How can I know this? Well, Emily's still got her feeding tube, although she's not using it, and after many weeks of asking when it will come out, the doctors at UNC informed her yesterday that she'll have to go back to Duke to have it taken out. This seems a little ridiculous, but apparently none of the surgeons at UNC will take it out because a surgeon at Duke put it in. This isn't a basketball thing I assure you. I understand that it has something to do with liability issues, but, really, we have to go through this yet?
So her doctors here made an appointment for her to have it taken out at Duke on the 8th, and so that's how I'm so sure we'll be out of here by the 7th.
On one hand it's not a big deal because it poses a moderately low risk of infection, but on the other hand it's also a pain in Emily's butt, err, maybe a pain in her stomach. It reminds her of just how bad things were, and I'm not sure she's emotionally ready to think back through all of that yet.
A friend's blog post unintentionally gave me some food for thought this week. Her post title was "On the Willows" and I know she was referring to Godspell, but that psalm reference always haunts me. It is, of course, a nod to Psalm 137:
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
That last refrain is really what gets me, and what I've been thinking about this week. This syndrome has literally held Emily captive for the past three months. In a metaphorical sense I have also often felt a captive to these circumstances. We have had to hang up so much that we are, and so many things that we have been doing, that we have had to constantly re-negotiate our identities in the face of this thing.
The writer of the psalm laments that the people of Israel have had to endure captivity, and learn what it means to be God's chosen people who were also mysteriously and inexplicably enslaved to the Babylonian empire. We have had to consider what it means to be faithful to a gracious and loving God in the face of a mysterious and inexplicable captivity to this illness. We have had to ask ourselves time and time again how in the world we can sing the Lord's song in this foreign land.
It has not been easy.
We are, however, returning from that exile, and Emily makes progress every day. Her upper body grows stronger, although her legs are taking longer to get the message. I understand that nerves re-grow themselves at about the rate of a millimeter per day, and if you consider how many millimeters of nerves you have in your legs, it becomes easier to understand why this is taking so long.
All of these thoughts come back to the issue of the feeding tube. It's not really hurting anything, but it is a reminder that, while we are returning from exile, we are not back yet. In the face of this exile it has been our family and friends that have helped us remember what the Lord's song sounds like, and it has been good for me to keep you all updated through this blog. These posts will probably become more infrequent over the next few weeks because I will need to spend more hands-on time helping Emily, but I'll try to keep you all as up to date as possible.As always, we love you all and continue to ask for your prayers.
