A Fight for Life

How much suffering must one person bear? In August, while in the hospital recovering from surgery on her hip, her husband died suddenly on a Sunday morning. In deep shock and  pain she whispered, "I am going into a shell and stay there."
A few weeks later, at home, ill with an infection and still in great pain, she was unable to attend the memorial service for the man she had been married to for over half a century.
Three days later,  back to the emergency room at the hospital, her toes had turned deep blue. A blood clot developed in her leg and she underwent surgery again. She rallied and looks foreward to going home again. She says she will take  physical therapy. She wants a cat. She has a name picked out for the cat. I plan to give her Tiger. She would love Tiger.
Before she could go home, a week ago, another surgery - amputation of the leg that had the blood clot. 
Yesteday she was dismissed from the hospital and admitted to a nursing facility. Her pain still intense, but dulled with strong meds. One of her daughters visited and they talked. She seems to be improving, we hear.
We are all amazed. We have always known her determination. Like the pine on the cliff above the ocean, buffetted by the hard winds of life, she grew stronger and learned to bend instead of break.
We thought she might give up, have nothing to live for now that her husband is gone. She has undergone three major surgeries in two months. Still she fights to live.
Late last night, back in the hospital again, unable to breathe, her lungs have filled with fluid. We pray that this is not the end. We ask God to reward her determination, her super-human efforts to cling to life.

Melissa, the Hospice Nurse

Melissa is a nurse with compassion and a great heart. She cared for both Barry and me for several days. I watched her tenderly wipe his brow with a damp wash cloth and carefully re-position his head on the pillow. She sometimes sat beside me and hugged me as I wept.
How does she do this day after day, I wonder. Her business is smoothing the journey of the dying as they travel on to another realm.But she also tends the living who stay behind and grieve.
I could never do what she does, but I am oh, so thankful that she can do it.
Melissa made up for my frustration in dealing with a medical world that no one could understand. I told her she was, indeed, an angel of mercy.
She told me that I had inspired her. How could that be? I saw nothing in what I was going through that could inspire anyone.
"You have inspired me, " she said, " because I see the love you have for your husband, and although I've seen many people pass through this place, I've never been touched by anyone as I have you. I have been married twenty years, and I hope I can love my husband as much as you love Barry."

We never know what our actions say to others even in the most difficult times. I saw myself desperately trying to help my husband transcend this world in peace, to be relieved of suffering, and to know he could leave me with no fear for my well-being. I agonized over my decisions and begged doctors to help me make them. I'd never have thought of myself as inspiring.