“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
—Vaclav Havel (b. 1936), poet, playwright, 1st president of Czech Republic
I sit in the waiting room of the surgical team clinic for a follow up. To pass the time I grab the closest newspaper and proceed to remove every section except the editorials and obituaries.
As I read about the legacy of people I can’t help but think how hard it must be to sum up the life story of a person in 100 words or less. Because you can talk about where they were born, about what they accomplished, and you can even speak about those left behind; but between the period and the next word there are stories untold. My favorite obituaries are the ones with no picture. They tell a whole different story about a person. I like to imagine what they looked like. And even fill in the lines of what their lives might have been like.
See there are always more words to say but not enough ink. I believe the stories not written are the ones that there is most to say about. So I read the obituaries where phrases are said, moments are summarized, and where life stories live on.
And it gets me thinking about the journey that I’ve had to embark on or endure as others would say. See in the past couple of months I’ve been battling to save my life. It began with simple digestion problems. I was throwing up everything I ate for 3 months straight. I lost weight which made me weaker and eventually made my immune system crash. I got sick to the point where I couldn’t walk. No longer could I drive. I needed assistance in eating. I needed assistance in taking a shower. In getting dressed. Fainting was an everyday thing. Then came the over medication, the overdose along with a crashed immune system and a complete weak body gave me serious panic attacks. Anxiety overpowered me most of the time to where I sat frozen in bed for hours at a time. I was hospitalized for it and eventually even had a heart episode where I actually died for two and a half seconds.
“Imagínate lo imaginable… y la vida te sorprenderá” My father told me that once. Imagine the most unbelievable thing that could ever happen and life will out do you and come up with something more unbelievable. Life’s like that. In the past couple of months I’ve managed to lose more than I had and just when you think things couldn’t get worse… they did.
A week after leaving the hospital safe and sound I was rushed into the ER because all the acid in my stomach completely poured out of me. Burning in its way my esophagus, throat, and mouth. Those who got to see me say I was quite a sight. I was spitting blood. My face, tongue, lips were completely swollen. I could not talk or breathe on my own. Thanks to the Trauma doctors they handled things immediately and stabilized me immediately. The first two weeks in the hospital were very crucial. It was during those first weeks that I filled notebook after notebook with my writing. I couldn’t talk so it was my only form of communication. Looking at it now most of it is me asking for morphine. It became my best friend during those days. Hehe. I spent many late nights awake when I probably should of been asleep but sleep was no where to be found. Instead I found myself accompanied by the musical rhythm of machines. Beeping, the dragging of feet out in the hallway, the closing and opening of doors and every 10 seconds a man who’d yell “help” loudly as if on command. Nothing really changed except the man yelling was replaced by another man yelling and screaming in a very disgusted and in pain voice. Who’d gag on command every 2 minutes. It was not the most soothing music so I spent most of my nights sleepless in Dallas.
I spent most of the next days watching my life passing me by as I seemed to be shrinking, getting smaller and smaller, and not being able to stop it. Not knowing how or when there’d be an end to all of it. Some days I couldn’t even pretend that I was okay. But there was always this voice within me that told me to keep pushing through the rain. So I’d open up my eyes as wide as I could and I didn’t look back. If I just believed I could take it, somehow Jehovah would help me make it through.
Thankfully with time I began to speak again. I couldn’t hold a conversation long enough with out vomiting or the phlegm getting in the way so that was a challenge on its own. With time the swelling went down but my mouth was completely full of ulcers and burned tissue. I had no taste buds. And since my esophagus was so damaged to the point where it swelled up and almost completely closed I could not eat or drink or even swallow my own saliva. That too was a challenge. I spent most of the next days slowly healing. I still had a lot of heart problems at the time so I was in a very critical condition.
The first diagnosis I was told was by 4 to 6 weeks I could go home. By the 5th week I got sent home. The consequences to the acid burning were the following. My esophagus closed. So I at the time had to be fed through a feeding tube that went directly into my stomach. Called a Peg tube. I also had another feeding tube that went down my nose, down my throat and esophagus, into my stomach. It wasn’t being used for anything other than to keep some opening in my esophagus. Our initial hope was that it being placed there was that there wouldn’t be any strictures. After months I got scoped. That’s when they look down your esophagus with a camera. After assessing the damage dilation was suggested. Which basically means that they’d stick a wire down my esophagus with a balloon that they would inflate to try to expand the esophagus. So they began dilation.
I continued to be fed through a PEG tube. Because of the risk of infection I was not allowed to do door to door service. But I gladly participate in letter writing, or return visits, and studies. I couldn’t have a very long conversation with someone with out the risk of starting to vomit and gag so I had to make sure that my service partner was one who could help me conduct or at times could take over when I could speak no more.
During this time I’d been in and out for different complications. It seems like I spent most of the weekends at the hospital. Now after the second session of dilation... life out did me again. During this particular procedure there’s a high risk of perforation. (Causing a tear) The day of the memorial I had an outpatient dilation. I went home that day just in time to make it to the Memorial. But during the whole night I had fever, and the following morning also - so after calling my doctors they suggested going back to the hospital to check if there was an infection or a tear. I went straight back to the ER. Sure enough a perforation had been caused. So back in the hospital I was administered antibiotics and the doctors let it heal on its own. Now what could be done next? Well the doctors decided dilation was too big of a risk there’d be more perforations and I’d need surgery immediately. They could put in a stent, which is basically a tube that goes into the esophagus and is left in there to stretch the esophagus with time. Later to be removed and hoping and praying that the esophagus would stay opened. But after a conference my team of doctors decided that too was too risky. Again a perforation could occur.
So April 29th, at 6 am, the waiting room of the hospital was filled with my closest friends and family. I was going to undergo major surgery. It implied the removal of my esophagus and my stomach being pulled up to make it also function as an esophagus. They also had to remove the PEG tube in my stomach and replace it with a J-tube that goes directly into your intestines. Now because there was so much to be done there would be a considerate amount of blood loss and the risk of my lungs collapsing during surgery was a very high one. I was told if I didn’t accept the blood transfusion I would die. Still I stood my ground and never stopped putting Jehovah first. So I had the surgery performed with out the use of blood, instead I chose two different types of alternatives.
I can’t say I remember much after the surgery. I know I was in a lot of pain. The week I spent in the ICU was crucial. I couldn’t lie down, and I couldn’t move my neck, I was on a strict sitting position. One because we had to make sure the surgery would stick in other words. And two, the major reason was I was on a ventilator and my lungs could collapse at any given moment. So there I was in a cold ICU room in and out of consciousness. The amount of pain I felt made it unbearable to the point I was given medication to remain asleep. Thankfully in the following days there was some improvement and I was moved to another floor. Post operation came with its own challenges. First I wasn’t allowed to eat for a full month. I had to keep getting fed through the J-tube while at the hospital; we couldn’t run the risk of damaging the connections made during the surgery. Now every time I underwent a procedure I was always explained the risks. In my case they weren’t risks they were more like guarantees. So since one of the incisions was so close to my vocal cords one of them was damaged during surgery making me have a very, very, low voice.
When I was finally let go home, one of my incisions was infected and not closed because of it. So I had to be very careful about it. With time that too became easier to deal with. Thank God for pain killers. Lol. By now I’m also able to eat, but that brought its challenges on its own. After not eating for months, getting used to eating was difficult; specially, when the amount of food I eat now can only be 2-3 ounces of food. And 4 ounces of liquid at a time. That’s all my stomach can handle. Think of my surgery a bit of gastric bypass. My stomach is now way smaller to the point were I have to eat very small meals 6 times a day. I have to say I’m still getting used to it. But it’s 10 times better than being fed through a tube.
Now there’s been more brick walls along the way, my taste buds messing up, the founding of gall stones, many trips to the ER for dehydration, and most recently I’m dealing with an infection in my lungs. Just maybe about a week ago I started getting my voice back. It’s been one of the few physical blessings I have. Because if you know me personally I am very passionate in service and in commenting and singing at the meetings. Losing my voice had seriously put a strain to that especially when the doctors said more than likely I’d need surgery to get my vocal cords working right. But with a high risk of losing it all together.
For a long time I felt like I was living a dream, or drifting on a boat on the open sea the waves crashing and the rain pouring and all I could do was close my eyes and be swept away. These days I’m just trying to regain strength and weight (because I lost so much of it). Slowly I’m reaching the small goals I have and with Jehovah’s help I’m slowly regaining my life back.
Has it been easy? NO! But sometimes we have to suffer through what this system brings. Sometimes life’s not fair, but you just gotta hang in there. You just have to believe that things will turn out like they should. And that’s what I’ve done. My health at the time is in such an unpredictable state that to be honest every time I go to the doctors or visit the ER I hear about another complication. Nonetheless I’m still breathing, I’m still alive, and I cannot lose hope that eventually everything will be okay. Even if it’s not in this system of things.
I have to say that it is during times like these were you truly see Jehovah’s hand acting in your favor. Him mercifully taking care of my family and me during these past months is something that I cannot thank enough or even write enough about. There’s not enough paper in the world for me to be able to write all the wonderful experiences this taught me. OR the wonderful experiences that we went through because we never stop putting Jehovah first. He not only blessed us with a great spiritual family who made sure our spiritual needs were being met but who also took care of us physically and mentally. I am indebted to so many people who showed their concern, who shared kind words, who shared a simple visit and or a get well soon card. I am indebted to Jehovah who never left my side even at times when I thought there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
One of my main worries as a pioneer during my stay at the hospital was me becoming inactive. I’d never in my life had to face something like that. I could not talk. And when I was finally able to I couldn’t hold a conversation longer than a minute without gagging and feeling like I was going to choke. So I'd pray to Jehovah about it. And somehow one way or another I was always able to preach during my time of illness. I can now successfully say I never in the months that I was sick ever turned in an “informe” with out at least one hour on it. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot, and believe me I beat myself up about it too a lot. Especially when I was used to turning 70-to- 90 hrs a month. But at the time it was all I could do. And I accomplished my one goal of not becoming inactive.
So you might ask yourself, how do you go through all of that, plummet into a black hole and not come out unchanged? You can’t. I’ve learned more life lessons during the past couple of months than I think I’ve ever learned in any other tragedy in my life. This is the type of experience that leaves you changed forever. I came so close to dying three times. There were many moments where we didn’t know if I’d wake the next day or if I could take and endure the pain and the consequences of a physical illness. But one thing that completely helped me and I know this has been said many times before but rings true was bible reading. When I felt anxious, or unable to go on, or when I felt uneasy like it could break me, opening the bible and hearing my mom read from it to me became my oasis among all the chaos that surrounded me. A peace that I cannot explain would come over me and what ever worry at the time I had seemed to vanish by simply drawing closer to Jehovah.
These days I think a lot about what my grandmother used to say constantly “Donde hay vida hay esperanza”. Where there is life, there is the will to live. I’m learning its okay to keep living. We shouldn’t have to come so close to losing everything to realize just how much value the people or the things in our lives really hold.
The days pass quickly nowadays. Autumn and Winter came and went. And Summer will soon come to its end. The hours became days, the days weeks and the weeks months. It’s almost Fall now and I’m a little bruised, a little humbled, and a lot smarter. My skin is a little bit thicker and my heart is a little bit stronger. I find myself smiling and laughing again. I’ve stopped trying to know why life works the way it does. And why things happened. And I’ve learned to accept the peace that comes with knowing that you just can’t know it all…
I take comfort in many scriptures, but one that helps me remove all negativity is 1 Cor 10:13 where it says that Jehovah is faithful. He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, but along with temptation he will also make the way out in order for us to be able to endure it.... Which gets me thinking if he thinks I can take this – who am I to question it?
Now I pray a little harder and give a little more hoping one day my struggle will not go unnoticed. I’m learning to push a little bit harder and to not give up as easily. It’s like being given a second chance to write your life over again. It’s starting all over again from zero. I’ll admit it’s scary and everything is an effort and a leap of faith but well when you come so close to losing everything you decide that the days of wasting time in the little things are gone. I’m opening up a whole new chapter in my life, and blank pages that await to be written with stories. See the great thing about writing the story of your life is… that sometimes… life gives you a chance to re-write the ending.
