On March 5, 2025, it seemed like a regular old day in the life of the Terry family. I got up and went to work as I always have, and my husband went to work as he always had.  We exchanged our normal have a good day messages, and all seemed well. Later that day, around 2:30 p.m., I got a text from him that he was going home and was not feeling well. I finished my day off with a last-minute meeting at my job. When I got home, he told me his sugar was elevated and he was having pain in his stomach. I rushed him to a hospital about 20 minutes away. We spent the night basically in the ER waiting for him to be moved to a regular room. I guess it might help you to understand a little better by knowing that my husband is a double transplant patient(pancreas or kidney) and has been doing really well for the past 6 years. We had just gone to his transplant visit where he had received a good report from the team there. So, we were both excited about his transplanted organs still being healthy and doing what they were supposed to be doing. Then the  very next week to be sitting in the hospital listening to a doctor say that he needs to go in and remove the pancreas that was keeping diabetes at bay for the last 6 years was devastating to say the least. On Thursday afternoon 3/6/25, my husband underwent surgery to remove the pancreas he had been transplanted.  Every moment I found myself alone, I cried. I cried for days over this. I asked why, why are we here again? I asked what did I do to cause this? Before you try to tell me it was not my fault, please know that these were my thoughts trying to understand the reasoning behind the organ failing. How could his body be rejecting an organ that had served it well for the past 6 years? I think for me, when I can not understand something terrible that is happening, I tend to blame myself for it or think that maybe God is using it to make me do something that I am not doing. All of these thoughts are me trying to process a trauma. This trauma we were now forced to walk in. Trauma comes, and it forces it’s way in. It gives you no choice, and it does not come with an option. It just comes. It interrupts your life as you once knew it. It brings anxiety, fear, and sadness. It takes away your ability to articulate it. You just know it  touches every part of who you are, and you are left trying to navigate the effects of it.

       The aftermath of trauma is complicated. The things you thought you had conquered as fears seem to resurface again. I feel like I’m walking in the fear of the unknown. No matter how many texts, phone calls, emails, voice messages, and counseling sessions, nothing seems to take away from the deep sadness I  feel. Nothing takes away the feeling of being alone in all of this because, truthfully, at the end of the day, no human person is walking in this journey with me but me. So many people have come alongside me, so I know I’m not alone, but the feeling of it still nags at me. It still creeps into the night when all is quiet and still. It creeps into my thoughts as I’m processing our future now that diabetes is back on the table. I didn’t realize how much trauma I have truly walked in with my husband’s health. The fear of losing him, the fear of all of it. When I say all of it, I mean all of it in my head that I’m processing. Anxiety feels as if it’s been running ahead of me, looking at my future and running back to me painting a picture that is not true. It has my heart racing at night. My lungs feel as if I am laboring to get air in them. I feel like my mind is spinning, spinning completely out of control with all of this, yet I feel God with me. I feel his strength flooding me, I feel his peace taking hold of my mind and reminding me that he has me. I hear his voice gently reminding me to come to him. I whisper back to him, but I don’t know what to say. Jesus then reminds me that he does not need words from me but, he just wants me to sit with him, be with him, lean in to him, cry with him, he just wants me in all of it, he just wants me.

     I’m in a small group through my church, and we’re reading through the book, “Anxious For Nothing.” I wish those words were true for me right now. If I could retitle the book to fit my life right now, it might be “Anxious For Everything.” In the book, it describes anxiety basically like struggling with not having control.  It is exactly what I’ve felt like in this place. I have felt like I don’t have any control over my husband’s health. I have no control over keeping his kidneys operating right, I have no control over any of it. Not having control makes me feel anxious and afraid. Can I just tell you that a health scare is just as traumatic as being raped, molested, robbed, abused, or any other trauma you can think of. No matter how much I try to move forward in this, I’m still in my heart trying to understand why? There are days I feel like I will never stop crying over this. How do we just pick up the pieces and go forward like nothing has changed? When inside, everything has changed. I have felt like I couldn’t pray anything but, God please help us or God, please help me. I know he hears me, but I feel like he is silent.