January 29, 2017: Day +71

We enjoyed the afternoon visiting with Thelma and Henry, our son in-law's parents and Fr. Dave brought us communion.  As our conversation drifted from one thing to another, the topic of when Doug was very sick came up.  I have not talked to Doug very much about the time that he was the most sick or about the life and death decisions I had to make, hoping that I was making the best decisions and honoring what he would have wanted.  Later when we were alone, Doug said I guess I did not realize I was that sick or the things that you did.

Fr. Dave bringing us communion

I have not talked to Doug much about that time.  I might reference when he was intubated once in a while.  Each day has been filled with enough to tackle and his ability to comprehend how sick he was has really just been coming back in the last week or so.  So today was the first time it started to sink in.  Yesterday Norm asked him about how it felt like to teeter so close to dying.  Doug said he did not know.  He only really knows that he was very sick and then he woke up and he was alive and was going to live. The thought of dying or death was not part of his awareness.  He just expected to live.

Thelma and Henry

Today I told him that the doctors did not know if he would live.  They had done what they could and it was no longer really in their hands.  I told him about the day that one of his doctors whom I had not seen in a couple of weeks saw me in the hall and asked me how I was.  I told the doctor that I was as well as I could be considering the situation.  He knew I was a person of faith and he hugged me.  He told me that right now Doug is in God's hands.

Doug plans on getting well.  He is a fighter. He is waiting to walk again.  He does not believe that it is his time time to dye.  That thought is surprising to him.  When he was on the ventilator he constantly fought the ventilator.  He was always over breathing it. Now he wants to know when he is going home.  I surely can't answer that.  He has lots of physical skills to recover. We hope he will be able to get the tube out of his nose for feeding this week.  I know that things could still turn south with his compromised immune system, but I also know he has a strong will to live and so for today, we just keep moving forward. Doug says, this is just a diversion on his way to wellness.

And so we pray:

God of light, shine on our path.  We feel certain that the path is leading us in the right direction.  We desire to know what is ahead so that we can anticipate what we will need, who we should take with us and what we need to assure that we are physically and spiritually prepared.  But then, it would not be a spiritual journey if we knew where all this leads would it? We would have no need for trust or faith.  And so we say yes, to the journey and yes to taking the next right step.  God of light, we thank you for the path and the knowledge that the Camino, the path always provides. With each step we pray you will strengthen our resolve and fill us with the hope that comes with the expectation of reaching our destination  Amen