Okay

Yesterday, I strolled the little Love Nugget into Katherine’s room around lunchtime. She looked smaller, diminished somehow. The bed was in the ‘sitting’ position, but she had sunk down in the middle, shrunk up into a little ball. Her eyes were red and her lips were slightly swollen. It reminded me of how she looked in the aftermath of some perceived childhood injustice. “Did you hear?” she (mostly) mouthed a little sheepishly. “I failed.” “What?”I asked. “The test. I failed the test, Mom.”

Those are words I have heard very rarely coming from that particular pair of lips.

The test in question was the swallowing test, which was conducted just before the procedure on her vocal cord. It revealed that we still have a long way to go.

“Have you been crying?” I asked, stating the obvious in order to get some processing going. “Yeah. A little. Dad, too.” Prior to this past year, I had witnessed my husband of 32 years cry on only 5 or 6 occasions. (Everyone’s getting better at it now....although I, for one, have never had a problem with it.) “Dad, too?” I echoed. “Yeah, ‘cause I was.” Then Katherine looked at me intently through her red and blue eye. “But I’m okay. I'm okay. I cried, but I’m okay.”

Last week we had a similar experience. Jay, his mother, Mary Ruth, and I were invited to attend the rehab staff meeting. Although we were very glad to hear positive reports from the speech, physical, and occupational therapists, I voiced some concern that we had never really had an opportunity to sit down with a doctor and get the Brain 101 course. We had learned things in bits and pieces from various sources. I said that I thought it would be valuable to have someone start at the beginning and fill in all the blanks. The staff agreed that this would be a good idea, and that we would work towards setting up a time when the main family members could all be present for it. But Katherine and I were alone in the room when Dr. R. came by later. He told me that my request had been passed on to him, and that either he or another doctor would be happy to sit down with the family and thoroughly explain exactly what had happened to Katherine and what the consequences of that were likely to be. I turned to Katherine, “I know you must have some questions you’d like to ask, too.” “Yes,” she addressed Dr. R., “My ear...can’t hear....my face....can’t feel...why??” Suddenly we found ourselves getting a lot more information than we were prepared to get. I felt a flutter of panic rising as medical “facts” started flying in our faces, knocking the wind out of us: Katherine’s surgery had been incredibly difficult. It was a remarkable feat that her life had been saved, but certain “sacrifices” had to be made in order to accomplish that. “Sacrifices” involving cranial nerves 7, 8, 9, and 10, as well as parts of The Brain Itself. Because of these “facts,” the deafness in Katherine’s right ear will be permanent. Her facial paralysis and other symptoms (such as the impaired swallowing mechanism) related to the affected nerves will be “persistent.”

Sometimes ignorance is bliss...or at least comfort food.

As soon as Dr. R. left, Katherine and I stared at each other with the drop-jawed, eye-rolling, incredulous, are-you-believing-this-junk expression. “Mom. Mom, how am I supposed to model if I can’t move my face?" (i.e., “Does this mean the bill-paying livelihood has been jeopardized???”)

We kept staring at each other for a few stunned seconds of silence. I cleared my throat. I started in on a speech about God’s Plan B. I talked about how He probably had something FAR better for her to do...how He had already used what had happened to her for unbelievable good...how people’s lives were being...

She interrupted me.

"Mom. I’m okay.

I'm okay, Mom. I'm okay.”

In spite of fear, disappointment, questioning...in spite of deaf ears and frozen faces and broken bodies and broken hearts...it’s okay.

Katherine

Arnold

Wolf

is

OKAY.

After she reassured me by reiterating that yesterday, she gestured towards the designated ‘Nugget’ and said, “Now hand him to me.” I lifted her chunky little monkey out of the stroller and into her arms.


***************

“...Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.” (Horatio Spafford)

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body”
(II Cor. 4:8-10)