Laurie's Posts

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. —Isaiah 40:31 Yesterday was 4 weeks since my body went through the trauma of open-heart surgery. Doctors are clear to use the language of trauma when describing what happens to a patient during an open-heart procedure. Not only do they cut you open, they stop your heart and put you on 'heart-lung bypass'. Your body is cooled to a hypothermic state during all of this to protect your organs. Artificial respiration is supplied for several hours until you can breathe on your own again reliably and copious amounts of anesthesia are administered that ensure that you don't wake up for quite awhile while they bring your body back to stasis. So it is not surprising that I am still tired, still trying to get back energy to do basic tasks and my heart is still trying to adjust to its new reality. Healing takes time and sometimes I wonder, "when will I feel normal again?" A year ago yesterday, all of our hearts felt like they stopped for a bit as we began to deal with the reality of Covid-19. We began to hear that life might need to be shut down for a time and our normal way of being bypassed while doctors and scientists worked to figure out how to best respond to this new threat to our lives. It was March 13 here in Maryland that our Governor announced early afternoon that schools would be closed and that other organizations and businesses would likewise have to shutter. I remember standing in the church office watching along with other staff persons and saying, "well, that's it, we have to close down." I am not sure that any of us understood the gravity of the situation a year ago. While I was pretty certain that the predicted '2-3 weeks' of school and businesses being closed was likely a great underestimation, I had no earthly idea that a year later we would still not be back to life as we knew it. I certainly didn't know that it would be a trauma for our communities, nation and world. None of us really knew what we would go through. A year ago I also had no idea of what I was going to have to go through in order to have a healthy heart again. I knew I wasn't well. I could feel it every day. I tried to convince my cardiologist and my insurance company that something was very wrong but neither listened as intently as I needed them to. And so needed tests and diagnoses were delayed. Fortunately, I had a small TIA in July that started to hasten the journey towards my healing but it would still take a few more months to begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. At times I wasn't sure how it would all turn out. It felt a bit dark at moments as I wondered how soon I would be healed. But there is this thing called hope that keeps hanging on. I wanted more than anything to heal. I didn't want to go through open-heart surgery to get there though. It was a daunting proposition. One day, as God and I were talking about why I had to go through all of this, I heard a familiar voice. It was my daughter, Hope. For those of you who don't know, Hope died two days after her birth. But Hope has been alive in my heart for nearly 13 years. And that day she spoke to me and said, "Mommy, I need you to live." God was using her to speak words of life into my spirit. That was pretty much all that I needed to commit myself to what was unavoidable. A year into Covid, I have been realizing what a hard year it has been. I watched a reality TV program the other night where the family on the show was just finding out about Covid. Unexpectedly, I found myself crying. A wave of the reality of March 2020 washed over me. It was clear that in 'getting through it' I had not totally allowed myself to feel it. Maybe you have been experiencing similar emotions this week. But it has been unavoidable. To quote a children's book, "Can't go over it, can't go under it, we have to go through it." (Going on a Bear Hunt, Rosen and Oxenbury). And we have indeed gone through it. It has been hard and tiring and some days it is taken all that we have to do normal activities. We have wondered, "when will we all feel normal again?" Last night, President Biden suggested that if we all continue to follow protocols and if a significant percentage of our population gets vaccinated that maybe, just maybe, by July 4 we can begin to declare independence from Covid-19. He warned that a lot of things had to come together well for that to happen but it was something to aim for. I am looking forward to the day when I can declare independence from heart disease too. My goal is to be able to run by summertime. It may not be a long run but it will be a victory lap none the less. But for today, I am walking steadily, more and more each week (I am aiming for a half mile a day this week). There is still a lot of healing to come. Likewise, there is still a lot of healing to come in this world for Covid. As many of us have received our vaccines, there are whole nations that have little access to any doses. Even as some people got very mild cases of Covid and celebrate that, there are others still plagued by lasting effects and too many who are grieving the loss of their dear ones. We have been through a trauma. Our hearts have stopped at moments. We have felt like it was hard to breathe. But step by step, God is offering us hope to get us through. I, for one, am going to keep holding on to that hope.