Nice

January 15, 2015

Messages kept coming my way from Europe.
"We prayed for you in this Cathedral"  - and this cathedral, and this cathedral, and at a monastery, and at another cathedral.

I LOVE my EF Tour Director. He knew that I loved European Cathedrals and must have planned to surprise me with many many visits. The one thing I asked the kids, was that they pray for me when they visited a cathedral. I was thinking 5 or so.  God is so good. Just to know that in mountaintop Monestaries and  cathedrals in four countries, prayers for my health were being lifted to God - well - how do you compare that to anything? All the while, I was running from test to test and in the hospital for even more tests.
I don't even know where those nine days went. I met my Oncologist, more technicians than I can even remember. I had amazing nurses and aides and respiratory therapists.

There are these machines these days that do things that seem to have come out of Star Trek. (Roger always liked Gene Roddenbury)  I was able to view the images from my bone scan. OK - THAT was a bit scary.   I think that is when I actually knew why God closed the door for the flight to Milan.

Most interesting was that because there was a delay on the 'procedure' I was admitted for - oops, no one told me I could not eat that warm cookie from the cookie lady - so it had to wait for morning. But because of it, I met my wonderful Oncologist and she ordered many tests since I was in the 'hold' position.  Had I been in and out -that might not have happened. God arranged for that cookie lady, I am sure!

As the kids were heading back to Orlando, I was heading into my last test at the hospital. It was a five hour MRI. Oh yes....I have to stop calling that silver table they put you on a 'morgue table' - you know, cold and hard and not too wide....it is actually a life saving table!

The wonderful thing is that while I was in another hold phase for dismissal, they had an opening in the MRI department. It was quiet because it was 7pm til midnight, midweek.  The ER had been crazy earlier in the day, but was currently calm. Imagine that.

I got these great headphones and got to pick my own music. I picked hymns. Not Contemporary Christian Music. Hymns.  Why Hymns? Because I know the words.
Contemporary - I can barely remember the words because I can barely understand them.
Give me a hymn any old day!

The cool thing was that it was quiet down there and the young man said he never really listened to hymns but thought he would join me. Five hours worth!  Blessed him. Blessed me! Calmed me for sure!

My night nurse even brought my pain meds downstairs when I called so that I could make it the entire five hours .... and the techs were SO NICE and appreciative that I toughed it out.  My pleasure! I felt like Miss Chick-fil-A!

The special blessing to me during that stay was being told by so many hospital personnel that I was so nice and pleasant and that even though I might not want to come back, they would be glad to see me back as a patient.  How lovely! That is how I always wanted to be!

It just goes to show that even when you feel pretty crappy and pretty disappointed, with the help of Jesus, you can be nice enough for others to notice.  That was just a really cool experience!

Roger's Lesson:  First Responders and people in Healthcare are there because they really want to help people. It is just silly for people to be nasty to them because they are there to help YOU be better! 

I think Roger would have been proud of his old gal!

I was also re-assured tonight that I am not 'crazy"  (It is now February) - because when I shared that I thought for sure that I saw Roger standing in the room that day of the original fluid draw (Dec 30) - watching me, with that concerned, but 'it is going to be ok' look of his - in his shiny black shoes - that it surely was 'The Comforter' giving me exactly what I needed at exactly the time I needed it.

And surely enough, I needed Roger then and most days, I don't know how I will do this journey without him - and yet I also know that God has been there in the past and He will be there tomorrow and every day after. I know that I do not have to be afraid of these many doors before me, for He knows which will open and which will not, and He knows what lies ahead.

And all I have to do is trust.

And be nice.