Sometimes it feels better to not be in control of everything.
The morning that J.D. had his wreck (almost a year ago now, wow..) I can tell you exactly what I was thinking before I got the phone call – I was following a schedule, making appointments, listing to-dos, being in control. Everything was ‘normal’ and moving along as planned. We were 100% certain what was coming tomorrow – next week – next month. And then it totally didn’t.
Suddenly, we were no longer 2 able-bodied adults pulling in 2 separate, comfortable incomes, supporting 6 kids. J.D. had a broken neck (and back, and ribs) and couldn’t get around at all without help.. I was 4 months pregnant and lifting him in and out of a recliner after strapping him into this awful plastic brace. We had 6 kids – one only just turned a year old. I was shell-shocked – to say the least. It felt like every time we tried to take control of this insanity and make decisions, it would get crazier – we finally left the hospital and settled in at home and they made him come back in and put a halo on him. Life had gone completely upside-down.
And – as crazy as this sounds, the worst part of the whole thing was not knowing what was coming next. Not calling the shots. No one asking us how we wanted to handle the ‘next steps’.
When the neurosurgeon called me with the decision to place the halo, he wasn’t exactly presenting it as an ‘option’. It was pretty cut and dry.
“The broken sections of the C2 bone have shifted since the last x-ray – we’ll be placing him in a halo. When can you get him into the hospital?”
“Um, he’ll probably want to discuss that. Um..”
“There is nothing to discuss. It’s not up for discussion. He has a broken neck.”
“ok.”
Sometime after my natural reaction to that conversation, I caught myself saying “Thank God I didn’t have to make that call.” – and then throughout the entire rest of the crazy situation and several times over the past year, I have grown quite comfortable uttering “Thank God it was not me who had to make that decision for us.” – “Thank God that decision was not left up to us.”
Turns out I kind of like not being in control.. not trying to call all the right shots is sort of freeing.
