By the time you read this the election may be over. I may or may not have voted, If I don’t it will mark the first time in my adult life that I have not. Sometimes, real life intervenes and pushes politics back Into It’s rightful place, Not that it should ever be at the forefront of our lives but that’s the way life has been recently. It often takes something beyond our control to snap us out of it. In my case, it was my brother James.
We were blissfully on our way to Kansas City last Saturday. Halfway there my phone rang and my husband answered it as I was driving. It was Roy from Auspicion telling us that they had taken James to the emergency room, suspecting he had a stroke. Since James is developmentally disabled and I am his guardian, we went into panic mode. It seemed like ages before we found the nearest exit exit to turn around and speed back to Emporia.
Once at Newman, they told us that it was probably just a TIA and we should take him to the doctor on Monday. All good! We took him to our house as no one had the key to his apartment. Twenty minutes later, he was helplessly laying on our living room floor unable to speak or move his right side. After another 911 call and ambulance to the hospital, they said he would need to be transported to KU Med Center.
Back in the car again. At some point, the ambulance passed us. We were speeding as it was, so they were really booking it. Before we got to the hospital, a radiologist from KU called and said that James had a massive clot on the brain and they needed my permission to take him to surgery. We discussed all the possible complications and I gave them my approval, but I was not very optimistic.
My optimism did not change when we got to his room in ICU after he returned from surgery where they removed a massive clot blocking blood flow to half of his brain. His face was still twisted, he could not use his right arm and it was difficult keeping him still.
During all of these events, my husband was calling friends and posting on social media, asking for prayers for James, but it was with very heavy hearts and exhaustion that we left the hospital that night.
The next morning, Sunday, we went back to the hospital. We didn’t rush this time as we were afraid of what we would find. Having had friends who suffered strokes, I know how difficult recovery can be. I could not imagine how James, with his limited intellectual abilities, would cope.
As we walked down the hospital hall towards his room, we could see him through the glass window, sitting up in bed with the biggest grin on his face
the minute he saw us. His face was not distorted and he was eating a graham cracker that the Physical Therapist had given him to check his motor skills.
What a day! We went to church. They prayed for James some more and we went back to the hospital where his condition continued to improve. People started coming to visit. He was still in ICU, but they let two people in, then someone else came, then someone else, and the room became crowded.
“He doesn’t need to be in ICU”, his nurse said, “but we don’t have a room yet,” so the crowd grew. They moved him out of bed to a chair and several of us used his hospital bed to sit on. How to describe that room? It was like the best party I have ever been to. It included family, old friends we haven’t seen for years and new friends. It was everything that life is supposed to be.
As of this writing, I don’t know what the results of the election will be, but it doesn’t matter. A lot of politicians and Political Action Committees are spending millions, perhaps billions, of dollars to Influence the vote in what is supposed to be the “most important” election of our lifetime. If that is most important, if that is what our society values most, we deserve the results, whatever they may be.
There is so much more. There is health, there is family, there are friends, there is faith and hope. There is love. This weekend, amid what could have been a catastrophic situation, I experienced all of the things that are most important. These are the things that determine the quality of our lives, not the result of any election regardless of the issues. These are the things, not any political agenda, that are worth holding on to.