Have you ever arrived at your destination and hopped out of the car only to realize that you were missing something very important like your wallet or your keys or, better yet, you had forgotten to put your legs on?! Okay, you’ve probably never forgotten to put your legs on, but you get what I’m saying, right? Well, that’s what happened to us yesterday at Cedars.
We pulled up to the curb and I went around to the back of the car, opened the hatch… and no wheelchair!! It was the craziest feeling! Where’s the wheelchair? The back of the car was empty. So strange. In these last 18 months that Dave has been in a wheelchair, we’ve never forgotten it anywhere. It is always with us. It has become part of our life. A very necessary part, and we have made friends with it.
There are so many “details” to this new life. I’ve forgotten a lot of other things, but never the wheelchair. Thankfully we had arrived at the hospital early and we were having a good day so when we realized we had forgotten the wheelchair in the garage at home, we both started laughing. I’m afraid there are many other days where I would have burst out in tears in that moment. And fortunately we were at a hospital so a loaner chair was easy to find. Dave called it a “Corolla” in comparison to his “Lexus chair,” but nevertheless, it was wheels (or legs) for the day.
At every turn in our lives there are going to be mishaps, hurdles, and detours. It’s life. It’s reality. Some things will be simple frustrations and others will be devastations. One thing I have learned in these last few years is how important it is to resist turning the molehills into mountains, the mishaps into devastations. It’s so easy to do when you’re tired or stressed or just too busy. Learning to roll with the punches and even laugh at the storms is essential. And if you don’t? If you don’t, the storms, the punches, and sometimes even the mishaps can destroy you. They can lay you out flat on the floor, and I don’t want to live there. Not even in this.
When we pulled in the garage last night after a very long day of treatment and traffic, there sat our friend, the wheelchair. He was waiting for us right where we forgot him. We laughed and we were thankful for him.
Dave update: He has now had two-in-a-row brain fluid tests showing no leukemia, so the chemo treatments have moved to only once a week. The treatments are very difficult, but with your continued prayer support they are getting easier. The doctors have found a good recipe of premeds that are helping a lot. At home, Dave is very weak and has had a couple weeks of flu-like struggles, which is no fun at all. On most days he gets a couple hours of feeling okay and the rest is quite difficult. Please pray that with each new day the “good hours” increase. We are counting on God for that. And please pray Dave can make it to what the doctors would call “another remission.”
Thank you, again and again, for your faithful and loving prayers and words of comfort and support. They all mean so much to us.
Carol