Have you ever had to watch someone you love walk into a crisis alone while you stood helpless on the sidelines? If you're someone facing a situation where all you can do is trust—whether it's a loved one's health battle, a child's struggle, or circumstances completely beyond your control—this story will show you how to find peace when control is impossible.
In April 2020, I had to drop my wife off at the ER and drive away, not knowing if I'd see her again. COVID protocols meant I couldn't go inside. I couldn't advocate. I couldn't be there. All I could do was trust.
"Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let go." - Unknown
The Weekend Everything Changed
It was April 2020, right after COVID hit worldwide and the world shut down in March. My wife started experiencing severe abdominal pain and vomiting. She couldn't move.
We did a video call with a doctor on Friday. He looked at her symptoms and said to quarantine and get a COVID test because he thought that's what it was. We went to the testing site that day, but results wouldn't come back until Monday.
The weekend was brutal. My wife's pain intensified. She couldn't keep anything down. She could barely move from the bed. I felt completely helpless watching her suffer, waiting for test results, not knowing what was wrong.
Monday came. The COVID test came back negative. That's when I knew we needed to get to the ER immediately—these weren't COVID symptoms at all.
I helped my wife to the car, drove to the hospital, and pulled up to the entrance. A nurse in full PPE came out to greet us.
"You need to just drop her off and go home," she said. "COVID protocols. No visitors allowed."
The Moment I'll Never Forget
My wife was so weak, in so much pain, she could barely walk. I wanted to help her inside, to get her settled, to talk to the doctors, to be there when they examined her.
But I couldn't.
I looked at my wife, saw the pain in her eyes, the fear of going in alone, and all I could say was "I love you."
Then I watched her get wheel chaired by the nurse through those hospital doors. And I drove away.
The drive home felt surreal. My wife was somewhere in that hospital, in pain, afraid, without me—and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't fix it. I couldn't be there. I couldn't control any of it.
All I could do was pray. So I did. And I asked everyone I knew to pray with me.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." - Proverbs 3:5-6
The Days of Waiting
For the next several days, my wife was in the hospital and I was home, waiting. She was on heavy pain medication. I'd get maybe one text a day when she was awake enough to send one.
The worst part wasn't the waiting—it was the unknown. Three or four doctors examined her and couldn't find anything wrong. Days passed. Her pain continued. No answers.
Finally, on the third or fourth day, another doctor came in and decided to do a CT scan with contrasting dye. That's when they found it: an abdominal abscess.
The doctor made an incision in her side and inserted a drainage tube. After a few more days, the hospital called me to pick her up. She was coming home with the tube still in, and I would be her full-time caregiver.
The Caregiving Season
For the next eight weeks, I drained and cleaned that tube every 2-3 hours, day and night. Four weeks in, we went back to the hospital hoping to remove it. The doctor said the fluid was still building—we needed to keep it in longer.
Four more weeks. Same routine. Every 2-3 hours. Finally, the doctor said it was fully drained. But then came the words that sealed our fate:
"Your wife probably needs a total hysterectomy. The endometriosis is spreading, and it likely caused this abscess."
We had already been through 10 years of infertility. We already knew we couldn't have biological children. But this made it permanent in a different way.
The Surgery That Became a Crisis
June 2020. The hysterectomy was supposed to take an hour to an hour and a half.
I sat in the waiting area as the hours passed. Two hours. Three hours. Five hours. Eight hours.
Finally, the doctor came out. His face told me everything before he spoke.
"There were complications."
The endometriosis had spread far worse than anyone expected. It had attached to her intestines, severed the tube connecting her kidney to her bladder, spread to her ovaries and stomach.
He had to call in specialists mid-surgery: a urologist, a gastroenterologist, a general surgeon. The urologist was at a different hospital. They had to stitch my wife up, wait for him to arrive, then reopen her to repair the kidney tube with a metal stent.
Eight hours of surgery. Ten days in the hospital. This time, I could stay with her. I was by her side for those 10 days, then took her home and cared for her for over a month while she recovered.
It took years for her to fully recover. And then in 2024, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
What Those Hospital Doors Taught Me
Standing outside those hospital doors in April 2020, unable to go in, unable to fix anything, unable to control the outcome—that moment broke something in me that needed to break.
I had spent my whole life building strength so I could handle anything. Thirty-four years of martial arts training. Ten Spartan races. Eighteen years as a massage therapist helping others. I was used to being the one who could do something.
But in that moment, there was nothing I could do. And I had to make peace with that.
Here's what I learned:
Control is an illusion. We think if we train hard enough, plan well enough, work smart enough, we can control outcomes. But some things are completely beyond our reach. And that's okay.
Trust is a choice, not a feeling. I didn't feel peaceful driving away from that hospital. I felt terrified. But I chose to trust—trust the doctors, trust God, trust that my wife was stronger than I gave her credit for.
Supporting someone doesn't always mean being present. Sometimes the best way to support someone is to let them face what they need to face while you hold down everything else. I couldn't be in that hospital room, but I could pray, manage our home, and be ready when she needed me.
Letting go is different from giving up. Giving up means abandoning hope. Letting go means releasing what you can't control while still showing up for what you can.
As someone who has authored "Mindset Metamorphosis" and completed extreme physical challenges, I can tell you: the hardest challenges aren't the ones where you push through—they're the ones where you have to let go and trust.
Your Impossible Control
Right now, you might be facing something you can't control:
- A loved one's health battle you can't fix
- A child's choices you can't make for them
- A situation at work that's beyond your influence
- Circumstances that won't bend to your will no matter how hard you try
Here's what I want you to know: You're not failing because you can't control it. You're human because you can't control it.
The question isn't whether you can fix it. The question is whether you can trust while it unfolds.
What can you do when you can't do anything?
Pray. Not because prayer is a magic formula, but because it reminds you that you were never meant to carry everything alone.
Ask for help. From experts, from friends, from your community. You don't have to face the helplessness alone.
Stay busy. Not to avoid the pain, but to keep moving forward through it. Action beats anxiety.
Trust. Trust the process. Trust the people who can help. Trust that you'll have the strength for whatever comes.
Some doors we can't walk through. Some battles we can't fight for the people we love. Some outcomes we can't control no matter how hard we try.
But we can show up. We can pray. We can be ready to help when the doors open again. And we can choose trust over terror, even when everything in us wants to take control.
When you're ready, here's how I can help you:
Purchase my book "Mindset Metamorphosis"—the complete guide to transforming your thinking and taking action for a better life. It's about finding peace when control is impossible and strength when circumstances are overwhelming, written during a season when I learned both lessons the hard way.
Remember: Feed your mind. Fuel your actions. Find your fire.
DK Kang
Author | Wellness Advocate | Plant-Based Athlete | LMT
dk@dkkang.com
www.dkkang.com
