Since my last post, my health has again taken a turn for the worst. After only 3 weeks of having the Crohn's in remission, it has come back with a vengeance. My family doctor put me on Predinsone (my second round of it in 2 months) to try and help with the inflammation and severe pain. But alas, yesterday I took my last pill and I am not getting better.
I am back to eating ensure and soft foods, which doesn't give me much energy. And so far has made little difference on my pain. The other worry now is that my blood pressure is continually staying Very high due to the pain. I've been having chest pains and my pulse will sometimes go up to 111 beats per minute just when I am lying in bed. While my blood pressure is in the 140's/90's.
Jeremy and I are monitoring my blood pressure and if we don't see changes in it in another day or so we are calling the doctor to see what he wants to do next.
Just before I was put on the Predisone, it showed on the weight scales that I had lost 3 pounds of the 5-10 lbs I had gained from my last round of predinsone. I can only pray that I haven't gained more...because that will also have an effect on my blood pressure and heart if I continue to gain weight.
So how do you find gladness in all this? It is very hard at times, but after reading the book "Pollyanna" of which I'm sure many of you have seen the movie with Haley Mills, I began to play the "Glad Game" As Pollyanna calls it. I do recommend reading the book (it's in some ways better than the movie) especially this part I'm about to share with you. If you have a kindle or the app for the kindle you can download Pollyanna for FREE. I recommend it especially since it's free.
Anyway, I was reading Pollyanna one day when the Crohn's had me bed ridden, and I came towards the end of the book, after Pollyanna was hit by a car and paralyzed. Everyone was trying to get her to play the Glad Game that she had taught them. They were trying to think of something to be glad about her being stuck in bed and not being able to walk. Now how anyone could find something glad about being paralyzed and bedridden is very hard to comprehend, but Pollyanna did.
And what she said, my me cry so hard, and even cry now....When asked what she could be glad about being stuck in bed and paralyzed, Pollyanna said, "I can be glad for the times I had my legs."
She was able to be glad for the time God allowed her to have her legs, and all that she did with them and all the lives she as able to touch and change when she had the use of her legs!
And at that moment, being bed ridden because of this disease that is wreaking havoc on my body, I was able to be glad.
Maybe one day I will be able to get better, just as Pollyanna did after having a surgery to repair her back. And then be able to go out again and be able to do ministry, play music and help in churches and my community again as I use to.
But if I can't, I can still be "Glad" for the times I was able to go out and make a difference in people's lives, just as little Pollyanna did.
I can be glad for the time I had the strength to play my drums and travel. Even though now they sit in the corner of our Office collecting dust for over a year. But I believe one day I will get better enough to sit down and play again as I use to. With all the energy I use to have. I can't imagine God giving me a gift at the age of 3 years old, to only take it away when I am 30.
I can be glad for all the times I was able to go and do puppets and teach children about Jesus and how he loves us. And I can be glad that I can still even from my bed be able to sit here and type this despite the pain I'm in. For maybe just maybe it will help someone else, to find gladness in the face of their adversity.
In my life I never imagined at the age of 30 years old I would be many days bedridden and confined to the upstairs of my home. But here I am......The journey i envisioned my life to be on was not anywhere near where it has gone. But looking back over the past 4 years I thank God for the good times and the great adventures I have been able to have before I got so sick with Crohn's and Gastroparesis.
I continue to hold out on faith that God will heal me. Whether it come directly from him touching me or from the hands of the doctors that he will point me towards to help me. God did not create me to be an invalid without a purpose. And I know some way some how he will still fulfill that purpose even through this broken vessel that I am now.
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