God give me strength….
I’ve had this vision about writing and ministry and how it should look, sound, feel. I’m so glad that God had made me a person who listens and attempts to obey the “spirit” of ministry over the plan or production of ministry.
I have a commitment to ship a newsletter every Sunday at 3pm. There are so many unpublished pieces. Today, I’m grateful for my conviction to write and record the events of my past because this week, Joel needed to help Joel “remember”…
I’m so exhausted y’all. I was just in the emergency room again this week with crazy pain in my knee and radiating through my sciatic nerve into my lower back. They are called pain flares… where the pain just rages because there’s damage and my body is so exasperated from sending the “injury signal” with NO resolution that the whole system starts to panic. The alarm bell is pain that grows… and spreads. So far… the only thing we know that mutes the alarm is a power muscle relaxer, a powerful pain blocker and morphine.
This was a 2 shot of morphine visit. It broke the pain cycle… but I sat at the ER for 10 HOURS in level 9 pain before even being seen…
Got home at about 3am on Thursday AM. I’ve been in bed over 90% of the time since then. I wasn’t gonna publish today because I feel God telling me to rest. But I woke up this morning and something told me “you’ve already written todays post. Look at your blog.” So I did.
The very first entry I read was a flashback from 3 days after my 3rd surgery on December 19th, 2020. It starts out rough, y’all. Brutally painful… but by the end, you’ll realize why this is what I felt compelled to publish today.
It is over a year and 2 months after authoring the message of this post… and I still keep this same energy. I haven’t walked in 15 and a half months… and I still got this same attitude. My purpose is the same… AND refined …. AND clearer… AND bigger… AND stronger.
There is a point in this piece where I describe the feeling of laying on that surgery table… the isolation… the helplessness… and vulnerability. I needed to reread that TODAY to remember how I’ve been in that place before… and he’s brought me so far.
“But Joel, you still aren’t healed.”
A year and 2 months ago I only felt the pain and I couldn’t see clearly through to the purpose. A year and 2 months ago I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t barely muster the energy to pastor mySELF… much less the dozens of people that I communicate with weekly.
Haha. This is me exhausted… I cannot help from getting fired up though. God is too good and the story is too consistent.
Enjoy this flashback.
December 19, 2020 • originally published on joeldavidbarnes.wordpress.com
Flashback …. #3
I had a flashback. Felt like remembering a nightmare. It wasn’t from a dream though. It was from reality. Less than a week ago. Sunday. December 13th, 2020.
I was scheduled for surgery #3 at 2:15pm. The primary goal of this surgery was to wash out my knee. An infection had been identified. I had a fever that was persisting. Surgery #3 has the specific purpose of washing out the infection to give the antibiotics the best possible chance of working. Surgery #3 would also take more tissue samples and scrape for more concrete evidence of the culprit at work in my knee. It would also be an opportunity for the doctor to place a drain in my knee that would pull excess swelling away from the site and alleviate some of the pain.
Let me rewind a bit.
Surgery #1 was a standard enough procedure… meniscectomy. Clean up a torn and frayed meniscus that occurred from over use… and more specifically from favoring my left knee while walking with an injury to my upper back on the right side. When you hurt your back on the right, you lower extremities favor your left side. It’s the bodies way of over compensating weakness. If you were to hurt your left side, your body would naturally displace more weight to your right side. This surgery was supposed to be a “Standard procedure”. Normal recovery time 2-6 weeks… you come out of surgery “weight bearing as able”. Meaning… within a few DAYS of surgery… in theory… you should be able to walk. Limp. But walk. Without crutches. When I asked the doc and my physical therapist about it… it was a completely reasonable goal to be working out again by week 6. (Week 6 was last week)
I never really started healing after the 1st surgery. I was experiencing pain that was out of control. I was doing every single thing the doctor and PT told me to do. I adhered to everything the directed me to do AND suggested… but my pain level wasn’t going down. If anything, it was increasing. And so was my swelling.
During my 1st month of recovery, I went back to my doctor 4 times even though I was scheduled for 1 appointment. My surgeon was listening to me. For that, I’m forever grateful. He was bringing me in. Looking at my knee. Pondering why the pain was so bad. Trying. I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t listened to me. But he did. About 2 weeks in, he pulled fluid off my knee to see if there was infection and he gave me a cortisone shot to help with the pain. It didn’t. But I appreciated the effort.
By week 4 of my agony… and I don’t use that word lightly. This has been agony. Nothing short of it either. By week 4, he knew that the only other option at this point was to “go back in”. Surgery #2 was scheduled for the following week. As I thanked him for listening to me, and for scheduling the surgery, I broke down crying. This huge monstrosity of a human… sitting in his office, after an excruciating MRI (not usually a painful scan) had driven me nearly mad with pain, he knew he had to go back in sooner. (During the MRI they had to strap my leg down flat to the table in order to keep it still. My bones are shuttering at the thought of it, to this moment. For 30 minutes… top 5 more painful experiences of my life. A flippin MRI. I knew they had to go back in at that moment.)
Surgery #2 got moved up to “tomorrow” after I couldn’t control the flow of tears in his office. Friday December 4th I was to check into Rush Oak Park with a plan to have surgery and then to stay for “a couple days”. I got out 6 days later. It was a rough 6 days. Multiple collapsed veins. Too many shots to count. Rough stay.
Less than 12 hours after I was released, I started having a fever. I called my surgeon and the infectious disease doc that night. Both told me to head straight to the ER the next AM. So I did. Friday December 11th, I went back to the ER. I was thinking that I was just going to get another antibiotic or something… maybe a couple more blood tests. They admitted me.
Friday night I still had a fever… that night I also had a panic attack that woke me up out of a dead sleep. I thought I was having a heart attack. Terrifying experience (I’m sure I’ll process more about this another time)… Saturday afternoon we finally had an infection show up on the labs. We had been looking for ANYTHING to be the villain. We finally had a villain. Switched antibiotics to combat that specific infection but I was still feverish. So… surgery #3 got scheduled as an emergency operation on a Sunday.
They come to get me from my room at about 7:30am. My surgery had been moved up to 8am.
Begin flashback (I didn’t remember this next part until a couple days after surgery):
I get down to surgery and I’m in the hallway, just outside the Operating Room. I’m greeted by 2 men. A younger man and an older man. Younger man is taking the lead. They let me know that they are my anesthesia team. Fun fact, before surgery #1 I hadn’t ever had surgery. But now, with 3 surgeries in less than 6 weeks, I’m becoming a pro. I know what to expect. Kinda.
Younger dude seems nervous. Older dude seems like he’s making space for the younger dude to take the lead. I’m cool with it. But I don’t like “nervous” when I’m about to get put under. If I’m being honest.
Younger dude is rattling through the questions. “Last time you ate? Every had problems with anesthesia? Can you look up?” Yada yada yada. Literally, not one second spared on pleasantries or small talk. We’re just in it. I feel someone putting a hair net on me. As that is happening, the older Dr says, can you bring one for our Dr as well. He points to the younger guy who doesn’t have a hair net on. The younger guy touches his head and goes “oh man. I totally forgot to put a hair net on. I had my mask on and thought I put one on. Well. That’s what happens with emergency surgery sometimes. Everything is rushed.”
Oh. Great. Emergency surgery. Rushed. Awesome. No worries here. I’ll just be knocked out in a couple seconds…
They wheel me into the OR. It’s the first time I’m seeing it. Well, kinda. My glasses are up in my room… and I’m pretty blind without them… so all I’m seeing is blurry figures everywhere. There were around 6 to 8 additional humans in the OR. No one says a word to me when I’m wheeled in. Everyone’s frantically moving about the space. I don’t know ANYONE in this room. Everyone is so rushed. They ask me to move over to the Operating table. I do. It’s only about 24” wide. It’s a thin table. And it has skinnier tables jetting out from it. One for my left arm and right arm. Seems like there’s one for my leg too because they start grabbing my left leg and going to work on it. I’m feeling the bandages get pulled off. Then, I’m feeling them pull the stitches out… yeah. The stitches from surgery #2 (8 days earlier) are still in. And I’m feeling everything as they yank them out and are trying to get my leg onto this separate table…I even say to them at one point… “hey guys, I’m not knocked out yet, I can feel everything still.”
Meanwhile, I’m seeing all these head blobs hovering over me. The younger anesthesiologist was stuffing a mask over my face but it was too small. So it was closing my nostrils completely. But he wasn’t saying anything to me. Eventually I said. “I can’t breathe. Hey. I can’t breathe.” He said “can you breathe through your mouth?” I said yes. So he told me to do that. But I was starting to lose my breathe. Anxiety was skyrocketing. At the same time, I feel someone rip my gown off. Or try to… from my left side. The older anesthesiologist was asking why I had 2 gowns on. And he was pulling. And pulling. And pulling. And the face mask right now is kinda on, kinda off. But I know that gas is how I’m supposed to fall asleep… And everyone is rushing. And I and seeing heads pop into my line of sight. Those bright Operating Room lights are glaring above and they are PULLING… PULLING at my gown, at my leg, sticking me with more needles… And I can’t breathe and frantic and … now I’m laying with both of my arms down on the tables on either side of my body and I form a T. Nah… not a t…. I’m laying there in the position of the cross. And I think, “God, you know this position… this is the position that you died in.
Peace washed over me like a flood.
Me: “Hey hey hey guys… everyone alright in here? Huh? Hey… guys. You got this. Everyone take a deep breath for me. You got this. K? Everyone relax … ”
I realized that I had put both my hands up when I had started to speak as if to say WHOA. Slow down. Take your time.
Everyone in the room got quiet… all the shuffling stopped for one second… they were all still… and then they all laughed and said “you got this Mr. Barnes.” I think everyone realized that they had been in a bit of a tizzy.
I remember thinking that I had never been more alone or more vulnerable or more exposed or out of control than that exact moment… but I started thanking God that He never leaves me… that I’m never alone. And as these strangers kept buzzing around my naked and defenseless body, I just started talking to my Father. I started praying for each person in that room. And thanking God that He was there in the middle of that nightmare WITH ME.
Then I woke up in recovery. (In only one gown. Lol.) My first words were “thank You, Lord”.
You know… as I recap all of these events, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the high stress or high drama moment was me on that operating table… arms out to my side and completely naked and vulnerable and scared and NOT ALONE. Matter of fact, I’m positive that I felt compelled to even write about that experience so that I could get to that conclusion.
I write so that I don’t forget. I write so that I can remember. I write so that I can SHARE the testimony that I have in my life. I don’t know anything for certain except what I know He has done for ME.
Post surgery #3 has been the hardest stretch yet. I’m 4 weeks “non-weight bearing” now… meaning.. for the next 4 weeks, no matter if I’m getting up to use the bathroom or going to the kitchen or going to physical therapy, I cannot use my left leg. I have to use 2 crutches. Personally, I have a gut feeling that we haven’t quite figured out what’s wrong with my knee. All we know is that it’s a LOT worse than it was to begin with. We are in uncharted territory… every doctor that has weighed in (and we’re talking a dozen plus as of now) has been pretty thoroughly confused. Yada yada … all that is pretty irrelevant. More faith battleground to traverse. And it shall be traversed.
He’s teaching us something here, and I don’t wanna miss it. Yeah, I say US cuz you’re reading it… so you are on this journey too. Maybe as a spectator… maybe as a prayer warrior… maybe out of curiosity… maybe out of faith. But He’s giving me this experience to SHARE for a reason.
I’m in the middle of one of the hardest times in my life. Right now. I’m unemployed. In pain. Immobile. And I’m not alone.
I’m not alone….
Can you believe that?
I’m not by myself in this.
There are people that pray for me everyday and a community that’s texting me and checking in me and all that… and I’m so grateful…. but even as I lay there on that table where none of my people could go… I was not alone.
Thank You… for never leaving us in our darkest hour. Thank You for never letting us go anywhere without Your love and protection. Thank You for the air that we get to breathe every day. Thank You for the people in our lives that You send to comfort us on earth. Thank You that when all of those people are gone… YOU ARE NOT. Thank You for reminding me, today, that You are with us at the end of our rope … in our most vulnerable and exposed moments… in our nightmares, You are there.
Thank You.
Be with my brothers and sisters that are reading this. Let them hear of how good You are and how great Your protection over me has been. Let it be a testimony to Your glory.
In Jesus Name.
Amen.
In closing…
“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.”
2 Timothy 3:10-11 NIV
See… I gotta keep that same energy. Even though I’m still in the thick of it physically… The lives I’ve been able to connect with and the ministry that I’ve been able to be a part of FROM MY BACK, have changed me. Look, remembering this 3rd surgery was exactly what I needed today. I was at piece when I let go of control and when I just trusted that God was there with me and for me because it was then that he could mold me.
Keep That Same Energy