The things I do for Starbucks

Yesterday I caught my doctor in the hall and asked if I could have permission to go with Sarah into the city for a couple hours this afternoon. He said yes with no hesitation, and before the end of the day, I had a signed pass for my first outing outside of REHAB. There was no hesitation in my choice of location.

"We're going to Starbucks!" I gleefully told anyone who greeted me.

Sandra came with Sarah this morning, so the three of us ventured off the REHAB property in the wrong direction before realizing we were headed for the highway not the city. Once turned around, we were still a bit turned around as none of us knew exactly where we were headed. I had a screenshot of the google maps directions, but we were uncertain of our starting point. Eventually, we figured out we were on the right route, and my anticipation grew as Sarah pushed me down the city streets.

We walked off the bustling streets into a quiet side street the directions guided us onto and looked for the next left hand turn. The roads to the left all sloped progressively steeper down, and my heart reached a record low when I realized the street we were supposed to turn on was impossibly steep. This likely over forty-five degree downward slope would make a San Franciscan embarrassed to call their hills steep. I started to think I wouldn't actually make it to Starbucks today, but Sandra and Sarah were undaunted. They turned my chair backwards and together walked my chair down the soon to be never ending hill. We reached the first bend we assumed was the bottom to discover another stretch with a side street bistro. Denizens of the city eyed us curiously as we cautiously made our backwards parade. Three or four (what felt like twenty) turns more to discover a continuation of the descent led to increased panic on my part. How was I ever going to get back up that hill? I'd be stuck in downtown Basel forever. My heart sunk lower than my chair as we descended this eternal hill because I realized how very helpless I was. I was completely dead weight. I couldn't even hold myself in place in an emergency; I would have tumbled backwards head first out of the chair if Sandra or Sarah let go.

Amazingly, we reached the bottom, and I found myself in a section of Basel I'd visited before. It was a strange experience to be in a place I had been before my accident. Sandra and I recreated a picture with some art we found on our first excursion in Basel this fall. In fact, we wheeled by the museum I visited the night before my accident. I was so overjoyed to finally make it to Starbucks and savor a venti mocha frappuccino.

At one point in our walk, Sarah asked me if I felt like Hazel Grace - the cancer ridden protagonist of one of my favorite novels who hates the stares she gets in public from her oxygen tubes. I totally get that part of Hazel; I don't like the stares. Yet somehow, at the same time, I get that I'm something to stare at. I'm a medical wonder, and I'm not ashamed of that. I do, though, miss being able to blend into the background. I can't stop the stares; they're just going to increase as I leave rehab where people are used to limps and hobbles. I'm really nervous about that transition, and I crave your prayers as I charge ever closer to a yet unnamed move out date.

Thank you so much to those of you who have faithfully lifted me up and continue to encourage me. Just this evening, my friend Nigel blessed me (and Sarah) with a carved cross to hold in prayer - a physical reminder of our shared faith. He told us one of the crosses had split when he was making them and he had to glue it together, placing it under pressure to reunite the halves as a whole again. A small seam was all that remained as evidence. I pray that I'll be made whole again too, knowing there will always be evidence of the pressure of my healing.