My 5 Fears When I Found Out My Husband was Paralyzed

Psalms 23:4 Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;

Fear #1: Our Marriage Would Suffer

At the time of the accident, we had only been married 2 (almost 3) years. Still very much in the newlywed stage, my mind raced with how our happy marriage would most likely suffer. Although I wouldn’t recommend a spinal cord injury for anyone, I am proud that 4 years later, our marriage is stronger than ever. The accident has forced us to lean on each other and greatly improved our communication.

Celebrating Derek’s 31st in Kentucky

Fear #2: People Wouldn’t Want to Hang Out with Us

Call me crazy but I was very concerned that people would be uncomfortable around us. Perhaps they wouldn’t invite us over to dinners or on trips. Maybe they wouldn’t know what to say to us so they would just avoid us all together. Boy, was I wrong! Our friends and family showed up (and continue to show up) big time. From buying ramps to researching vacation spots, we’ve never felt left out or alone.

Fear #3: We Wouldn’t Be Able to Have Kids

Although this one is still TBD, my initial fears have been settled and I’m learning to trust in “thy will be done”. Don’t get me wrong, I know we would always prefer things to go our way (and smoothly), but the lessons we learn from the path least taken cannot be brushed off. I am a more empathetic person because of this life lesson.

Fear #4: He will be a Different Person

And when I say “different”, I wasn’t imaging a good kind of different. I was worried about his mental state. Through a lot of pray, perseverance, and just choosing joy, I’ve seen Derek be an amazing example to others just through his actions. Tragedies change us, there’s no doubt about that but it’s up to US to choose what that looks like.

Fear #5: Nothing Will Ever Be the Same

But really, does anything ever stay the same anyway? The fear of change has stopped me from doing many things but this change was forced upon me. I had no option but to adapt as quickly as possible. Our daily routine looks completely different. Our conversations now include accessibility, bowel and bladder, and wheelchair tires. Are there days we miss the before? Absolutely. 100%. Would we take it back? Eh. Ya. But man, we’ve learned a lot in just 4 years! We hope you can look back on the hard moments in your life and see the lessons learning.

Our fears are often worse than the reality that faces us. With faith, we can actually find comfort in situations most people would deem “tragic”. Together, we’ve got this!

Our New Venture- LoveWell Fundraising

lovewellfundraising.com

It’s actually a fairly simple story.

When Derek’s accident first happened, so many of you rallied behind us with love, prayers, support, and fundraisers. One of our favorite’s was a custom fundraiser MudLOVE and our friends created for us. It was so fun to see our mugs and bands literally all over the world. It was also a huge help for us financially as we left the hospital with a lot of bills and wheelchair gadgets we needed.

Fast forward 3 years. We started a new business with MudLOVE to bring fun, free fundraising to EVERYONE!

How many of us just dread fundraising? I know we both felt this sense of “guilt” asking for financial support. BUT that feeling quickly faded when we would offer our supporters items that they would actually want to purchase and own.

So. In Walks LoveWell.

A few hitting points:

1. It is completely free.

2. You fill out the simple form, pick out your products, and share your fundraiser with your friends.

3. I’m on the back end putting together your personal fundraiser page and helping you with any questions.

4. Adoption? Emergency? College tuition? Mission trip? Sports team? School fundraiser? Non-profit that you are passionate about? Let us help you fundraise for it!

5. We handle all the logistics. Shipping, sending you the check, etc. You just work on spreading the word.

We have deeply appreciated all of the support over these years and look forward to all the stories we will learn through running a fundraising platform!

So, head to LOVEWELL FUNDRAISING to launch your own or please help us spread the word!

With Love,

The Lavenders

A Gift Guide from My Husband to Yours

Derek doesn’t want other men to continue to get sweaters and socks each year, so he threw together a list to help end the epidemic.

I will say, we own all of these products, so it is truly a “tested and approved” guide.

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Portable Air Pump

We use this baby all. the. time. Charge it up, set it to what pressure you want, press the button, and ta-da.

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Echo Spot

This cute little guy sits on our nightstand and has numerous capabilities such as reading the news, telling time, playing music, and has our favorite game, “Song Quiz”.

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Hue Lights

These personal lights sync with your Alexa or Google Home and are voice activated. We say, “Alexa trigger good morning” and she pops on the kitchen and bedroom lights, sets the thermostat for the day, and then plays us some soft music. It’s awesome.

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Heat Kneading

Massager

Let’s be honest, I am terrible at back massages and his shoulders are sore a lot. This device has become a favorite of Derek’s and also all our visiting friends.

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Yeti Rambler

For bottles or cans, this koozie keeps drinks cold. For Derek, it’s nice for him to not have a wet drink between his legs when he is wheeling around!

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Ring Doorbell

Great for anyone who wants to feel safer. Your Ring doorbell will start recording as soon as someone approaches and can be monitored on your phone.

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Traeger

Both a smoker and a grill, we love our Traeger and think any griller in your family will too.

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Deus Mailbox

Does your husband love to get the mail as much as mine? Upgrade that mailbox to something with a little more character.
Derek, “This is the coolest aesthetic thing we’ve gotten for the house so far.”

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Custom MudLOVE Mug

Create a mug just for your man. It can say something sweet or something ridiculous, the choice is yours.

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Ventura Headlamp

This is really nice for Derek because he easily can’t hold a flash light and push his chair. BUT it is also nice for any man who wants his hands free while tinkering around the house!

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Action Figure Headlamp

Have a child that loves to mimic their dad? They make adorable super hero headlamps!

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We Tested Out the Accessibility of Lake Tahoe

Mountains, large bodies of water, and windy roads don’t usually go hand in hand with wheelchairs.

But when work offers to send you to Tahoe for a class, you don’t refuse. We were able to stay a few extra days to soak in the scenery and do some exploring.

Our big trip was met with an obstacle as I (LeAnne) came down with the stomach flu the day before we were to leave. Determined to not let a nasty bug stop us from our FIRST ALONE VACATION SINCE OUR HONEYMOON, we survived (but didn’t thrive) our travel day to Tahoe with lots of prayers, fluids, and plain rice from the airport gift shop.

As newbies to Lake Tahoe, we were thrilled to discover that Incline Village was an adorable little town with tasty restaurants and wonderful sunsets.

For the first 3 days, Derek found himself in meetings and I by the pool answering emails and staying up with work. In the evenings, we bopped around with our friend Ryan (Derek’s coworker) enjoying the fresh mountain air.

I also went on a Pinecone Hunt and shipped back some adorably huge (some bigger than my head!) pinecones for winter decor. Derek was embarrassed but I felt it was a very good use of my time. Does he even know how much those pinecones would be at Hobby Lobby?!

5 Things We Learned in Lake Tahoe

1. We called ahead to Enterprise and let them know that we would like hand controls on our rental car. They added them free of charge!

2. Driving and eating are always accessible.

3. Lake Tahoe has a group of dogs called “Geese Patrol” that scare away the geese. We want Barkus to be on the Geese Patrol next summer.

4. October is the “downtime” of Tahoe. It was nice and quiet but a few of the things we wanted to do were closed due to it not being tourist season.

5. We need to continue to grease Derek’s wheels. One of them got stuck on his chair and it took us a solid 1.5 hours to “unstick” it!

Tahoe City Marina

We quickly learned that just because we are on a vacation doesn’t mean we get to leave the disability at home. Isn’t that just how life goes? Often times we believe we can be free our issues through a trip or avoidance. I learned this week that like it or not, this disability isn’t going anywhere and it is just an extension of our story and who we are. Not something to be escaped but something to be praying over, that God would use this thorn to teach us new lessons and help others.

We had a wonderful time and are very thankful for the opportunity to spend a little 1:1 time together.

Have you ever been to Lake Tahoe? And if so, did you swipe some pinecones too??

With Love,

The Lavenders

Accessible Fire Safety- Close Before You Doze

Have you ever noticed on all elevators there is a little plaque that says, “In case of fire, take the stairs”?

It is Fire Prevention Week and this topic is one I never thought about until after the accident.

During our time in rehab, the therapists gave us a crash course on what to do in case of a fire. You will now start to notice on all elevators there is a little plaque that says, “In case of fire, take the stairs.” That’s right. They shut the elevators down and you have to take the stairs. Not helpful for someone who can’t take stairs. I’m talking about both Derek and Barkus- that dog couldn’t climb down a flight of stairs to save his life.

Now imagine this.
One week out of rehab, Derek and I had just moved into our accessible apartment which was on the third floor.

We’re trying to get used to our morning routine when the fire alarm goes off. I panic and run downstairs to find an apartment worker running like crazy saying the alarm isn’t a test and we need to get out of the building as soon as possible. I sprint up the 6 flights of stairs and pass a guy running down. I yell to him that we need help getting out of the building. He comes into our apartment where I am frantically trying to talk Derek into getting dressed faster so we can get out. About 30 seconds into my rant, the fire alarm stops.

Here’s my point. Fires are never planned, never expected, and certainly never welcomed. Disability or no disability, below are a few things you can do to keep your family safe. But the biggest one? Close before you doze!

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Fire Safety Tips

40 years ago, you had 17 minutes to escape a home fire. Today? You have about 3 minutes. Due to synthetic materials, furniture and construction, fires spread faster.

• UL FSRI found closing your doors can significantly slow fire spread, reduce toxic smoke levels, improve oxygen levels and decrease temperatures. This simple action can grant critical moments to escape in the event of a house fire. 

• If you have a disability, call your local fire station and make them aware. They will tag your address with a note letting first responders know.

• Double check your fire alarms. When moving into Quarry, we upgraded to Nest Fire Alarms which allows us to check the alarms from our phones if we aren’t home. They also talk to you, telling you exactly where the smoke is. My mom finds it pretty hilarious when it says, “There’s a fire in the bedroom.”

Also, thank goodness for our 1 story house but if Derek was to ever find himself in a situation where he couldn’t use an elevator, he would have a few options:

1. Rely on the kindness and strength of others and hope they could carry him down the stairs.

2. Turn his wheelchair around, grab the handrails, and slowly proceed stair by stair.

3. First responders do have “sleds” which make it much easier to get someone down the stairs safely.

And remember, #closebeforeyoudoze.

With Love,

The Lavenders

Our Journey to Healing- Day 730

Isaiah 41:10 

10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

It has been two years since the accident.

Boy. How fast and slow these two years have moved along. We've hit some major milestones and major setbacks. We've laughed so hard we've cried and also cried so hard that we literally went to the store for more tissues . We've gone from a hospital room with roomates, to an apartment where we shared a wall with a very sad hound dog, to a wonderful home with a bedroom bigger than Bunker (our 440 square ft home we lived in before the accident). We sold basically all our belongings and started fresh with an accessible vehicle, 6 different types of weehlchairs contraptions, and a puppy. 

Truthfully, there are moments when we say we wouldn't take it back. The life lessons we've learned, the people we have met, the way the accident has changed our relationship and dependency on God sometimes feels completely worth it.

And then there are more instances when we desperately miss our before. We've had serious struggles (and talks) with the Lord over Derek's injury and all the tiny details that now go into our life. Brutal moments when we would both rather go back to June 14th, 2016 and freeze time..even if it means not experiencing all the ways God has grown and stretched us. 

    And that's OK.
        It's OK to not always be OK. 

But a line needs to be drawn at some point. There's a difference between playing the victim and processing. We all need to be careful in not letting our trials and circumstances give us an excuse to wallow.   

We have come to a realization that paralysis will most likely be in our life for good.

There is no easy way to swallow that fact but we are certainly doing our best. Unforuntely, there hasn't been any new movement or regaining feeeling since the accident. Since there is no new progress, we have stopped attending physical therapy for two reasons:
1. No new movement means insurance won't cover it
2. Derek is doing incredibly well with the day to day tasks required of him

We want to encourage you all to not fear the unknown. Instead, embrace life, those around you, and focus on building community. Even though it sounds cliche',  God will give you the strength to endure the next big "moment" in your life.

And sometimes friends, sometimes enduring is truly the only option at the time. Surviving is just one step closer to thriving. 

Thank you all for being our cheerleaders these past two years. The love, encouragement, and prayers we have received mean the world to us and  has helped this transition go as smoothly as possible. 

Here's to Year 3!

With Love,

The Lavenders

BACK TO THE BEGINNING
Didn't join the party until recently?
Click HERE to go back to the first blog entry I made after the accident. 

Getting Your Before Back

This post is a little different. In fact, I've never really talked about this topic aside from an occasional conversation with a close friend.
But enough is enough. 

1 Corinthians 10:31 

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

I remember catching myself always saying "before the accident" or "after paralysis". You've been there, right? Something happens in your life which causes your "life timeline" to split it in half. There is life before, the incident, and then life after. 

One of those "before the accident" moments is my health, not Derek's. Before the accident, my reasons for being "fit" were simple. I wanted to fit into the jean shorts I bought two summers ago and I enjoyed being outside, so running seemed like a nice way to accomplish two things at once. 

Over the past year, I've learned that I like to be needed. In fact, Derek jokes that I put things places he can't reach just so he has to ask me to get them down (specifically the cookies and chocolate). He has done a great job of pushing me to get out of the house, go do things, and to not to worry about him. I'm realizing that this desire to be needed and constantly available has turned into me putting off something that is now really important to us, my health. 

Since the accident, I've become very aware of how physically weak I am. I had an ah-ha moment two weeks ago when I realized that I am going to be lifting a wheelchair and lugging around heavy things for the rest of my life. So. Enough is enough. My excuses for making it almost 2 years without a solid workout routine has run out and I am determined to be strong for Derek. 

I've been given an incredible gift and opportunity through our friend Tammy who runs B Present studio here in Indy & Granger, IN. This adorable fitness center focuses on women's wellness while providing a really comfortable atmosphere.  In an attempt to stay strong for our little family, I've joined B Present for 3 months as a trial run.

Brutally honest, I am that person who is easily excited  about a new challenge and then quickly fizzles out after a few weeks. The first step is acceptance, right?

I've been convicted of my lackluster attitude and have fallen into an unhealthy habit of making excuses for not being active. So, what better way to avoide excuses than to tell basically everyone we know. 

While I am sweating through these fitness classes, I really want to encourage our readers out there to take ownership of their health. Yes, do it for yourself but also do it for those who love you.

Wanna join my 3-month commitment to stopping the excuses? Comment below if you're with me!  We can do this.

With Love,

LeAnne

When Life Doesn't Go As You Planned- Part 1

Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We've all been there, right? You have this nice, tidy, thought out plan and then BHAM. Maybe it came in the form of a text, a phone call, or a knock on your door. Maybe the plan changed your life, your best friends, or your family member. 

I had the privilege of speaking at a women's conference this past weekend about our story and how to handle life when things just don't stay simple. As you know, we all have our own stories. And like most stories, there are twists and turns that we would have never seen coming.

How do we turn those instances into moments of joy?

I've decided to break my talk down into a few separate blogs because I believe finding joy and hope in hard situations is a struggle for many of us. 

Also, I know our story may not be as tragic or painful as some of your stories. And some of you may be thinking, “Eh, I haven’t had anything too crazy happen to me.” But if you haven't had heartbreak happen yet, it will.

Looking back, I can clearly see how God was lining all things up for His Purpose and how he was preparing us for what was about it happen.

 Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

In order for things to work together for good, this means they need to be planned out, thought through, calculated. I am a firm believer that God isn’t surprised or shocked by ANYTHING we do or anything that “happens” to us. He takes all our things and works them for good.

God was not surprised on June 15th, 2016.

I remember the 12 hours leading up to 7:14 am and basically the next 24 hours to a tee. I can tell you what I made us for dinner the last night we would ever sleep in Bunker. I know what Friends episode we were on and who won the game of Yahtzee. 

As many of you know, the next 24 hours played out and you could find Derek in the ICU fighting for his life after a serious motorcycle accident on his way to work.

He sustained a spinal cord injury and we were given the news that he would never walk again. As a T4 paraplegic, Derek is now paralyzed from the armpits down. 

For the next year, I was working on trusting God to provide joy, peace, and hope in my life. I still caught myself with thinking back on how could he allow this to happen to us.

So often I feel like we get stuck in “ Why would God allow this to happen?” instead of moving past it into the redemption stage and allowing God to use WHAT happened for good.

For months after the accident, I really struggled to compare my new life with the old one. You know the old life: Before kids, before marriage, before I was so busy, before my parents passed away, before our money issues, before I was out of shape, etc.

It seemed as though my struggle wasn’t comparing my life with someone else's, I was comparing myself to myself. There’s a difference between looking back and seeing all the ways God has orchestrated in your life and looking back to dwell on how life used to be.

Isaiah 43:18-19

18 “Forget the former things;

   do not dwell on the past.

19 See, I am doing a new thing!

   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wasteland.

So. I did this crazy thing. I started taking my thoughts captive. Intentionally not dwelling and thanking God for the ways he orchestrated our “Former life” to work so well with what he had planned out all along.

When I started taking my thoughts captive, my eyes were opened to all the ways God clearly went before us:

• He gave us incredible friends/ family that we spent time investing in. These loved ones then rallied behind us when life got really hard. Would you believe that over the 5 months we were in the hospital, I never spent a single night alone? Our friends and family took week/weekend shifts to spend time with Derek and I or at least be available at night when I came back from the hospital /rehab.  These friends hosted fundraisers for us (and so many of you reading this blog contributed to those fundraisers- THANK YOU!) so that we walked out of rehab with basically no medical debt.
• All those hours spent at Bunker paid off and allowed us to get a good return on our work, which helped us create our dream accessible home. 
• 3 weeks before the accident, Derek felt bad never having purchased anything from our Financial Advisor at Northwestern Mutual. So what did he buy? Supplemental Disability Insurance. 
• Derek's motorcycle had been for sale for over a month without any nibbles. 
• My mom's cousin works for our insurance company, specifically with Spinal Cord Patients going to rehab in Indiana and Illinois.

When I intentionally looked for God in the situation, He was EVERYWHERE.  And because of this, I refuse to sit and wallow in our less than ideal situation. God has a plan for our life. I can't wait to see what healing He will bring and how much we will learn about Him through this trial. 

How have you seen God work through tough situations?

Take heart. There is a purpose to your pain.

With Love,

The Lavenders