The emergency room practitioner needed to share just two words for the stress sitting at the base of my skull to start thrusting its elbows outward in both directions, pushing to take over control of my whole body. 

Emergency surgery. 

I had gone to bed the night before planning for a regular work day followed by a boring night on the couch watching TV with my husband. 

Now I was being shipped off from one hospital to another to be wheeled into an operating room and that same husband would have to juggle not just a sick wife but pets at home who had to be walked and fed and a raging storm outside that had already taken out the hospital’s power system ... not to mention the next six weeks of laundry, meals and lifting any and all items over 10 pounds. 

“How is it all going to get done?” the stress screamed in my ears as my husband remained hunched over his cellphone, fingers flying over the keys. 

The stress screamed and it hollered and it tried its best to take over, but it didn’t stay very long. 

Because here’s what I soon realized. 

I may need emergency surgery, but I’m still luckier than most because I live in a small town. 

Before the ambulance had even pulled into the emergency room bay to shuttle me off to the hospital number two of my adventure (I’d go to three before the day was done), people who love us had already stepped up and stepped in.  

Our menagerie of pets was taken care of for the rest of the day and the morning after too. 

There were offers pouring in to cook for us, clean for us, to drive me to follow-up doctor’s appointments. 

Since being discharged, the texts and calls have continued, messages of love and offers to help coming at us both from all sides.

If you’d told me a week ago that I’d feel extremely lucky just days after being taken into emergency surgery, I can’t say I’d have agreed or even been terribly nice about it. 

But as I sit here on my own couch, in my own house, one of my furry friends resting against my leg, I feel lucky to be from a small town that has plenty of the problems that can come with small town living but also has all of its advantages too. 

I’m lucky to have grown up in a place where people will offer to wash your laundry that you’re currently not allowed to lift and actually mean it when they offer (even if I won’t take them up on it ...).

I’m lucky to come from a place where people will drop everything on a random weekday to run to the neighbor’s house to feed their dogs.

I’m lucky to have made my home in a place where you can message a client with “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten you your quote for your project, but I had emergency surgery,” and they respond with “Don’t worry about it. Just heal!” 

Perhaps most of all I’m lucky to have realized a long time ago that you get out of small towns what you put into them. 

Over the years, I have put my heart, my soul and a little bit more into our little corner of Sullivan County, and last week I got it all back ... and then some.