This week I witnessed something absolutely beautiful.
If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll have seen it’s been an unbelievable 5 days. The short story is my dad was perfectly healthy last week. Was at my daughter’s volleyball tournament all day Friday. That night he started having unbelievably bad headaches. Saturday he went to the ER, had a CT scan and they discovered a brain tumor. He was not doing well at all and started to lose vision in one eye so they sent him to Toronto (no beds in Hamilton). He had an emergency MRI Monday which showed that inside his tumor it was hemorrhaging, making it swell and pushing on his optic nerves. He needed surgery to remove it ASAP. The next morning they were able to remove the entire tumor (through his nose!) and found no signs of cancer! We are still praying his left eye’s vision will be restored.
You’re probably wondering what’s so beautiful about that. Sounds awful.
The beauty I saw was this…
-my mom and dad’s love for each other – there is something so beautiful about a love that’s stood the test of time. The good and the bad. True love isn’t flowers and chocolates… it’s wiping up vomit, staying up all night, advocating for health care, comforting and just being present.
-support – this was huge. Every step of the way we have been floored by people’s support. Family and friends worldwide offering to do anything we may need, praying for dad, sending encouraging notes, and just amazing us with their care. People offering to jump on a plane to come down and be with us. People taking care of my kids so I could be there while Mark was working. Dropping off food. And on and on. And it wasn’t just the people we would expect – but people we hardly knew as well were extending their support. I would tell dad how many people had responded on Facebook (I was posting updates on there as much of our family and friends live far away) – and he would just grin ear to ear. Actually – mom said she caught him tonight whipping back the curtain tonight to tell his roommate about all the people on Facebook supporting him.
-perspective – it would be easy for mom and dad to be bitter. If they had gotten a bed right away – perhaps his eye could have been saved. But, instead I find it so beautiful how they chose to look at it the other way. They travel a lot and often to more remote places. What if they had been in Indonesia or Africa when this had happened? They choose to rejoice he was home. In a corner of the world that has world class surgeons in several cities within a short drive (Hamilton, London, Toronto…). They rejoice that we live in Canada and they do not have to worry about how they are paying for this surgery. We can simply do whatever needs done medically without the stress of finance. The brain tumor could have done a lot more damage or been cancerous and been a much worse scenario. Dad may lose sight in one eye – but he’s still able to see with the other one. He’s healthy otherwise. He’s here. So instead of choosing to be bitter, we choose to be thankful and rejoice in how well it went.
So, I left the hospital tonight with a full heart. Again, I can not thank each of you enough for your thoughtfulness and support. I have not had a chance to respond to people – but I have read every message and you have each contributed to the beauty I saw this week.
My motto for edison is “Celebrating life and love”. This week I was reminded of the importance of just that. Life can change in a blink of an eye.
Celebrating life and love!
Krista
And because every post needs a photo…
