Prayer and Healing, Faith and Fear

Devotional Thoughts, Sunday's Sermon 0

I last posted on Sonderjourneys in December, and since then it’s become pretty clear that I’m having more mini-strokes, something that the Coumadin was supposed to prevent. Unfortunately, it’s not terribly clear to the doctors what to try next. I’m currently being referred to a specialist, who will spend next week reviewing my case to decide whether or not to see me. Meanwhile, I’ve had a headache for the last 14 days. It may be a tension headache, since heat and relaxing do help, but it’s not going away. What if it’s a sign that something’s wrong inside? And it started right after a very short dizzy spell that may have been a mini-stroke.

I’ve been having my Quiet Times the last couple weeks in Luke 8, where Jesus does four different miracles. On top of that, the sermon topic of the last two weeks at church was prayer. Last week, my Home Group all prayed over me. Also, after church the prayer team prayed for me, and then the pastor and the elders prayed over me.

So I’m thinking about prayer and healing, about faith and fear. I thought I’d try articulating some of these thoughts.

First, Jesus deals with each person very differently. Calming the storm was very different from driving demons out of the possessed man which was very different from healing the woman who’d been bleeding for 12 years, which was very different from raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead, which was very different from healing Bartimaeus. (The first four are from Luke 8. The other is from this morning’s sermon, in Mark 10.) It’s not like there’s a certain formula if you wanted Jesus to heal you. He approached everybody differently.

Second, in Luke 8, it was all Jesus’ fault! Whose idea was it to sail across the lake right when a squall was about to come up? Jesus! And if he hadn’t gone across the lake right then (apparently just to meet the demon-possessed man and return), then Jairus could have gotten to him before his daughter died, and it could have been just a simple, straightforward healing. Jairus didn’t come running to have his daughter raised from the dead. He was hoping for a healing. He comes to Jesus urgently, and you know he must have been anxiously waiting for Jesus to come back across the lake. And then, while he’s on the way, Jesus stops and talks to some woman who touched the edge of his cloak! Doesn’t Jesus realize how urgent this is?

Third, these were truly bad situations. The Bible admits that the disciples in the boat “were in great danger.” These fishermen told Jesus, “Master! Master! We’re going to drown!” As for Jairus, he was told “Your daughter is dead. Don’t bother the teacher any more.” Yes, I think he had good reason to give up.

But the thing that most struck me was this: Jesus said different things to the different groups of people. To the disciples, Jesus said, “Where is your faith?” In Matthew, it says his words were, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” But look at what Jesus said to Jairus! After he was told that his daughter was dead and he might as well give up, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe and she will be healed.”

What was the difference between the disciples and Jairus? Jesus didn’t scold Jairus for being afraid, even though he did tell him he didn’t need to be. But the disciples knew Jesus. They should have known that God wouldn’t let them drown. They should have known better.

So that brings me to this morning’s sermon. John Maulella said, “When my awareness of my need meets my understanding of the character of Jesus, that’s faith.”

Where am I in my spiritual walk? I’m very sure that God loves me. I’ve seen him work in my life and bring great good to me out of truly terrible things that happened. So even if God allows something terrible to happen to me, I do believe that God will bring good out of it. I’ve come far enough with Jesus that if I doubt, He’ll have good reason to ask me “Why are you so afraid?”

Now, mind you, that’s easier said than done. One verse that helped is in Psalms: “Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.” Singing songs can help remind me that I believe I am in God’s hands.

And I don’t know what His plan is with this illness. It would be nice to just be healed. It would also be nice to have the doctors figure out what’s going on and help make me better. In the meantime, I get practice in trust.

Also this morning, I listened to a recording of a podcast a friend gave me of John Eldredge speaking about suffering. He reminded us that in the Bible suffering is not something to be surprised about. Even Paul, God’s point person in reaching the world with the Gospel, suffered terribly.

So how does all this fit together? I’m not sure. But I do want to have the kind of faith that helps me not be afraid. Because I do believe that God is good. And I’ve seen him bring great good out of terrible things. What is He going to do out of this?

2011 Christmas Letter

Letters 4

Greetings to all my online friends!

Here’s my Christmas Letter for this year. Imagine, if you will, the list from my last post as a sidebar, Top Ten Ways You Know You’re a Youth Services Librarian at Heart.

With My Boys, Tim and Josh

Merry Christmas, my Friends!

Yes, I’m a librarian again and loving it! (For 6 months of 2010, I had to work at another agency due to library budget cuts.) At the City of Fairfax Regional Library, where I work now, I’ve also had the chance to learn about doing genealogical research in the Virginia Room.

Tim’s a Senior in high school this year! How did that happen? He’s doing a Research Seminar in Computer Science, taking plenty of AP classes, and has almost finished his college applications. This summer, we got really hooked on playing Dominion together – a deck-building game with lots of expansions. I am not looking forward to an empty nest next year!

I’m afraid the big event of 2011 was that I had a stroke! On the flight to ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans, I slept for awhile with my neck at a bad angle, and had a consistent low-grade headache for a month after. Then, out of the blue, sitting at the reference desk, the room started spinning. It turned out I’d had a cerebellar stroke (balance center of the brain) caused by a vertebral artery dissection (neck injury). Blood rushed to the injury and clotted, and then a piece of the clot broke off and caused a stroke.

They didn’t catch the stroke when I first went to the ER, but I had another episode a couple days later, and that time they found it, and I spent 10 days in the hospital. I feel tremendously blessed to be alive and kicking! I have no permanent disability, though I’m definitely still recovering, and have ongoing trouble with low-grade dizziness. I’m hoping that will leave when the vertebral artery dissection finishes healing (can take 6 months), and in the meantime I’m on blood thinners to keep from having another stroke.

I definitely learned that I have many people around me who love and care for me! Church friends helped in many different ways, and Library co-workers donated lots of leave, so I didn’t have to skip my paycheck. A really lovely side effect was that I spent lots of the summer at home with Tim – for his last summer before graduating from high school.

Just as I was recovering enough to go back to work, my brother Robert got married in Oregon. Tim and I spent a week staying with my Auntie Sue in my grandma’s old house in Salem, and I also got to see Josh, who had recently moved to Portland. All 12 of my brothers and sisters made it to the wedding, and it was a truly wonderful and memorable week.

Here I am with ALL my sisters and brothers!

I do feel very blessed and have so many reasons to rejoice! May you also have a joyful and blessed Christmas!

Much Love,

Sondy Eklund

PS After I wrote this letter, my neurologist did an exam and told me I may have had another stroke, a mini-stroke this time. My eyes don’t track together if I look up and to the right. I’ll have an MRI done next week to find out. So my healing journey isn’t done yet, and that’s my excuse for being so late on my Christmas gifts and cards and letters. But I figure this means that THREE times now, something much much worse could have happened. (The initial stroke was two episodes, with two visits to the hospital, not caught until the second time.) So I am either incredibly lucky or incredibly protected. With all the prayers I know have been offered for me, I’m going to consider myself incredibly protected!

Top Ten Ways You Know You’re a Youth Services Librarian at Heart

Letters, Librarians 2

Every year, I like to make a Top Ten list that summarizes my year. All of these have shown up in my life this year.

Top Ten Ways You Know You’re a Youth Services Librarian at Heart:

10. The only movie you’ve seen this year was the final Harry Potter film.

9. You can’t stop checking out picture books, even though your own kids are way past that age.

8. A highlight of your year was when, on vacation, your 17-year-old son read aloud to you from The Chronicles of Harris Burdick.

7. You have taken telecourses about the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Awards.

6. You are blazing fast reading Fox in Socks.

5. You are unable to refrain from collecting Advance Reader Copies at ALA Annual Conference, even though you’ve recently suffered a major neck injury and can barely carry them all.

4. You have lists of Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Medal predictions and hopes.

3. You’re over the moon when you get a picture with Gary Schmidt (who wrote your top pick for the 2012 Newbery Medal, see #4).

2. You attend KidLitCon in Seattle, for KidLit bloggers, and instantly discover a multitude of kindred spirits.

1. You’re already planning to buy a table at the 2012 Newbery/Caldecott Banquet in Anaheim and began a year in advance trying to talk your siblings into attending.

Silver Falls with Family

Family, Nature, Photos, Waterfalls 2

September 3, 2011 — The day before my youngest brother’s wedding, and the family was gathering in Oregon. On Saturday, several of us planned to go to Silver Falls. That was one place I’d wanted to see, because I remembered hiking there as a child. (You can go behind the waterfall!) We didn’t get going as early as planned, and then one sister and her husband needed someone to take them back early so they could get the flower girl to the rehearsal. I was the logical person to volunteer, since I wasn’t sure how much hiking I could handle, since I was still recovering from my stroke. So I didn’t go very far at all, but what I did was lovely indeed.

Here’s the group that went hiking:

My son and I are on the right. Two sisters went, with one husband. Two brothers went, with one wife. And my Aunt Donna came along, with her son (whom I’d last seen when he was about 12 years old) and his wife and son. So that’s a tiny section of my family, but it was lovely to be with them!

Now, of course, I couldn’t resist taking pictures of the Falls:


Our first view of the Falls. Of course, we had to take pictures!


Here’s my sister Marcy snapping one.


And here’s my sister Wendy.


Getting closer to the Falls…


Forgive me, but I always like taking pictures of leaves lit up by sunlight.


Here’s a view through the trees.


Closer to the Falls, you get more of a feeling of how big it is.


Here’s my brother Randy and his wife Vickey.


And I had to take one from behind the Falls, the thing that thrilled me so much as a child.


Here’s the bridge at the bottom of the Falls.


The Falls were especially pretty from the other side.


This is my sister Marcy and her husband John. We’re now on the bridge I pictured earlier.


And here I am with my son Tim.


Sisters!


A last look at Silver Falls from below, before starting the upward climb.


Tim found a side trail to explore.


Another glimpse of the top of Silver Falls.


I was fascinated by all the moss on the trees in Oregon and Washington. It was how I remembered forests — but hadn’t seen in years. And this set had leaves lit by sunlight as well.


And one final look at Silver Falls, before going back to my Aunt’s house, taking a nap, and then getting ready for the Rehearsal Dinner and even more Family.

It was a lovely day. It was probably good I took the shortest loop, since the climb back up completely wiped me out. But I was very glad to get out and about with wonderful people whom I love very much — but don’t see very often.

Catching Up

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My last post on this Sonderjourneys blog was in the middle of my wonderful Oregon vacation. I didn’t even blog yet about the fabulous wedding, which ALL of my brothers and sisters attended.

The vacation came at the perfect time for me. I was able to sleep most mornings, and get going for the afternoons, which was perfect at that stage in my healing.

One thing the stroke did for me — I’m getting more sleep. Because I have to! One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to get 50 hours of sleep per week, so I was keeping track. Well, most weeks I wasn’t quite making it — until the stroke hit. Now I’m exceeding that goal. Not getting too much else done, but you can’t have everything, right?

I did manage recently to catch up on writing reviews for all the books I’ve read. So now I have 45 reviews to post. And since then, I’ve read more books that I want to review.

All this is to say that life is full these days — so full, I don’t have time to write about it. Let’s see, I still haven’t written about the rest of my vacation, my trip to Seattle for KidLitCon, the SCBWI Conference, a gloriously beautiful drive to West Virginia to track down my murdering great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, another trip to the ER, and some other Autumn walks.

Anyway, I’ll see what I can do. Just thought I’d post about the fact that I don’t have time to post! Now I’ll hit the bed and hope for a longer entry tomorrow….

Washington State!

Family, Nature, Photos 0

I was born in Washington, DC. However, my parents moved back to their roots when I was only a year old, and the first place I remember living was Kent, Washington, outside Seattle. We moved away when I wasn’t quite six years old, so I have a lot of memories that I know were when I was really young, simply because we were living in Washington.

I suspect that living in Washington is where I learned to love GREEN. And oceans and boats (or at least ferries) and rivers and trees and fall color and snow and mountains. When we lived in Washington, we often drove down to visit my grandparents in Salem, Oregon.

Now, more than forty years later, I’m staying with my Aunt Susie in that same home in Salem, Oregon, and today we drove into Washington State.

First, I should mention that yesterday, I got to visit Powell’s City of Books in Portland, and got to spend time with my older son, Josh, who recently moved to Portland. We went out to eat afterward at the wonderful Mamma Mia’s Restaurant. It was food for my soul to have time with both my boys. Here they are at the restaurant:

Now, Tim (the one on the right) is about to be a Senior in high school, so he’s looking into colleges. Once Josh moved to Portland, he thought maybe he should check schools in this area. Well, Josh found a school that sounds very distinctive — The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. They don’t give grades, but instead offer narrative reports, and they also let students design their own majors — which sounds very good for undecided students like my son.

So, we decided to spend the day today driving up to Olympia and back. The excuse was to visit the college and talk with an admissions representative. But a big part of my reason is that I love Washington State and wanted to spend part of my vacation there.

A cool thing is that there was one part of the trip — the same one my parents took many times between Salem and Seattle — that I am absolutely sure I remember from more than 40 years ago. It’s the bridges. The big green bridges. And when you’re going back to Salem, there are several small bridges, but then the great big bridge is the last one, and it means you are now in Oregon, and we’re almost there. (Or at least a lot closer.) I started singing “Over the River and Through the Woods, To Grandmother’s House We Go,” and I actually got a flashback from when I had just learned that song — in KINDERGARTEN! — and was singing it as we went to Grandma’s house in Salem. It blew me away, just the sheer amount of time that passed, and then the memory just burst to the surface. I also hadn’t thought I’d remember anything about the trip — and then I saw those bridges, and so much came back!

I enjoyed the school visit, and they were very friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, Tim lost a screw in his glasses and a lens popped out, so he was alternating between looking out of one eye or not being able to see, poor kid! (On the way back, we had my aunt’s GPS lead us to a LensCrafters right off the freeway, and they fixed it for free.) But I think he got some idea of what the place looked like!

One thing I really enjoyed was walking down a little trail right on campus and being plunged into an old forest, covered with moss. We even saw a deer on campus, behind a building!

I could not possibly walk in a forest without taking pictures, so here are several:

Of course, you have to imagine these trees completely surrounding us…

And you have to remember that the weather was absolutely perfect, sunny but slightly cool…

And the moss on all the tree branches gave it such a mystical feeling, reminding me, again, of the childhood experience of walking in a redwood forest and taking home a piece of wood with moss on it…

And being in this forest felt so RIGHT…

And I found myself thinking, “Now THIS is what a forest should be!”…

So I feel quite confident that my childhood experiences established my concept of a quintessential forest…

And it simply did my soul good to be in such a forest again!

…And would you look at the sheer size of those ferns!

I did surprisingly well at Evergreen. We didn’t do a lot of walking — just the little hike — and I never did get fuzzy-headed. I got a little bit tired driving up, but we made quite a few stops on the way back, so I didn’t have any real trouble.

Oh, and one of the best things about the day was that my son read me stories from The Chronicles of Harris Burdick! We got through seven stories, which is half the book. They are written by a wide variety of authors, and all have something strange about them (as fits the pictures), and it was a wonderful way to spend the time, as we passed through gorgeous countryside.

So, it was a simply lovely day. Absolutely perfect weather, a trip through beautiful countryside, plenty of nostalgia, time with my son, a short hike in a forest, and a good book read to me by someone I love. Wow!

Flood of Memories

Flowers 0

This year, when I found out my brother was getting married the day before Labor Day, I planned my vacation for the last week of the summer, in Oregon. Yesterday my youngest son and I got here, and today we’re really here. I’m still not up to full speed after my stroke last month, so that’s my excuse for being lazy and “resting” this morning, finishing the book I started on the airplane.

But my goodness, the nostalgia from being here!

I was born in Washington, DC, but my parents only lived there briefly. The first place I remember living was Kent, Washington, near Seattle. We moved away, to Los Angeles, when I was almost 6 years old, and I didn’t want to move at all, and Seattle was always my ideal of a beautiful place to live. Part of what I loved about Germany was the weather reminded me of Seattle — nice cool summers, and beautiful GREEN.

So, when we lived in Seattle, we visited Grandma & Grandpa in Salem often — it was only a couple hours away. Then when we moved to Los Angeles, we’d go most summers. Until about the 9th child was born in 1977. By then, I think there were too many of us to take the trip very easily. So we didn’t go so much.

After I grew up and got married, I went to Oregon only twice (until now). Once was with my own family when my now-23-year-old son was a year old, and once again when my Grandma died (but that was by myself). So you see, most of the time I spent at Grandma’s house was when I was a foot or two shorter than I am now. So it all seems much smaller!

On top of that, of course, the neighborhood is much, much more built up. My Grandpa had five acres. He built the house himself and this is where my Mom grew up. It seems very strange to me that now when you look out windows you can see other houses. There was lots of land around it all and lots and lots of trees. So the yard actually is much smaller — it’s not only that I’m bigger.

My Aunt Susie lives alone in the house now, and I’ve been delighted with the welcome she gave my son and me. I’m still recovering, so slept late and read this morning. Then we went for a drive to see beautiful Oregon scenery and I fell in love with Oregon again.

In the past year, three of my brothers and sisters and my oldest son have all moved to Oregon. Mind you, all of these particular brothers and sisters are at least sixteen years younger than me. But I’m afraid I’m a lot more excited about seeing family when they are in Oregon than when they are in Los Angeles! And today being in Grandma’s House has produced such a flood of memories from when I was so much younger.

The Road of Recovery

Medical Adventures 0

I’ve started back to work, as of last Friday. So that’s a good thing, right? For me, I think in some ways that’s when it gets harder.

I had a stroke July 25, which was missed by the emergency personnel, but then went back on July 28 with new symptoms and was admitted to the hospital for 10 days.

Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that I was tremendously, wondrously, gloriously lucky. The hospital’s occupational therapist and physical therapist checked me out and didn’t even think I’d need their services. So not only am I still alive, it looks like I have no permanent disability.

However, the one symptom that’s lingering is something of a problem: If I stand for more than a few minutes, I feel “woozy” — not exactly dizzy, but headachy, weak, and faint. Sitting for awhile seems to relieve it, and lying down definitely does. I haven’t yet gotten in to see a neurologist (which is a whole other annoying story that I should skip!), but I suspect that’s a leftover from my cerebellar stroke. After all, when I stand my brain needs new connections to keep my balance. I tried to step over the baby pen in the nursery on Sunday, and almost fell over. I’ve never been terribly graceful, but now I especially need to take care!

Anyway, I’m not someone who likes difficult decisions. Before the stroke, I had a headache that lasted three weeks, and every morning I had to figure out if I felt good enough to go to work or if I were just being a wimp. Then the stroke hit. Okay, now staying home was a no-brainer! Especially when I was in the hospital! But even after that, it was easy to understand I should take it easy and let myself heal.

But isn’t two weeks enough time? And how much do I need to do some standing and walking to help my brain build new connections? I did compromise by leaving early yesterday, and today I didn’t have to compromise — we got sent home early because of the earthquake! But it’s harder when there’s a decision. This is definitely not a contagious illness, so it’s all the harder to evaluate when I’m up to working and when I’m not.

Another thing is I almost felt guilty all that time off, having extra time to read and write book reviews. But since writing book reviews takes a lot more energy than reading — I’m still way behind with books I’ve read and want to review. So now my time off is up, and I am still behind. I don’t want to push myself extra. So that’s where not having energy for much more than work gets pretty frustrating.

Anyway, I already had vacation in Oregon scheduled for next week, so at least I will have next week off, decision-free! And it sounds like ALL my twelve brothers and sisters will be there with me at the end of the week for my brother’s wedding!

In the Lucky Thirty Percent

Medical Adventures 1

Today I was searching on the Internet for information about recovering from my stroke. My referral to a neurologist still hasn’t gone through. I’m doing very well indeed, but I have one disturbing symptom that’s keeping me from getting back to work: When I stand for more than about a minute, I feel woozy — not exactly dizzy, but headachy, faint, sick, and wanting to lie down. It’s not real severe, and comes on gradually, and generally feels better after a nap. But it is there, and I’m wondering if that’s my remaining effect of the stroke.

So, I Googled “Cerebellar Infarction” (the type of stroke I had). And then I got really distracted. Because I found out how lucky I was.

This article: Pitfalls in the Diagnosis of Cerebellar Infarction reported a study of people with Cerebellar Infarctions (like me), whose diagnosis was missed when they initially went to the Emergency Room (like me).

I got to that article from this one: The Clinical Differentiation of Cerebellar Infarction from Common Vertigo Syndromes. The article outlines the different common Vertigo syndromes and how Cerebellar Infarction is different. It said that only 0.7-3% of patients presenting with vertigo actually have a Cerebellar Infarction, but of those 35% get misdiagnosed.

I was sent home from the Emergency Department that Monday night with a diagnosis of vertigo, probably stemming from my migraines. They had done a CT scan, so I thought they were right, and I must be fine. I went back on Thursday morning (to a different Emergency Department) with additional symptoms (mainly a wicked headache and feeling faint plus right side tingling), and they did an MRI and learned I’d had a cerebellar infarction from vertebral artery dissection.

From reading the article, I can see how they missed the diagnosis. Once they found out I had a history of migraines (though never ever with vertigo), that presented an easy thing to blame. I did not realize that CT scans only catch 26% of cerebellar infarctions.

The article says that one tip-off of cerebellar infarction is being unable to walk without support. Well, I did walk from the Information desk at the library to the sofa in the back room. But I doubt I made it clear to the doctor that there was no way I could have done that without the help of my coworker. And I leaned on every desk or wall that I passed along the way, and was not able to walk straight. (By the time the doctor saw me, probably 45 minutes after the initial attack, the vertigo had just ended. So I was able to walk by the time they were done with me.)

Anyway, the really sobering part of the article was this: In the study of misdiagnosed cerebellar strokes, 40% of the patients died! Out of the remaining 60%, half of those had “disabling deficits.” So as it looks like I will get through this without disabling deficits (assuming the wooziness clears up), it looks like I am in the “Lucky” 30%.

Now, the study was based on a small sample. But the fact remains: I am glad I asked for prayer after I went home from the Emergency Room! And I am all the more thankful to be alive and thinking and functioning!

So I am going to have to stop thinking about this, though. After researching it and reading the articles this morning, I really didn’t feel good and slept all afternoon! But let me go on record as being thankful to God that my life was spared!

Was I Scared?

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One of my friends asked me if I was scared when all this happened. That made me think. Was I scared?

Well, it basically all happened too fast to be scared. Things I have read after the fact made me realize that the whole thing could have turned out much, much worse. But the fact is, it didn’t.

I admit I was scared when I was at the library and suddenly the room started spinning. But in some ways it was a relief — I KNEW something was wrong. Why was that a relief? Well, for three solid weeks I’d had a headache every morning and had to decide whether I was well enough to go to work. I had even been thinking of going home early that very day, but told myself, no, I wasn’t sick enough.

It’s like when my son was three years old. He started throwing fits at naptime, until finally I stopped making him take a nap. He wasn’t sleeping anyway. But it was a tough decision. Did he need a nap? His older brother had taken them right up until he went to Kindergarten. However, a couple nights later, he threw a major tantrum from 2 am until 3 am, screaming “I want to stay up all night and all daaaaaaay!” There was no agony at all in that decision. Nice try, kid, but sorry, you have to go to sleep!

That compares a little bit to how I felt when I knew, with no question, that something was wrong. All those previous three weeks, I’d had to make decisions about going to work with a headache. Now the decision was out of my hands. I was not able to stand up, let alone work.

I did ask them to call the paramedics when I remembered that since I was on birth control pills (for the trouble I’d been having with ovarian cysts), I was at slightly higher risk for stroke. When the paramedics came, I started vomiting, and rather than make me more afraid, that simply made me all the more certain that something was indeed wrong. No more agonizing decision! I was sick.

I did hear one of the paramedics tell the hospital staff something to the effect that I was at a zero on the “stroke scale,” so from that moment I was no longer afraid it was a stroke. However naive that confidence was!

Now, I had gotten afraid a year and a half earlier, when for three months I was having trouble with headaches that lasted two to four weeks. But they had done an MRI and found nothing wrong. And then they found a preventative that wiped out my headaches more effectively than ever before in my life. Since the preventative dealt with serotonin levels, I was sure they were right and the headaches were just a new migraine pattern. So this time, it felt really similar, and I was easily pacified and told this was probably just a new migraine pattern of some kind. That did make me nervous, but I trusted the hospital staff. Surely, if it was something dangerous, the CT scan would have caught it? I didn’t want to be subject to vertigo as a new migraine symptom, but if that’s what it was… I went to work on Wednesday and told them that whatever had happened, at least it wasn’t anything serious….

Then, when I woke up Thursday morning feeling faint and tingly on my right side, once again it happened too suddenly to be scared. I wasn’t thinking about the future, just if I could get “ready” for the paramedics. Or could I get a friend to drive me? Call me vain, but my first thought was of just getting to my phone and calling the paramedics — but I blanched at the thought of them finding me in my sleep shirt! I did feel better — able to stand — after lying down for a little while. So then all I was thinking about was getting food and taking care of details. I was able to call the doctor’s office and cancel my morning appointment and talk with a nurse. I was able to get dressed and eat breakfast. I put a bag together in case they decided to admit me to the hospital (figuring that by Murphy’s Law, if I did that I wouldn’t get admitted — Too bad it didn’t work this time!). I grabbed not one but two books to have with me at the hospital, my phone and its charger, and the papers they sent me home with on my earlier hospital visit.

All those things to do gave me something to think about rather than be scared. I did get worse just before my friend arrived, but then she arrived and I was able to get to her car and then I was on the way to the hospital.

I have a lot of trust in doctors. Once in the hospital, I could lie down and let them figure out what was wrong!

I do know that some time in the hospital — I’m not sure when it was — I wondered if I was going to die. I don’t want to die, not at all. There’s a whole lot more I want to do with my life, and I especially don’t want to leave my sons yet. But I found myself thinking that if that happened, at least I wouldn’t have any more headaches! I do firmly believe that God would look after my sons. (Though I’d much rather do it.) And I realized that if I die before I mean to — well, the repercussions will fall on other people. I would then get to take it easy! So I did pray, telling God that I really don’t want to die yet, but if it’s His time to take me, He’s going to have to take care of my boys and all the loose ends I’d be leaving in my life.

But that was just one bad moment. And it wasn’t being scared, it was thinking through the fact that even if the worst happens, I don’t need to be afraid.

I did find myself praying as the MRI was being done, “Lord, if there is something for them to find, let them FIND it!” because I was not ready to go home again and be told this was a new migraine symptom! It was way too extreme for that!

But I never did feel like what I think a “stroke patient” feels like. The stroke hit my balance center, and not my language or thinking. Thank God! After the fact, I’ve read a lot more about what could have happened.

In fact, my most fearful moment of all was when I’d been home for five days. The doctor had gotten the results of my blood test, and my Coumaden levels were a little high. He asked me to skip my Coumaden dose that evening, and get my blood drawn again in the morning. Coumaden is a blood thinner, keeping me from getting any more clots. Too much, though, and you are at risk for bleeding.

However, when I went to bed that night, about five hours after skipping my Coumaden dose, the right side of my neck was hurting horribly, feeling a lot like it did when the stroke happened. I quickly imagined all the blood in my body clotting there. I went downstairs and split a pill in two and took half, but I had a very bad night. I took Percocet, which didn’t phase it a bit. I was afraid to get up, for fear I’d faint again. You see, now I knew what a stroke can do, so I was a lot more scared than before, when I hadn’t thought much about them.

But I did wake up the next morning with my neck feeling completely fine. I’m still getting a very low grade headache, but I’m quite sure it’s from the vertebral artery dissection and not a migraine. And Tylenol actually works for it most of the time!

Now I’m back to that difficult decision. When am I healthy enough to go back to work? Am I tired because of lying around so much, or does my body just need rest so it can focus on healing? In other words, should I push myself, or should I do the opposite?

I’m kind of doing a cross between the two. I’m driving myself to the clinic to get blood drawn. Yesterday, I did the grocery shopping with my son. It did wipe me out, so I took a long nap afterward. I’ve started cooking dinner for us, but I’m cooking things that have lots of leftovers, so I don’t need to do it every night. Tomorrow, I’m going to go to church and see how I do. I’m thinking that I can definitely go to work. I’m aiming for Tuesday, since I have to get blood drawn on Monday. The big question is how long I will last, or if I’ll have energy to go to work the next day!

So the answer to the question, “Was I scared?” is No, I really wasn’t — but that may have been because I didn’t really understand what was going on! One thing’s for sure: I feel loved and protected and cared for — by God and also by my friends and family. I know I was upheld by many people in prayer. And I am going to be okay. And this whole episode went much, much, much better than it might have. Thank you, thank you, everyone who prayed for me.

In fact, right now I’m listening to a new Peter Furler CD, and a song is playing based on Psalm 23. These words seem perfect:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for You are with me.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
Your rod and Your staff,
they comfort me.”