Well, I promised an arm update on Friday and totally dropped the ball on that one. That should teach me to not make bloggy promises at this point in my life!  But without further ado, here’s the current status of my arm:

My elbow fracture(s) are not yet healed, though my doctor was hoping they would be by 6 weeks. So that means that for now, I’m still not allowed to do anything weight-bearing with my arm. No opening jars, carrying laundry baskets, etc. However, the fracture is healing in “almost perfect” alignment, which is fantastic news, and makes it more and more likely that surgery will not be needed. My wrist is sprained more badly than originally thought, so that means more patience, more rest, more time. I started physical therapy last week, for both my elbow and wrist. I have 3 appointments per week, plus exercises to do twice a day, followed by icing, so my schedule is filling up with all things arm-related. But after just a few days, I had gained a few degrees of flexion in my elbow (YAY!). I have quite a way to go yet, but the progress gives me hope and motivation!

***

Now for the real point of this post. I wanted to take some time to list a few of the many things I’m thankful for, as I look back over the past 7+ weeks since I first fell and injured myself. It’s easy to complain; it’s easy to get discouraged. But it’s also easy to be thankful, because God’s grace is abundant and obvious. Here are just a few ways He has shown me grace:

• My amazing husband and kids. Seriously, they have been fantastic. They help around the house, make sure I’m comfortable, pray for me, encourage me, carry things, fold things, lift things, move things, vacuum things, fix things, open things, close things. And they love me, even when I’m feeling particularly useless and unloveable.

• Friends and family. So many people have been there for me. My mom has watched L.(5) while I’ve gone to numerous doctor appointments (in addition to all the usual babysitting she does). Friends and family members have checked in on me, prayed for me, helped me. One friend insisted on preparing (and carrying) my coffee at a recent meeting. Two others told me (they didn’t ask, they just insisted) that they would be bringing us dinner — the dinners were delicious, by the way. Other friends helped us at a church dinner I took the boys to while Chad was out of town — everything from pouring my drink to cutting up L.’s chicken. In countless big and little ways, I’ve been so blessed by those around me.

• This day and age. This might sound shallow, but I’m thankful to be living in a time when we have dishwashers and washing machines, automobiles and microwaves, even a laptop computer. I take these conveniences for granted far too often, but when folding a load of laundry starts taking three times as long as it used to, you quickly become thankful for all the time-saving gear we have at our disposal.

• Adaptation. It’s amazing how skilled you become at using your non-dominant hand when you really need to. I’m becoming a pro at left-handed makeup application, coffee preparation, driving, typing, and peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-making. Handwriting…well, that would take longer. Thankfully, I’m now able to use my right hand for short periods of writing and typing, so no one has to worry about deciphering too much of my left-handed scribbling.

• Time. Because there is much I either cannot or am not allowed to do, I find myself with some additional time sitting around. Yes, some of it is at the physical therapist’s, but still, it’s time. It’s been a blessing to use that time for more reading, more praying, more pondering.

• Progress. Admittedly, these seven weeks have been a very looooong seven weeks. The journey to full recovery seems achingly slow at times. Yet there is progress. The pain has gradually decreased, my flexibility is slowly returning, and I will hopefully be back to semi-normal function within the next month or two. The progress has been gradual, but it’s there, and I’m so thankful for it.

Those are just a few things I’m thankful for. I could list many more, but this blog post is getting long. If you’ve read the whole thing and you’ve been following along with me the last month-and-a-half, thank you!  Though I know I’m a sporadic poster even during the best of times, my forced break has made me miss this blog quite a bit, and I hope to post a bit more regularly as healing allows!

Step 1

Follow your usual nighttime routine. After everyone is in bed, get a cup of water for your nightstand, turn off all the lights in the house, and make sure the front door is locked. Proceed to the front door in the dark, since you know your way around the house very well, thankyouverymuch.

This is key: Forget that a very large, very heavy box was delivered today, and is likely still sitting in the entryway, a few feet in front of the front door.

Step 2

Trip over aforementioned very large, very heavy box. Realize that you are unable to get your feet back under you because the box is too big. Insanely clutch that cup of water, because spilling water would be undesireable.

Step 3

Catch yourself — all your weight, all your momentum — on the front door with your right arm. Attempt to hold yourself up with that arm while gravity insists on pulling you down. Also, drop cup of water as the pain makes you forget everything around you.

***

There you have it. That’s all it took. I’ll save you some of the gory details, but between the impact and the battle between my arm and gravity, I managed to fracture my elbow (technically a “radial head fracture”), sprain my wrist, and damage all sorts of things in between my wrist and elbow.

It happened in about one second, and has drastically impacted my life over the last three weeks…and for the foreseeable future. I do not recommend following the above steps in your own home. At all!

I am not a screamer. When I get hurt, I’m more the type to grit my teeth and mutter incomprehensible things under my breath. But that night, I yelled. I woke Chad up, I made C.(13) run out of his room to see what in the world was going on. It was out of character for me, but in hindsight, was understandable. My orthopedist has declared my injury “significant,” so some yelling and some tears were certainly justifiable.

Three weeks in, I’m hanging in there. There has been a whole lot of pain and discomfort, and I’ve lost a huge amount of the range of motion in my right arm (can’t straighten it and can barely bend it past 90 degrees). I can do very, very little with my right arm at this point .

And I may or may not need surgery. Elbows are apparently notorious for being difficult. At any point during the healing process, the bone parts could displace, resulting in a need for surgery (essentially replacing the end of the fractured bone with some prosthetic part). At the one-week mark, it had been healing well, but the doctor said that just meant “no surgery…yet.” Today, we’ll take another look.

In the midst of this whole ordeal, there have been some very bright spots. God’s grace is abundant, and I’ll blog more about those bright spots another day.

I will say, though, that I know my injury did not catch God off guard. The day I was born, He knew that at age 38, I’d have a painful encounter with a door, and would struggle with pain, discouragement, and questions, while finding myself thankful for His grace and faithfulness, and the kindness and help of others. I firmly believe that He weaves things together for His glory, and for the good of those who are His. I pray that my eyes and heart would be open to what He has to teach me.

It took me forever to figure out what to put above our fireplace mantel. For years — yes, years — I debated between a mirror, a picture, and… something else, something as yet undiscovered.

So for years, there was just nothing there.

Finally, in the fall of 2009, as I was paging through a catalog, I just knew. I wanted to hang a clock there. We don’t have a clock in the family room, and since our family is a bit obsessed with being able to know what time it is, at any given second of the day, I thought a clock would be perfect. Besides, a nice big, decorative timepiece would not only give us the time, but would look good, too.

I found the clock I wanted, placed the order, and a week later, Chad was hanging the clock above our fireplace.

For more than a year, we enjoyed everything about the clock. It kept us on schedule, made sure C. never missed the school bus, got us to church on time, and added a nice touch to our family room.

But then, something happened.

Our clock became unreliable.

It didn’t just stop working. That would have been too easy. Instead, it became erratic.

It would work fine for days, but then lose 10 or 20 or 30 minutes overnight.

Then it would poke along at a too-slow pace for a week or two. And one morning I’d wake up and it would be behind by four hours.

I changed the batteries, but that didn’t do any good.

Occasionally, the clock would seem to revive itself. For days, it would track time perfectly. Then all of a sudden, it would stop for 15 minutes, only to pick right back up again. Inexplicably, most of the time it seems to slow down overnight, when we’re not keeping an eye on it.

The bottom line is, even though it is occasionally right, and occasionally functioning properly, we can no longer depend on our clock.

Before I finally admitted this fact to myself, there was a near school bus miss, a confusing morning or two, and a husband who wondered why I was headed to bed when it was only 8:00. Even when the clock appears to be doing fine, we can’t count on it, because there’s a very good chance that it is, in fact, acting up again…losing time.

Now if we see a family member glance up at the clock for reference, we’re quick to remind: “The clock might be wrong” or “Don’t go by that clock.”

I haven’t taken it down yet because I’m stubborn. I refuse to get rid of it when I’ve had it less than two years. And because I bought it on sale (hm…wonder why it was on sale), it would probably cost more than I’d want to pay to have it repaired.

So for now, the clock still hangs above our fireplace, looking pretty. I adjust it almost every morning. And I remember to not plan my next move based on that clock. Instead, I turn to an accurate timepiece, like the one on my wrist.

How many other “unreliable guides” do I need to identify in my life…and then ignore?

Do I let my community and the local culture tell me what kind of car to drive…or how to raise my kids…or what things are most important in life? Do I depend on the Pottery Barn catalog to decide how much money I should spend on home decor? Do I base my relationship decisions on television dramas?

When it comes down to it, I’m surrounded by plenty of unreliable guides — people and things and situations that offer false direction and the illusion of wisdom.

And just like the clock on my wall, they need to be ignored. There are other places I can turn for accurate guidance, starting with God’s Word.