Home

It was a week ago today that we packed up our room in Cleveland, said good bye to our new found friends in the EMU and headed home. For Tina it was the first time and for me only the second time in 5 weeks that we felt the direct rays of the sun and breathed fresh air. We didn’t get more than a couple of blocks down the street before we ducked into a Burger King…

We took our time driving home. Tina wanted to stop at Cabella’s in Dundee but I talked her out of it – after laying in bed for 5 weeks she had a hard enough time just getting to the car let alone walk around the gigantic Cabella’s store. Now I know that most of you probably don’t believe that it actually happened this way (Tina wanting to go to Cabella’s and me talking her out of it) but I assure you it is true – my wife is definitely unique, which is part of why I love her. We did end up stopping at TGI Friday’s in Brighton for a New York Strip that tasted absolutely unbelievable. After 5 weeks of eating nothing but hospital food I can’t even describe how great it was to eat a medium rare steak.

By the time we got home we were both pretty exhausted. The inactivity had definitely taken its toll on Tina’s body. She struggled to step up into the house and just walking around the house wiped her out. That first night home was very unsettling for me. Before we left the hospital the nurse went through all of Tina’s care instructions and she warned me about all the things to watch out for – cerebral fluid leaking out of her incision, bleeding, infection, neuro-responsiveness, falls, cleaning, etc. – all of these thing were constantly at the forefront of my mind.

Going to bed last Friday night was the beginning of one of the most fitful nights of sleep I’ve had in a long time. When we were in the hospital there was a certain sense of security that I took in knowing that even when I was asleep there was someone in the other room watching Tina on the video monitor and could see exactly what was going on inside of her brain. As odd as it may seem, you get very used to being able to look at a monitor to know what’s going on with someone. But of course, we don’t have any of that at home and so I constantly was waking up wondering how Tina was doing. (It didn’t help either that our bedroom is on the second floor and it was 95 degrees, 98% humidity and our house had been shut up with no AC for more than a month.)

Our kids came home on Sunday afternoon and my mother-in-law came Sunday night to stay with Tina and the kids while I went back to work. It has been great having her there to help out and give me some peace of mind while I was at work. Throughout the week Tina has continually gained more and more strength. She no longer get’s too winded walking around the house and she’s able to go up and down the stairs without fear of falling down them. She still has a fair amount of swelling in her face and she’s still pretty bald, although her hair is growing quite well – besides she’s beautiful bald.

This week has had its ups and downs as our family settles back into normal life. The adrenalin has subsided, the immediate stress is gone, and the normal everyday issues of life are starting to return. (kids fighting, the cat bringing dead mice to the door, complaining, bickering, yelling, crying – kind of like your house.) At the same time we have enjoyed being back together as a family. (watching a movie together, eating together, playing games, wrestling, cuddling, family devotions and nighttime prayers.)

The question I get the most often, now that we’re home, is whether or not we are disappointed and discouraged with the outcome of this adventure we had in Cleveland. Do we feel frustrated that we sat there for five weeks without it resulting in any treatment for Tina’s seizures, and only the hope to go do it again at some point in the future? I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t part of us that is disappointed. We went there for the purpose of treating Tina’s seizures not to take up fulltime residence, so not getting that treatment is disappointing. However, from the very first post I put on this blog we knew that it was a real possibility that we might not find treatment… or worse. I referred to the fact that we were on a journey and it was our desire to follow the path that God had planned out for us as we went on that journey. I also referred to the fact that God had revealed through His word that His paths are beyond tracing out.

Apparently this untraceable path included spending five weeks in Cleveland without finding a treatment for Tina’s seizures. Rest assured that if I were God this is not how it would have turned out. If I were planning my path things would have gone much different – it likely would have gone a direction that each and everyone one of us would have been able to trace out ahead of time. What one of us, if we were designing our own path, wouldn’t have planned for the electrodes to be put in the right location the first time, for Tina to have a bunch of seizures the first day there, have surgery the second day, and be out of the hospital by the third; seizure free, and no adverse affects from the surgery? I would have – but let me just say that, for all of our sakes, it’s a good thing that I’m not God. Why?

Because I have learned that sometimes the “traceable” path is not always the best path. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is my favorite poems because it reminds me that sometime the path that is unknown and unsearched often times turns out to the best, although we couldn’t see it at the time.

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I cannot see from where I am right now how this untraceable path will turn out to be the best, but I am confident that God’s untraceable paths are, and will lead to, an end that is far better than anything I can possibly imagine. So are we disappointed that our trip to Cleveland didn’t turn out differently? Absolutely. Would I change it if I could? Absolutely not. I believe with all my heart, that someday I will be able to say with Robert Frost that by taking the untraceable path “[it] has made all the difference.”