In 2009, my best friend from my "single" days, called me up and said she was going to be in Denver for a medical appointment and wanted to know if we could get together for dinner. I was so excited to get the chance to visit and reconnect. So I made dinner and took it to her hotel room. When she came to the door, I was overwhelmed with emotion. You see, my friend has been struggling with a severe heart disease called Pulmonary Hypertension and also has lesions on her lungs which require her to be on oxygen 24/7. That evening while eating dinner, she gave me an update on her condition. It was bleak. She proceeded to tell me that the doctors had informed her that with her health was declining rapidly and that she had about a year to live. I tried to hold back my tears, be strong, and ask what I could do for her. But all I could do was cry. How could someone so young (she is a year older than me) be so frail and terminal? I was able to gain my composure, so we could continue to catch up on what else was going on in our lives.
As I hugged her good-bye for the evening, I thought to myself...I need to do something. I got in my car and all I wanted to do was call my husband, but I knew that crying and driving did not mix. So I talked to him briefly and told him I would tell him more about it when I got home. At that point, I just needed to get home so I could just sit there in my husbands arms and cry. When I got home, my husband was waiting there with open arms. We talked all night, trying to come up with something we could do for her. We talked about moving to Nebraska to be near her, we talked about visiting more often, hanging out with them when they came to visit, going to dr's appointments with her, etc. We knew we needed to "sleep on it" before we made any decisions.
I went to work that next day, everything around me was different. Everything seemed petty. It was hard to keep the emotions in, and I found myself hiding in the ladies room just so no one would see me cry. I knew she had been sick for quite a while, but I thought it was "under control".
Over the next few months, we visited quite a bit. We would drive up to meet them, brought dinners and just chatted like old times. One evening her hubby asked us if we wanted to move to Chappell, Nebraska to be near them. I kinda chuckled and looked at my hubby for him to respond. He didn't know what to say either. I mean I am a "city girl" - through and through! Plus, what would we do in Chappell for jobs? We told them we would pray about it. And that is exactly what we did. We asked all of our family and close friends to pray for us as we decided if this was where God wanted us to be. It started with little things like, my friends sister had a house up there that she would rent to us, job openings that my husband started interviewing for. In no time at all we realized that this was going to happen. We, the big city folk, were moving to Chappell, Nebraska - where they don't even have a stop light, and the nearest Wal-Mart is 30 miles away.
It is now September 2011. My friend is still going strong. She proved the doctor's wrong! And just recently I have been asked to be her Care Giver. Which I am going to glam it up a little and call myself her "Personal Assistant".
Well....that is how one person changed my life forever!
