Happy Birthday America!
The picture above is of Madison getting ready to take a July 4th picnic dinner to her great grandmother in the hospital. Madison and I took the opportunity to spend time in Florida with family and during our stay our Ome had emergent hip surgery. God is so incredible and good! We were able to be there with her for the surgery and help afterwards during her hospital stay, inpatient rehab and then at home. I have always been a firm believer that God can take the choices we make and create something wonderful if we let Him. I did not intend to ever work in health care and definitely not at a hospital, but I ended up doing physical therapy in a hospital and loved it, especially wound care. The outcomes for persons aged 80 and older after a hip surgery are generally grim, but Ome did great. The hospital she was at was not as aggressive with therapy as where I practiced but I have never been really shy, so Madison and I took over her therapy right away. (The case manager walked in and told us we needed to consider total care facilities for her. So proud of my cousin, a nurse, who calmly explained to her that Ome lives independently and walked into the hospital with a walker on a broken leg to have the surgery. And that she would be returning to her home. Another fun fact: not only is my cousin a nurse at this hospital, but so is my aunt and my mother. The poor lady really had no chance to not get well and walk out of there!) No bedpans for her - she hates them! - transfers to bedside commodes instead. Lots of exercise with counting in the wonderfully loud voice only a three year old can manage, and walks in the hallway. Ome has fragile skin and came to surgery with a large skin tear that was beginning to heal, but also received two others during surgery. So we took care of those too and Madison is now proficient at wound assessment and vocabulary. So fun to hear her report to Ome her healing status. And it made me remember how much I love wound care and helping others! Unfortunately parenting does not come with regular evaluations to tell you how good you do something and give you a raise to reward you. I would not trade my rewards of kisses or watching Madison grow and learn, but it was fun to use other skills too!
Even though you cannot see it in the midst of your dark hour, God really is there and working for you! I would have never taken the opportunity to spend this much time with my family all at once had I not been single parenting for 5 months and accepted my parent's offer to come home for a little while. I had my "pitcher" refilled and in turn was able to help my grandmother and let my daughter know her great grandmother better! Little things like this help me see the sun for the clouds and remind me that God is on my side. Hope your July 4th was just as fun and family filled!
