Sunday, February 5, 2017
On Sunday, I continued to write.
If you’ve read my Arestana series, you know it’s pretty odd and silly. Since I hadn’t planned on publishing it, I didn’t hold back. I knew what made my sons laugh, and I jumped in with both feet. I had a lot of time to just sit around and type in my hospital bed, and writing was one of the few things that didn’t hurt my head (that’s a rare gift for me these days).
Since I figured only my sons and wife would read the story, I just went all out with writing the story as odd and strange as I could make it. I would like to suggest that perhaps my silly humour resulted from an encephalitis-scoured brain, but truthfully, I just put more effort into hiding my odd sense of humour before.
The belly needle situation, of course, continued. When they first explained their sadistic policy, I had thought it was only once. One moment of torment for a lifetime of hospital privileges. As a result, I endured my first experience with courage and fortitude, and as few tears and sobs as possible. But when they woke me up on Sunday morning with a look of pitiless pleasure in their eyes and a needle to plunge into the depths of my stomach, I melted under the pressure.
I know many people have needles in their belly.
I know they endure.
I know they put up with what they have to in order to survive.
I know they get used to having a hollow, stainless-steel tube shoved into their stomach chubs.
But I never did.
It hurt immensely. Each… and every… time. I think there was once it wasn’t too bad, but I think that might have been an accident by an inexperienced nurse.
Sunday was also the Superbowl. It’s a bit of a family tradition of ours to have some friends over to watch it. We aren’t big football fans (that’s American Football, by the way), but we enjoy watching the Superbowl. Back at home, my family watched it together (without me), and I caught the end on my laptop at one point. It was difficult to miss an event that we always spent together, but that’s life sometimes.
I also missed church in the morning, which is a big thing for me. We attend a small church in a small town, and everyone there is pretty close. The week before, I preached on 1 Samuel, but this Sunday I was stuck in an isolation room in the hospital. Aside from the diagnosis, my church didn’t really know what was going on with me—no one really understood it yet—but they were praying for me.
On that day, I believe (a lot of this is pretty jumbled in my mind), someone at the hospital installed a PICC line. What that involves is they slice open a hole in your arm (near your armpit) and shove a long hose in through a vein. The hose runs right along until it reaches the heart, so they can put medicine directly into your bloodstream without having to use a traditional IV (which is limited in how long it can be used).
It didn’t hurt as much as one might think. The cool part was the guy who put in the PICC line was from Lebanon. I have a good friend from Lebanon (shout out to Bechara!), and I had just been to Beirut, Lebanon, a few months before. It allowed for some really great conversation with the man as he sliced me up and drove a plastic tube through a vein to my heart.
The pain in my eye and forehead continued, along with the growing pain in my head. I often joke around about how, since my run-in with encephalitis, I’ve only ever had one headache. People seem thrilled to hear that until I tell them the one headache started back in 2017, and I’m looking forward to one day seeing the headache end.
That day, that Sunday, I continued to struggle with a fear of how my death might affect my family. Death itself doesn’t frighten me—that’s not bravado, but something else. I know for many, what I’m about to share might upset you, but I can’t hide my faith. I am a Christian who believes that Jesus loves us and offers us life with Him—free for anyone who wants it. The reason I don’t fear death is that I’m confident about my future.
The emotional pain I felt had to do with the matter of my family’s grief. I pictured my wife trying to move ahead in life, parenting our boys and managing alone. I imagined my boys grieving and longing for their dad. I thought about how grief and loss can often leave a hole in your heart for a long time, and I didn’t want my boys to spend years grieving and longing for the dad they lost as a child.
With the pain in my eye continuing and the pain and ache in my head as the encephalitis continued its rewiring of my brain, I was left with a constant reminder that I was not doing well. Things were serious.
I will admit… I was afraid. I was afraid of the pain that my boys and my wife would experience if I didn’t make it.
To be continued…
