My Lesson In Acceptance

In late 2007, I suffered a catastrophic health event that changed my life in ways that I never could have imagined.

Two days after Thanksgiving while on the phone with my older son my speech went from normal to slurred in a matter of seconds. In the next hour I made several critical errors in judgment that could have cost me my life.

I hung up from my oldest son because he didn’t notice the change in my speech and immediately called my younger son who is more in tune with my voice patterns simply because we speak more often on the phone. He immediately noticed something was wrong and told me to go to the hospital. That still wasn’t enough to convince me that I had something seriously wrong so I hung up with him and called a friend who is a nurse.

Of course she told me to call 911 but there was no way I was going to be the object of gossip for my neighbors so I promised her I would wake my husband up and have him take me to the hospital.

At this point my speech was becoming very difficult. I knew what I wanted to say but the words would not come out of my mouth. Again this is funny because I’m one of those people who is rarely at a loss for words.

I should also point out that I used to work in the medical field and I’m one of those people who has just enough knowledge to get myself in trouble and I wanted to have my own diagnosis before I went to the hospital so I would know what course of treatment to expect. Onto the Internet for some quick research while my husband showered and prepared for his very long night.

Keep in mind that I felt perfectly fine, I just couldn’t speak properly. We finally were in the car and on our way to the hospital. The entire time my husband drove I was trying to tell him that I would not be staying at the hospital. I was unable to articulate this in a way that was acceptable to me, which made me angry and ultimately caused my primary issue to escalate.

When we arrived at the Emergency Room, I was whisked away for the normal poking and prodding. The initial diagnosis was that I had suffered a stroke which confirmed my own diagnosis. I did not want to be confined to the hospital under any circumstance and to my husbands dismay and embarrassment I had no problem letting the ER doctor know this.

All the while my own stubbornness was escalating the cause of the stroke, and my blood pressure continued to go up. As my blood pressure climbed because of my own aggravation I was setting myself up to exacerbate my current situation and possibly have another stroke. I was having a blood pressure crisis which is what caused the stroke and I was making it worse.

My husband finally asked the doctor to give me something to calm me down and after that I don’t remember much.

I woke up early the next morning in ICU and I was alone and frightened and didn’t know what was going on. I was also angry that I was now being “held against my will” in an ICU when I believed I had made it perfectly clear that I did not want to be there. As I struggled with what was going on around me, a close friend walked into my room. She managed to calm me down and started to help me to put things into perspective in spite of the drugged state I was in.

This was the beginning of my acceptance that in spite of my age I had suffered a stroke as well as the fact that I couldn’t speak properly and I was not in control of what was happening to me either within my body or my current surroundings. My blood pressure was still a serious issue and I was at a high risk for suffering another stroke. Because I was fighting my confinement and lack of control over the circumstance I found myself in, I made it difficult for my doctors to get my current medical crisis stabilized.

My husband arrived within a few minutes of my waking up in the ICU and when I saw the look on his face, I came to the conclusion that I was where I needed to be and that I needed to get with the program. He was clearly frightened in spite of his efforts to appear strong and telling me that I would be ok. Seeing him forced me to accept the fact that I was going to be here a while and any attempts to fight it would only make my current situation worse.

I needed to get with the current program and for the first time do as I was told and work with my doctors and the nursing staff to get me on the road to recovery. I did not want to ever see the fearful look on my husbands face again.

Clearly my control issues had not served me in this situation. I needed to make a shift in my own mindset in order to once again gain control of my life and more importantly my present medical crisis.

I made the conscious decision to accept the fact that I could not control this but I could control my own acceptance which is what I did. This is when I totally accepted my situation and allowed my doctors and the nursing staff to take care of me without my fighting them simply because I did not want to be confined in the hospital.

I don’t remember much more of what happened those early days in the ICU, however I know that during those few hours when I wasn’t knocked out is when my realization of acceptance came. I’d like to say I spent time in prayer but that simply wasn’t the case, in my waking moments, I was too wrapped up in fighting my situation to pray. However I was told that my Pastor had spent a good deal of time in prayer over me as did many of those I am close to.

I’m still stubborn, I still have control issues but I also have learned several of the most valuable lessons of my life. Accept the things you can not change. In doing this I allowed myself to regain control not through weakness, but through strength.

In spite of my poor decision not to immediately call 911 coupled with my stubbornness to relinquish control over this medical crisis the residual effects of my stroke are relatively minor in the big picture.