When your husband is scared

I LOVE my husband. It's a solid, quiet love. It's not crazy, shake the rafters and stare at each other in total awe love (although that does happen occasionally); instead, it's mature and happy and solid.

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For those of you who are newer readers, about 3 years ago, my husband was hit by one of those huge passenger trucks while he was riding a moped. He was going straight through a green light, the truck didn't yield and turned left directly into him. He was thrown 20 feet and his lower left leg was completely shattered. He was rushed into emergency surgery to reconstruct the bones in his leg and after 6ish hours of surgery he emerged with many plates, screws, stitches, and skin grafts holding his leg together.

His recovery was incredibly bad. His pain was impossible to control and he spent 2 weeks in the hospital and a month in an aftercare facility. It took him months after that before he could walk anywhere; we still have a wheelchair ramp going up to our front door. But very slowly he improved to the point that he could walk with a custom leg brace and a cane.

Then 6 months ago he started to fall. For no reason his leg would give out and he would fall out. Several times a week. And it hurt a great deal. A trip to the orthopedist revealed a large bone cyst in his knee and severe arthritis. He needed a knee replacement but the regular orthopedists had no clue how to do it.


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Enter Dr. Bruce French, trauma orthopedist extraordinaire. CT scans that he ordered revealed that Tim was missing a significant sliver of bone in the middle of his lower leg. The plan was to remove all of his hardware, do a bone graft, and then once that healed (time frame unknown), he would need a knee replacement. Tim wanted nothing to do with this. The pain that he had experienced before was too great. He would be above the pain and continue with life.

Until 2 weeks ago when he heard a pop in his leg, swelling in a new area (where there is a plate) occurred) and he could no longer place any weight on his leg. For the past two weeks he's had to lay in bed. And go out of his mind with cabin fever. At an emergency appointment with Dr. French on Friday, he finally agreed to surgery, and will go under the knife this Wednesday.


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To say that he is stunned is putting it mildly. He is terrified. He keeps trying to convince himself and me that he doesn't need the surgery. But then the pain returns and his leg gives out. And he realizes it has to happen.

When I heard that surgery was going to happen, I wanted to pick him up and hold him like a baby. I wanted to take away all of the fear. I prayed to turn into that nurse in Harry Potter and be able to give him a horrible tasting medicine that would grow his bones back. I felt useless and like I should be able to do something to make t all better, but I couldn't. Have you ever received news and were immediately struck by total exhaustion? I was at that moment.

For the last two days I have been in cuddle my husband mode. I have been holed up in the bedroom with him just to be with him. I don't want him to be alone. I want to do everything I can to keep his mind off of the upcoming surgery. I want to take his fear away and embody it, to deal with is pain, to give him respite.


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Then I realized that he has God for that. Paul told us in God's good word "Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corintians 4:16-18) No matter what Tim experiences in this world, it is all transient, never everlasting, and the things beyond life will be more glorious and brilliant than we can ever imagine.

Still, I hope this operation makes his time in this life less painful and much more bearable. Because when your husband is scared and you love him more that you can ever say, what more could you wish for?