my arm and got me through that initial surgery. Dr. Houchins saved my life after the surgery because of his bulldog determination to keep me alive. The courageous nurses of the orthopedic floor of St. Luke’s Hospital cared for me day and night. Each of them played a vital role.
I attribute leaving ICU alive to the prayers of David Gentiles and the others. “We’re taking over from here. You don’t have to do a thing to survive. We’re going to pray you through this.”
I knew I wasn’t going to die.
God’s people wouldn’t let me.
8
PAIN AND
ADJUSTMENTS
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
I SAIAH 41:10
E ven though they didn’t realize it, visitors made my situation worse. They cared for me and wanted to express that concern. Because they cared, they did the most natural thing in the world—they visited my hospital room. That was the problem.
The constant flow in and out of my room exhausted me. I couldn’t just lie there and allow them to sit with me or talk at me. Maybe I needed to function in my role as pastor or felt some kind of obligation to entertain them. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by asking him or her to leave or not to come.
Many days, I smiled and chatted with them when all I really wanted to do was collapse. Sometimes the intense pain made it almost impossible for me to be a good host, but I still tried to be gracious. I kept reminding myself that they cared and had made an effort to see me.
Between friends, relatives, and church members, I felt as if a line stretched from the front door of the hospital to my room. Eva came in one afternoon and realized how much the visitors disturbed me. She chided me for allowing it.
I think she figured out that I wouldn’t tell anyone not to come back, so she asked the nursing staff to cut back on the number of visitors they allowed. It didn’t stop everyone from coming, but it did cut down the traffic in and out of the room.
Besides the pain and the flow of people in and out of my room, I lived in depression. A large part of it may have been the natural result of the trauma to my body and some of it may have been my reaction to the many drugs. I believe, however, that because I faced an unknown outcome and the pain never let up, I kept feeling I had little future to look forward to. Most of the time I didn’t want to live.
Why was I brought back from a perfect heaven to live a pain-filled life on earth? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t enjoy living again; I wanted to go back to heaven.
Pain has become a way of life for me since the accident, as I am sure it has for many. It’s curious that we can learn to live with such conditions. Even now, on rare occasions when I am lying in bed after a good night’s sleep, I will suddenly notice that I don’t hurt anywhere. Only then am I reminded that I live in continuous pain the other twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes of each day.
It took a while for me to realize how profoundly my condition affected my emotions.
I prayed and others prayed with me, but a sense of despair began to set in. “Is it worth all this?” I asked several times every day.
The doctors and nurses kept trying to push medications on me for my depression, but I refused. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I had so much medicine in me, I didn’t want any more. Besides, I didn’t think more medicine would do any good.
I wanted to be free from my miserable existence and die. Obviously, I felt wholly unequipped to deal with that turn of events. I now know that I was a textbook depression case.
Soon everyone else knew it too.
“Would you like to talk to a psychiatrist?” my doctor asked.
“No,” I said.
A few days later, one of the nurses asked, “Would you like me to call in a therapist? Someone you could talk to?”
My answer was the same.
Because I didn’t
I attribute leaving ICU alive to the prayers of David Gentiles and the others. “We’re taking over from here. You don’t have to do a thing to survive. We’re going to pray you through this.”
I knew I wasn’t going to die.
God’s people wouldn’t let me.
8
PAIN AND
ADJUSTMENTS
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
I SAIAH 41:10
E ven though they didn’t realize it, visitors made my situation worse. They cared for me and wanted to express that concern. Because they cared, they did the most natural thing in the world—they visited my hospital room. That was the problem.
The constant flow in and out of my room exhausted me. I couldn’t just lie there and allow them to sit with me or talk at me. Maybe I needed to function in my role as pastor or felt some kind of obligation to entertain them. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by asking him or her to leave or not to come.
Many days, I smiled and chatted with them when all I really wanted to do was collapse. Sometimes the intense pain made it almost impossible for me to be a good host, but I still tried to be gracious. I kept reminding myself that they cared and had made an effort to see me.
Between friends, relatives, and church members, I felt as if a line stretched from the front door of the hospital to my room. Eva came in one afternoon and realized how much the visitors disturbed me. She chided me for allowing it.
I think she figured out that I wouldn’t tell anyone not to come back, so she asked the nursing staff to cut back on the number of visitors they allowed. It didn’t stop everyone from coming, but it did cut down the traffic in and out of the room.
Besides the pain and the flow of people in and out of my room, I lived in depression. A large part of it may have been the natural result of the trauma to my body and some of it may have been my reaction to the many drugs. I believe, however, that because I faced an unknown outcome and the pain never let up, I kept feeling I had little future to look forward to. Most of the time I didn’t want to live.
Why was I brought back from a perfect heaven to live a pain-filled life on earth? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t enjoy living again; I wanted to go back to heaven.
Pain has become a way of life for me since the accident, as I am sure it has for many. It’s curious that we can learn to live with such conditions. Even now, on rare occasions when I am lying in bed after a good night’s sleep, I will suddenly notice that I don’t hurt anywhere. Only then am I reminded that I live in continuous pain the other twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes of each day.
It took a while for me to realize how profoundly my condition affected my emotions.
I prayed and others prayed with me, but a sense of despair began to set in. “Is it worth all this?” I asked several times every day.
The doctors and nurses kept trying to push medications on me for my depression, but I refused. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I had so much medicine in me, I didn’t want any more. Besides, I didn’t think more medicine would do any good.
I wanted to be free from my miserable existence and die. Obviously, I felt wholly unequipped to deal with that turn of events. I now know that I was a textbook depression case.
Soon everyone else knew it too.
“Would you like to talk to a psychiatrist?” my doctor asked.
“No,” I said.
A few days later, one of the nurses asked, “Would you like me to call in a therapist? Someone you could talk to?”
My answer was the same.
Because I didn’t
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