For Cecil's mom....He didn't want to worry you or his grandmother, so you didn't hear this from me.
The last several weeks have been very difficult. Cecil's blood pressure has still been really high and the medications he has been taking have not helped. I'd been telling him to go to his doctor for over two weeks so that they could adjust his medication, but would he listen to me? We had the medications adjusted earlier this week whenever we visited the emergency room.
On August 31st, a close friend of Cecil's from high school passed away. The memorial service was scheduled for this past Saturday, September 8th in his home town, which is a five hour drive from our home now. Cecil's plan was to drive there, alone, on Friday morning, stay with his mom Friday night, and drive home as soon as the service was over on Saturday afternoon so that he could fulfill his commitments at church on Sunday morning. He did not want me to go with him. He was adamant that I stay home and take care of the boys. He didn't think it would be a problem for him to make the drive by himself, as long as he did it when he was well-rested and had a schedule that he could follow.
His mom was not so sure, and neither was I. I wanted to go with him and let my mom keep the boys, so that if something were to go wrong, I could help out. Did he want to listen to either of us? No. Is this something new? No. We have always had differing opinions, but now, as I have shared before, his opinions are much stronger, and he is much more adamant about having his own way. Whenever it does not cause problems for his or anyone else's safety, normally, I let him do whatever he wants. I pick my battles.
This was going to be a battle, so I enlisted help. I called his brother.
Charles was happy to go with us to the memorial service. It was a friend of his, too, although not as close to him as to Cecil, but Charles wanted to take the opportunity to let his girlfriend visit his hometown with him. His idea was to leave late Friday afternoon when he got off work and for the four of us drive down together. He somehow talked Cecil into doing that.
We arrived in town at midnight, slept late into the morning, ate a late breakfast, went to the memorial, drove around town for a few hours, ate dinner with their mom, and headed back home. It was a long, tiring trip for everyone. We arrived back home at midnight. Cecil got up the next morning and somehow managed to make it to the 8:30 AM service at our church, because he had been scheduled to play the piano. He didn't want to disappoint our worship pastor, so he fulfilled all of his duties for this Sunday. These duties included playing the piano for two morning services, accompanying the orchestra in the second service, accompanying the orchestra at 5 PM for their rehearsal, leading the praise band rehearsal at 6 PM, and playing the piano again for the evening service at 7 PM. He does not usually play for the second service, the evening service, or the orchestra, but this particular weekend, our other pianist was out, so he filled in for her. I offered to play some of the services for him, but he insisted that he could do it. He's always been able to do these things without much difficulty, but since the accident, things are different. He only has about 3-4 hours a day that he can do these kinds of mental exercises. Whenever he pushes himself past his 3-4 hour window, bad things happen.
We ended up going to the ER on Monday morning at 4 AM because he had a headache so bad that he thought he was having a stroke or an aneurysm. His headache was so bad that it woke him up, and his blood pressure was 155/110 when he checked it at home. He felt dizzy, like he had vertigo, too.
In the ER, they ran a battery of blood tests, did an EKG and a CT scan and found nothing out of the ordinary. They narrowed the headache down to stress, changed his blood pressure medication and told him to visit his primary care doctor later this week. We have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.
He blamed it all on his mom, his brother and me for not letting him drive to the memorial service on his own schedule and for making him work outside of his limitations. I blame it on him for not letting me help him and not doing things the way I said he should have done them. There is truth to both sides of our arguments, but we aren't going to make them. It's over, and thankfully, he has not mentioned it since Monday. He was so glad to be home from the ER and so glad that he was not admitted to the hospital that he even apologized to me for not going to the doctor the previous week like I had suggested. I was so thankful that it was not a stroke or aneurysm that I didn't say, "I told you so."
We have had a lot of people praying for us this past week and a half. I know that God is in control and will use this experience to help us better understand Cecil's new limitations. I don't know how long this will last. I don't know if these are permanent limitations or if it's still part of the healing process. I don't know if he will one day be able to do these relatively normal things and live the way a relatively normal person would. I don't know if he will be or would have been able to make the drive on his own. I don't know what the future holds. The one thing I know is that God is faithful. I know that "the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly." (Psalm 84:11)
Those are the kinds of promises to which I cling whenever I don't know what is going to happen. I have a hard time not being in control all the time, and I know that God is using these challenges to teach me to trust Him more fully. I hope I am up for the challenge.
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