Brown Sludge

The Father’s Hand On Your Shoulder - II

October 24th, 2006

There are so many things in our lives that we take for granted every day. Gifts from The Father both big and small that we simply assume we’ll enjoy because – we always have. We wake up every morning and His comforting gifts surround us. The Sun. Food. Family. Friends. His Grace.

Our health.

Sometimes we forget to thank him for all the good things in our life. Perhaps we become so ungrateful that we actually forget to see all the good things and begin to focus on the negative things in our lives, or worse, we become resentful for the things we don’t have or feel that we are “owed”.

I think He picks these moments to place His hand gently on your shoulder, and let you know that He loves you unconditionally, and that it hurts Him when you cease to love Him because you’re not appreciative of the gifts that He’s already giving you in such abundance.

Perhaps He even goes so far as to take one of those gifts away from you, in an effort to illustrate to you the value of them.

So it is with the use of my left hand.

The days of my life were tumbling by, and I can’t say I ever gave much thought to the use of my hands, or ever even really took the time to take inventory and be grateful for them.

Until one of them was take away.

Talk about “sobering”.

It happened pretty quickly really. I was sitting at my computer desk writing, and I got up to get a drink. I was holding the refrigerator door open with my right hand, and I reached in to grab a container of apple juice with my left and, and… nothing.

For a moment… I couldn’t get my mind around “nothing”. It took a few seconds to register on me. I was confused for a second. My brain was telling my hand: “Dude… grab that container”, and my hand simply wouldn’t obey. I’m 45 years old. My appendages have never disobeyed me before. I watched in horror as my limp left hand banged against the jug of apple juice in flat defiance of me willing it to grab the darned thing and pull it out. In an uncomprehending daze, I repositioned my hand so that it was “wrapped” around the apple juice jug and again I willed it to grab and retrieve. Again it refused.

As the realization dawned over me that MY HAND DIDN’T WORK… I began to panic.

I felt a metal taste in my mouth, and my heart began to pound pretty heavily. I got a little dizzy from the adrenaline rush.

I flipped on the light and sat down at the kitchen table and began to will my left hand to open and close, or my fingers to wiggle, or… anything. My heart was threatening to pound it’s way completely out of my chest. I grabbed a sharp round toothpick and began to poke the palm and fingertips to see if I had any sensation. It hurt. I had full sensation, I just didn’t have the ability to move it. At all.

Still panicking – I quickly took physical inventory. Feet. Legs. Right arm. Left arm. I check the strength and usefulness of every thing I had. It appeared that whatever had happened was affecting only my left hand from the wrist down. From the wrist up I had full range of motion and use.

One word kept rolling around in my skull. I kept trying to quiet it, but it was rolling around in there… loudly.

Stroke.

I’ve had a stroke. I’m having a stroke.

I kept trying to think of some other reason why my left hand just simply… quit working.

My daughter is in the other room. She worries over me more than she should. I don’t want to freak her out. I don’t want her to panic.

Quietly – I dial my doctor’s exchange. I’m loathe to do this. I was always raised to believe that there was never any compelling reason to do this. If not emergency – make office appointment – if emergency – go emergency room. A doctor deserves time off with his family and I was raised to believe it was tacky and unnecessary to bother a doctor in “off” hours. I’m worried about a stroke – so driving to the emergency room concerns me. I break with my own upbringing and dial the exchange.

The lady at the exchange is a seasoned professional. It makes perfect sense, but it never dawned on me that there would be a “screening” process for these calls to the exchange. The gal on the phone asks me several very careful questions. These questions are designed to make sure that the doctor isn’t being bothered with trivial things constantly. I find it comforting that he has in place a “guard dog” that will help insure that he’s not called away from important family or personal time for everyday runny noses, or 99.1 fevers.

When I tell her I’ve lost the use of my left hand… she immediately replies “I’ll get the doctor on the line.”. This is very scary. She did not pass “Go”. She did not collect $200.00. She instantly connected me to the doctor. No hesitation what-so-ever.

My doctor is 900 years old. He’s so old he owes Moses a quarter. He’s old, and he’s crabby, and he’s seen so much over all of the years of his practice and his humanitarian work in third world countries that very little bothers or worries him. Usually.

When I tell him about my hand he pauses for a few seconds. He asks me a few questions. Can I do this? Can I do that? Is anything else wrong. Do I have a headache? Have I taken any medication?

He tells me he doesn’t think I’m having a stroke. He thinks it’s nerve damage of some sort. He tells me to be there first thing in the morning, and he’ll check things out. He says that I should watch the symptoms closely for the rest of the night, and if the problem begins to creep - up my arm or if anything else stops working – then I should immediately head for the emergency room.

True sleep never comes that evening. Not fully. I drift in and out of frightening dreams, waking up about every 45 minutes. Every time I wake up I can’t help but snap on the light and stare at my left hand. Trying to move it. Trying to make it obey me. Trying to see if this strange and terrible affliction has magically been lifted in the 45 minutes since I last stared at it.

At about 3:00 AM I realize in horror that… I type for a living. I manage an IT department for a medium sized aerospace firm. I program all day. I write e-mails all day. I type all day. It occurs to me that I might not be able to work anymore.

I run into my study and sit at the keyboard. As I suspected it’s useless. 6 hours ago I could type 75 or 80 words a minute. After a couple of frustrating tries I realize that if I make sort of a claw with my left hand – I can manage to do the old “two-finger” typing thing. Years of keyboard work makes this not as bad as you’d expect. I figure I can type faster using the two-finger “hunt and peck” method than most people can from home row with both hands.

I wander back to bed, knowing that all hope of actually sleeping is futile.

I lie awake the rest of the night wondering what happened to me, and if I’ll ever get the use of my hand back… and wondering why I ever took it for granted.

The next morning is terrifying. There is so much I used to be able to do and took for granted that I can no longer do. So many hundreds of little things that were possible just the morning before, but now aren’t possible any more. Combing my hair. Putting on deodorant. Picking up a glass with my left hand. Lifting things with both hands.

When I get to the doctor he doesn’t have much hope to offer. He’s seen many things in his long, long life, but he can’t say for sure why my hand doesn’t work. He suspects it’s nerve damage of some sort. Perhaps it’s carpal tunnel. Perhaps I’ve damaged a nerve somehow. Perhaps it’s something more sinister. He worries, because many degenerative nerve diseases start this way. He can’t know until he’s ran a “nerve induction survey”. A big, expensive, time-consuming test where they connect you electronically to a machine that can, apparently, measures these things.

In the mean-time I stare at my hand most every day, and wonder if I’ll ever have it back. In the last few weeks I’ve regained the ability to at least close my hand. It’s still too weak to actually hold anything that weighs more than an ounce or two, but I’ve learned I can lift things with it if I use my wrist strength to push them palm up. Palm down my hand is still useless.

It may seem foolish, but I’m actually kind of grateful.

Grateful that The Father chose my left hand to gently remind me of his presence, and not my dominate right hand. Grateful that I can still function at work, and that my job isn’t threatened at the moment by this affliction. Grateful that I’ve regained a fraction of it’s usefulness – because – a fraction is better than nothing at all – and offers me hope that I’ll eventually get it all back.

Grateful too, for the reminder that I had not appreciated all of His many gifts as fully as I should, and now…

I do.

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