My view of the sunrise this morning. From my son’s hospital room. That faces west. Not how I envisioned seeing today’s sunrise yesterday. (After only four hours of sleep, it took me an hour to realize the reason the sun didn’t seem to be rising over the bluff was that I was facing west – even though I had known the whole time I was facing west. Just thought I’d share that…)
There’s a pandemic and nursing shortage. Hospitals are slammed. And the staff here is asking what else we need, if there is something else they can do for us.
Last night when we checked in, the hospital bed had a handmade fleece blanket on it for Cody to keep. The room number outside his door had a personalized sign with his name and a puppy dog stamp on it. A volunteer just came through with a free beverage & snack cart. A volunteer – amid covid!
This is an incredible hospital; we are very fortunate to live only 20 minutes from it. To even get a bed.
And I really hate being here.
Cody has been having “episodes” – maybe a brand-new tic, maybe an increase in daytime seizures. Since he has epilepsy, the doctor needs to rule out seizure on an EEG and the only way to get an inpatient EEG on short notice is to be admitted through the ER.
Yes, the Emergency Room. During covid. I packed overnight bags, picked Cody up early from school, and we sat in the children’s hospital ER lobby for 2 1/2 hours yesterday.
We finally were shown to an ER room and waited there for another 2+ hours until a room on the epilepsy monitoring floor was available. It wasn’t all bad: we got to watch Cars 3 (again) while we waited.
We weren’t completely sure they would have a bed for us actually. There was one available at noon when the doctor called me but seven hours later, there could have been other emergency admissions that arrived before us, or were true emergencies when Cody wasn’t one.
I sat in the ER room trying to pray, to talk to God, except I couldn’t really put my heart into it. I couldn’t come up with words because I knew that no words would suddenly stir God into action to get us a room or lack of my words result in no room. No room wouldn’t have meant God didn’t answer my prayer. So, I sat there accepting I had no control, accepting whichever way it turned out. I just sat there with God and let go.
Cody did get a room. He did get wired up for an EEG late (for him) last night. He then woke up at 5 a.m. today. By 6 a.m. he selected Finding Nemo – because we’ve only seen that one a dozen times too. I didn’t pay too much attention until the surfer dude turtle, Crush. I like Crush. I also wrote a blog post about Crush once so I tuned in for that part of the movie.
In the next scene, a whale eats Dory and Marlin which, instead of being the end of the story for them, is actually how they move forward in their journey. The whale brings them to the part of the ocean they need to go to but Marlin is too scared to let go of the teeth as the whale is trying to get them to drop further into his throat so he can shoot them up through his blowhole. Dory, thankfully, speaks Whale:
“He says it’s time to let go. Everything’s going to be alright.”
“How do you know?! How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?”
“I don’t!”
Then from my morning devotional, I read,
“As much as we’d like a formula to guarantee how our lives will turn out, we find ourselves long on mystery and short on control. Instead of a formula, God gives us an invitation, a relationship.” Wisdom from the Vineyard YouVersion plan by Beth Moore
Do I know if something bad will happen with Cody’s epilepsy? No, I don’t. Do I have any control over the outcome? For the most part, no, I don’t. But I can accept the invitation to sit with God through the journey.
Carrie, do you trust the sun will rise tomorrow?
Yes.
Do you trust Me with your tomorrow?
Hhmmm.
I woke up in the hospital today before sunrise. I watched the colors change in the western sky as the sun rose in the east. There will be another sunrise tomorrow, I am certain of that. Even if it doesn’t look the way I expect.
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