Message Received

When I got home from the hospital last Thursday evening, I got on Google Maps to consider my route to the hospital the next day. I told Google Maps my origin and destination and then moved its highlighted route to change to the street I wanted to take. Then I examined the readjusted route and noted various streets that I could take if I missed the marked route. The next morning, I told VIKI, our GPS, my destination, diverted to the street I wanted to take, and she actually easily got me to the hospital without me getting lost.

`When I reached EJ’s hospital room, he was already dressed in his going-home clothes because they had cleared him for discharge. However, we had a 3 1/2 hour wait for the discharge papers with instructions to be sent up to his room. I don’t know why everything takes so long to get done in hospitals. Fortunately, our son had messaged me before I left home that his ship would reach the Soo Locks at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, at around 9 a.m. that morning. Some people enjoy ship-watching (including us) and they can do so on several Youtube channels that livestream ships going through various canals, rivers, and ports. When I got to EJ’s hospital room, I quickly got the appropriate Youtube channel up on my phone and we watched our son’s ship go through the Soo Locks while we waited for EJ’s discharge papers. The next day–Saturday–we watched our son’s ship as it headed into Duluth. There are many webcams along the shore in Duluth so we were able follow his ship’s progress in real time as it entered the canal and traveled to the dock where it began to unload. We saw deckhands working on the ship, but they were far enough away that we weren’t quite sure which was our son. However, he was disembarking in Duluth so we knew the guy getting into the taxi was him. The livestreams don’t save the footage but later our son sent us a video someone had taken of his ship as it went through the canal. I paused the video and took a screenshot of our son, which I marked below. I verified with him that, yes, this was him. That was cool.

When EJ’s discharge papers finally arrived, a nurse reviewed the information with us. EJ’s stroke was very minor and it didn’t seem to affect him very seriously, although it really scared us. He was told that he could drive and return to work with no restrictions as soon as he felt up to it. He decided to wait until after his physical therapy session and a follow-up appointment with his doctor, both of which were today. They agreed with what the staff at the hospital had said. EJ is scheduled for more physical therapy sessions for the next month just to make sure he’s doing ok and to make adjustments to his life. He plans to return to work on Friday.

As I wrote in my last blog post, “Being lost to me feels like standing at one of those ‘You are here’ kiosks. But it’s as if the whole area is erased and the only clear place is where I am at currently. The streets are all unfamiliar, I don’t know how or where they connect, and I don’t know exactly where I am or how to get where I want to be. It’s sort of like this:

Over the last week, I’ve pondered that during times of crisis, the feeling of lostness seems to increase in severity and size and engulf other areas of my life. In fact, the feeling of lostness seems to be very tied to anxiety and panic attacks, all of which are symptoms of PTSD. It’s not just soldiers who suffer from PTSD. Anyone who suffers a trauma, including abuse, accidents, etc., can suffer from PTSD. Our nephew, who is a veteran, once told us that “PTSD is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.” I think my PTSD is caused by the emotional abuse by our families, our son’s battle with cancer in 2013-2014, and other difficult experiences in our lives.

Helena Knowlton wrote an excellent article on her website called, How Trauma Affects our Brain, Body, Feelings, Thoughts, and Healing. In the article, she explained that

“God made our bodies to be amazing. He created automatic body systems to help us in emergencies. If you step off a curb and almost get hit by a car, the alarm bells ring in your brain, sending a message to your nervous system to go on high alert, and then lots of things happen in your body to give you speed, strength, and focus to get yourself out of danger….This system was designed to calm down as soon as the danger is over. During abuse, the alarm bells are ringing constantly and this causes dysregulation. The calming, regulating part of our nervous system takes a back seat to our survival system, and our body gets stuck on high alert. This changes our brain and physiology and causes the symptoms of chronic, complex PTSD. Trauma isn’t just about what happened in the past. It doesn’t end when we leave the abuse. It’s the imprint that the abuse left on your brain and body.” After living with abuse, we experience the world with a changed nervous system. It takes much longer to return to baseline, it spikes quickly, and stress becomes harder and harder to handle. “It’s like our nervous system becomes a TSA agent and every circumstance or person is a potential terrorist. And when we are accused or rejected by friends, family and the church, this ingrains threat even more deeply.”

A few of the many symptoms of unresolved trauma that Knowlton lists are:

~ Anxiety, a chronic sense of panic
~ Feeling like your nervous system is on high alert
~ Feeling overwhelmed by life
~ Feeling unsafe even after you are out of the abuse
~ Having a hard time thinking, concentrating, making decisions
~ Trouble sleeping
~ Being exhausted
~ Feeling lost…

Knowlton continues “These symptoms aren’t originating in your mind or your feelings or your choices.
They don’t come from a character flaw or moral failing. They aren’t from sin! [Or lack of faith.] They originate in your body and your brain that’s been dysregulated by the trauma of abuse.

Last night I had trouble sleeping because I was worried about EJ. The possibility of losing him, the ordeal of getting to the hospital, the stress of hospitals and medical procedures, the exhaustion we felt trying to handle everything when we got home, etc., has caused panic attacks for the last week. Also, I’m anxious about hospital bills. So I fervently asked God for help. I reminded Him that He promised to supply our needs, He promised to do more than we can ask, think, or imagine, and He promised that He will be “a very present help in the time of trouble.” I told Him that I needed Him to reassure me that He will keep His promises and be very present NOW to help us.

And then…

Wait. First, let me give some background.

I love quotes and I have another blog that’s a database full of quotes I like. I can schedule quotes ahead of time so I save quotes that I come across as I browse the internet in a file and once a week or so I sit down and schedule 2-3 weeks of quotes at a time so that one is posted each day. They also are posted each day on this blog (in the menu on the right side of the screen). Today’s quote, which I randomly scheduled several weeks ago, “just happened” to be a direct answer to my nighttime prayer that God would reassure me that He would keep His promises and help us:

God can be trusted to keep His promises.

It can’t get much clearer than that.