Is Your Best Enough?
#2 in the Series: How Healing Provides Resilience in Crisis
Since Scott came “home” from the hospital, we have eaten Panda Express twice. The fortune cookies have been a running joke between us. He gets terrible fortunes. I said, “Maybe having a healthy liver will improve your fortune-cookie luck.” It did!
Oddly, he got the same fortune twice—just for emphasis? (Is that even possible?)
You will soon find new adventure in life.
We are both determined to make that true. Knowing someone gifted us with this time together by donating their liver puts a new perspective on life—for both of us.
We only received one fortune cookies with the first meal, and I gave it to Scott, but when I got my own fortune, it said:
Your best is enough.
While his fortunes were hopeful for our future; my fortune was a helpful reminder during this caregiving phase in which I feel like an exhausted pigeon most of the time. (No, I can’t know what a pigeon feels like, but maybe this is it.)
It isn’t just this phase that is exhausting, the whole journey was exhausting. And when I get too tired, I do things that threaten to drop me into a shame spiral. Healing helps me recognize what that feels like and then enables me to stop or release the download of stress hormones.
Before healing, I didn’t know anything about my body, nervous system, or trauma responses. Nothing. I did not understand that the shame handed to me as a child caused me to spiral over any mistake. It would often take me weeks to stop ruminating over something awkward that I said or did. That would have made this transplant journey IMPOSSIBLE! A day never passed when this exhausted “me” didn’t do something awkward. (Like taking the airpods of the neighbor who watched Weber at the cottage—thinking they were Scott’s.)
My children bought me this for Mother’s Day. Why? Because I lost my phone SO OFTEN! I felt zero shame about needing my phone tethered to me—only gratitude. My last two visits to the clinic have been so much easier now that my phone is always with me.
I learned to ask questions to prevent awkward moments—without being hypervigilant or apologizing for my very existence taking up space on the Earth. For instance:
Saying my destination to the shuttle driver to ensure I was not on the wrong shuttle AGAIN.
Reading the signs to know the hospital’s dos and don’ts while also accepting my humanity and the likelihood that I would get something wrong. I did.
Accepting my mispronunciations of prescription names that were close enough to the actual name so nurses and doctors could translate for me.
Having realistic expectations of my hearing even with hearing aids I can adjust to the point that it might be possible to hear conversations on Mars. Asking for clarification is so much better than making stuff up.
Realizing that I answer all questions with a story that not every medical professional cares to hear and not taking it personally.
Being a great house guest at the hospitality house by following all rules and shrugging off the fact that I could never leave a coherent phone message or send an email without making it a blog post.
There was really not an hour that went by that didn’t have the potential for awkwardness. I learned so much about myself and how I navigate the world. I can see how unlikely it was that my mother would have understood or tolerated my “ways of being” that my friends find endearing. This resulted in layer upon layer of unnecessary shame. And night after night of rumination.
The past five months have been filled with ample fodder for rumination. The evidence of healing is that by day’s end, all the awkward moments were resolved internally and I slept soundly. While profoundly exhausted—to the point that sleep didn’t always solve—there was no loss of sleep due to shame spirals. What a gift this is—a hard-earned one!
My best is enough, even when it is awkward and fumbling. No fortune-cookie fortune could have been any more appropriate!
The transplant experience is hard work for everyone involved - the patient and the caregivers. Don't let the little things bother you. Give yourself, and Scott, grace. You're exhausted and he's on a boatload of medications. Just take one day, one minute, at a time. It gets better and then it gets wonderful.
Your best is enough. You are enough. In fact, you are an amazingly creative person, and I’m so glad to know you! And these posts are bringing me to tears on a regular basis. I’m glad to see you writing again.