Three weeks. Won’t Turn Back. A Team Danica-Monica Update

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Chiari Miracle 001Chiari Decompression, November, 2009

ChiariMiracle2Chiari Decompression and Cervical Fusion, October, 2010

Three weeks.
Twenty one days.
Five hundred and four hours.
Thirty thousand, two hundred and forty minutes.

This is how long it’s been since my total cervical spinal surgery in Lanham, Maryland.

Three weeks.
Twenty one days.
Five hundred and four hours.
Thirty thousand, two hundred and forty minutes.

This is how long until my baby girl’s brain and spinal surgery in Baltimore, Maryland.

I’m in bed today. I woke to a cold November rain. (Cue Guns N’ Roses.) I got my hubs and girls off to work and school. I did my ridiculous “fly lady” stuff just in case Southern Living stops by for a photo shoot. I put a roast and potatoes and carrots in the crock pot. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, freshened my deodorant and changed my underwear before putting my pajamas back on. I switched out the dressing on my neck wound, changed the gross pads on my neck brace and adjusted the velcro for a sturdy fit. I swallowed two muscle relaxers and a pain pill and crawled back into my made bed with a heating pad on my still very aching hip where they aspirated bone fusion material. Then I cried.

I don’t do this.
I don’t crawl back in bed.

I haven’t been treating my pain since last Wednesday.
Two weeks is my personal limit for narcotics following surgery.
The next stage is what I call “big girl pants.”

I still think my life is worth a little bit more sitting up in a chair instead of lying down. I’ve been PUSHING…working for hours each day on the details of planning a big surgery at a huge hospital far away. The paperwork is overwhelming. Danica is a new patient. Every single detail of her medical history has to be documented. I need to have specific conversations with the dozen people who will have direct contact with us during her care. I have to manage FMLA paperwork for Dan’s work. He will have to take unpaid time off for this trip and most likely to help care for Danica after and drive us to post op visits. I have to make hotel reservations and figure out navigating the city and parking. I have to talk to insurance and the hospital and understand the cost of this out of network care at one of the best hospitals in the world. What do we pay up front? What needs pre-authorized? What is our responsibility after the large deductible is met? How does Danica’s individual out of network and my individual out of network combine to form the family out of network. What is and isn’t included in patient maximum out of pocket. Is that even a real thing in our situation? This is mind numbing and soul sapping work. After all our hard and all God’s faithfulness I still ask, “How in the world will we do this?” I repeat my mantra over and over. “Thank you God for access to care. Thank you God for access to care. Thank you God for access to care.”

Lists. What needs bought. What needs packed. What meds do I need? What does Delaney need? What school work needs done? Who needs informed at school for Danica and Delaney? There’s a form for that. Don’t forget to stop the mail. There’s a form for that. Should we put up our Christmas tree since it could be mid December when we get home? Should we skip it all together? Danica needs her cast off. I can’t drive. Find a ride. Danica needs her pre-op history and physical and labs. There’s a form for that. Find a ride. I need my stitches removed and post-op wound check. Find a ride. Danica needs her hair cut and the back of her head shaved. Find a ride. I have chemotherapy all day next Tuesday. Yes. Chemo. Find a ride.

PUSH.

I haven’t written any thank you notes for the love surrounding my surgery. Okay, maybe one or two, but the rest sit here beside me today. They are addressed and stamped. I feel shame. Gratitude is my life blood. Without thanks how will you know how your kindness changed everything? I won’t go to bed tonight until I write just a few.

PUSH.

Three weeks.
Twenty one days.
Five hundred and four hours.
Thirty thousand, two hundred and forty minutes.

I will STOP.
Time will stand still.

I will send my heart…my Danica Jean…my heart…the little piece of me carved off into her…my heart…into a cold operating room with the best hands I could find and let them open her skull and her brain and her back and try to work another miracle.

Time will stand still.

I’ve been thinking of a conversation between beloved Tolkien characters.

“Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo.”

I can’t turn back.
I must PUSH.
I must keep going.
I must hold on.

Friends, please pray us through this.
Keep loving us through this.
There is good now.
I have to believe there is good in the end.
I know for sure there is His glory.

I have a friend who will be taking over as a kind of “care coordinator” for us when we are gone and when we return. We are working on some practical ways for you to help like Amazon wish lists so we don’t get duplicates of the few things the girls are wishing for Christmas (thank you to everyone already thinking of them in this regard) and more importantly an over abundance of beautiful gifts that become meaningless when what we really need is help paying our basic bills or traveling back to Baltimore for more care. She will be a single resource for you to help get meals to us and have you pick up paper towels and toilet paper while you’re at Target when we are out. I do not know if and when I can drive again so all this stuff that needs done is compounded by my inability to run even a single errand on my own. The biggest need and continued way to help is to donate financially. I’m learning how to use Prime Pantry and even Giant Eagle’s service of grocery shopping and having it ready for Dan to pick up. I find some comfort and control in being able to do these things. I promise I will dedicate a post to specifics including her contact information in the next week. Most of all please continue to pray. Please share and ask others to pray. I know the covering of intercession was the single most encouraging part of Danica’s last huge surgery and recovery. Ask God for us. He knows our needs and oh how He loves us. Our Hope remains. It does. It has to.

This Need To Breathe song is a favorite on our family play list.

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1 Comment on Three weeks. Won’t Turn Back. A Team Danica-Monica Update

  1. Lori
    November 9, 2016 at 5:47 pm (7 years ago)

    Thank you for sharing your heart & journey and needs. Praying, praying, praying. ❤️

    Reply

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