Maybe the concerns of our times are bigger than botched epidurals, spinning heads, and broken alternators, but here are some stories anyway. Enjoy!
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“Let’s have you get up,” the nurse said. “Time to move around.”
I sat on the edge of my hospital bed that day in 1999, placed my bare feet on the cool tile, and stood. I crumpled to the floor with a thud. I pushed myself up, but my legs wouldn’t support me. What was happening? The strength in my thighs was gone.
Surprise flitted across the nurse’s face and vanished. She pasted on a smile and called for an orderly. The two of them helped me back into bed and scurried away, deserting me to my thoughts. I had just given birth to Flicka, our first baby, and now something was wrong with my legs.
Over the next several hours, a number of doctors breezed in to examine me. They furrowed their brows and spoke to each other in muted voices.
“We’ve never seen this before,” my doctor said out loud, and I wished he hadn’t.
Fear writhed inside me. When everyone left the room, I turned into my pillow and cried.
“Maybe it was the epidural,” Husband said, “and maybe it’ll wear off soon.”
In the middle of the night, I phoned my youngest sister, a nurse.
“I’ve heard of this before. It sounds like you’ve had nerve injury, but you’ll get better in time.” Her tone soothed me, rocking my fears to sleep.
The hospital staff said I would be released when I could walk again. So, a few days after Flicka’s birth, the nurses gathered to watch me walk down the hallway of the OB ward. After a few steps, though, my legs gave out, and I collapsed. Heat prickled my neck, and sweat beaded on my face. I bit my lip, determined to get off the floor by myself. But I couldn’t.
On day five, through sheer grit, I locked my knees enough to pass the hall walk test, and the hospital discharged me. My muscles still lacked strength, though, so Husband assisted me with everything.
One night, I felt confident enough to get up with the baby. I scooped her from her bassinet, but just then, my knees buckled. Before I hit the floor, I angled my body to bear the brunt of the fall. Husband awoke and sprang from bed.
He assessed our newborn, still in my arms. “She’s fine, but are you okay?”
I sat on the floor, a weepy mess. He put the baby back in her bed and lifted me.
At the four-week mark, I met with a neurologist.
“You’ve suffered nerve injury. This happens to one in ten-thousand women who’ve had epidurals,” he said. “You’ll eventually heal.”
And I did. But in those early days, the fear of the unknown tangled me. It wasn’t what I had planned. And I knew I couldn’t control my healing—or my life.
As soon as I switched my eyes open one morning in 2004, the room whirled around me, and fear climbed up my throat. Vertigo had shown up for unwelcome visits before, but today was more complicated. Husband was gone on international travel for work, and my only companions were four-year-old Flicka, two-year-old Ricka, and the unborn baby who swam laps in my belly.
I eased myself to sitting position. It was a Sunday morning, and I had agreed to volunteer in Ricka’s classroom at church. Maybe I could still make it. Maybe my head would clear in time. But the room kept up its merry-go-round antics, and nausea roiled my stomach. I reclined on the pillows.
“I need your help, girls,” I called out to them, my voice brimming with the promise of adventures. “How about we do something different today?”
They scrambled downstairs from their bedroom and clambered up into the bed with me.
“Okay,” Flicka said, her eyes bright. “What will we do, Mama?”
“First, I need you to go into the other room, and look on that bookshelf for the church directory.” I described the slim book, hoping she would spot it even though she couldn’t read yet.
She found it and presented it to me like a scavenger hunt prize. I flipped through its pages and made the phone call that relieved me of my duties for the day.
“Now,” I said, “let’s get you two some breakfast.”
I sat up again, but the swaying room threatened to pitch me over the edge. I slid from the bed and lowered to my hands and knees on the floor.
“What are you doing, Mama?” Ricka said, cocking her head and patting me lightly on the back as she accompanied me on my slow crawl to the kitchen.
“I’m dizzy today,” I said, casting my words in cheery colors. “This helps me.”
But even on my hands and knees, I almost toppled. Changing my mind, I inched back to the bedroom. Safely in bed again, I doled out instructions to Flicka.
“New plan, honey. You get to make breakfast for the two of you. Isn’t that fun?” She squealed and jumped up and down. “Now listen. Push a chair up to the kitchen counter. This time it’s okay for you to stand on it. Open those cupboard doors above the sink and take down some cereal boxes. Help yourself. I trust you.” Flicka did what I said. “Now come and eat cereal in my bed, and we’ll watch something on TV.”
As my head spun, so I spun reality for my girls; they were too young to hear I didn’t have control over much of anything that day. And I didn’t want to hear the words out loud either.
The Honda’s windshield wipers slicked away the falling snowflakes as I navigated through the sluggish traffic of Minneapolis’ morning rush hour one day in 2014. I had already dropped off Flicka at the light rail for her ride to school. Now I had to drive through the downtown to deliver the other two girls to their school. Our houseguest at the time, nine-month-old Damian, was snug in his car seat in the back, and Ricka and Dicka played peekaboo with him.
As I approached the center of the downtown, I glanced at the dashboard. The lights flickered, and the gas and temperature gauges convulsed. Warning lights flashed. Nervous about the car’s behavior, I moved into the left-hand turn lane. If I could make it around the corner, I would pull over, but the stoplight snapped to red. I clenched my jaw and waited for the green arrow. The dashboard darkened for a second and lit up again.
“Girls, pray!” I hollered into the back seat. And they did.
The stoplight finally shot me a green arrow, and I held my breath and applied the gas. The car chugged forward. Would it survive through the left turn? If it stalled in the middle of the intersection, then what? My thoughts chattered with possible scenarios. I had little power over my vehicle and no control over the outcome. The car lurched left.
Once through the intersection, I pelted myself with two questions: Should I pull over? Or should I keep going? I flipped between the options but decided since the vehicle was still moving, I shouldn’t stop it.
The car propelled us over the Central Avenue Bridge and closer to our destination across the river. What was going on under the hood? With the flickering panel and spinning dials, I was either maneuvering a time machine, or the alternator was on its way out. Just a few more turns to go…
I pulled up in front of the girls’ school as the dashboard lights blacked out for good, and the car sputtered to its death.
“We made it,” I said, incredulous, the muscles in my neck taut.
The girls flung the car doors open and dashed toward the building, blowing kisses and we-hope-it-works-outs over their shoulders for the baby and me. I called for a tow truck, unclasped Damian from his car seat, and traipsed into the school with him to wait where it was warm.
We humans navigate life, convinced we have control. In the flash of crisis, though, in the loss of control, is freedom from the heaviest weight of all—the burden of believing we can master our own lives. And here’s more good news: With our fallible intentions and unreliable bodies, we’re not deserted to orchestrate our ways alone.
I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
