Mental Hurdles...

I did some unfortunate research today.  Does anyone else besides me know the answer to, "If you lose consciousness while peeing, is there an internal shut off valve?"  For that answer and some other helpful ideas about mental hurdles, read on...

"A total hip replacement one month after turning 41?  You're too young for that!  What was wrong?"  As near as we can tell, my hips are shaped somewhat less than ideally, and decades of normal use just caused them, (the right one in particular), to wear out.  These past years as I have lived in pain, there were many thoughts that went through my mind.  Maybe God will heal this.  Maybe this will just go away.  Maybe there is another solution.  Maybe I can just manage the pain forever.  The mental hurdle was not fear of surgery or dreading recovery... but just the idea that there was part of me that was insufficient.  That wore out.  That makes me slightly less than almost everyone else.  Think about the mental hurdles that keep you from seeing yourself as God's masterpiece just the way you are.

The first ten days of recovery went very well with good mobility and virtually no pain.  Saturday I had my last Percocet.  And then Sunday!!!  While I am going to spare you from the gory details, blood and lightheadedness were two things that marked this day.  Monday morning my doctor took me off some of my meds, my nurse came for a visit, things looked good and we had a plan.

This morning's rest ended as I woke up needing to pee.  I was not trying to be a hero, I was just trying to make it the ten steps from my recliner to my toilet.  As I began to relieve myself, I remember feeling light headed and the next thing I knew Bethany was over me as I was laying on the bathroom floor, in a puddle of sweat and other such fluids (there is your answer to the starter question).

I called my entire medical care team, have the appropriate appointments and tests scheduled, and am following all instructions, but today has been littered with a ton of mental hurdles.

My hip is still totally pain free, (I literally believe God sent angels to protect it during the fall) but my back that crashed through my shower doors has been spasming and in extreme pain all day.  So my hip is great, but now I have a brand new issue to deal with before getting back to the initial one and yesterday's two additions. Can you say, "Mental hurdles?!"

Am I still lightheaded you wonder?  I have no way to tell!  I am not sure I can stand in order to test that out right now, which is going to make my appointments in the coming days interesting to say the least.  Hurdles.

After this happened and I spoke to my medical team to agree on a plan, I sent a text to the staff and elders asking for prayer.  I was almost immediately overcome emotionally, literally feeling those praying and the presence of God surrounding me.  That was a powerful moment, but when you are typically the one there for others and you need people to be there for you, that can be a huge hurdle.

Later in the afternoon, Christopher came into the room to help me with a couple things and asked, "Hey Dad, what was that noise earlier?"  I didn't know that Bethany had not shared with the boys the details of my fall.  I was literally overcome in that moment, thinking of how it would have been had something worse happened and one of my boys found me.  Convalescence is not for the faint of heart, even under the easiest of circumstances.

Here is the truth, though:  For all of us, "something worse" eventually happens.  And even when it is just the regular hurdles of life, do we allow them to take us out and sideline us mentally and physically, or do we look to Jesus and push forward believing for better moments until the ultimate moment finally appears.

When you come to in a puddle of you own pee, life feels far less than ideal!  For me, these past two days have been littered with mental hurdles.  But as I lay here in pain with far more hurdles that I wish to navigate, I am also full of faith, believing that the best is yet to come!

Let's keep walking!