Please Pray for Mike's Surgery Dec 17, 7:30 AM

Many things happen when one cares for a grown child who becomes increasingly incapacitated. You feel trapped in a never waking nightmare with each new downturn. You grieve each new loss, your child's pain, the loss of the future that should have been. The one you planned without realizing it when you looked into that child's perfect newborn face.

I suppose those are the things an astute person might realize would happen.

But there are somethings no one preps you for. Like the destruction of bits of your body from caring for someone who weighs the majority of what you do. Towards the end, I had trouble keeping Heidi upright. Sometimes, when I walked her by holding her arm and the gait belt that encircled her waist, her foot would suddenly turn under. She then pitched forward with incredible force. It took all my strength to keep her face from hitting the floor. And it seemed like it pulled my arm out of its socket. Pain shot through my lower back, as if I had been rear ended. And I was terrified I might drop her. 

It got so bad, Mike took over the physical care when he was home.

And ended up with both rotator cuffs torn.

I'm sure they were already in a fragile state, but the wear and yanking finished them off.

Tomorrow at 0-dark-early, he will have a disk in his neck replaced. I have to wonder if all the yanking played a part in this, too. But I don't know.

I do know I am grateful this surgery has been postponed until this month. Just a few months ago, he likely would have had to have his neck fused. For him, I suspect that would bring accelerated degeneration of the adjacent disks.

But disk replacement surgery has recently moved out of the investigational stage and into something covered by insurance. Thank You, Lord!

Please pray for the surgeon and Mike's good recovery.

Blessings,

Pat