My Health Journey

Three Months

Three Months

Well, I have reached the three-month mark! At one point I had been dreading this milestone because of how many things I read about recovery declining after 3 months, but the fact is that I’m at much more peace with where I’m at, and the day came and went without me even noticing! In fact, my 3-month mark was Thanksgiving Day, and I suppose I was too busy making and eating good food with family and friends to worry too much about myself.

I have been looking back and forward a lot lately. I’ve been editing down the last 3 months of live-streamed services at The Bridge (which I always do, but am super far behind in!), and it’s crazy to see myself first in a wheelchair, then a walker, then a cane, and finally walking without aid. There are days that the last three months hardly feel real. Every week I drive past the hospitals I lived in for 14 days, and it feels surreal. Don’t get me wrong – I definitely don’t feel fully recovered! But those days of paralysis feel like a blur.

As we move into winter I have big plans for recovery. 🙂 I reassessed my goals with my physical therapist yesterday and plan to use this next season to make major headway towards greater movement and stamina. I will have to be very intentional – it’s easy in the winter to hole up in my house and sit around all day. Instead, I just got a black Friday deal on a treadmill and will have to discipline myself to walk daily. Right now, I can walk for 15-20 minutes and then my legs hit neuro-fatigue, which basically means they stop working. It’s quite the experience, LOL. My knees (especially my right knee) are very weak also, which translates to no ability to “bounce” in my movement – no jogging/running, hopping, dancing, quick foot reactions & compensations, etc.

My goal is that by next summer I want to be able to hike again, which means walking much longer and being able to handle incline/decline, as well as the quick adjustments one has to make to stay safe on a trail. One of my greatest joys is seeing this beautiful world that God created, and I’ve become a bit of a National Park junkie. I’m hoping to travel east next summer to see parts of the country we’ve never seen, and I want to enjoy it to its fullest.

While working hard on recovering as much function as I can, I am also trying to really embrace all that God has to teach me during this season. I was in survival mode for the first couple of months after my injury, and while I was depending on strength from God to pull me through, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend really digging into His word and seeking His heart for me and my situation. Now that things are settling back into some semblance of routine and “normalcy”, I am spending more time reading His word and trying to learn and grow as much as I can through this. I don’t want to look back on this season of my life and find that I’ve squandered a chance that God gave me for major spiritual growth.

I just devoured (and am going to immediately re-read) a book by Joni Eareckson Tada called A Place of Healing. This book was such a blessing to me and really encouraged/challenged me to look at my physical state through God’s eyes. Instead of seeing it as something God needs to heal me from, I’m encouraged to look at it as something God can use to heal others. And honestly, the fact is that God already has healed me in huge ways. I can walk! I am not paralyzed any longer. Yes, I have constant pain and other symptoms, but I can choose to let that hinder me, or I can use it for His glory.

And so, I am doing my best to move forward. I am trying to step out of my comfort zone and let God use me more, and I am working to make headway in other goals I have (like all of my book writing at messianickids.com). (BTW, If you want to support my work, I’d love it if you’d share what I’m doing with others – I want to get these tools into as many hands as possible!) And now, I need to get back to one of the most important jobs I have – homeschooling my little crew who are growing up way too fast. 😉

Blessings on your week,
– Judy

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