The Emory Conundrum

I woke to footsteps coming down the hall and bolted upright, “Is he awake? Can I hold him?”

“Ye-e-e-s,” Courtney answered. 

The sweet smell of my grandson soon filled my arms and awakened my soul. Distracted, I left Sam and Courtney’s apartment without even a sip of coffee. 

As I hunted for Building 12 on Executive Park Dr. in a steady rain, I remained unruffled. As I spoke with my doctor's attendant and went through neuro exam one, I felt relief. Recent activity had worn out my legs, and it showed. 

So, as I answered numerous questions and endured neuro exam two in front of the real doctor, I waited patiently for answers, never anticipating what was to come.

“I can’t explain why your legs don’t work,” she started. “You don’t walk like someone with a neuro-muscular disease.”

What? Seriously? I waited seven months, paid for a hotel room, and damaged my car for this?

“Do you think it’s in my head?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But based on my understanding of neuro pathways, I have no explanation for how you walk.” 

Years of mobility issues flashed through my mind. So many examples. I recounted one of the latest, “I was at a wedding at Callaway Gardens last month and I’d walked well all day. At dusk we headed down a short path to a cabin. It was slightly hilly and the light grew dim. And all of sudden, my legs gave way. I could barely walk. My knees buckled and I had to lean on someone for support.”

I didn’t explain that I was mortified when it happened. Or that I felt like a freak show headed into a room of wedding guest I didn’t know. 

“Well, I don’t even understand why the AFO’s help you. Or why your legs come and go,” she insisted.

And those are the words I have yet to recover from. 

In fact, when Don and I went to a movie last night, I couldn’t even put the AFO’s on. I know I'm being weird. Very weird. It's just where I am at the moment.

The doc ordered blood work to check for Myasthenia Gravis and scheduled my least favorite test, a small-fiber EMG, for Tuesday morning. During the test, a doctor will insert a small needle into the muscle above my eye and move it around. She said it takes a while, meaning the needle will be moved around in the muscle for a while, which I haven’t tolerated well in the past. So, I appreciate your prayers. 

With Myasthenia Gravis, a breakdown in communication occurs between the muscles and nerves, which could explain things. But I’ve been tested before with negative results. So go figure. 

Two thoughts have helped. First, this morning I remembered what my son, Sam, said when an Emory geneticist suggested I have a hypermobility syndrome that might be helped by tap dancing. Stunned by the doctor’s refusal to acknowledge my weak legs, Sam offered, “Mom, you’re not looking for a diagnosis. You just want to know how to live.”

His accurate assessment buoyed me then and now. I really do just want to make the most out of the life I have.

Second, I made a point to attend an event, featuring a Holocaust survivor Tuesday night. Having never heard a survivor’s tale in person, I wanted to be in his presence.

Robert Ratonyi was born in Budapest in 1938. He lost his father to a work camp early in the war. And in the spring of 1944, after Germany invaded Hungary, he was forced to let go of his mother's hand and watch her march out of the courtyard with other young women. Left alone, a friend of Robert’s mom found him and took him to his grandparent’s apartment—a half day’s walk through the war-torn city.

Two aunts, three cousins, and his grandparents were all that was left of the very large family. So, his grandfather sought to procure Shutz-Passes, and succeeded, saving their lives.

Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish aristocrat, left the safety of his home country to help save the Jews in Hungary. There, he issued thousands of Shutz-Passes, a document that insured Swedish protection for the Jews. Because of Wallenberg’s connections with the US and Hungarian officials, he remained an authority figure who often intervened and stopped the slaughter of innocent Jews. 

Yet when the Red Army invaded and freed Budapest, the Russians arrested the peace maker on the grounds he was a US spy. Marched to a notorious Soviet prison, it is believed he was tortured and later died in filth and squalor, although official proof of his demise has been obscured by Russian meddling. 

Shoes on The Danube Holocaust Memorial
Wallenberg is credited with being able to stop
the execution of Jews into the Danube on occasion.

As I drove home from Emory with questions firing in my brain—especially of the why persuasion—self-pity collided with remembrances of Mr. Wallenberg, creating an internal tug-of-war.

It's just all about perspective. And God has a crafty way of helping me fight for that perspective time and time again. 

Cause it's easy to look around and compare myself to an ideal American standard and think I'm coming up short. But that's just so bogus.

I ate strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce tonight. A heating pad warms my back and relaxes my muscles. A torrential rain falls on a solid roof. And I never went hungry today.

I know this sounds pollyanna-ish. But I don't mean it that way. I just find that as I work to place my issues on the continuum of worldwide concerns, I come out way on top. 

In the book, One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp wrote, "Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.” 

As I train my perspective to value what I have more than what I don't, loss fades to life. And that life is worth living.

I don't know if I'll wear my AFO's to church tomorrow. That may take a little time. But I do know, I'll take every step, thankful for the freedom we have to gather and praise God together. No yellow stars. No starving bodies. 

Just a bunch of Jesus followers pausing on their march to Zion.



Most photos courtesy of pixabay.com