Today, the home health nurse was to arrive and assess my needs. Nothing like pressure to make a person perform.

And I did.

Before she arrived, I decided it was time to attempt a shower again. Our first attempt at a shower on Tuesday was not really all that successful, even though I mostly got clean and my hair did get washed. But it came with difficulty, a soggy trash bag and Press & Seal, some tears, and a Fred Flintstone bump on the side of my head when I almost crashed while attempting to exit the shower by myself.

For that reason, I’ve avoided being clean from the neck down the rest of the week and really wasn’t looking forward to having ANYONE help me take a shower. It’s a little humiliating and a lot of embarrassing.

When I found out the nurse would be here this morning, I decided it is time to put my big girl panties on and figure this out. My sister…what can I say. She helped with TWO things for my shower while she is commanding the house. She set my clothes on the counter, and she walked to the pharmacy to get a leg sleeve so I wouldn’t have to use a trash bag again.

But, (imagine puffed up Foghorn Leghorn chest) I went into the bathroom, situated the shower chair, got my towel and washcloth, put on my new PICC line sleeve and got it tightened up, put on the leg sleeve, undressed myself, and took a nice shower without incident, and THEN, I was able to towel dry, get out of the shower, get dressed, dry off the shower chair and put it in front of the mirror so I could dry my hair and finish getting ready for the day – all on one leg! AND I DIDN’T FALL, I DIDN’T CRY, I DIDN’T CALL OUT FOR HELP.

I was so proud of myself!

Today, I am grateful for the good days – they are so much more enjoyable than the bad days.

I am grateful for help.

I am grateful for a home health nurse who spent an hour with me and told me I was doing good.

I am grateful for a sister who is in the kitchen listening to nice music and making my nut mix on a clean kitchen floor she accomplished last night.

I am grateful for a brother who decided he needed to come and assist Sam this weekend while our sister assists me.

I am grateful for some very nice cards I have received in the mail this week.

I am grateful for competitive boss friend and co-workers who have gone ABOVE AND BEYOND this week to feed us, gave me time to rest and heal, pushed me to consider home health, sending an advocate/friend/nurse to help me next weekend, provided a shower chair/walker/big bag of all things needed for my hospital stay, and they check on me multiple times a day from 5 hours away.

I am grateful for Geri’s text messages and emails every day to encourage me with scripture and prayer as I navigate this new territory I didn’t want to find myself in.

I am grateful for a bed in the middle of the busiest room in our house so that I am not stuck upstairs away from all the action.

I am grateful that Sam thought it would be wise to build a walk-in shower in our first floor hall bathroom – it sure is useful in 2020 disabled land.

I am grateful that although I bought it so we could travel and I could continue to work, this laptop is proving very essential now that my days are spent in bed, and as I begin to wean myself off pain meds, I will be able to work more and more hours and get back to some semblance of normalcy.

I am grateful that in the middle of all that is unfamiliar and new with this latest crisis, it is actually fairly familiar and has brought back many memories of 40 years ago when I “been there, done that” the first time at Hutchinson Hospital and Wesley Medical Center.

I am grateful that Psalm 46:1 is still true, 40 years later…The Lord is my refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. I repeated it then, many times a day, and I am repeating it again, Part Deux.

I am grateful the home health nurse gave me a passing grade on administering my own antibiotics through the PICC line and on changing the dressing on my leg.

And I am grateful that physical therapy begins next week. I think. I may be crying and regretting, but He is my refuge and strength and will be present in times of trouble/pain/stretching//weight bearing/therapy.

I am grateful for my sister. She took most of the week off from work to come take care of me, even though I didn’t think I needed taking care. I didn’t realize how nice it was to have someone take care of our meals, clean up around the house, do my laundry, help get medications ready to go for infusion, water the plants, get the mail, make our house smell like someone lives here with her cooking, feed the cats, clean the litter boxes, get things I need from upstairs, inject happiness in the air of my depressed state of mind, do the dishes, randomly think of a snack to bring to me mid-day, pick up things I drop, move rugs out of the way that could be hazardous, check on AirBnb’s, keep Sam company, bring breakfast to me as soon as I am alert and ready for the day, and on and on and on and on.

You don’t need a plan; you just need to be present. – Bob Goff in Love Does

When I came home from the hospital, I really didn’t have any idea how difficult it was going to be to exist. We can take care of ourselves. Sam is taking a harvest break from chemo, so he feels pretty good. We got this.

But within the first 30 minutes of being home, we both began to realize how difficult this might be when he had to unload the entire truck by himself and lift me up onto the porch by himself, only to come inside and have to put everything away and make the bed to get me into it and then figure out what was next to make the house run again. Staying on top of the infusions three times a day, helping me in the bathroom to get cleaned up and dressed, and doing all that my sister is now doing was just a lot for him – he has his own battle to fight.

We have a hard time asking for help that we don’t realize we need until we need it. My sister took the initiative and dropped her schedule to drive five hours to be whatever we need before we knew we needed. She asked but knew we would turn her down. So she did what we try to do but fail at quite often.

As I write this, I do not have a blanket over me, and I am a little cold. The cats are on my covers, and they are so adorable, I hate to disturb them. Besides, the laptop is warm, so it is okay. And then, my sister appears with a cup of hot tea and a homemade cookie from her husband.

Simply put, love does. – Bob Goff in Love Does

She didn’t expect for us to come up with a list of things we needed help with, because she knew we were overwhelmed already.

She didn’t wait to be asked, because she knew we wouldn’t.

She just DID.

It started with the fact that a friend’s husband had a bone infection from an accident about a year ago, and she was able to recommend the best ortho trauma doctor at KU.

Then when things got worse and I didn’t think I could wait for that appointment for five days, my competitive boss friend sent an email to her VIP KU connection and I had an appointment the next day.

The first KU doctor who saw me right away grew up an hour from our Small Town USA and took the time to walk us through and explain what I was facing. He got me an air cast boot to take away a little pain and discomfort while we waited for the main appointment with his colleague four days later.

On the big day of the appointment last Tuesday, we left at 6:30 am in a cold wind and drizzle and drove the five hours to the KU Med Center campus, anxious for answers and an end to this lower leg pain.

“Your appointment was canceled.”

Talk about a punch in the gut sick feeling. After driving five hours to be told there was no appointment? Inner Grace wanted to come out – that’s my mom, notorious for not being able to hold it in.

30 minutes later, we were in an exam room waiting to be seen by the best of the best, and I was worried that this physician would examine my leg and tell me the same thing the other ortho doctor in Central Kansas had told me one week earlier:

“Keep doing what you are doing and we will follow up.”

*****

A week earlier, we had traveled an hour and a half to that Central Kansas appointment on a very early morning, just knowing this was something kind of serious thanks to our wonderful Small Town USA physician who took my pain seriously.

We arrived on time and anxious to see the specialist.

“We don’t have an appointment for you. What is your name again and how do you spell it?”

I swear I am invisible, especially next to “personality plus” husband whom everyone loves. (Actually, the specialist had set up the appointment four days earlier as he consulted with my primary care physician, but he neglected to let his office know, so I was not in the system, not on the books…)

I tend to think every time I go to the doctor it will be nothing, that the educated and busy will think I am wasting their time. It causes me to pause more often than not, to not pick up the phone and make the call for an appointment. (Hmmm. Could it be I was the youngest of six children and grew up seeking attention any way I could get it? Could it be that when my original injury happened 40 years ago and the orthopedic surgeon told my parents my complaints about pain in my knee were just a desperate cry for attention after all the other surgeries were over and done, maybe he was right?)

So I overthink and under report. And Tuesday morning, I was worried that we had made the drive for nothing.

An hour later, we were making fast plans to check in to KU Med Center for surgery the next day.

*****

This week I have been reminded once again that God intervenes, through people all around me, and through His unrecognized miracles. When we were not satisfied with answers from an appointment with a doctor in Central Kansas, He took over through the actions of my competitive boss friend and former co-worker friend who spoke on my behalf to those in charge at KU. When the appointment was inexplicably canceled, He took over and made it happen through the kindness of a scheduler and staff on the 2nd floor of a medical office building on the campus of KU Med Center. When I thought that I was over-exaggerating my pain and questioned my motives for complaint, He took over through the kindness and concern of a orthopedic trauma surgeon at KU.

God intervened and continues to do so all along this journey. When I felt like I was a back page story and beating myself up for thinking this was a bigger deal than it should be, He intervened through new Friends in Indiana and a congregational care pastor here in KC, through Facebook messages and text messages from friends and family members. When we had to drop everything and hightail it to KC, He intervened through the kindness of our neighbors who took care of cats and house and mail and properties, being Jesus to us, being His hands and feet for us.

God let me know that I matter through the kind eyes of an infectious disease doctor and a long conversation with a nurse on a Saturday afternoon.

God reached out and touched me through a pair of pajamas that made all the difference in the world, and He let me know I was not alone in the text messages that said, “Don’t buy a shower chair or a walker. You can borrow ours.”

God made sure I was aware that not only does Sam have a circle, so does Rhonda. This journey is being taken on a paved path of prayer from Texas and Oklahoma to Florida and Indiana and all over Kansas.

God is making Himself known to me this week and He is assuring me I am not invisible and this leg does matter.

Left Legs Matter. That is as political as I get.

I am grateful God intervenes and maybe it is the overload and hallucinations of pain meds, but I recognize His hands and feet in the actions, words, and care of others around me.

And I am grateful that God will continue to intervene this next week, come what may, whether I am still in this hospital bed or back home trying to figure out how to maneuver with a walker.

I’m nicknaming my leg RVW. Apparently, it has been asleep for 40 years and just decided 2020 was the alarm clock going off.

40 years ago, I had a motorcycle accident. My first time on one, first date, with my first love. On a Friday the 13th. It was the beginning of the rest of my life. I ended up breaking both the tibia and the fibula, lower left leg, along with several other significant injuries. However, those two bones decided to be problem children.

I had a Hoffman frame to stabilize the bones and set them. It involved 6 pins drilled through the bones and attached on the outside of the leg with Frankenstein’s spare parts, and after what seemed an eternity, the doctor decided it was no longer needed and removed it, putting me in a thigh cast. However, his associate neglected to cut windows into the cast, and several weeks later, we discovered the reason I was in so much pain and my room smelled like death… gangrene.

So began a battle of the surgeries to repair the mangled extremity, and two years later, I was as good as new with a deformed-looking leg. Over the years, I got used to it and got used to not wearing shorts. No big deal.

Fast forward 40 years.

I have gained some weight and wanted to get back down to a comfortable size, so I began walking again. I have a very competitive boss friend and we like to compete to see who goes the furthest and has the most steps every day. So what does Rhonda do? She decides 5 miles a day isn’t enough, and for three weeks, she walked 7 miles every morning. Listening to a great book on Audible helped the time pass, and I felt so good about my newfound motivation.

However.

I had noticed back in April that my lower left leg was swelling every day – not its counterpart, just the left leg. I didn’t have any pain, so I didn’t worry too much about it. Over the summer, I Google diagnosed and thought maybe it was a DVT. After speaking with my stepdaughter nurse when a little bit of pain showed up, we determined that it must be a stress fracture from the excessive obsessive walking.

But it got worse…bad enough that I thought a doctor visit was in order. At first, it was thought that it must be a little inflammation or cellulitis due to the newfound activity, so a steroid and simple antibiotic was prescribed, along with a nice pain med. That didn’t work.

Two weeks ago, a CT and blood work was ordered and more pain meds were prescribed, along with a daily infusion of antibiotics.

And then the MRI was done, and RVW decided to pose for his picture. Inside my tibia, a pocket of abscess nasty had decided to live for FORTY years, all asleep and content. And for some weird reason, he decided it was time to get up and scream. He is about 2 1/2 inches long and he is like a newborn baby with his hours all upside down – so he loves to scream all night long. (Apparently, bone infections are well known for having nocturnal pain.)

The pain has gotten worse over the last two weeks, and I am not sleeping much at night. A Costco bag of frozen strawberries has been my teddy bear comfort, along with several bottles of drugs that sit on my bedside table. (I have taken more pain meds in two weeks than I have in a lifetime.)

And Sam. He holds my hand in bed, rubs my thigh, and feels what I feel when he is on chemo – helpless.

Today, we had an appointment with an ortho trauma surgeon at KU. I figured he would tell me it would be a change in antibiotics and an 8 week long haul of daily infusions. Instead, he told us that a room was being reserved for me at the hospital and surgery would happen tomorrow.

But I have things that need to get done at home! We can come back next week when there isn’t so much on the schedule!

At least one surgery is scheduled – maybe more – I meet with an infectious disease doctor in the morning, and this room will be home for the next week, or so they say.

Sam is in MY place now and has taken over. We are getting this done now. I guess there is a risk that the bone could continue to weaken with RVW taking up space and the last thing I need is a broken bone with RVW on the loose.

So, tonight, I guess I am grateful for a green gown that ties in the back.

I am grateful for a partner who takes wonderful care of me and doesn’t let me make stupid decisions.

I am grateful for the anticipation of an end to this horrific pain and a return to a full night of sleep.

I am grateful for my friends who have reached out today and let me know I am not alone and they are speaking my name in their prayers.

I am grateful for a friend who already went through this bone infection thing, sort of, and referred us to this surgeon, and I am grateful for competitive boss friend who got the ball rolling faster when she knew the pain was intensifying.

I am grateful for a neighbor who will take care of Banana and Split while we are gone and will overlook the house neglect as a result of the homeowner carrying around a screaming old man in her leg.

I am grateful for Sam’s oncologist who is doing all he can to get Sam’s chemo treatment rearranged so Sam can be here with me.

I am grateful to be at KU where we already know we will get the best of the best care.

I am grateful that my stupid leg still means a lot to Jesus and I have come to acceptance this evening that this is what September looks like for us. My only assignment is to trust Him and lean not on my own understanding.

And be nice to scrubs with needles and Milk of Magnesia.

Tonight, I am grateful for a husband who doesn’t mind driving ten hours in a day for one doctor appointment.

I am grateful for the total contrast of caring and compassionate physicians who take the time to listen and learn versus their rushed and dismissive counterparts, and I am grateful we know enough to seek second opinions.

I am grateful for connections. Sometimes it IS who you know, and I am so very grateful to know my boss friend who can and did make things happen when we were in need.

I am grateful for a beautiful view on the ride back west of a sunset, of gaggles of geese flying against the smoky blue peach dusk, of a very pretty Audi A6, and jet trails that light up with the setting sun.

I am grateful for a very strong pain pill that will soon put me to sleep.

I am grateful for small town USA football live-streamed on YouTube so Sam can “watch” as he drives home.

I am grateful for a very busy weekend of AirBnb guests, and I am grateful we are able to go home tonight so that we can clean, clean, clean, clean all weekend long.

I am grateful for answers and images that reassure me I am not crazy and there really IS a reason for this pain in my leg.

I am grateful for McAllister’s tea, one of the simple joys in life.

I am grateful for a mask that has just become second nature and is no longer a bother.

I am grateful for a very nice small town USA hospital with great nurses I am learning to know on a first name basis and look forward to seeing every day.

I am grateful for good veins, CoBan wrap, and Press & Seal for showering.

I am grateful for Audible and the privilege to listen to good books.

I am grateful for close friends who cheer me up with a card in the mail, a new water bottle, and FedExed homeopathy for pain management this weekend.

I am grateful that my husband helps me in the middle of the night when I am in distress and “feels” my pain right alongside me.

I am grateful for smooth highways and a comfortable ride.

And I am grateful that even though in the grand scheme of things this isn’t a big deal, it IS a big deal to God, and I can cast all my cares on Him. Until next week, I will do just that.