God Doesn’t Waste a Hurt: Pt. 2
In the first post in this series, you met the Carlson family and learned about Tara,their youngest daughter, and her three month hospital stay. In this post, Tara’s mom Kat talks about how Tara’s hospital experience changed her.
Babies Should Never Be Alone
The first night of Tara’s hospital stay, before the doctors knew how seriously ill the baby was, the PICU staff suggested Kat get some rest in the parents’ waiting area. Kat dozed four hours before being awakened to hear some terrible news. Tara had crashed shortly after Kat went to sleep, and the medical team had spent four hours reviving her. Things were so grim no one could take a break to alert Kat.
The news shook Kat to the core. “What if my baby had died?” she says. “She deserved so much more than a death with doctors shouting frantically and tubes being forced down her throat. She needed someone who loved her nearby, someone who could tell her how special she was, someone to pray over her and comfort her.”
In that moment, Kat vowed that her daughter would never again be without someone beside her during her hospitalization. Usually either Kat, her husband Jim or Kat’s mother were at Tara’s side. But as Tara’s hospital stay lengthened, Kat asked her church family to get involved. “People signed up for 2 or 4 hours shifts, and while they were there, we would get some sleep or have some family time,” Kat explains. “I told them that if anything happened, even the slightest sign of her condition going downhill, to call me. I would be right there.”
Parents Should Never Be Alone
The experience also grew Kat’s compassion for parents of hospitalized kids. “They need more support,” she says. “They need to be met at the hospital entrance door by someone who’s been through what they’re about to go through. They need someone to tell them they are not alone.” Whenever Kat hears of a parent with a seriously ill child in the hospital, she takes them a comfy pillow, an inexpensive blanket at Ikea, and a coffee card. Since reading A Different Dream, she’s decided to give them a copy of the book, too.
“The parents are often forgotten,” she says. “Everyone is concentrating so hard on the child, there’s no one to comfort the parent.”
God Doesn’t Waste a Hurt
“The biggest thing I’ve learned,” says Kat, “is that God doesn’t waste a hurt. God uses you in your pain and and in your strength. Your greatest ministry comes out of your greatest pain. That’s what I do now – not because I’m perfect, but because I’m willing. I still hurt, but it helps me to help others.”
Wow, there’s not much to add to that. But if God is using your hurt to help others, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear your story.
Jolene
God is using the Carlson family in so many ways.
This was beautifully written, once again, Jolene.
Beautiful writing is easy with such a wonderful story to tell.
We are into the 26th year since our daughter’s diagnosis with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. We made every possible mistake. We needed a priest, psychologist and social worker to move in with us the day of the diagnosis…but we did an ostrich act and tried to forget about it until we could no longer do so. As Sally Kerrioth, PhD, RN, a professor and grief specialist at Florida State U said, “When a child is diagnosed with ataxia, the whole family gets it.”
Her sister suffered as our attention focused on the FA daughter’s needs and as we let rage and denial take over our family. 80% of parents of disabled children divorce…and sadly this happened to us also, though we had other factors that also put us into the 80% statistical liklihood of divorce (parents adultery and divorce, childhood abuse and trauma, alcoholic parents, our own poor choices, previous promiscuity, adultery, abortion) The psychological impact of our divorce has injured all of us. Most of us have sought professional to heal our wounds and overcome our character faults, though is easier to find help to recover from an addiction than a disability. Our disabled daughter and I have learned new and healthier ways of relating. I am a member of a parents group for our daughter’s disease and the future is grim…most of the parents are on anti-depressants and live under enormous financial, physical and emotional stress. Though new therapies are being tested for many of these genetic neurological diseases, they are not likely to be helpful for our children.
Not all of our experience has been negative. Many people have prayed and supported us. There have been miracles… Our daughter has been on a serendipitously discovered anti-oxidant therapy through the University of Florida/Shands where she was diagnosed. She was given the opportunity to work and serve and use her gifts and abilities in a retirement center where she is safe and her needs can be met. She has good equipment that enables her to function and be as mobile as possible. She has had the determination and drive to take care of herself and take all those specially-compounded anti-oxidant capsules for 15 years. We have been challenged, stretched and learned a great deal from this difficult and heart-wrenching ordeal…becoming better in many ways with the help and grace of GOD.
All this to say …
MUCH attention is needed to help marriages and siblings survive disability.
MUCH attention is needed to heal prior emotional injuries so that one can cope adequately with the assault of disability on the heart, mind, body and relationships of everyone connected to the disabled person.
I have bookmarked the website and plan to read the book as well.
Thank you, Mrs. Philo!
Dear Sybil,
You are most welcome. Thank you for sharing part of your family’s story – the good and the bad – at DifferentDream.com. You have endured much and survived. You have much to share with other families in similar circumstances. And you are right. Much remains to be done. Please come back often and share your ideas and thoughts.