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???Woe.??? He says the word
as his blue eyes peer intently into mine.
???No.??? I repeat the word. ???Watch where I put my lips and
teeth, Dennis.???
???No.??? This time it sounds much more like what it was meant
to be. We repeat it about a dozen times and go on to the
next word. We have eight words and eight phrases on our
list.
It??™s been three months now since a very large stroke on
November 13 reduced my fifty-eight-year-old husband from the
independent man he once was to someone dependent on others.
He once rode a motorcycle and was an avid reader in his
spare time. He often visited several elderly shut-ins and
was building a large model railroad layout in our basement.
He once did bookkeeping in a finance office for a living.
Paralyzed on his right side, he is now in a wheelchair.
Today he neither reads nor writes. He speaks in ???sentences,???
but only he knows the meaning of his speech. I guess at what
he is trying to say. His hand gestures give me a clue, and
we daily go through a guessing game to try to communicate.
However, he can think. For that I am so thankful. He knows
what??™s going on, can tell time, remembers friends and events
from the past, and knows what month it is. He plays checkers
and he built and painted a birdhouse with is left hand,
quite a feat for a right-handed person.
A few days ago, our son, Tim, visited Dennis in his
hospital room. Seated in his wheelchair, Dennis unfastened
his seat belt. He stood up and leaned against the wall,
grinning broadly. Triumph!
A while ago, a friend of mine referred to Dennis' stroke as
a tragedy. I'm sure most people would think of strokes as
tragedies. I thought about it for a while, and concluded I
would rather see it as a major challenge in our
lives. "Tragedy" looks backward at all he has lost, and he
has lost so much. However, "challenge" looks forward to what
Dennis can regain if he works hard enough at it. "Tragedy"
speaks of defeat, but "challenge" focuses on hope for the
future, and we are holding on to hope.
Within days of each other, a friend and my sister sent me a
Bible verse for encouragement. It??™s a verse that I had
previously written down because it was meaningful to me.
What's the chance of all three of us picking the same verse?
Romans 15:13 reads: "May the God of all hope fill you with
all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may
overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." We're
still holding on to hope.
Did the stroke catch me by surprise? Not exactly. . . It??™s
as if God had been preparing me for it six months before it
happened. Only I didn??™t realize ahead of time exactly what
some of the things I was experiencing meant.
For six months before Dennis??™ stroke, I often played a CD
with the song ???Faithful One??? by Brian Doerksen while driving
the car. It starts out ???Faithful One, so unchanging??? and has
the following words in the chorus: ???You are my rock in times
of trouble, You lift me up when I fall down. All through the
storm Your love is the anchor, My hope is in You alone.??? It
was so meaningful to me then, but I didn??™t know why. Now, in
my current ???storm,??? the words keep coming back to me. It
speaks of hope.
A month before Dennis??™ stroke, I began sending out our fall
newsletter. (We do work with a mission organization and send
out newsletters several times a year.) On one page of the
letter was a picture of Dennis sitting next to his father,
who has Parkinson's and is in a wheelchair. One day I was
writing a note on one of the letters a few inches below the
photo. As I looked at the photo, a thought popped into my
mind: "Dennis looks like he should be in a wheelchair too."
Now where did that weird thought come from? Was it because
of a family resemblance? Was it the expression on his face?
Over the next four weeks the strange thought persisted as I
wrote notes on the letters. I finally finished sending out
all of the letters on Nov. 11, two days before Dennis'
stroke.
Because I often exercise at a ladies' gym at 6 a.m. to
exercise, I frequently would go to bed earlier than Dennis.
If I was half asleep when Dennis came to bed, I would reach
out my hand and squeeze his. One night, about three weeks
before his stroke, I thought, "Don't ever take this for
granted. Some day his hand might not be there to squeeze."
After that, I was more attentive to the fact that life is
filled with uncertainty. A few days after his stroke, one of
the first means of communication was when Dennis squeezed my
hand.
In these three ways, I believe God was preparing me for the
difficult journey ahead. But it was only after Dennis
had his stroke that I saw the significance of each thing
that happened.
Today is Valentine??™s Day. Our daughter, Rachel, ever the
romantic, reminded Dennis what day it was when she visited
him at the hospital this morning. She accompanied him down
to the hospital gift shop, where he selected a rose and
lovely card for me. He signed the card by printing his name,
which took great effort. Later this afternoon, tears filled
my eyes when I arrived at the hospital and saw what he had
gotten for me.
As I drove the eleven miles home from the hospital today, I
noticed the days are getting a bit longer. It??™s still winter
up here in Calgary, but we get a taste of ???spring??? each time
a warm Chinook wind comes through and melts the snow. There
will be changes ahead before too long.
There will be changes ahead for Dennis too. Someday he will
be coming back home. What he is today won??™t be the person he
will be three months from now, six months from now, or a
year from now. How far he will progress is anyone??™s guess.
In the meantime, it??™s one day at a time, one step at a
time??”not just for Dennis, but for me as well. Life isn??™t
easy, but in the storms of life, I know God is in control.
Our hope truly is in Him.
July 2005 ??“ Dennis has now been in rehabilitation for
eight months. Today he walks with a cane, has learned to
dress himself with his left hand and can do various things
for himself. Speech is the slowest to come back, and so far
is limited to spontaneous speech??”words like hi, bye, yes,
no, O.K., all right. The prognosis for Dennis speaking again
beyond spontaneous speech is poor. However, patients
sometimes do surprise doctors and recover in ways never
expected.
People who recover are those who have
family support, have a goal they are reaching toward, and
have a positive outlook on life. In other words, they have
hope and do not give up. Dennis is not giving up, nor am I.
?© Janet
Seever, 2005 jseever1@shaw.ca
********************************
The mother of two adult children, Janet Seever lives in
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where she writes for Word Alive
magazine, a publication of Wycliffe Canada. She and her
husband Dennis have been married for 30 years. Her articles
have appeared in various publications and on Internet. You
can read more of her writing at www.inscribe.org/janetseever
and reach her at jseever1@shaw.ca |
