Life Intervenes

You may have noticed that all was silent on She Dwells last week. That wasn’t a planned hiatus. But, as we all know, sometimes life intervenes.

I woke up the Saturday before Easter thinking I’d have a busy but largely unremarkable day. My daughter and her fiance were driving down for the Easter weekend, so my plans involved getting the house ready for guests. My husband said he wasn’t feeling well, though, so I went to the gym and told him to rest until I got back.

By the time I got home, Mike had driven himself to a nearby urgent care center. That in itself set off all kinds of alarms. Mike doesn’t go to the doctor. Ever. I knew something had to be very wrong.

Do you want me to come sit with you while you’re waiting? I texted.

No need, he replied. I’m sure it’s nothing.

An hour later, he came home with orders from the doctor at urgent care: drive straight to the ER.

“I really don’t think it’s that big a deal,” Mike said. “I’m actually feeling better.”

Nevertheless, we headed for the hospital.

That was Saturday at noon. By 6 p.m., Mike was being admitted to the hospital for observation. When I woke up early the next morning–Easter Sunday, you’ll recall–I had a text saying he was being prepped for surgery. He used a nurse’s phone to call me from pre-op.

Meanwhile, my daughter and her fiance had arrived. They were helping my son keep track of things at home, so at least I wasn’t trying to care for our four animals while I worried about whether Mike’s gallbladder was going to rupture before it could be removed. (That’s when things get serious.  Gallbladder surgery is normally done as an outpatient procedure; if the gallbladder is infected and threatening rupture, though, the stakes are much higher.)  Even so–having all the support I needed–it was a scary and tumultuous 24 hours.

And then everything calmed down again. A successful surgery averted disaster. Mike came home just after noon on Monday. By the time I got back to campus on Tuesday, I’d been out of my regular life and routine for 72 hours. I couldn’t remember what day it was. I had no clean clothes. We were out of dog food. As is always the case, life keeps moving forward. Even after it throws a wrench right at you.

But now that we’re a week away from that experience, I’m able to look back and learn something from it. In the moment of chaos, that’s never possible–you just want to get back to your regular life. Your boring, regimented, dog-food-buying life. The one you so often find sorely lacking, in one way or another.

There is nothing regular about being in the hospital. I hated leaving Mike there alone Saturday night, hated not knowing what was happening to him from moment to moment. He texted me later to say that a roommate had been brought in–a young man undergoing methadone treatment, just three days into an agonizing withdrawal from heroin.

But by the time I got to the hospital Sunday afternoon, though, Mike had developed a genuine fondness for his roommate–I’ll call him John. He wasn’t much older than our own kids. John’s mother was taking the city bus back and forth between a homeless shelter in downtown San Antonio and the hospital. She carried all her belongings with her in garbage bags, since they couldn’t be left at the shelter. She stayed with her son as long as the nurses would allow.

Mike learned bits and pieces of their story. How John’s mother had been abused by his father. How she’d taken her son, when he was four years old, and got on a bus with him. I didn’t even know where that bus was going, she said. I just knew I was getting you away from that man. How addiction had made everything in their lives more difficult, though it promises to do the opposite. That’s why so many people struggle with drugs and alcohol.

Driving home Sunday night, I thought about all the terrible decisions I’d made as a young person. It’s easy to start attributing your comfortable life to your own hard work and good choices–but the fact of the matter is, I made my share of really bad decisions, too. None of them led to serious consequences, and that’s just a matter of luck. It has nothing to do with me, really.

When we left the hospital Monday afternoon, Mike stopped by John’s hospital bed. “Which hand can I shake?” he asked. John had been through vascular surgery; both of his arms were bandaged up. Still, he held out a hand.

“Good luck,” Mike said. “You take care of yourself. You’re going to make it.”

“Thank you, neighbor,” John said. He sounded genuinely surprised. I wondered whether he was used to being treated as if he were invisible, not worth even the small amount of time it takes to say goodbye and good luck. Maybe he just wasn’t accustomed to hearing words of encouragement. Either way, the surprise in his voice made me want to cry.

I wish it didn’t take experiences like these to remind us that an unremarkable day and a healthy body are precious gifts. I wish we could appreciate those things without having them held up against others’ suffering. I wish there was no suffering. At the very least, I wish there was something we could have done for John and his mother–something that might have made a lasting difference.

But the best we can offer each other, most of the time, is compassion, and a willingness to remember that our own good fortune is no more deserved than others’ bad luck. Life intervenes. How we negotiate a sudden change of course depends on many things, and not all of them are under our control.