Hm-m-m.  How to structure this series so that there is some connection between what happened way back in October, which normally feels like decades ago, and today?  I feel the need  to tell you readers how I responded to the earthquake that shattered my life, and somehow connect that with today.  When I read over my notes and emails of what happened eight months ago, the feelings, which had long since faded into the background, rush back, and I have that to deal with too.  But I hope this blog will be a means of comfort – for myself, as well as for you, the reader.  I also want to share honestly how I’ve been dealing with what happened, hopefully to connect with some readers who may be experiencing, or may have experienced, something similar.  Or maybe you simply wonder how one deals with something like what happened to me, and want to read my blog for this reason.

The day I heard the news that Michael had suffered a stroke, I was in the doctor’s office, trying to get help for a sinus infection, so as hopefully not to infect Michael.  From the doctor’s office, in the waiting room, I made a routine call to the hospital, something I’d been doing every morning since his surgery on October 15.  Now it was October 22.  I had visited him the evening before, when Michael was finally starting to wake up!  The doctor quickly removed his breathing tube, and Michael started talking non-stop to our son Chris, who had flown back home to be with his dad, and me.  Most of it wasn’t making any sense, but we attributed that to his exhaustion and weakness from the high fever and constant rocket-level blood pressure.  He did mention the word “stroke” to me, and “crazy situation”, but I assured him what the doctors had told me, that there had been no stroke.

So, when I phoned the hospital that morning, I was completely floored to hear the doctor now announce to me, over the phone, in the ENT doctor’s office, that my husband had had a stroke.  I screamed, right in the waiting room, and started wailing so loudly, a nurse came in to see what was wrong.  She put her arm around me and took me off to somewhere I could wait and cry with her to comfort me.  I saw my doctor, who examined me while I sobbed.  He sympathized with me and told me I could get something to calm my nerves in the pharmacy downstairs, and offered to call a cab for me.  But I, ever the one needing to prove  how strong I am, declined.  I went to the pharmacy, got some lavender capsules which were supposed to steady my nerves, swallowed one, took the tram home, delivered the tragic news to Chris, and we fell into each other’s arms and wept.

The news was bad enough, but we had no idea of the implications.  Thalmus – what is that, we wondered.  We were told that Michael had been affected on both sides of the brain, in the thalmus region.  He would have full use of all his senses, and his intellect was not impaired either.  What was affected was his ability to organize all the sensory input that came his way.  His ability to regulate sleep and awake time was also affected.

That day he was transferred to the university hospital, where he finally had a neurological exam, complete with MRI.

*

As I visit that horrible day from so many months past, the feeling of devastation, of having my world suddenly lurched upside-down, comes back, almost as if I had heard the news just yesterday.  I have tears in my eyes today, as I write.  This seems to be something you just can’t get used to.  Yes, you can get into a routine of some sort each day, but even this morning, as I anticipated writing this, I noticed my queasy stomach, and a feeling of generalized fear, or perhaps vague anxiety.  I live with these feelings every day.  They are my constant companions, but they’re normally somewhere in the background.  Other things, little gifts, also come my way.

I have decided to believe that these gifts are God’s way of showing me that all is not lost.  My faith in a good God, or in any God at all, has been put through the wringer.  More about that in other posts.  Today, I simply want to say that I have also received many gifts since Michael’s stroke.

The latest gifts have to do with birds.  On our terrace there is a lovely lavender bush, in full bloom right now.  This spring a blackbird decided to build a nest in our bush.  Since May, I have been privileged to observe blackbird eggs, which are much smaller than chicken eggs, a beautiful soft shade of green, and spotted. 

I have seen one clutch hatch five birds, and watched their development all the way to their flight out of the nest.  And now, the mama has layed her second clutch, and I get to watch four more birds develop.  I see how the mama sits on her nest, day after day, warming the eggs, preparing them her unborn babies for birth, and then after the eggs hatch, she sits again, day after day, protecting her fragile, helpless young.  I see both parents feed their young, taking turns.  I have read that blackbirds are monogamous, and that they normally remain partners for life.

These birds inspire me with their faithful care of their babies.  I am awed to see the helplessness of newborn baby birds, who are born blind and without feathers. 

I am reminded of Jesus’s words, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.  Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”  These blackbirds, whose song I have always dearly loved, show me tender caring love, and they are cared for.  They show me that I am being cared for too.

On Sunday a guest choir sang in our church.  One of the songs they sang was the old gospel song, “His Eye is on the Sparrow”.  They sang this song just for me.  Today is Wednesday, and I’m still singing their song.  Today I watched a video of the Statler Brothers singing it, and I let the words massage my heart.  I feel peace as I sing this song and watch my birds, day after day.  I feel my anxiety being steadied, and I smile and marvel at the hope that flutters in my heart.  Yes.  God’s eye is on the blackbird, “and I know He watches me.”

On the Saturday before Michael went in for surgery, we went to Düsseldorf for brunch.  We wanted a nice weekend together before the big event, to be in the city of Michael’s childhood, the city I first lived in after arriving in Germany, the city where we first met.  We have many ties to Düsseldorf, most of them pleasant.  We ate at a nice cafè near the poshest market I have ever seen – anywhere.  After breakfast we walked through the market.  Well, I walked and Michael hobbled, hardly able to move at all, he was in such pain.  He went to get the car, picked me up, and we drove to the Japanese part of the city to buy some porcelain tea cups.  It was a lovely day.

The night before going into the hospital, I made us tacos, the same meal I had cooked for him the first time I ever cooked for him.  Since that time, thirty-three years ago, tacos have always been one of his favorite meals.  Back then, tacos were unheard of in Germany.

Michael was very positive about surgery, unusual for him.  He trusted his doctor, we had prayed for everything surrounding the surgery, the entire church had prayed for him.  He went into surgery relaxed and hopeful about a release from his excruciating pain, looking forward to a new lease on life.

I phoned Michael that morning to wish him all the best for his surgery.  “See you on the other side!” I said merrily and went to work.  I was a bit uneasy while teaching.  After all, the operation was no picnic.  It would take over four hours.  I took my unease in stride.  This was major surgery, after all, and Michael hadn’t been operated on since he was a toddler.  He’ll be fine, I told myself.

Late that afternoon the doctor who had performed the surgery phoned me, saying there had been a complication during surgery.  The extra vein in his neck that they had intubated for administering fluids had collapsed during surgery.  That meant that almost the entire infusion had dripped into his face and neck.  They couldn’t remove the breathing tube with the amount of fluids that had accumulated in his face and neck.  They gave him more anesthesia to give his the swelling time to reduce.  Nothing to worry about, but he was in the ICU for now and would remain unconscious until the following day.

The following day, he failed to wake up.  I began to be nervous.  He looked horrible, with his face so fat.  And so vulnerable.  The day after that, Michael still did not wake up.  I started to feel alarm rise up in me.  The head doctor or ICU came into Michael’s room to talk to me.

“We did a CT scan,” he said.  “Nothing to be alarmed about.  We did find some abnormalities in the brain in the thalmus area, but the shadows look old.  It could be some old neurological damage that was never identified.”  It wasn’t a stroke, he said.  Another doctor came to me and told me she had tried to order a neurological exam for that day, but the neurologist they used was unable to come to the hospital on that day.

With this news, I became alarmed.  I was very worried.  But it was the weekend; nothing happens in German hospitals on the weekend.  I spent hours that weekend talking to my family in America and to doctors, trying to find a way to have my husband examined neurologically.  But the hospital would not budge.

“This isn’t like in America, where you can just call a neurologist and have him come in,” said one doctor to me.  The head of ICU came into the hospital on Saturday morning, just to tell me it was far too dangerous to transport Michael to another hospital, where he could have an MRI.  I had called a neurologist I knew, and he told me Michael needed an EEG and an MRI.  The hospital he was in didn’t even have a neurologist, so no neurological exam, no MRI over the weekend.

It went on and on like this, even after the weekend, when Michael still didn’t wake up.  By now he had dangerously high blood pressure, a high fever they just couldn’t get down, and indications of pneumonia.

And by now I was writing every evening to my friends and family, one email in English and another in German, asking them to pray for Michael.  I asked those without faith to send their good thoughts his way.  And the prayers and good wishes came in.  But they weren’t waking Michael up.

I told the hospital on Monday that I wanted Michael transferred, danger or no, to a teaching hospital where they could examine him properly.  On the morning of his transfer, I had to see a doctor myself.  I seemed to have a cold, and I wanted it treated before I made my husband’s condition worse.

While in the doctor’s office, I phoned the hospital to see how Michael was doing.  A doctor I had never spoken to answered the phone and told me, “Your husband has suffered a stroke.”

With that news, my entire life turned upside down, and I knew that nothing would ever be the same.    The news took about five seconds to deliver, but the consequences would mean that my entire lifestyle would have to change.  Would my husband even survive all this?  That very evening, in the university hospital, after studying the results of the MRI exam they game Michael, the neurologist confirmed that he had suffered a stroke on both sides of the thalmus.  “Your husband is a very sick man,” he told me.