brought me stuff so I wouldn't have to get up. That's exactly what I needed from them. I came home from the hospital on Christmas Day. I know my surgery messed up a year of Christmas traditions, but I don't remember hearing about it from my younger siblings once. They were so understanding.
5. My Family - All of my extended family members were incredibly caring. I remember that instead of celebrating Christmas on Christmas Day that year, we had our traditional celebration on New Year's Eve. No one acted like anything was different, and from what I remember, it was a wonderful Christmas. Everyone was there for me, sending me cards, asking how I was doing, and giving me space when that was what I needed. I really have a great family.
6. My Friends - I had wonderful girlfriends at the time who came and visited me and watched movies with me and treated me like nothing had happened. When you're a teenager, that is exactly what you want from your friends. You want them to be there, and you want them to be normal. And my friends were great! They did acknowledge it, and they did care for me, but they also treated me exactly the same and came and spent time with me when I couldn't go out and go to them.
7. Jonathan - Although I didn't know my husband well at the time that I went through this, we were dating when the final part of this story came about. My senior year of high school I had to make the decision to cut back on how much I was dancing. I had been able to keep up and continue with dance training to that point, but when I started trying to dance 10 or more hours a week, my back couldn't handle that and I started to experience very frequent back pain. I had to stop. I had to come to the realization that I should not major or minor in dance in college. It was incredibly sad for me, and I grieved for this loss for months. Jonathan was there for me, letting me cry and rant about how unfair it was for hours, listening, encouraging, and even taking ballroom lessons with me while we were in college to get me my "dancing fix." Even though this all happened several years later, it is part of what got me through the total experience, and I am so thankful that God sent me such a supportive man who was such a good listener when I needed him to be.
While I didn't want to go through this experience at all, while I prayed to God to miraculously heal me, while I still struggle with the reality that we all face - that life is not fair - I am grateful that God chose to heal me in his own way, using normal, every-day means. Through this experience I have been given the gift of so many tangible, meaningful memories that show me how much the people in my life care for me and love me. I wouldn't have the good memories without the negative experiences.
It can feel impossible at the time of any particular struggle to think about feeling grateful someday for the experience, and there are probably many situations where that may never happen, but sometimes, with enough perspective, things can look different. God is all about redeeming the bad things that happen in this life and working good things out of them. That doesn't mean he causes the bad things, and that doesn't even mean he likes them. It just means that he is bigger than them, stronger than them, and can continue to work in incredible ways despite them. What an incredible God we serve!
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