Happy Birthday, America! Independence Day would take on an added meaning for me today! I found out that morning that I could leave the hospital whenever I was ready. We received my discharge instructions and medicine mid-morning. We also stopped by the business office to ensure everything was in order and to get all the documentation we would need for later claims with the insurance company. The physical therapist also came by with some exercises and strict instructions for the next few weeks. No sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time! No lifting anything over FOUR POUNDS! Yikes. And we’re in the middle of a European vacation with five big suitcases. LouAnn was signing up for more than she bargained for!

In the meantime, LouAnn and the kids had moved us from Bloberger Hof to our new home-away-from-home down the road, Pension Frauenschuh. They did a great job accommodating us for the final week in Salzburg, even if they didn’t have an elevator!

After a final goodbye to Tasso and Guenther, we packed up and left the hospital at 2:00pm. This was my journal entry that day:

“Today I should leave the hospital, after 10 days. Independence Day, indeed! I hope that at some point the words to describe my experience here – both the day-by-day and the profound – will come pouring out of me. But for now I don’t seem to have them. The staff here have been wonderful, and I almost hate to leave them. The nurses, the doctors, the orderlies, the people who bring my meals, clean my room…. They have all been delightful, and have served time and time again to confirm the RIGHTNESS of my being here. Certainly, God’s plans – his INTENT – can often be hard to discern, even in retrospect. But I feel like the veil has been pulled back with such stark, vivid clarity on this whole experience that it almost seems to be too good to be true. Too RIGHT. That in my over-excitement at getting better, at getting to be in this special place, I end up OVER-ascribing my good “fortune” to God’s perfect, deliberate work in my life. But how can that be possible? How can I doubt something that is so clear? It’s because of my still-immature KNOWLEDGE of him. Because of the enduring UNFATHOMNESS of God’s abundant grace upon someone as undeserving as me. I allow my intense self-awareness to crowd out and drown the deeper knowledge of God. I have become an excellent student of myself, and a poor student of Him. Deeper self-awareness, self-deprecation, self-focus is not what’s needed. This self-awareness that I’ve always treasured, trumpeted in myself, and sought earnestly in others – I’m learning that it’s of little value unless that insight is revealed through the lens of God – his love, his grace, his mercy. An awareness that’s gained through my own self-examination starts with a shallow foundation; it has little to stand on, and its resulting “smarts” have little eternal value. To look instead to know HIM first is to start over, to set aside what I believe I’ve “learned” about myself. God’s goodness and love and grace and mercy will NEVER be fathomable if we start from our assessment of our OWN character and abilities.

Of COURSE He can pull all this off. Of COURSE He can engineer my arrival in Austria, my “ill”-timed sneeze, our navigation to the Christian Doppler Klinik, just the right doctors, just the right technology, just the right family support, the right decisions. Of course he can place Tasso and Guenther in my life, to give me a focus beyond myself. To get me OUT of myself. To lend me PERSPECTIVE. To give me the privilege, in some small way, to participate in HIS work in the lives of total strangers, now friends. I would never have been able to conceive of it. Could never have imagined that this would all be for GOOD.”

Final breakfast!

Dressed for the 4th!

My cool new waterproof bandage.

Dr. McPike reviewing my recovery instructions with me….

Getty antsy…..

Final group shot in the room!

Sweet Dr. Rosenlechner.

Guenther!  He was feeling MUCH better.

Tasso!

Goodbye, Bloberger Hof!

LouAnn and Inge

 

Pension Frauenschuh had a pool!!!

View from our balcony.

Out to dinner in Grodig..

Following the doctor’s orders not to sit for more than 30 minutes at a time, I got up for short walks during dinner.  And sweet GT came with me.