“I need a three-week vacation,” I muttered as I flopped on the bed. Our three teenagers were driving me crazy. A moment’s respite alone in our room gave me energy to prepare supper.
A few days later, on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend 1980, I was having trouble breathing. When our daughter, Lisa, ran to the house from her part-time job at Durand Ford to eat a quick lunch, she was alarmed by my condition. Before returning to work, she phoned her dad at the sheriff’s department and asked him to come home. My husband and I realized if I didn’t go to the doctor that afternoon, I’d have to wait until Tuesday. Ken drove me to the clinic in Brodhead, Wisconsin. The man who recently replaced our long-time, family physician sent me to St. Clare Hospital in Monroe where I was admitted.
My left lung had collapsed. Two weeks of tests led to a diagnosis of histoplasmosis, an infection caused by a common fungus found in the soil, often from bird droppings. My lung was surgically removed and I returned home Friday, June 13. While I was gone, Mom had helped care for Linda, our special needs daughter. Ken and our other two children got along fine without me. I’d missed my family and was glad to return.
While I recuperated, I pondered my ordeal. I’d spent exactly three weeks in the hospital. Did God consider my lament a prayer and answer it with my medical problem? I wish I had specified a vacation at an ocean beach. It would have been cheaper and a lot more fun than the hospital.
On Thursday, June 13, I’ll celebrate another year of survival with one lung. It’s been almost as long as I lived with two. I don’t do marathons or even run to catch a bus but otherwise, I don’t notice a difference.
Have you had a problem that could have been God’s answer to a prayer you didn’t realize you were uttering?