After many huge cries about the situation and feeling awful that I couldn't be with him all the time in the hospital I finally realized that this was my life and I needed to learn to deal with it and learn how to do the things that needed to get done. This was huge for me as I am not a big martyr.
Very nice Kari. Good for you.
Wow did you ever say a mouthful here...
You said you "needed to learn"
Not many people look at that word "learn", but with Crohn's Disease there is another word that is interchangeable with learn. In fact it's meaning is interchangeable outside of the Crohn's world...
Learn = Change
To learn is to change. "Learning" is looked at as a "voluntary" process. I don't have to learn anything. You didn't have to learn anything, but you made the choice. However, your choice was more than "voluntary", like learning how to use Microsoft Excel. Your life's experience added a critical element to learning we take for granted. That element is a "building block" to reaching the "next level". Reaching that next level is SUPER important when a chronic disabling disease enters your life.
You were also "desperate". Desperation is such a wonderful word because to become desperate means you develop an
attitude that will create an environment where learning takes place. Desperation is sort of the "exclamation point" that follows willingness.
Life requires "doing things" that are necessary. Desperation is the fuel behind ACTION. You become willing because you want to. You became desperate because you needed to. Making that simple decision became "huge" to you for a good reason. The outcome in your life and your husband's life relied upon it.
Bottom line is this. A choice or decision not followed by action is not much more than fantasy. Fantasy will not "get needed things done". The "next level" is what it takes to actually live with a chronic debilitating illness, such as Crohn's disease. It takes a lot of hard work and energy to get this damn thing off the ground!
Living means more than surviving. Dude in another thread nearly died in surgery with this disease. He came out of it with a "white light" experience which is way cool. But for a spouse who's watching, you ain't gonna get the "white light" experience. Many of us don't get the white light even with the disease. But his "white light" didn't matter much when you get down to raising a family...dude still had to work hard and expend energy.
So for those of us who get all sideways when "God" gets mentioned, "hope" shows up in a different way, as it did with you. Your willingness and desperation forced you, as a spouse, into action. You reached for the next level by becoming "inventive". Sink or swim, do or die...you become "inventive". You pick up the broken pieces, sort the good from the useless, and build a raft to hang onto that will get you to the land of the living...that place where you and your husband can start raising a couple beautiful kids or to follow your dream wherever it leads.
Sometimes it's a "white light" that gets a person into action, other times it takes becoming an "inventor". The great part is that either way works. The great thing is that somehow, "hope" is found where there was nothing but misery.
OK, I must have took the philosophy pills this morning.
Kari...you are an inspiration just as beautiful as any white light.
