Step Nine: Reinvent us.

On May 23, 2024, my husband, Jim Gallagher, entered the E.R. he worked in for 15 years, this time as a patient.  Within days he was fighting for his life as an infection that began in his foot raged throughout his body, and on June 4th, his leg was amputated below the knee in order to save his life.  This is an ongoing log of our journey.

We’re home!

It was exhilarating to drive away from the hospital in my own car, Jim riding shotgun, on July 23rd, and the two of us were giddy.  It also felt a little foolish and risky, as if we were junior-highers who somehow accidentally just graduated from high school, and maybe it was a mistake that all the props and helps had now vanished and we were on our own.

Our retinology appointment beckoned us east, but Jim insisted that we first swing by our church to see who might be in the office on a Tuesday, give them a high five, and thank them for the prayers and love that have supported us for two months as we rode the rollercoaster of diagnosis. 

I don’t know if two people have ever been more well-supported than we have been, between our church, our neighbors, and friends and family from several states and a couple different countries.

(TIP:  If you don’t have a church family, FIND YOU ONE!!!  Get a good one, where truth is preached and grace is practiced and love wears boots and work gloves and isn’t afraid to cry with you.  I’ve been taught so much by friends in these past two months!)

After the good news of improving vision at the Retinologist, we arrived home to the welcome of family who had come to help from Canada and California.  Our furry family members wagged and whimpered and jumped all over Jim, like he had returned from the dead, which is, I suppose, exactly what did happen. 

What a glorious beginning of Chapter Two: Reinventing Us!

But not every day since has shared that same glory.  There is exhilaration, yes!  But there is also frustration, as the most basic of life tasks that normally take no thought at all have become complex and layered, requiring assistance and support.  It takes Two for Jim to do most activities, though he inches toward independence each day.  And whenever Two are involved, there are also two ideas of how this should be done, and the natural conflicts that arise as we struggle to communicate and negotiate and respect each other’s priorities.  Pain, lack of sleep, and urgency all turn up the heat in those moments, and we do a lot of apologizing and forgiving. Early on a friend reminded us of this precious and hard truth that we keep returning to:

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

James 5:16

Our pride resists, but confession is so healing.

Standing strong.

Actual physical standing is not yet possible for Jim, but there is currently a whole lot of standing strong happening that is not physical in nature.

Life at home for Jim centers around pain management, strength-building, and connection with friends.  Necessary medications have become the clock we live life by.  Jim’s home plate is a noisy, metal hospital bed that looks like something out of M*A*S*H, but it articulates and raises and lowers with the help of an electric hand control, thankfully.  It would have been a crank bed, but they were out of those, so they delivered this one!

Jim moves from bed to wheelchair to recliner and back again, always with assistance.

Thank the Lord for the wheelchair and wide hallways! In his chair Jim can get everywhere inside our home, and also onto the porch.

He still cannot lift his right leg (the one now missing a foot), but it gives hints that it might be waking up. You may recall that the psoas muscle is still atrophied, so the leg is flacid and squishy.  So I have joyously named him (the leg) Squishy, and am fond of quoting Dory from Finding Nemo:  “I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy.”

Meanwhile, Goal Two for Jim (Goal One being using the toilet--checked that one off recently!) is the ability to stand on his left leg. Jim has exercise stations in several places, and works with the strength he has to gain more strength, and we see small gains daily. 

Pain is the enemy that sometimes holds him back from his goals, and his back often seizes.  Last night as I was saying goodnight, I watched him stiffen and grimace, seemingly for no reason at all.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“I just took off my glasses,” he said.

Ouch.  Small things are now big things.

Jim’s biggest blessing, though, is his friends!  Whether you have called to share stories or encouragement, or you showed up with a hammer to help prepare our home for sale, your presence is the medicine that gives Jim joy and courage.  In the last two weeks this army of friends and family has helped us clean out the basement, taken 3 trips to the dump and 2 more to deliver good used items to Saint Paula (if you’re local you know exactly who I’m talking about) who is doing a benefit sale for us.  They pressure washed our deck, reinforced the battens on the back of the house, primed baseboards, installed lattice skirting on our porch, cleared out our ditches, installed a new toilet, and most of all brought hope and laughter through our doors.

For each of you--you know who you are--I give you Hebrews 6:10:

For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown for His name as you have ministered to the saints and continue to do so.

Hebrews 6:10

Standing by.

My journey, like Jim’s, has encompassed exhilaration and frustration and also exhaustion.  Emotions are high when so much love and longing is at stake, and I need to build emotional muscle. 

Tears--happy and sad and frustrated and grateful and fearful and repentant tears--flow regularly these days. 

"Lord," I wrote in my journal the other day, "Have mercy!  See my weakness, Jim’s need.  Make me stronger than I am.  Amen!"

Tears--happy and sad and frustrated and grateful and fearful and repentant tears--flow regularly these days.  This is, apparently, the new me, overflowing with all the emotions in the book.

Initially Jim needed help with every single activity of daily living, and that's what I'm home to do. However, while I help Jim live his life, mine is on hold, and I feel the pressure of those needs piling up behind the dam.  Living life for both of us, learning to do medical support, managing change, preparing our home for sale, decoding paid leave, Social Security, Medicare, the bills (formerly Jim's job), planning for future changes, accommodating new dietary needs, pain, five doctors, two therapists 24 medications and a partridge in a pear tree.... It's a lot to fit into a 24-hour day.

From my journal again: "Lots of tears this morning.  I feel like the end on the 'crack the whip' game!  And exhausted.  Where did my joy go?"

I miss my longer journaling times, but Jim still makes sure I get some time to seek God and his strength each day. It is a lifeline. Psalm 119:114 says, "You are my hiding place and my shield; I put my hope in Your word." That is truly where I run for refuge, to Jesus, where I pour out my heart honestly to God and do my best to quiet my busy heart and listen for his answering word to me. 

Sometimes that comes with a quiet assurance of my next right step, or an attitude I need to make my own. Other times it is verses of Scripture that seem to stand out in bold, the medicine I need to address whatever I'm currently dealing with, such as....

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God,

and that no root of bitterness springs up to cause trouble and defile many.

Hebrews 12:5

Therefore strengthen your limp hands and weak knees.

Make straight paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Hebrews 12:12

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,

so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.

Hebrews 7:12

Like Jim, my army of friends have become my stretcher-bearers. I have even connected with some friends and family members who are from a more distant past, and I draw life and strength from their help, love, and encouragement. 

One of those friends is my old high school teacher, who now lets me call her “Ginger”.  She encouraged me with a reminder of the beautiful Psalm 84, one of the “songs of ascent” meant to be sung as pilgrims took the long journey on foot to the Holy City for feasts such as the Passover.  That journey—like the one we are on--wasn’t easy, and it required determination and creativity.  The “Valley of Baca” referred to here derives from the Hebrew “bakah”, meaning to weep or mourn.  There, in literally the "Valley of Tears", it seems the pilgrims knew how to find the springs of water that would refresh them along the way:

Blessed are those whose strength is in You,

whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca,

they make it a place of springs;

even the autumn rain covers it with pools.

They go from strength to strength

until each appears before God in Zion.

Psalm 84: 5-7

So we, too, set our hearts on pilgrimage.  The journey may be long.  But God is our strength, and you, our friends, are those springs of water along our way.  You help us go from strength to strength…

One step at a time.