Epiphany: Recovery

 Apply lumps of figs to the wound,

    so that he may recover. (2Kings 20:7)

There’s surgery to deal with the disease, and then there’s recovery to mend the surgery that dealt with the disease. Surgery last for a day, recovery drags on. It requires “lumps of figs;” or, lumps of something, to gradually, day by day, recover from the wounds of surgery. 

Linda has been stuck with the lumps—the care giving required for recovery. I’m grateful for it all: for the Kaiser Medical Regional Neurosurgery Hospital and the team of medical professionals that put a probe in my brain and then connected it to a stimulator battery machine implanted in my chest in hopes of alleviating some of my Parkinson’s symptoms like tremors and maybe even my walking gait. But first, before we can program the hardware, the wounds of surgery have to heal. That takes time; and the latest COVID variant requires isolation. If one has to be so isolated, I’m happy it’s with Linda—she is easy to be with. After 57 years of marriage, I’m still blessed by her presence.

All indications are that the surgery went well. In a few weeks we will try out the hardware and put the surgical procedure to the test. If all works well, we will do it all over again on the right side of my brain. Funny what we do for just a few more years on God’s beautiful green earth. For Hezekiah, the figs and the recovery and the Lord; gave him another “fifteen years of life.” I’ll take that.