Fun in Surgery

About a week and a half ago, almost in time to celebrate the one-year anniversary of my first knee surgery, I had my second surgery here in Spain. This entire experience with my knee has been quite interesting as I’ve been able to go through such a wide spectrum of emotions…from shock at the awful timing of the accident to… fear at the possibility of needing surgery to …resignation to the forced humility of being an invalid (even going so far as being served dinner by my 91 year old grandma as she shuffles my tray in on her walker!) to …stubborn perseverance in my desire to heal correctly to… frustration at slow healing in a different country to …doubt of God’s intentions for all of the suffering to… guilt at not doing everything I could possibly do to get better to… being overwhelmed with all of the unknowns and necessary decisions to… satisfaction with the knowledge that God truly does work all things for His good to… annoyance with my lack of faith that God would heal me to… acceptance that there was nothing more I could do but trust in who God is to… where I am today.

You know, I never would have thought that a surgery could be somewhat enjoyable! When I went to the hospital for the outpatient orthoscopic knee surgery that I had been dreading for a couple of months, I wasn’t expecting many of the things that I experienced. For one, I innocently expected that the 2:00 time that was listed for me to check in would be an indicator of when my surgery would take place- wrong! After three waiting areas, at least two rounds of nurses, and about six hours of waiting without explanation with Merly and Asel, I was finally wheeled into the operating room. Before this surgery I was pretty sure that they told me I would be under general anesthesia, but once again- wrong! It’s good that I didn’t know I’d be getting an epideral (sp?) before the surgery because the idea of being awake through a surgery freaked me out! So, to the “somewhat enjoyable” part of the surgery…

Once I survived the necessary shots and ignored the fact that there was an IV in my hand (needles are something I HATE), I was quite entertained by my comical anesthesiologist, the friendly nurses, and the fact that there was a leg being lifted from the table and painted with this gross iodine stuff that I eventually realized was mine. It is the strangest feeling to see a part of your body being moved around and painted and bent and you can’t feel a thing. After all of the preliminary prep stuff, I actually enjoyed watching on the screen to see what the doctor was doing inside of my knee. Surprisingly, I wasn’t disgusted by what I was seeing. On the contrary, I was intrigued to see the junk being cut away that had impeded full movement in my leg for almost a year. I asked many questions and was fully awake through it all. When it was over, my surgeon straightened my leg all of the way and said, “See- you know it can straighten, so now it’s up to you to make sure it stays that way”.

When I made it back to my room, I found out that I would be spending the night in the hospital- surprise! I am very blessed to have the friends I have. Asel went home to get stuff for me and to spend the night with me and make sure I was ok. Bruce came to check on me and pick up Merly, and I received many calls over the next few days with concerned friends who had been praying. What a blessing!

Now that the surgery is over and appears to be successful, my job is to work hard in therapy and make sure I fight through the pain and discomfort so that my knee truly is restored to a normal working knee. I have two major goals: 1) run again 2) wear cute shoes with heels (I know- very lofty goals!).

Overall, I can say that I am thankful for what God has been teaching me through this ordeal of tearing my ACL. I have been stretched not only physically through all of this, but more importantly, the Lord has been stretching my faith and my ability to trust in His faithfulness. It is my prayer that as my muscles are stretched and strengthened to the point of being able to run again, my spiritual muscles will undergo the same process so that I can run the race that the Lord has marked out for me. Lord, give me the perseverance to complete it!