Writers Block & Nerve Block

Tonight I sat staring at an empty Substack page while sitting beside my bride in a hospital recovery room. (For those who don’t know, she fell the day following my father’s open heart surgery.)

Writers block and nerve block.

For a while, both seemed to be working.

The nerve block helping dull the pain in her shoulder.

The writers block helping dull the ache in mine.

Because sometimes words feel too small for rooms like this.

Rooms filled with quiet monitors, tired eyes, whispered prayers, warm blankets, plastic chairs, and the strange exhaustion that settles over people who love deeply and wish they could carry suffering for someone else.

Today was long.

The kind of long where time stretches strangely between check-in desks, surgery updates, waiting room coffee, and silent prayers prayed for the hundredth time.

Before surgery, one of the surgeons showed us examples online of what shoulder repair can sometimes look like. One image appeared on the screen with a shoulder covered in screws.

He quickly moved past it and said with a grin,
“I don’t think yours will be that bad, so let’s not look at that one.”

We laughed nervously.

Funny how moments like that stay with you.

Rhonda was eventually handed over to another surgeon on the team—Dr. McDougal—a specialist in shoulder repair and replacement.

Funny how quickly you remember a doctor’s name when you’re entrusting someone you love into his hands.

Three hours later my phone rang.

Dr. McDougal told me surgery had gone very well, but once he got inside, things were much worse than they originally thought.

“There was a lot of work to do.”

Then I asked the question I knew Rhonda would eventually ask me herself.

“So… how many screws did you end up using?”

I immediately remembered that first image.

He laughed softly and said,
“Pretty crazy actually… nine screws and two plates.”

Nine screws.

Two plates.

I told him,
“Well, if you need a few extras, I can stop by Home Depot on the way home.”

He laughed out loud and replied,
“No… but if you’ve been looking for an excuse to buy power tools, now would probably be the time. She’s pretty sedated.”

For the record, I did not go to Home Depot.

Though after the last couple weeks, buying a chainsaw and disappearing into the mountains for a few hours did briefly sound spiritual.

Honestly, when I stepped away from hospice ministry this past January, part of me quietly thought maybe I was stepping away from hospitals too.

Away from recovery rooms.

Away from IV poles and hard conversations and the ache of watching people hurt.

But God, in His kindness, was preparing me for a different kind of ministry.

Not beside strangers this time.

Beside my wife.

And I’m discovering there is something uniquely painful about watching the strongest person you know become fragile in front of you.

Before surgery this morning—before the medications, before the paperwork, before the nerve block—we sat quietly together.

We prayed.

I read Scripture over her.

I made a few jokes because apparently humor is one of my coping mechanisms and also one of my spiritual gifts.

And together we entrusted this day to the Lord.

One of the passages I read over her came from Deuteronomy:

“The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
— Deuteronomy 33:27

Tonight those words feel less like poetry and more like survival.

Because sometimes faith is not triumphant.

And somehow He does.

As I was writing these words tonight, the hospital chaplain suddenly came over the loudspeaker and began praying over every patient, nurse, doctor, and family in the building.

The entire hospital grew strangely still for a moment.

Machines still hummed.
Footsteps still echoed down the hallway.
But for a brief second, it felt like heaven pressed gently into the room.

It was an old familiar prayer. A simple prayer. One I’ve heard before but somehow heard differently tonight.

And sitting there beside Rhonda’s hospital bed, I realized how little control any of us really have.

I cannot heal her shoulder.

I cannot remove her pain.

I cannot speed up recovery.

But I can stay.
I can pray.
I can hold her hand.
I can trust the everlasting arms underneath both of us.

And maybe tonight… that is enough.

We are not fully out of the woods yet.

But tonight we are grateful.

Grateful for skilled surgeons.
Grateful for medicine.
Grateful for nerve blocks.
Grateful for screws and plates.
Grateful for friends who pray.
Grateful for a God who still walks hospital hallways.

Somewhere between the waiting room and recovery, the writers block gave way.

The words finally found their way out.

And maybe that’s grace too.

Please continue praying for Rhonda and our family.