Pulling into town we were greeted by dozens of people who stayed up late to welcome us home. The Core 4 Powells were all exhausted as we unloaded the powerchair, lift and myself back onto Union City soil for the first time in six months. An amazing crew had built a ramp for me in the back of my house, and since I was unable to control my new chair by myself, someone walked along side my chair moving me into our newly renovated home. The sunken living room was no longer sunken as Steve Wilson, an amazing contractor, had raised the floor so my chair could move around the first level of my home unhindered. Our kitchen had been completely remodeled with new lighting and flooring so I could maneuver without much difficulty. Doors had been widened and a new shower had been fashioned for me with a low clearance so eventually I could get in and out freely.
My family had been so loved on by so many different people over the course of the last year and a half that it was overwhelming. As the crowd dissipated the reality set in that we were going to have to figure out how to do life in what was now our new normal.
And it was not going to be easy.
As I mentioned, I couldn’t control my chair by myself at this point. A customized chair with sip and puff controls had been ordered but between insurance and manufacturing it would be months before it would be available for me. This meant that if I needed to go from the living room to the bedroom I would need someone to drive me. My girls took to this task quickly and Abbi Jo in particular became quite proficient at getting me where I needed to be.
I was still taking dozens of medications. At this point the count stood around 25 or so different pills that I took every day at various times. This required meticulous planning on Jodi’s part to make sure everything was divided up properly. She would sit in the living room holding a tub filled with pill bottles sorting pills into dividers for the week just to make the process a little easier.
Eating meals was always an adventure. For months now I had relied on other people to feed me and that would need to continue for the foreseeable future. This meant that no one in my house ate a fully hot meal, as someone would be tasked with feeding me while also feeding themselves. I have no doubt this was exhausting for everyone, and I’m certain it was exhausting for me.
Baths consisted of Jodi placing a waterproof mat on my side of the bed, and then filling a basin with warm water and then scrubbing me down. Although I had a shower chair, at this point there was no way to get me into the chair so that I could take a shower. I would also have to rely on other to help when I needed to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, or reposition myself throughout the day and night so that I didn’t get bedsores. We had strict rules about these repositioning. While in my chair for every 30 minutes I sat upright, I had to go to a pressure releases position for 5 minutes, and while in bed I needed to be rotated every two hours. In a lot of ways it was like taking care of a newborn baby, except I wasn’t near as fun to cuddle and I didn’t smell as sweet!
You don’t really realize the many needs you have until you have to rely on someone else to do them for you. I would wake up in the middle of the night hot, needing to adjust my arms under the covers on our bed, or with an itch that would pain me to the point I could barely stand it. As I lay in the bed I could hear my wife sleeping soundly beside me, exhausted from her day of working a full time job, caring for our home, children and me, and I would put off waking her as long as I possibly could and yet every time I called on her she graciously would help me in any way that she could.
I was home, but it sure didn’t feel like home.
Soon the time was coming for Jodi and the girls to go back to school, and we would have to figure out how to handle my care from 7am-3pm five days a week. I had hoped that after rehab I would have been able to stay home by myself for hours at a time, but that was just not an option. Not only would I not be able to take care of myself, but if there was an emergency I would have no way of handling the situation.
Enter Dad and Cindy Ann stage right.
Seeing the difficulties that we would have loading up a trailer and lift every time we needed to leave the house, Dad and Cindy found a Dodge Caravan that had been equipped with a wheelchair ramp that I could use to get to and from anywhere I needed to go. In addition to this blessing, Cindy approached us and shared with us that God had placed on her heart that she needed to help take care of me during the week. Shortly after this conversation she rented a small apartment in Martin, TN and would drive down from Hopkinsville every Sunday afternoon and stay in NW Tennessee taking care of me every day until Thursday when school let out. We then had a young nursing student named Coltyn who attended Crosswind Church that would come and stay with me on Fridays. Time and time again, God provided all that we needed and more during this transition period.
But the cyst on my spine was continuing to put pressure on my spinal cord and my mobility was actually getting worse not better. So we loaded up in my new van and scheduled an appointment at Vanderbilt with my spinal surgeon to evaluate if there was anything that could be done.
After a scan, we met with Dr. Stephens who delivered the bad news. Because of where the cyst was located, the risks of performing surgery were just too great. It was located near the nerves that controlled my breathing, and if they became damaged, my condition would become even more dire. And then he delivered this blow: They didn’t expect my condition to improve from its current state. I would spend the rest of my life a quadriplegic. I would forever need help performing the basic functions of life. I would never again shake a hand, give a fist bump or hug someone. I would never shower by myself or feed myself a chicken wing or drink anything that wasn’t though a straw. My daily routine would be to wheel into the living room where I would watch the news, two episodes of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune every day before going to bed and doing it all again the next day.
I was devastated. We were all devastated. It was a difficult prognosis to hear.
I felt a lot like David when he wrote Psalm 22. I knew that God was good, I knew that he had a plan for saving from from the grave. But in times like these, it felt like he was so far off. The anguish of the moment was so heavy that I felt like David, forsaken, forgotten, abandoned.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Psalm 22:1-2
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.
But God doesn’t just want good things for us, He wants the best for us. Jesus told us that if we can trust our earthly fathers, who are sinful, to give us good things, then how much more can we trust our heavenly father to give the best things to those who ask of him.
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Luke 11:11-13
It has been my experience that when God says no to your prayers, it is because he has something even greater in store. Even though in the moment this is incredibly difficult to see, to this point, God has never failed me, and He would not leave me alone as an orphan now.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
John 14:18
The fact that God desires of us that we ask for the desires of our heart is mind-boggling, but because of the work of Jesus on our behalf we can boldly approach His throne with our requests.
So once again, we would call upon the people of God to approach the Throne of Grace on behalf of our family. My mother posted on the Praying for Jeremy Facebook page on September 2, 2021 that we were struggling. She asked for prayers for me. For my motivation and my mental health. She asked for prayers for Jodi who was already burning candles at both ends and trying to figure out how to live in this new normal. She asked for prayers for my girls as they shouldn’t have to worry about how to navigate life where they had to help care for their father. She asked for prayers for doctors and nurses. She asked for there to be a glimmer of hope somewhere in someway, to keep us all going.
The funny thing about September 2, is that it comes immediately before September 3. And on September 3, God would speak out of the darkness….
Jeremy Powell 