Tomorrow it will be 8 months since Justin was injured – 2/3 of a year. A few days ago, Justin had his stitches removed and his left leg is looking great! Another week and a half until he sees his orthopedic surgeon to find out if he’s cleared to get his left prosthetic. Once he gets that, the hardcore rehab will start. I can’t wait to see him walking around the track with two legs…though he’s doing really well with one leg. He did 6 laps around the track with one leg and crutches yesterday. (Different crutches that are more stable than the ones he wiped out with in the Chick-fil-a parking lot a few weeks ago.) When Justin got his stitches out, it got me think as to when the last time was that he didn’t have stitches/lines/tubes/IVs/other assorted medical stuff attached to him. He got the PICC line in September, so it was before that, and he had stitches when he got out of the hospital at the end of July, so maybe for a brief time in August – if at all post injury. Pretty crazy. So glad he’s free of all that finally! Pain management is going great. The majority of his daily pills are vitamins. He’d like to be off of all the non-vitamins, but that’s something he’s going to have to work with his doctor on since some have some nasty reactions when you quit taking them. The H.O. bone growth hasn’t been bothering him too bad lately. The main thing that’s been hurting is the nerve pain mostly when he is laying down at night. We might have to juggle when he takes his nerve pain med if it continues. Overall, things are going really well for Justin’s recovery. Some R&R over Christmas and the recent convalescent leave did the trick…and got us into a warmer climate which is an added bonus!
Non-medically, how are things going? We’ve got Corey back with us in Maryland, so he’s having to adjust to being back up here. I’m also having to adjust to having a little alarm clock that likes to jump on me again. lol Justin is getting assigned to the unit up here, so we’re still trying to figure out exactly what that will mean for us. So many questions that we’re unable to find answers for at the moment – and some may eventually have answers we don’t particularly like. Right now we’re just having to wait and see…which drives me nuts since I like to plan and know what’s going to happen.
I also came to a realization last week about myself. Since Justin’s been more independent in recent months, he’s been able to go and do stuff without me. This is great because I don’t typically want to wake up early to do…well, pretty much anything. lol Early morning hunting is not my thing at all. Anyway, I realized last weekend that when he’s away from me doing stuff – especially if it involves a long drive – I get anxious and worried that something bad will happen to him. This isn’t because I feel he’s incapable of taking care of himself without me there, because he’s perfectly capable, and it’s not because I think he’s unable to drive by himself (though I did ask him to take a buddy in case he was too worn out after hunting to drive the 2 hours back to our house…which he didn’t mind because he got to hang out with a friend he hadn’t seen since he was injured). I guess it’s just that so many things have happened to members of my family in the past couple years, my anxiety is just me wondering what’s next and fearing it. While it’s probably a fairly natural response, it’s not healthy to live in fear. Now that I realized my problem, I can work on trusting God more. It’s so easy to trust Him when things are going well, when things are calm. It takes a lot more effort to trust when things don’t make sense and you’re hurting. For me, it’s never been an issue of knowing if God CAN do something, but if He WILL. I know that God can work miracles of healing and protection. I know that He always answers prayers, but sometimes He choose to answer those prayers with a “no”. God chose to answer the many prayers for Justin’s protection with a “yes” for his first two deployments. With the firefights he was in and the IEDs planted in his areas of operation, that’s nothing short of a miracle, and I’m thankful for it. This deployment, God chose to bring Justin home alive. Not in one piece like I would have preferred, like I prayed for, but he’s alive. I may never understand why God allowed Justin to lose his legs. Right now it just doesn’t make sense.
I once heard life here on earth compared to needlework like cross stitch. In this life, all we see is the underside of it. We see the colors and a vague pattern, but it’s not always very pretty. There are knots and tangles. It just doesn’t make sense. Once we get to heaven, we’ll see things from God’s perspective and we will see the picture clearly. It will be beautiful. For now, I’ll have to just trust that God’s plan – His pattern – will someday make sense because right now, there are so many things that don’t make sense to me. I just have to keep reminding myself that even though things are out of my control, they aren’t out of God’s. He knows my future and how everything will work together even though I don’t have a clue.
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