Why Hope Might Be More Powerful Than Medicine

The Thing That’s Missing

Doctors and nurses can bring you a lot of things.

• Medicine
• Food and water
• Hydration
• Visitors
• Etc

But then there’s something that hospitals seem to always be in short supply of.

• Hope

Believe it or not, sometimes hope is the key to recovery.

This isn’t meant to belittle medicine or instructions but, without hope, I’ve seen patients cave in on themselves and surrender to circumstance before they’ve even given recovery a shot.

The Repeat Customer

One of the shocking things to me, as a heart nurse in a CICU, was how many patients left doing well with recovery but came back within a few days.

A few hours after open heart surgery, we would have them up, walking in the hallways and then sitting up in chairs in their rooms. Every so often, we would come for them and walk with them to chart their progress and make sure they were being active.

However, most of them hesitated or wanted to put off walking until they felt more like moving around.

So, naturally, when they left our care they would go home, sit around, and completely justify it because, after all, they’d just had open heart surgery. That’s a serious thing to live through so no one really pushes them when they just want to rest.

Welcome pneumonia.

I’ll never forget coming in to work and seeing my patient’s name on the list… again…

3 days after going home, the patients would feel weak and have trouble breathing. When we asked them if they’d followed the instructions to get up and walk carefully a few times per day?

Not a chance.

They had already excused their laziness and adopted a “victim” mentality.

“I’ve been through a lot and I deserve to just sit and watch the tv.”

You know what else that means they deserve? Another visit to the CICU, hospital bills, nurses forcing them to walk the halls and more instructions for when they leave.

The Missing Ingredient

These patients weren’t bad people. They weren’t doing much different than most of us would WANT to do. But our flesh often doesn’t have our best interests in mind.

What they needed was hope. A goal. They need a desire to be better than they were before. And the sad part is that most of them believe that being healthier AFTER a heart attack isn’t even possible. Much less probable.

“Why should I get up and push myself to do things I couldn’t even do before my heart attack?” they may ask…

And the answer is, “Your activities before the heart attack are what CAUSED the heart attack.”

If that isn’t motivation to get up and go after something better, I don’t know what is.

My Offer To You

I want my disaster to be your warning.

I want my efforts to be your encouragement.

If you stick with this blog or follow me on other channels (I’ll link those below), I will do my best to show you that you CAN do more than you think. Crisis is not always the end.

Sometimes it can be a beginning.

So stick with me a little while. I hope to bring you:

• Video encouragement from my YouTube Channel (Rebuilding Adam York)
• Encouragement via my Instagram (@Rebuilding_Adam_York)
• One on One Support (Coming Soon) where I can help talk you through what’s happening and offer real life encouragement based off of my personal experiences. (email Pardonprogress@gmail.com for early access)
• More blog posts to help you understand what someone in the hospital bed may be going through and what life may feel like when they return home.

My experience with death, pain, depression and years of recovery has been a major eye opener and I hope to help others avoid some of the pitfalls I fell in over these past years.

Because, for most people, the fact is that it is NOT too late for you. You’re just under construction and need a little remodeling.

Thanks For Reading

Be sure to subscribe to me on YouTube here.

Follow me on Instagram here.

Check out my book, my entire story, on Amazon here.

And please like the post and subscribe to see more.