Tag Archives: fear

O Death…

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But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:54-57 The Apostle Paul is partially quoting Hosea 13:14 here, where is says in part: “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.“

Many people ask me if I was frightened when I went through my brain hemorrhage and aneurism fix. They say, “Weren’t you scared?” My answer is always no. When they told me to get to the hospital because I had an aneurism, I was apprehensive and a bit worried, but no, I wasn’t scared. When I had the brain hemorrhage (see “All the Angels Out There“) I put myself In God’s Hands and I woke up after a day or two. When I had the aneurism (see “My Thoughts...”) I was almost constantly praying, and my family got all sorts of prayer rings going, I mean, wow, I was walking around with a time bomb in my head. Even so, I wasn’t scared in the full sense of the word.

It’s been three months since then and yes; my life has changed. I don’t go out as much, because these two incidents practically back-to-back really hit my physical body hard. I don’t have the stamina I used to. I get tired really quickly and my brain doesn’t work like it used to. But. I’m. Still. Here. I praise God for that.

I’m going to end this post with a song that recently came out. I love it because it so describes me right now. I’m ready to go whenever my Savior calls me. Until then… I keep spreading the message. The chorus in this song is now my theme song. Mercy Me “ODeath”:

My Thoughts – or Here we Go Again

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I was struggling with what to write about for my 3rd blog (after my helicopter ride) when I was again interrupted. I had to have an angiogram to check up on my fistula that caused the brain bleed. My fistula was gone, Praise God!!, the Dr. said that this wasn’t unusual. I come back home in good spirits and thoughts of now I just have to gain my strengh back. Then the Dr. reviewed the scan.

The Doctor found an aneurism. Oh boy, I just stepped into a whole new thing. Get a CTScan, stat. Come to York Hospital, stat. Had another MRI (did you know there are MRI’s that are like angiograms? I probably had one of those. Dr tried to fix the aneurism with embolization. Couldn’t do it. Soooo… I’ve had brain surgery. Yep, I have “railroad” tracks” up the back of my head. Aneurism was in a different place, right on the back of my head. Not a good place, if any place is good with an aneurism.

I woke up in Neuro ICU, not doing very well. The Dr. had given me Keppra, a seizure drug, as a preventative. I get it, I really do. But I don’t believe too much in preventative medication before you even know you have the thing. If I have seizures, I will talk to my Dr. about it.

Well, my husband had brain tumors, and he never really had seizures except after surgery. Keppra Rage. It even has a name. My husband wanted to kill all the doctors and nurses. I was, at least, not that bad.

I was in pain in the urinary area (it’s too complicated to explain fully) and I couldn’t make the nurses understand why I was so uncomfortable. Of course, I just got out of surgery and on pain killers. The pain killers didn’t take care of this pain. I yelled and screamed and called them all names. I was horrible. I remember that I heard a small voice that said, “you weren’t like this before.”

If you’ve read my blog from when I was helicoptered to York, you will know that I loved those guys at ICU. They were and still are my Angels. They finally did as I asked (once I explained it to them through tears) and it was such a relief.

When I was discharged, I had my son wheel me to Neuro ICU and I apologized to the nurses. Of course they didn’t want to accept an apology, I didn’t do anything wrong, but I needed to let them know that I’m not usually like that. They needed to hear that I love them, and I treated them badly. As our talk progressed, their faces had big smiles and there were a few tears in the eyes (including mine).

Nurses in the hospital deserve respect. Most of them are wonderful people with wonderful hearts. When you acknowledge that you were wrong or that what you said was hurtful, the other person can either ignore you or you may have just repaired a relationship. Say Thank You to your next service person, even if they are in a bad mood. And if you yell at someone, go back and tell them you’re sorry. Eat a bit of “crow”, be humble like the Lord has told us to be.

To a Fear-Free New Year

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My co-workers gave me a birthday card at the end of last year that totally surprised me. As I looked at the front of this card I was so taken back. You can see the card’s cover on this blog. When I saw the card I thought, somebody sees me. The real me that I’m trying to present to the world.

You see, I’ve been trying to be as fearless as possible in this Covid world that we live in. I see so many persons that live in fear now, and it isn’t healthy to live that way. Yes, we can be cautious. Yes, we should be careful, however that looks to you. Wear a mask in public and don’t go to large gatherings if you have reason to fear getting the virus. But you still can’t live in fear. As I have said before in a previous post that I used to be afraid that I would bring home a flu virus to Joseph every flu season because I work at a college and come in contact with students and staff. I’ve had students cough and sneeze while they were talking to me and I’d be so afraid for Joseph. After several years of this I couldn’t stand the strain and put it in God’s hands. Yes, I took precautions. We had a disinfectant spray that I would use after some students, and I always tried to keep my distance, even before this “social distancing” was a thing.

Fear is an internal feeling. No one can make you feel fear, you can get fearful without anyone’s help. We are not to live in fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.” I’m definitely trying to live this verse out in my life and it’s wonderful to get confirmation that I’m doing it right!

Acceptance

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Now that I’ve written about Serenity, I guess I have to tackle the next line in this prayer. I’ve been putting this off a bit because acceptance is really, really hard. We don’t want to accept things, the way life is. We want the power to change things to the way WE want them. Acceptance means giving up control.

This is really hard to write about. I’ve had my struggles with acceptance for years. I want to control what happens. I want the outcome of any situation to be the outcome I envisioned. Of course this is totally self-centered. It’s so hard to think that you do not have control.

But this acceptance is about the “Things I Cannot Change”. There is a lot of stuff you can’t change. If you just look around you, especially at the people around you, you cannot change them. If you look at your situation, the trials and the problems, you may find a way to change that, but in most situations you can’t.

I fought against this for years. I didn’t want to be stuck taking care of my husband. I wanted him healthy but I knew that wasn’t going to miraculously happen. Now that sounds horrible, but it was the truth. Life was so hard. I had acquaintances say to me that they “Didn’t want to be me” or “Better you than me”.

Now that hurt sometimes, but I finally found an acceptance in saying “It is what it is…” When I went to my counselor I explored this. We went over my situation and there was truly nothing I could do to change it. Oh, I could leave my husband and try to make a “new” life, but I personally couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave him to struggle on his own, so that left me right where I was.

The bottom line of this is that it takes a while to “Accept the Things you Cannot Change”. I still struggle with this now, but in a different way. Life is always going to hand us situations that we can do nothing about. Now, I have learned to bow my head in prayer and try to put these situations in His Hands.

Breaking up with Fear

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I’m sorry I haven’t posted lately. I’ve been taking care of me, navigating the medical community while everyone is still under the Covid-19 restrictions. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if Joe was still living and we had to navigate all of his medical appointments and visiting nurses and all that with the restrictions we have today. My hat is off you those of you who are trying your hardest to take care of your person and still keep your cool. I know I’ve been tempted to just chuck it all and hang it up and that is just from me trying to navigate alone.

I still see a lot of fear out there, but the “atmosphere” is much better than it used to be. Francesca Battistelli put out this song in 2018, but it’s gotten a lot of play lately. It’s such a cute song with a powerful message. You can listen to it below, The Breakup Song:

Trust God and…

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Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding… Proverbs 3:5

When the shut-down happened in March a feeling of fear swept over everyone. If you did go out of your home, people looked at you with suspicion and some would ridicule if you went out at all. Don’t even get me started on the toilet paper thing… (I still don’t understand it!)

Every flu season while I was caring for Joe I was aware that I could bring home a bug and kill him. Mentally, this is a really hard thing to face. I found that I was living in fear; afraid to go out (even though I worked full time) and afraid that I would be the one to bring a flu bug home. This is what everyone else is going through now.

During the years past I had to come to terms with the fear I experienced. I eventually found I didn’t need to fear, because God is in charge. He is the author of our lives, we just need to trust in him. This didn’t mean that I didn’t try to take precautions (flu shot, good hygiene, etc.) but I would live my life with care. I work with students who would come to our office sick. After they left I would be cleaning with antiseptic wipes. Yup, we had those at our work before everyone HAD to get them. Washing my hands was (an is) a habit.

Now I’m in the group of people that really should stay at home, yeah, I’m in that “high-risk” age and I do have some underlying medical issues. I refuse to live in fear. During this current flu pandemic I will not fear. I still work full time and I still work with students. I wear a mask when I have to. I wash my hands. I trust in the Lord.