God Incident

I am calling this post God Incident in honor of Noemy who stumbled across my blog, thus prompting me to pick up writing again.  I must admit that I didn't think anyone would read my blog, which made it easier to write. But once people started reading, I stopped writing.  In the last 7 months, our life has changed so much I hardly recognize it sometimes.  Some things were just too hard to talk about, and others I didn't have enough information to talk about.  For a while I felt like I was keeping a really huge secret that, ironically, was easier to share with complete strangers than with people I know and trust.  So I'll back up and start from the beginningish.

July of 2010
I was hospitalized for the 5th time since September of 2009. Never mind that I had already quit working and spent the majority of my time doing breathing treatments to stay healthy. It was in the hospital then that Dr. McKean suggested that we really consider a lung transplant.  We could have been blind sided by that conversation, but I think God slowly prepared us for that moment. By July, I had already given up so many of the things I loved, that signing up for a lung transplant was really the only option to recapture my life. I had no idea what it would mean beyond having major surgery to remove and replace significant organs that I have become quite attached to. Honestly, since then I have run the gambit of emotions. Being sick for so long, I really started to worry that each time was one less time that I could be patched up.  And I found myself paralyzed with fear that each time just might be the last time I could be patched up.  Making the choice to have a lung transplant was easy in that respect. Who would chose to stay sick and live in fear when you have a choice? Turns out having a lung transplant is a lot more involved that just getting new lungs. We had decided that we would be going to University of Alabama at Birmingham for the transplant because that is where Dr. McKean sends all of his patients. We made all our plans based on that.  It was going to work out perfectly. I'd live at home and wait, and then someone could live with me in Birmingham while I recovered. I called the health insurance company to talk to them about it. Turns out they had different ideas about where I could go for transplant! The insurance company would approve a transplant at Emory, Vanderbilt, or Mayo Clinic Jacksonville.  I had never considered any of these places and was quite blindsided by the prospect of making a decision to go anywhere but UAB. Funny enough, God already had that worked out.  Twice Mayo Jax was mentioned in conversation on the very day that we got our choices from the insurance company, and I have never heard of it in my life. Never! Then and there we knew that God had made our choice simple.  What had seemed so overwhelming that day was made so easy.  I find that God works that way a lot.  I am a doer. A person of action.  I kind of create chaos wherever I go! But God always seems to just take the decision out of my hands and arrange it very carefully in front of me.  He doesn't always do that, but when I need it most, when I am least capable of acting on my own, He guides me the most visibly. And that, is just the beginning of our journey...