My husband came home from the doctor and said, “My surgery is August 24th.”
“We can’t do that date. Cant you change it? That’s the boys’ first day of school.”
This Fall marked the beginning of middle school for our older son, which meant our younger son was heading out on the bus by himself to 4th grade. Surely, my plans included being available to see them both off.
“No, that’s what it is. I have to be in at 7am for the prep.”
My thoughts were racing, heart thumping in my chest. All we had talked about it seemed for the past several weeks was my husband’s torn pec muscle. To both of us, surgery meant healing to follow.
Earlier that year, God had laid on my heart a book. Interview police wives, which I did. My plan (Notice I said MY plan}was to write the book in the fall when the boys went back to school.
It never occurred to me God would choose the same date for the surgery and their first day of school. He was preparing a lesson for me. One I will be honest I had already learned. But when we do not obey, it comes around again.
Though my husband and I were aware he would be off work for a period of time and he would need assistance, neither one of us were prepared emotionally or spiritually for the unfolding of events.
Three times in the first two weeks following surgery we found ourselves in the emergency room. Jason had DVT in his arm, had a whole body rash to the blood thinning medicine and then had a reaction to the prednisone they gave for the rash!
Being a humble man, he was not used to being the center of attention and losing some degree of his independence. With his arm in a sling, I asked him one day, “Do you want me to cut your finger nails?”
With a grimace, “No, I have seen the way you do the boys.”
I am still not sure what that meant. However, I view cutting our two boys’ nails as a task that I need to get done ASAP. Once in a great while maybe I take a little too much off the nail.
Many adjustments were made, some begrudgingly.
Driving Jason everywhere became cumbersome for me.
I know at this point you are thinking, “In sickness and in health.”