Blessings.. big and small

So many blessings have been apparent in my life lately despite the challenges.  Here are a few that I can think of in the middle of the night (still having sleeping problems).

The nursing care in the hospital.  Can't remember everyone's names but most of the nurses that I had in the hospital were exceptional.  One that stands out is the one who had me the night before my surgery/procedure.  I slept the first few hours of the night and then was wide awake worrying about the procedure and feeling very scared and alone.  She sat down with me for  a few moments and answered my questions about the procedure, benefits she has seen from it, risks, etc...-some of the questions that I hadn't thought to ask the doctor.  So reassuring to me that I was able to go back to sleep and was much more relaxed the next morning when they came to take me away.

Family and Friends.  Initially, I didn't think that I would be in the hospital very long and so I told my parents and sisters that it wasn't necessary to come.  About Tuesday, I realized that I would be there at least to the weekend and decided it would be really nice to have them there.    My parents drove out the day that I actually had the procedure and so were there when I was becoming more alert.  Both of my parents and Kim spent huge amounts of time at the hospital.  Was so nice having them there even though I was far from the life of the party.   My parents  stayed with me after I was released until Tuesday and while at my house they helped me with a major project that I had wanted to get done for a really long time.  We went thru all of my cupboards and food storage and threw out all of the high sodium things and the really old things.  Completely filled up my large trash bin and in the process found cereal boxes that expired in 1998 and a can of peaches that was completely empty.  No mess on the shelf or anything--not sure where the peaches went and not sure I want to know.

My parents left on Tuesday and my sister, Karen, came out that same day and has been a wonderful companion and help.  Kim also has been awesome--going far beyond what most friends would do and not making me feel guilty at all when I made the decision that I couldn't go on the cruise which meant that we would each lose a significant amount of money since we were long past the date where you could get refunds and I hadn't bought trip insurance (which I usually do).  More about the cruise later..  For the last year or so, my house has progressively filled with stuff with no place to put it away.  Not a hoarder or anything close to that but enough clutter and stacks of books and magazines around that it has been driving me nuts but I haven't had the energy to do anything about it.  Today, both Kim and Karen helped me to go thru all of my books and we were able to donate four re-useable shopping bags worth of books to a donation box for charity.  That opened up enough room to organize the other books a little and find homes for all of the others that had been homeless.  Still some work to go, but what a jump start at helping my condo look more like I want it to.

The cruise.  Took a big gamble with the trip insurance and almost lost really big.  Can't believe that we put off canceling the cruise and then I got an email saying that the cruise was overbooked and offering quite good perks to choose a different departure date.  I'm one that checks my email multiple times a day, but for some reason on Tuesday I checked really early in the morning and then not again until about 9:30 at night.  I stressed all night about whether the offer was still good (since HAL was closed when I saw the email), and called first thing in the morning.  I would have settled for a trip credit or partial refund, but the cruise line offered me a full refund with no penalties.  I'm sure it helped them as much as me, but I still recognize this as a huge blessing.  Our plane tickets were non-refundable, but changeable (which aren't usually the class of tickets I buy) and so Kim and I now have a pretty nice credit with Southwest Airlines so we can go somewhere when I feel better.

Comfort.  If you have ever spent any time in a hospital, then you know that hospital beds are really uncomfortable.  For a few days I was taking pain pills, not because I was experiencing any pain related to being sick, but pain related to that bed.  Kim asked her sister to get me a mattress topper and bring it when she visited.  They happened to have one and it made all the difference in the world.

Visitors and friends.  Such an outpouring of prayers, well wishes,  visitors to cheer me up right when I needed them, offers to help with meals etc... I had no idea that people would be so generous.  Actually, I had some idea but have never been the "sick" one experiencing it for myself.  It is still hard for me to accept help or give others the opportunity to serve me but learning to do that is probably a blessing by itself.

Prayer.  A major blessing that I saved until last.  I've been humbled by the prayers of other people for me and have been doing quite a bit of praying myself.  I know these prayers have helped.  Things like the surgery went very smoothly, in fact the doctor said it was a "home run" and I was back in my room in two hours even though the surgery usually takes 2 to 6 hours.  I'm also starting to feel a little more like myself... not running marathons or anything, but also recognizing that I was really run down before I went into the hospital.  So much of the stress and anger and exhaustion is gone.