A Week of Highs and Lows

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us here, your collective presence is felt and appreciated as it has been throughout this past year and continues to buoy us in the ups and downs of Joy’s healing journey. As the title suggests, this week had some wonderful times of hope, progress, affirmation, and encouragement, while also seeing periods of emotional anguish, anxiety, and confusion.

Truly positive events included Joy’s Knitting Grandmas group on Monday which continues to be so affirming and encouraging for her. Joy had her final OT and PT sessions, which although we will deeply miss her therapists, felt affirming with a great sense of accomplishment in the progress Joy has made. Joy also connected with a new primary care physician, who we were both very pleased with and are thankful to have located during this challenging time of seeking accessible medical providers and resources. Then, last evening, Joy gathered with her “Women Aglow” friends for their Christmas party and certainly when they come together, you can be assured that, “a good time was had by all.” These friends have been supporting each other for more than 30 years and have been a faithful and steadfast support for Joy during her recovery.

The low times were triggered primarily during and after our visit with Joy’s new primary care physician. While we both agreed the visit was objectively positive, it left Joy emotionally distraught, anxious, and in tears throughout that day and much of the night.

At our age, you can’t do a physical for an annual checkup, you do a Medicare Wellness Check. As a retired nurse of 45 years, Joy feels extremely anxious and becomes quickly discouraged when she cannot perform basic tasks or respond to basic questions, especially in a medical setting. While this has improved tremendously, like she can now say her name and quickly respond with her birthdate, when asked the wellness cognitive test questions, draw a clock face, show 11:10 on the clock, remember 3 words, she quickly became distraught and struggled from there and through the rest of the appointment.

On leaving we again both agreed that this felt like a good fit with the physician who showed great kindness, compassion, and patience while still being very thorough and engaged. But as I mentioned, Joy struggled throughout the balance of the day and into the night with personal feelings of despondency, disappointment, and discouragement. (By the way, in case you are wondering, I always have Joy verify that what I am writing accurately reflects what she was feeling).

Despite her strong and tearful emotions, she wanted to do her reading of the Psalms, Gospels, and devotionals, and fought back the anxiety and discouragement with determination and courage. After finally falling asleep, Wednesday brought new perspective, new resolve, and a more hopeful outlook. I have often said how proud I am of Joy in her courage, determination, grit, and perseverance and once again, she amazed me with her indomitable spirit and preciously joyful nature. Day after day, Joy exemplifies her name and, once again, I appreciate Henri Nouwen’s perspective on the true meaning of joyfulness when he writes:

“Joyful persons do not necessarily make jokes, laugh, or even smile. They are not people with an optimistic outlook on life who always relativize the seriousness of a moment or an event. No, joyful persons see with open eyes the hard reality of human existence and at the same time are not imprisoned by it. They have no illusion about the evil powers that roam around, “looking for someone to devour,” but they also know that death has no final power. They suffer with those who suffer, yet they do not hold on to suffering; they point beyond it to an everlasting peace.”

So, once again I have to say how thankful I am for my joyful, Joy. This journey has been long and yet we are still only at the beginning really, but thanks to your faithful support and God’s amazing grace and mercy, we can “see beyond the suffering, to an everlasting peace.”

We continue to pray that you are able to welcome and enjoy this Christmas season which we recognize can be filled with its own set of roller coaster emotions. Thank you for your continued support, prayers, and encouragement and we hope to see you again next week!