Run for the Nurses

 

It was the worst day of my life. One moment I was safely cycling with my 18-year-old daughter; the next, I was kneeling beside her lifeless body. I was injured from head to foot after being struck from behind, but those wounds did not compare to the pain of losing my daughter Sophia.

Through the medical journey of trying to heal my damaged body, I have encountered an array of medical professionals, many of whom I never imagined I would have to face. Four hospitals, four surgeries, many surgeons, and appointments in multiple states, all in search of the best medical care for my situation. I have received great care at all the hospitals with the constant care being from the nurses who have been by my side.

Nurses have checked my vitals, prepped me for surgery, administered my medications, and kept other medical staff up to date on my situation. My care would have been incomplete without their amazing knowledge and actions throughout the past five years. Understanding that medical care involves more than my physical healing, I’ve had nurses hug my neck, shed a tear with me, pray for me, and make sure my immediate emotional needs were also addressed.

Nurses are the superheroes who wrap the wisdom of medicine with the care of humanity, meeting the needs of the entire person as they go.

My physical pain was constant since 2018, until healing from my last surgery – an amputation. And while I now fit the definition of someone having a disability, be assured, I am far less disabled today than I was a year and a half ago when my mobility consisted of a scooter or crutches.

I was told after the accident I would never run again. My ankle sustained too much damage to handle the stress caused by running. But now, with the absence of my damaged ankle, I can run!

So, I will Run for the Nurses! I will run in honor of those who work long shifts and extra hours ensuring their patients have the best care possible. I will run to support ABAC’s nursing students, so the next generation of nurses will be well equipped and trained. And I will run to prove miracles still happen!

Most everyone has been positively impacted by the life of a nurse. Will you honor them and join me in this race? This race takes place on Saturday morning, October 28, 2023, on the beautiful campus of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. Runners can choose the 5K route that goes throughout campus or a half marathon that extends beyond campus into north Tifton.

If you can’t run, will you consider giving a donation to the School of Nursing to support ABAC’s students? You’ll have the opportunity to send in a photo of your favorite nurse and honor him or her while helping future nurses.

My life abruptly changed in a moment, and nurses have been aiding me regularly since that time. It is because of their care and support, I will run this race proving life can be recaptured and that life can be lived beautifully, even after tragedy.

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Five Years and Counting….

 

FIVE years without Sophia.

FOUR years of chronic pain.

THREE new daughters to love.

TWO prosthetic legs.

ONE year of learning life as an amputee….

I feel as though the countdown has finished, and now I’m blasting off into a second part of life. The past five years have been filled with many tears, much love, heartache, physical anguish, new family members, and feelings that encompass an entire spectrum of emotions.

The beginning into the next phase of life began with a beautiful dedication to Sophia. When traveling north from my home, I pass Willis Still Road where my beautiful daughter took her last breath - a place where I knelt over her body attempting to will, pray, and breathe life back into her body. That road evokes much emotion every time I pass by it.

This past Saturday Georgia Representative Clay Pirkle presented our family a copy of House Resolution 256 dedicating the intersection of Willis Still Road and Highway I-75 as the “Sophia Ruth Fisher Interchange.”  

Denise and Melissa, two close friends for decades, went with me in March to the State Capitol where Representative Pirkle hosted us for the day. My friends, who have prayed for me and carried me through these years with grace and compassion, held my hands while those on the House floor and others of us in the gallery stood as the Resolution was read, not only honoring Sophia, but other Georgians.

So now, added signs at the intersection will help add a smile to the tears that are normally present when I drive by on the highway. It is an honor to know Sophia’s name is written down for all to either remember her or wonder who she is.

I know this life will never be like it looked five years ago. But it can be – and is – good again! While people have left the family circle, there are others who entered. And while no one can ever take the place of someone else, it’s wonderful to have more filled seats at the table, noise around the house, and extra laundry and dirty dishes when company leaves.

These years filled with adversities may have taken me down for a season, but now I have a mantle to take up and share. I have physical goals set, political positions to help advocate, speaking engagements scheduled, and family plans for keeping my precious family knitted together.

There’s a lot of fight left in me; a lot of things left to accomplish.

I honestly don’t know if I am trying to now make up for lost time or the fact that I KNOW life is short, but I am attacking life with a vengeance and working through all those items I want to accomplish and conquer! God spared my life – there is truly no reason I should be alive, much less being able to do the things I am now doing pain free – so I plan to make each moment count.

As the countdown to this season seems to be over, new life is appearing. And I’m excited to see where this life will lead me.

 

Leaving Her Mark

It was on Mother’s Day 2018 after church and a wonderful lunch, the children that were home, plus a niece I claim as a bonus daughter, went around the table to say what they loved about me, at the prompting of my then husband. It was a sweet gesture, and the only fanfare made on my behalf that day. I was a little upset but used to it at this point since that was normal for Mother’s Day.

This year, however, Sophia was 18 and could tell that my feelings were hurt. I love to celebrate all types of events from a baptism to Eagle Scout, from birthdays to graduations. Give me an event, and I’ll throw a party! But it was rarely reciprocated and since I wasn’t my husband’s mother, Mother’s Day was not considered a big deal.

Just a few days later Sophia showed up with the sweetest gifts: a sign I have in my office, a picture that talks about a mother’s love, and a gift certificate for me to get a pedicure. While I had tried to hide my disappointment that Mother’s Day, she was maturing to the point she could read beyond my words.

It was on the gift card envelope that she wrote: “Just Because; I love you; Sophia” with a heart. I’m quite certain this was the last note she wrote to me before she passed away, and so I chose her words to be placed on my latest socket. 

In my mind, the process of how to make her writing appear on my prosthetic would be difficult, but knowing the right people is the key to making things happen! So, at church I hit up Scott Beasley and Kenny Barfield from The Trophy Shop of Tiftarea and pitched them the idea. As people around them were stacking our sanctuary chairs, Scott and Kenny began to speak to each other in a computer and graphic language I was unfamiliar, and then turn to me and said, “Yeah, we can do that; shouldn’t be a problem!”

After proofs back and forth and measurements from my prosthetist Andrew, they manufactured the cloth with her handwriting, her last written words of love for me. Words that were written from a place of maturity. Since we had many of the same traits – stubborn, strong willed, opinionated – we butted heads like many mothers and daughters do, but we had reached a really good place of enjoying each other’s company. Oh yes, we still drove each other crazy at times, but we had begun to understand each other better.

I said after the accident when my ankle healed, I was going to get a tattoo on it, so I could share my story with others. Never did I imagine I would have the ankle removed, and a prosthetic would be my constant reminder and my gateway into sharing my story with others.

Saturday, February 4, I will run with Sophia’s words for my first 5K as an amputee. It’s not easy running as an amputee. In fact, every new thing I do – from bowling to climbing – feels extremely weird and takes quite some time to seem somewhat normal.

After skiing at Christmas, I realized my limb was capable of handling the force of my body weight, and so I immediately hit the track at home getting ready for 3.1 miles. I’ve added distance each week while keeping the same, very slow, pace.

This will be a run/walk event for me with four of my children by my side in this next adventure. In fact, they are my pit crew, much like one at Nascar. I will have to stop, remove my prosthetic, add more socks to my limb, place back on the prosthetic, and keep running. It quite possibly could make a good comedy routine!

Maybe as people pass me in the race, they can read the words, ponder what the story might be, and think of someone whom they love dearly and who left a mark in their lives.

Sophia unquestionably left her mark in my and others’ lives, and her last written words are ones I will always treasure. I hope and pray her words and our story will leave a positive message of love and hope in the years - and miles - to come.

Doing a Great Work

*Pictured here are Lillie, Sophia, Caroline, and Callie; June 2018 

It was a busy spring and summer of 2018, and weekends had been filled from what seemed like from March to June with no reprieve. It was so busy we had to schedule Sophia’s 18^th birthday party during lunch time on a Saturday. Between spring chorus concerts, ABAC’s end of the semester activities, I had not had any “down” time at the house with the only two children left – Matthew and Sophia. While Matthew was at ABAC with me, and he stilled lived at home, I rarely saw him. I mainly got to see him when he would swing by the office for a kiss, which in college lingo really means candy or money!

The last full weekend of June was free with no activities and my former husband was invited to go with the guys deep sea fishing, while I was invited to go with the ladies to the beach. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I just didn’t think I needed to go. I went on a work trip the week prior, and even though Sophia went with me, I felt I needed to stay home and have some quality time with her and Matthew.

Maybe it was the fact Matthew was about to leave for Georgia Tech in the fall or that Sophia was entering her senior year at high school, but there was something inside of me that told me time was fleeting. I knew she’d attend ABAC for one year after high school, but then her plans were to go to Georgia Highlands College in Rome, where they have a four-year dental hygiene program.

So, I decided to stay home. It was just me, Matthew and Sophia with no agenda for the weekend. And then my best friend from high school Cathy called and invited us to their family reunion in Valdosta. We’d been several years in the past and had a great time with the Sirmans’ clan. Sophia had spent a lot of time with Cathy’s nieces in the past, and Sophia was ecstatic to spend more time with Callie, Lillie and Caroline.

We headed south on I-75 singing to the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman. And when we sing, it’s not just with our voices. Our hands are raised, our bodies are dancing as best they can while being restrained by the seatbelt, and we are turning heads from other travelers as we journeyed to spend time at the lake.

All the girls and Matthew had a blast together jumping off the dock and catching up on what was happening in each other’s lives. I was proud of myself as I, at the age of 48, did back flips off the deck also! Cathy and I caught up on our lives, and I shared with her my marriage was struggling. Always a prayer warrior and non-judgmental person, I knew she would hold my confidence and give me Godly advice.

The kids and I traveled home going through the musical soundtrack again as we sang with wet hair and tired bodies.

The next day, the three of us went to church; Sophia sat in the middle, Matthew to her right and I sat to her left. Memories are fresh in my mind of how she reached out to both of us and placed her arms around us during the last song. I still have the bulletin from that day in my Bible.

Why would I remember such details to this seemingly irrelevant weekend? 

It was less than one week later that tragedy struck on the road while Sophia and I were safely biking. When a loved one is taken from you in front of your eyes, you replay the “last” of everything you did with that person - the last conversation, the last time we went somewhere, the last weekend, the last Sunday worship. 

In the Bible, Nehemiah 6:3 talks about when Nehemiah was finishing up the wall around Jerusalem, and his enemies were doing all they could to distract him and to get him off task. They said, “Come, let us meet together.” But Nehemiah said, “I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down for you?”

The word work in this verse stressed skilled labor. For Nehemiah, the skilled labor he was doing was carpentry and management as he oversaw this great rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem. He had a task to do and had done it continually for months. He was told to build the wall, and he remained steadfast in his mission for the Lord. Nehemiah also discerned the insincerity of his enemies and refused to be distracted by matters that would divert his energy from rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall.

What is your great work? And are you actively doing it?

For me, my main job for 25 years was raising four children, and I did my best not to be distracted by the world.

I could have gone to the beach that weekend before my accident. I could have spent a weekend with the girls, and there is nothing wrong with a weekend away occasionally. But as we go about our main task, we have to be sensitive to the call of God and His gentle nudging. I knew I should not go that weekend, and there have been countless confirmations of that since then.

I wouldn’t trade singing The Greatest Showman with Sophia and Matthew that hot June Saturday. I wouldn’t trade anything to have her place her arms around me and Matthew during the last song of church that Sunday. And while I certainly wish I could change the outcome of our last bike ride, I would not trade spending time with her and living an active lifestyle with all my children.

The word work in Nehemiah 6:3 also has the connotation of “benefits that come as a result.” While my boys are far from perfect, they have loved me in ways I never imagined at this point in my life. Each one has been by my side through surgeries, made sure my medicines were correct, and took care of the simple things to help make my life easier. I would have envisioned them taking care of me when I was maybe 75, but never did I imagine they would be pushing me in a wheelchair at the age of 48 or helping me weigh the options on whether to amputate my leg or not.

Parents, I encourage you this Christmas season not to be too busy to spend quality time with your family. Maybe you need a day where you stay in your pajamas and make cookies and wrap gifts with your children. Maybe you need to sit on the floor and play that board game your child loves, but you, much like the Grinch, loathe! (Chutes and Ladders was mine!)

Focus on your great work. Know that while the rewards may be delayed, they will come.

We all have a great work to do. What is your work? Will you be focused enough not to be distracted by those around you and do that task at hand? Your reward will be there, and it may just come earlier than you had imagined.

Instagram: lyndasfisher 

There is Life in the Blood

Donating blood is giving the gift of life. Not only is it healthy for the donor, but it is many times the lifesaving agent for someone else. No one has to attend medical school to know its importance and necessity for a body’s proper function. The blood is the transportation agent that delivers nutrients and oxygen from our brain to our toes, and everywhere in-between.

When Sophia was in the second grade, she got extremely sick because she was sepsis. The blood that once was aiding her growth and health got infected and instead of circulating life, it was transporting infection all over her body. Fortunately, we got treatment quickly and after many days in the hospital, her blood once again was doing its job of sustaining her life.

God was the first in the Bible to shed blood. After man first sinned, “the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” (Genesis 3: 21) He did not order them from Amazon; He was the first to kill an animal. Fast forward to the New Testament and the story of the prodigal son when the father said, “Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.” (Luke 15:23)

Our Heavenly Father continued to make sacrifices for us through the blood when he allowed His only Son to shed his perfect and innocent blood for our sins. “…Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (Hebrews 9:22)

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

There is power and life in the blood, and when we accept that Jesus’ blood was shed for us, we can share in His inheritance, like the prodigal son did with his father’s wealth.

Yet apart from that blood, there is death, which leads me to my current medical situation.

For those who may not have followed my story from the beginning, it began with a terrible accident that fractured my talus bone, a well-hidden bone inside the foot that is hard to break. Once broken, it is also hard to heal.

The journey of the last 3½ years has been plagued with chronic pain, surgeries, crutches, getting better, and regressing. There was a fear at the accident that if surgery did not happen quickly, the blood would not properly supply the bone with much needed life. I was transported for trauma surgery 100 miles away in hopes of healing.

It appears even with the many efforts of the last several years, the talus bone has not received enough life-giving blood and has led to its death and collapse. For the last four months, I have not been able to walk unassisted. My scooter and crutches have aided in my transportation around the house, work and to doctors in three states trying diligently to find answers and options for recovery.

With a few – but no good – options on the table, the hard decision has been made for me to have an amputation. It has been a very difficult decision to make, but sometimes the right decisions to make are the hard ones. I could either continue to try and salvage my leg, or salvage my life, and I chose life! Next Wednesday, March 23, I will have a left below the knee amputation in another state.

I have treasured all the love and support so many of you have given me and my family over the past years. It has definitely been the worst season of my life, but even in the midst of it, I have never felt a larger outpouring of love.

My journey through this next trial will be hard and difficult. But honestly, I’ve already done the hardest thing in my life by burying my beautiful teenage daughter. I can do this. I WILL do this. And I will come out the other side physically stronger, able to walk, climb, and run again, and continue to give God the glory for the good in my story.

If you would like a closer look at my journey, I’ve started a personal Instagram page that will chronical my story. I’m not sure exactly what is in store for me or what this journey will look like, but I’m glad to share my story with you.

Instagram: lyndasfisher

Remain close to Jesus who, while He was without sin, shed his blood for you and me, so that we could have life! 

*Photo: Matthew and me at the beach to put my left toes in the sand one last time. 

Community Counts

There are factors and statistics that go into calculating whether a town is a good place to reside. Crime rates, home prices, and quality of schools affect the rankings, but one factor I’m not sure that can be quantified is “community” itself within a town. There is something very special about the love and coming together of a community when its members need it the most.

I’ve seen our community rally around many families during their darkest hours with love, food, t-shirts, and even yard signs! What a beautiful representation of the body of Christ when we take care of each other, not even asking questions, just knowing there is a need and then meeting that need.

Tifton has been a community of love and support toward me and my family over the last 3 1/2 years after the death of Sophia, and many continue to love and support me as I continue to need it with my physical health not recovering as planned.

A beautiful story in II Kings 4 tells of a widowed woman who met Elisha as she was preparing to have her last meal with her sons and getting ready to die. With her husband dead and women being viewed as property at that time, she was unable in her current situation to keep her children from being sold as slaves to pay her family debt.

But then her community stepped in.

The prophet asked the widow what she had in her house, and all she had was a jar of oil. The widow was not sure how that one jar of oil in her home could sustain her and her children.

Elisha told her, “Go, borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors…do not get a few.” She went into the community to get the vessels. I can imagine her knocking on the neighbors’ doors down the street asking for their empty jars not explaining why. I doubt she even knew at that point! It says nothing about people refusing her or her having to beg; she simply had to ask. Their response and meeting her need were due to her relationship with others.

Her reputation and her family’s good standing in the community allowed her to gather enough vessels for her miracle to take place. Elisha told her to pour the oil from the one jar she had and fill up all the others. She poured the oil in all the borrowed vessels enabling her to have enough oil to sell in order to pay her debt and live on the rest. This widow is a beautiful picture of investing into the community and having the community step up and care for her in what she thought were her last days.

I spent over 16 years as a full-time mom whose focus was her family and children and volunteered as the coach of athletic teams, served on various boards, and lead children’s choir before and after my children were even in it!  Now my children are all grown, and it may seem the time spent was futile, since there are now days when loneliness sets in and the physical distance of my children here on earth is great and the emptiness of Sophia gone even greater.

At a recent work event, a beautiful young lady stood before me and said, “You don’t remember me.” I immediately apologized and said I couldn’t remember her name. She continued stating she had been to my house and was friends with Sophia. I don’t know the names of literally hundreds of teenagers who have passed through my doors as friends of my four children. I know my desire was to always have it as a place of refuge for my own family and others who may have needed one. My family and I have invested into others in the community and the community has been abundantly responsive and invested back into us.

There have been people who have poured into my life, and people I’ve tried to be a blessing to, but the two are not always the same group. In fact, I did not even know all the people who brought food to our house after our accident. I could not recognize many of the people who have given to Sophia’s scholarship. We invest in different people and other people invest into us.

This is a crazy time in which we live, and it is easy to remain isolated, not wanting to be involved in activities, much less involved in the lives of others. Community counts. It matters in making the lives around us better, and in turn our own lives are blessed.

Invest in your community before the tragedy happens, before the relationship ends, before you are hanging on the end of your rope - build community. Find that group of people that you can build relationships with and take care of each other during your hardest days. It may be your Sunday School Class, your work, your poker buddies, or your professional group. Not only do we need, but we were created for community.

I know I’ve found my community, and when my physical healing is complete, I’ll be back to investing in others.

*Top picture: My community - Mother Daughter Bunko at our house 2012. We've been together for over 20 years! 

*Bottom picture: Sophia and Ladies Choice Show Choir group at our house in May 2018. 

Hope at Christmas

*Me and Sophia, Christmas 2015 in Keystone, Colorado.

Hope seems to eludes me. Hope for restoration, hope for healing, hope for answers. 

For three and a half really long years there have been changes in our family members, daily physical pain, and surgeries - three to be exact. And while the surgeries were supposed to put together my ankle, it continues to deteriorate. Seven screws, upwards of 20 incisions, a hundred or so stitches, and there still is no good answer to my ankle problems.   

The last surgery which was a total ankle replacement surely was the key. Cut some of the dying bone out, lego pieces of implant up the tibia and voila, I should be able to walk pain free and without a limp. But it didn’t work. And not only do I not walk with a limp, but I also currently cannot walk unassisted at all. The scooter I “borrowed” three years ago has again become my main form of transportation.

Eight months after the last surgery, I knew things were not improving. I was at a lost. I didn’t know where to go or who to turn to for help. My current doctor wanted to do another surgery that would “probably” work….no thank you; not interested. I honestly can’t go through more surgeries annually as they try and put back together something that quite honestly might not be able to mend.  

I began my own personal medical search for other great ankle doctors. There must be someone else out there with some wisdom and options that don’t include surgery. I searched on the web, read websites, and critiqued medical schools. There are many doctors that appear good, but how do I really know? Maybe they had a good webmaster that makes them appear better than their skills.

While I searched, I continued to get worse. And while the world moves on, as it must, I’m still left depending on others. I am back to crawling up the stairs, calling on friends to take the garbage can to the road, and asking for assistance in changing lightbulbs in the ceiling. It’s exhausting. Not just physically, but I’m tired of leaning on others for what should be the simple tasks of life. 

Through a friend at work, I was finally able to locate another ankle specialist, and I immediately began to have hope. Hope that this doctor had the answers. Hope his skill level and experience were what I needed. I began months of trying to get in to see him, but while the pain continued, the sheer anticipation of knowing there was someone out there that could help me, made me feel better. I still couldn’t walk, I was still in pain, but I had hope there were answers to my many questions. Hope just knowing there is one whose knowledge I can lean on for my health.

Our hearts at Christmas should hold tightly to hope. Hope there is that One who knows the answers to our questions; One who has our best interests at heart; One who is sovereign through it all.

The anticipation of knowing we can have eternity with Christ should give us hope. A child, born in the lowest of circumstances, brought hope to the world. Hope that our sins are forgiven and have been cast as far as the east is from the west. Hope in His expected return when we will meet Him face to face.

Isaiah 40:31 says, “But they that hope upon the Lord, will renew their strength.” The Hebrew word in this text for hope, or wait as it is many times translated, means to hopefully watch for God to act. I’m going to hopefully watch and wait for God to act and renew my strength!

I have placed my hope in a new doctor, and while I only understand a small portion of the attempts to heal my body properly, my doctor lays out a plan.

My earthly mind can only partially understand the vastness and goodness of God. But I have placed my hope in God, knowing that He lays out my life that works into His sovereign plan. Though this life has brought much brokenness and pain, I trust and have hope in the future as I continue to walk – well, let’s say ride my scooter - with Christ in this journey.

Merry Christmas, and may you experience the hope of Christ this season.