Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Barbara Johnson was the founder of Spatula Ministries, a coauthor of various Women of Faith devotionals, and the author of numerous bestselling books, including Boomerang Joy, Living Somewhere between Estrogen and Death, and Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy.

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Plant a Geranium in your Cranium

W PUBLISHING GROUP

Contents

Unexpected foresight...........................................................................................................................................................vii1. I don't know what the problem is ... but I'm sure it's hard to pronounce-Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?...............................................12. Having a tumor ... with humor It's been lovely, but I have to scream now....................................................................................................133. This would be funny if it weren't happening to me If all is not lost ... where IS it?.......................................................................................394. I'm gonna laugh about this if it kills me Warning: I have an attitude, and I know how to use it.............................................................................635. Give me ambiguity ... or give me something else What do you mean, it's not all about me?....................................................................................836. Just think: If it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all If you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen.....................1097. Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end!-Even when you fall flat on your face, you're still moving forward...................................133Acknowledgments................................................................................................................................................................155Notes..........................................................................................................................................................................157

Chapter One

Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?

What a luxury it was to have a few days at home in the middle of March 2001, with no traveling, no speaking engagements, no out-of-town guests to entertain. Women of Faith had just commenced its 2001 tour a couple of weeks earlier in Charleston, West Virginia, and Bill and I had enjoyed being back on the road with our traveling companions of the last five years. But now it was good to be home again with a few days to get caught up on all the work before the tour shifted into high gear. In the next eight months Women of Faith would be presenting conferences in twenty-five cities from coast to coast, including one stretch of seven back-to-back weekends without a break. It was going to be an exciting, exhausting year.

To celebrate my "downtime" I was puttering around the house, tending to little chores we hadn't had time to do for several months. For example, I'd noticed that my clothes dryer wasn't drying clothes as fast as it once had. Someone told me it helped the dryer run more efficiently if you cleaned out all the lint that had collected not just in the lint trap but underneath the trap, too, in all the reachable corners of the dryer's outer shell. So, while Bill was out running errands, I armed myself with an old toothbrush and settled onto the floor in front of the dryer to dig out all the fuzz that had accumulated.

I was happily excavating long strings of lint when the strangest feeling came over me. Suddenly, my arms and legs became as flimsy as wet noodles. There was no pain, no tingling, no dizziness. Just an overwhelming sense of weakness. I felt fine-except that I just couldn't get up. I oozed onto the floor-and stayed there. Suddenly I regretted all the times I'd made fun of that old lady in the TV commercial for the health-monitoring device-the poor old thing who pushed the button on her radio pendant and shouted, "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!"

No Time for Trouble

There was no pain, no nausea, no discomfort at all. I just couldn't muster the strength to get up off the floor. It was the strangest sensation I've ever known.

Eventually Bill came home. It really irked me that, seeing me sprawled on the laundry-room floor, he didn't immediately sense that something was wrong. "I thought you just got carried away with your toothbrush and decided to clean under the dryer, too," he said later.

He helped me get up and into a chair, and we discussed whether we should call my doctor. But it seemed so silly to call up and say, "I feel fine, except that my arms and legs have suddenly turned into stretched-out rubber bands." I thought my doctor, who had known me for years and read all my books, might tease me. "Well, what do you need, Barb," I imagined him saying, "fresh elastic?"

Throughout the afternoon friends called to say hello. When I told them the perplexing and rather unusual thing that had happened, they didn't think it was funny at all. Every one of them fussed and threatened to call 911 long distance and send the medics hurrying to my rescue. They worried that I'd had a stroke. But I laughed and reassured them. I knew I hadn't had a stroke. I could talk and think and function the same as always. I had just been unable to get up off the floor.

"I'm fine," I told them all.

But it was obvious there would be no peace until I had myself checked out. In fact, I began worrying that some of my fussbudget friends might have a stroke themselves, worrying about me, if they didn't calm down. So the next morning, feeling sure I was wasting my time, I drove myself to my doctor's office. And the next thing I knew, I was checked into a hospital, assigned to a different doctor-a specialist in neurology-and was being poked and prodded and scanned until I absolutely had no secrets left from anyone!

The tests went on for a couple of days. Then the next morning the neurosurgeon came into my room, trying to look pleasant but obviously hiding some hard news.

"Well, Mrs. Johnson," he said kindly. "We think we've narrowed down the problem to two possibilities."

"Oh ... that's good-I guess," I said, not sure how to respond. "What are my choices?"

He laughed. "Well, it's not really a choice. And neither one is something you'd ever choose. It looks like you've either had a massive stroke ... or you have a brain tumor."

"Ohhhh," I moaned. It took me a minute to catch my breath. Then I began pleading. "I don't have time for either one of those problems. I've got a ministry to run and twenty-five speaking engagements scheduled. We've got company coming this weekend, and we're leaving for Sacramento next Thursday," I began, as though I could argue with him.

The doctor smiled nervously. "Mrs. Johnson, I wouldn't count on going to Sacramento if I were you ..."

"So you think it's either a stroke or a brain tumor ..." I was barely able to repeat his devastating words. I had to let them soak into my poor, besieged brain until finally I could understand what he was telling me. "Which one should I pray for? It's like choosing between Hitler and Mussolini!"

He laughed. "No, it's not the greatest choice, is it? But I think we should pray it's a tumor. Some brain tumors are very treatable; a lot of them we can melt with chemotherapy. But the damage caused by a stroke is irreversible in many cases."

Obviously, I wanted to have the...