Of Needles And Being Known

There is a hand on my shoulder. “I am just going to give you a little something to help you feel more calm.” 

Slowly, I angle my head in its blue fibrous hair net up, just enough to see the anesthesiologist with his red surgical cap and mask behind me. “Please…” I say. “I don’t want to be dizzy afterwards.”

He grew up in Nebraska and is a Huskers fan. “It’ll be okay…” his voice is calm as another nurse holds my hand, stretching out my arm on a board to the side of the table, letting the cording on the IV run without tangles.

There are surgical lights like something from a space movie crowded over me and then a terrible wave of dizziness hits me.

“Ugh…I feel really dizzy.” I speak the obvious into my oxygen mask. 

“You do?” The doctor says from behind me.

“It’s okay…” says the nurse. “The dizziness will pass in a second. Just close your eyes.”

My brain begins to formulate the thought that I can’t stand this, that I can’t do this, even as I close my eyes… and remember no more for a long while.

This isn’t Chase’s experience. 

No, this time, it’s mine. Chase’s mom. And truly, it isn’t much of a story as stories go, but just recently (so recently that I’m still convalescing as I’m writing), I had to go through a very minor surgery for myself. But the small surgery isn’t the heart of the story – other than that I’ve never had one before. The heart of the story is about being known.

It started on the morning of my surgery, the appointment time wasn’t until quite late in the day and so I spent hour after hour, first cutting out all food, and then all liquid too, following the instructions ever so carefully. My mouth was dry even as my churning stomach wanted nothing so much as a call saying “We made a mistake – you don’t need to do this after all! Have a big cup of coffee to celebrate!” And as each hour went by, I felt the weight of the day settling around me like a cloud. How on earth does Chase do this…and so often too?

Meanwhile, Chase wasn’t worried for me. Chase was excited. He was honestly energized to almost a giddy level. He woke up and came running downstairs, jumping onto my bed with the words “Let’s see how you like it, Mom!”

When those words first passed his lips, I was shocked. I had been worried about him being scared, about his being triggered. I never expected him to be energized – even …happy?

Then, as he sat down, stroking my hand and giving me his “tips” for the day – how to breath when they start the IV, how the medicine will feel when it enters my body, what to think about when I felt scared…and of course, Matt Redman’s ‘10,000 Reasons’ full blast at least twice – then and only then did it hit me:

THIS was connection to Chase. 

THIS was being known to Chase.

He wasn’t on the bed with me at his side; telling him all would be well and holding his hand. No, I was on the bed and he was at my side, and for the first time in his young life someone else in his immediate family was going to understand a moment of what it was like to be him: to fear, to feel pain, to slip dizzy and unconscious into a dark place and not quite know what was next. 

He was giddy not for my hardship, but for our connection in it.

And dear ones, seeing this moment unfold knocked me over because I realized again how often I let life take its course and sometimes forget how incredibly precious the thread of connection is when we step into someone else’s fire for even a moment.

UNDERSTANDING is the binding where we can look into each others’ eyes and say “I KNOW”. And out of that moment can flow such healing joy even when not a single circumstance changes:

You are KNOWN!

You are UNDERSTOOD!

And dear ones, these words are a gift to us amongst ourselves. But even more beautifully, they are threaded and scarred forever into the heart of the One who loves us best: No matter how it feels, how it seems; God is not out of touch with our reality [Hebrews 4:14-16].

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT

I hope you know this connection, dear ones, even as you are known. You are understood, and best of all, you are loved.

Moment by moment.