Gracie Gives an Update

Tell them I can mend the brokenhearted, bestow the ones who have wanted, and I came to let them go. Welcome back to Hope in the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

This is the program for you as a family caregiver. That is Andre Crouch of The Gospel Disciples, his sister Sandra singing that Tell Them. I love that. A lot of people don't even remember that record, but that was a wonderful record.

And I, of course, love Andre Crouch's music. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. I have a very special guest on this block and possibly for the next, but see how long she puts up with me. And she is back after a very, very difficult year. And this is Gracie, my wife. And so Gracie is standing with the help of a walker and she is straighter.

I had to make the microphone taller. It's straighter and taller. I wish I felt straighter and taller.

That might be a while. No, you're doing fine. You are straighter. And do you want to talk about this surgery? Do you want me to talk about this?

Darling, you talk about whatever you want. How are you feeling? By the way, a lot of people have been praying for you. Thank you all for your prayers. It means the world and it got me through what could have been a deadly surgery or paralyzing surgery.

So thank you so much. This was your 82nd and then you had your 83rd while you were there too. You had a double shot. I ended up getting a little infection going in for the 83rd. So what do you think? How was this one different than all the surgeries you've had? Well, I didn't think at first. When the surgeon said this is going to be the biggest surgery you've ever had, I thought to myself, okay, it'll be compared to the larger surgery I've had thus far.

It'll be big, but it won't be that much larger. What was I wrong? We knew going into it that I could have come out paralyzed or any of the worst things you can think of. But we got to the place where we knew I couldn't continue to just lean over and over 42 degrees, 45 degrees. Well, for those who don't know the story, Gracie's back was bent over at almost 45 degrees and it was straining everything. She had to kind of strain her neck to be able to look up. It was a very difficult circumstance for her instead of challenges. So she had to, something had to give. And there's one of those things we kind of knew that, well, we didn't kind of know we knew this was going to happen eight or nine years ago, but physically she just wasn't ready for it. I don't know that you were physically ready for it now, but I think it reached a critical mass. There was one scene in there with you and I in the ICU when you were intubated. Was this a movie?

It was one scene. There was one moment in the ICU, you were intubated for the first four days, you were unconscious following your surgery. And then that Saturday they woke you up and you had to stay intubated for about an hour and a half to two hours while they brought you out of sedation, but you woke up to having a tube down your throat, which you told me ahead of time, you hated that more than anything.

Do not. In fact, I believe we had a pact. Well, I wasn't there in the operating room to make that call. And so, but down there, you know, they do teams and my surgeon said that was his goal too, no innovation, but he didn't get to say the anesthesiologist team.

I had about five teams, might have been more, but five that I know of working on me and it was an almost 11 hour surgery. But how going into it, you know, I'm not going to lie to your listeners or to you or anybody. I'm not a liar. But I was, you know, I know fear is one of our greatest enemies. I think fear can take you out of the game faster than we can blink.

It's an enemy and Satan uses it to tell us lies and to build up that fear. And so the fear going into it for me was what, you know, I really had to fight. You were particularly afraid of being intubated. I was afraid of being intubated. Ultimately, I was afraid of coming out of it paralyzed or dead. I think you were afraid of me coming out of it paralyzed. You were like, I can't handle anymore with this woman. I don't think that's quite an accurate representation.

Yeah, I'm thinking it is. But it was when you came out of this and you came out of sedation and you were intubated and granted, you've just lost four days. I mean, you didn't even know what day it was or anything else, but you knew you were intubated. And I told you that I would make sure that you understood you're being, you know, connected with that you weren't just in abject fear. I was right there when you woke up and we were playing charades. And there was one moment during our charades. I was really good at it, but you've never been good at charades. No, I was just like, give me a dead gum pencil and a piece of paper. You were never good at charades on a good day.

I'm good at Noah. And there was one scene when you had this tube down your throat. One scene again. There's one scene, I'm sorry. Well, it was a scene. To me, it was a scene.

Okay. But you had your jaw just jutted out. You were so angry and you were rolling your eyes at me. Here I am trying desperately to figure out what in the world are you saying. And on a good day, I don't always know what you're saying. And here you are intimate and you're trying to do charades.

And then it makes you feel like you can't breathe. And then you're just rolling your eyes at me. And the other, the nurses and the techs there saw that they started laughing.

And I was like, okay, there's a couple of signs I'm starting to recognize pretty clearly. Well, all I knew is, okay. I knew it had been more than one day I was intubated, but I was like, wait a minute, we had a deal. And I'm not real happy with you. I didn't break the deal. Or my surgeon.

I had no control over that. And that's what he said. So I don't know who's telling the truth here.

Well, he is. Because I'm telling you, I'm telling you the truth because I'm not a surgeon. I have. Okay.

I have played one on TV. All right. But I am not.

And it wasn't me. But, and I knew that when I saw you that, but it was for your best recovery because you were, it was such a big surgery and they felt like it would be so much easier on you to just have those days where you could heal and not move. They were very, very afraid of you moving at all. Well, I know you were afraid of me moving. No.

No. I, they were, they were all very afraid. If you moved at all to mess up this fusion, it was such a big fusion. And I mean a big, everything about it was big and so they were afraid of you moving.

And so they kept you intubated and unconscious and it was... They're still afraid of me moving. Well, they, yes, they are. But you are doing well and you are taller.

Which is, you know, I could see it already. I mean, you're, you're already 50% straighter than you were. I think you're actually more than that. I think you're more than 50%.

What do you think? How does it feel when you stand up? Well, when I can stand up and... Well, you're having to use a walker now.

Okay. But that's... No, I mean it, it, when I, when I think, I mean, I'm having to learn how to walk again all over, you know, I mean at 17 I had to do it and here I am again. Well, you had to do it in 91. You had to do it in 95. And then here, but this, this is literally having to walk again.

I remember, and that wasn't that, what, that was just maybe a month or six weeks ago that I put my legs on for the first time and they were just trying to get me to stand. Actually, that was two months ago. Really? You've lost a lot of time.

Yeah. Well, it's not hard to lose time in the hospital. You've done, you've done well. But I just remember in the parallel bars, I thought to my, in my mind, this, this was okay. It was going to be hard, but it wasn't going to be that much harder than when I first learned to walk as a double amputee.

And it was, wasn't it? I just started, I mean, I didn't care how many people were in the room. I think there were five.

I'm not sure, could have been more. I, and I, when I tried to stand you know, I had, you know, all these PTs around me, you know, physical therapists. And for those who aren't familiar with the hospital setting and they were teeny, little petite teeny people. And I was like, stop trying to hold me. I was like, if you try to hold me up, I might crush you and they're like, no, we're trained for this. And dadgummit, they weren't trained for this, but, uh, I tried to stand up when you came back to the room, they took you upstairs to the rehab floor and I saw you when you came back and you were very distraught because you thought, oh my goodness, I thought I was going to walk down the parallel bars and all the way back. And it was, it was all you could do to stay at, um, well, I don't think they thought I should stand. I pushed the, the little teeny. Are you saying that you push people?

I know I physically, I will say, are you saying that you, you in some way incited provoked push? I'm just saying that the people that I was not really fond of at first, cause they were trying to make me do things I didn't want to do. Are you saying you're resistant to doing things you don't want to do? I won't.

Yes, I am. I'm going to just say it and, um, just like tons of other things I'm resistant to do. But I finally, I just gently pushed this lady out of my way, the, the, the, uh, physical therapist that was in front of me holding me up. And I said, I want, I want to stand on the parallel ball.

She goes, you're not ready. And I said, if I'm not ready to stand on these pair, just at least stand, we got a, we got a bigger problem. And so I just gently pushed her out of the way and I was able to stand up. Not saying it wasn't with a lot of her help, but I was able to stand. I have never been so grateful to stand in my entire life. Um, it made me, it did bring me back to, um, I'm sorry. It did bring me back to those 17 year old, 18 year old times of, you know, learning to walk again. You know, you immediately go, Oh my God, this is like that.

And it's very scary. It's um, well, hold that thought because we're going to go to a break. We're going to continue talking with you a little bit more.

I know. We're going to go to a break now? Yes. I have to go to a break.

There's a clock that we have to work. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the caregiver. We're talking with Gracie. She is back after a very difficult surgery in Denver to help straighten her back. And we're going to have more with her and talk a little bit more in the next segment. This is Peter Rosberg, Hope for the caregiver, Hope for the caregiver.com.

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This is the program for you as a family caregiver. That is my wife, Gracie, from her CD Resilient. And she is here with us today proving once again that she is indeed resilient. There is no other word to describe this woman. I tell her she's tougher than a $2 steak, 83 surgeries now that I can count and more than 150 other smaller procedures. But this last one was pretty grueling. How long were you in the hospital?

I was in the hospital almost 11 weeks. How are you feeling? You ready for me to talk now? No, I'm not ready for you.

Your audience. Am I ever ready for you to talk, darling? Not really.

You're not really. So how are you feeling? A whole lot better than I was feeling a month ago. I mean, we just. Actually, you're feeling better than you were two weeks ago. Yeah, because we just, we just passed our three week mark of being home.

I just wanted to delve into this because I know your time is short on the radio. You know, going into this was very scary being in it, especially waking up intubated brought back a lot of very hard, horrible memories. And I don't think I've understood until the last 10 years really what PTSD or PTS, what they call it now. It's when anything triggers something that just takes you back into that moment, into that time. And you just relive it? And you don't just relive it.

It's not like a memory kind of thing. It's a I'm in that car and I can see the flames. I'm in the surgery room before they put me to sleep. I'm reliving being in that surgery room. I'm reliving waking up on an intubator and not understanding as a teenager what that meant, understanding now what it meant.

I am so grateful for friends who have been in this situation and are just as afraid of being intubated as I am and was. Doing it once or twice doesn't make you, Oh, I'm good. I'm, you know, I, I'm good. I'm not afraid of that anymore. That's just something that's just, uh, you are completely all of you. You can't do anything about that situation.

You actually are, are absolutely powerless there. Do you remember me holding the phone over your face? I do. Do you remember who it was? I do.

Johnny Erickson Todd. What was it like when you looked up and she was looking down at you cause I was holding the phone, you were laying in bed and you're looking up at her and she's like, Gracie, look at my eyes. And she said, you know, what does she say? Do you remember what she said? She said, I'm going to sing to you. At least this is what I remember her saying. I'm going to sing to you and I want you in your head to sing harmony with me. Did you?

I never had. I did, but I also just started bawling because I know that that's a fear. You know, I know that that's a fear for her and I hope she won't be upset with me for sharing that, but, um, I don't want to go down the emotional, you know, the total emotional road, but, um, that, uh, that helped me because I knew, um, she knew, she knew what I was thinking and feeling. She knew how scared I was and, um, that helped me tremendously. I can't even tell you how I, I, words are insufficient to tell you how much that that helped me. Well, when, when we are going through brutal realities, when somebody else understands not just offer sympathy, but they really understand it, it changes everything for you. And this is what I've learned as a caregiver.

This is what you've learned as somebody in pain. When you talk to somebody, you're not, you know, there's a communication that goes beyond just the words and Johnny and you have that kind of friendship and relationship that you're able to speak to each other in your great distress. And I think this is, that's the message of the gospel is that we have a savior who is acquainted with anything and everything we could possibly understand. A lot of people realize what it costs God in eternity when he and Jesus were separated at the cross because they're eternal beings. And so all the anguish and all of these things that we carry, we have a savior who understands that. And that's the, that's the beauty of the gospel. You also had, you know, American Family Radio, they were praying at their prayer meetings regularly for you. They would call in and check on you and the Truth Network and all these others, just literally, I think somebody sent me a thing. They said, this has gone out worldwide that people were praying for you and that your story had captivated so many hearts.

I'm so grateful because I know I'm interrupting you, but what's new? I have to say that just, you know, I know I've had pastors and pastors that I love that might be listening to this go, Hey, wait a minute. But you know, having broken my leg right before all of this in the fall and losing my mom and stuff, there's a thing that I've found that at least when I've been around my grandmothers and different people that have known it's time for them to die, that there's a peace and a rest in that. And there was no peace or rest in me. And I know that God has much more for me to do, not just lay in the cabin and get better, but do that because I'm supposed to be doing that right now. But there's much more.

By the way, you are supposed to be resting right now. I know. But you have more to do. You have more stories.

I do. And I have more albums in me, possibly more books in me. But the thing is, more people to help in Africa, more people to help all over the world. But not because God needs me to do it, but because I'm willing. And I say, God, I am totally strong at my weakest, like 2 Corinthians 12, 9 says. And your mother said something to me that really, really helped me. She said, Grace, even if you can only see blue sky or snowy sky or whatever there in your hospital room, she said, something I've learned that really helped me is just to look outside and say, this is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it. And I put emphasis on this because she said, when you say this, look out your window.

When you wake up, look out your window and say, this is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it. That's a wonderful word. And Gracie, I wanted to have you on the program just to give this report. We're going to have you back on some more, but I want to end the program today with you singing from your CD.

This is We Will Stand. I wrote this song for you. Thank you so much for letting me. I love you, darling. I'm glad to have you back. Thank you. I'm glad to have your back. I'm thrilled to be back.

This is Peter and Gracie Rosenberger, Hope for the Caregiver, hopeforthecaregiver.com. Gracie, how about we go out on this song of yours? All right. Every day I see the struggles you face as you fight to run rapes and deaths. I know you sail above the clouds, but the hurt just pulls you down again. Don't let go of the hope you're holding on. You need to see a friend will be right here all along. I will stand with you when you cannot stand alone. I will fight for you when all your strength is gone.

I will sing for you so all can hear your song. Take my hand, lean on me. We will stand in this world filled with such uncertainty. Our hearts are broken easily and left behind. But in God's hand, we're connected by His love and the grace through His Son that changes lives. Don't let go of the hope you're holding on. You need to see a friend will be right here all along. I will stand with you when you cannot stand alone. I will fight for you when all your strength is gone.

And I'll sing for you so all can hear your song. Take my hand, lean on me. We will stand. We will stand in this world filled with such uncertainty. Don't let go of the hope you're holding on. Take my hand, lean on me. We will stand.