Experience, strength and hope

Okay. So, I have started to write several posts and I keep coming back to the beginning line of, “it has been a tough couple of years.” I have been hoping to not have to go into any detail at all, just get past it and write…. but that is not working out so well for me. So, I am gonna brain dump most of it in the hope that I can move on and write something inspirational out of all these experiences.

• early one morning in 2009, I awoke to find my husband lying on our bedroom floor after he had passed out. His hip was broken.
• before the surgeon could repair his hip he had to get Ed’s blood pressure under control.
• that took 4 days of Ed lying in ICU with a painfully broken hip.
• after the surgery, the doctors had a hard time stopping the bleeding.
• I slept on a chair for many nights.
• Ed was on a drug to control his pain. It is the same drug that he was addicted to back in the 1960s.
• when he was moved to a room, my friends smuggled a cot up the back stairs and I slept in his room.
• he was in the hospital for a long time before they could stabilize him enough to go to rehab and learn to walk again.
• after a month in a rehab facility he finally came home only to pass out again and burst open the surgery site.
• we had 911 come again to take him to the hospital. Again.
• surgery again to re-close the area and many days in surgical ICU to get him to stop bleeding.
• blood transfusions.
• more addictive pain meds.
• home healthcare to get him walking again.
• we threw away his meds before he got himself addicted again.
• he was forced to retire and sell his business. God has been so good to us, it all fell into place.
• we used the money from selling the business and paid off our home.
• I was able to stay home and help my husband get back on his feet.
• a few days here and there of work started coming in for me.
• i have gone back to attending AA meetings.
• we got Ed an emergency 911 necklace for whenever he was home alone.
• Ed has started having trouble with Hepatic encephalopathy. a by-product of cirrhosis of the liver in which the brain becomes addled and confused.
• i hate it for him, and for me.
• a couple of trips to the ER followed by days when he could not be alone.
• our friends, family and church family have surrounded us with help and support so I could go back to work when the money ran out.
• our grandson, Tony, came to stay with Ed and be his driver and help to care for him.
• grandson went off to Navy boot camp after being accepted in the nuclear program.
• Tony was released on a medical discharge due to asthma.
• last september, my 89 year old next door neighbor ran over his 92 year old wife in their driveway.
• I heard her screams and had to stop him because he is quite deaf and didn’t know he ran her over.
• she died in the driveway before EMS could get there.
• i have nightmares and day”mares”. i still hear her screams.
• i am back to work full time in SC on Army Wives.
• my grandson, Tony, is my room mate in SC. He is working in the accounting department on Army Wives.
• i long to hear God’s voice speak to me.
• most times i feel a million miles away from God.
• i wonder if ADD is real or just a cop out sometimes.

So, yeah, it has been a tough couple of years. But I am desperate to move on. God is still God through all of this. it does not matter if I feel Him. He is and He has a purpose for all of it.

The end!