I'm Alive

Just wanted to say before I go to bed with my crazy sleep schedule, that I am honestly so thankful for life. Every day to be alive and with the people and know that God has prepared an eternal, amazing place for all of us to be together with no more suffering or pain is amazing and hopeful to think about. And this is what I want to focus on in the good times and the hard times, the times of laughter with my hubby and loved ones, and the times of extreme pain and just trying to get through each hour. No matter how much pain we go through here on earth, it will not always be like this, simply because Jesus loves us so much that he took all of our mistakes upon his shoulders so we could have that perfect "happily ever after" that we all dream of in our hearts. How awesome it is to know that those words are not just a fairy tale!

 

The suffering and pain that my hubby and I go through, although grueling, tiring, and just out-right FRUSTRATING at times? I would not choose to go back before this all happened and have it disappear. Because our love is deeper, our faith is stronger, our hope is more genuine, and our longing to be with Jesus and home where we belong is more real. Believe me: I don't like pain. In fact, I despise it. I don't like it physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. But there's something about pain that makes us realize what's really important in life. There's something about it that gets into our heart and says "hey, life's not meant to be like this. There must be something better than this!" If we choose to handle life's suffering in a positive way, we will grow deep, deep roots that cannot be uprooted when the storms of life come one after another. We will be able to appreciate the simple things of life like having a whole day without pain, enjoying a movie and laughing hysterically with our spouse or loved one, spending precious time with family, and just spending time worshiping God whether it's through music, being out in His creation, encouraging others, or filling ourselves up with His word and applying it to our daily lives.

 

I totally admit, I am not perfect at this lifestyle of constantly being thankful. I have times of worrying about our future, about our finances, if I will ever get better, if my husband will ever grow out of his crazy migraines that he's done soooooo many things to try to alleviate, and how we will survive. But I know that my God says "Cast all your cares on Him and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall." (Psalm 55:22).

One book I have been reading for encouragement lately is a book by Joni Eareckson Tada (let me know if you want the title!), who is an amazing Christian woman who was paralyzed by a diving accident at the age of 14. Since then she has led many, many people to the Lord through her testimony and started her own organization for helping the disabled, as well as speaking about her hope and the wisdom she's learned through her disability all around the world. It is so encouraging. The verse she quoted while I was reading a few nights ago was 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." And this is the verse I want to follow in my life right now while things are difficult. I don't want to stop praying and asking for God's healing, presence, comfort, love, and peace to be with my husband and me. I want to give him all of my honest thoughts but always knowing that I am rejoicing in His salvation and in the rewards of heaven to come. I don't ever want to get stuck in a rut of negativity. I want to give thanks for the things that I have, because I have so many blessings in my life, even on some of the worst days. God has always provided everything I need, and He will continue to provide, just like His word says! And He will do the same thing for you. Just keep trusting, keep persevering. Don't give up. Don't let your spiritual "fuel tank" go empty so that you get depressed and hopeless about life. And encourage others like me to stay on the path of thanksgiving and hopefulness!

 

Oh, and Happy Belated Easter! We weren't able to celebrate Easter this year with family because we were both really sick, which was hard, but we certainly celebrated in our hearts. So I'll leave you with a couple pictures of some eggs we dyed... last year! lol.  :-)

Surgery today

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've written anything! My health has not been good. The prednisone gives me crazy insomnia (so you think I'd have time to post a blog, right?) but I get so tired from not being able to sleep that I get into this half-asleep sort of daze and can't get anything done. I've also gained too much weight from pregnancy-like cravings from the medicine, and my face has swollen slightly due to what they call "moon face" from the drug... it reaaaaally doesn't help the moodiness to look in the mirror and see myself overweight. I have been slim all of my life so I am not used to it, and I feel so unhealthy, but hopefully I will be off of the medicine in a month or two as I taper down, and I can start walking again and eat less.

Today at around 12 noon I will be arriving at the hospital to get my largest kidney stone busted up into tiny pieces so it will be easier to pass. The surgery is called Shockwave Lithotripsy. My dr. is NOT going to place a stent this time, and I am praying and trusting in God that I will not wake up in any kind of major pain that can't be controlled. If you read this, please pray that the procedure goes perfectly, that my pain is controlled, that all the dr.'s and nurses do their jobs correctly and compassionately, and that I can go home on the same day, as scheduled and not have to stay in the hospital due to any complications or pain issues! I am so thankful for everyone and anyone who can send up a prayer for me. Although this past month has been one of the hardest for my husband and I healthwise, financially, physically, and mentally, we trust that God will bring us out of these hardships and that he has "plans to prosper and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future" (scripture from Isaiah).

I hope to be visiting your blogs soon and saying hello as I have met some really neat people through here. I better get some sleep, as it is 3:30 a.m. and I need to wake up at 10 at the latest! Bye for now!

~Melissa

Long Time, no speak

Wow have I been through a whirlwind since I last wrote 2 weeks ago. I ended up in the hospital getting surgery to remove one of my kidney stones. It turned into a huge disaster similar to what happened when I had a stone removed 2 years ago. My body couldn't tolerate the stent that was placed in the ureter (between the kidney and the bladder) to make sure that there was no swelling after surgery, and I woke up in the most EXTREME pain I have ever been in. Long story short, my urologist ended up pulling out the stent and the catheter while I was wide awake, and I was screaming and crying for over 4 hours without any relief as they maxed out all different kinds of IV meds and made sure I didn't stop breathing.  I spent the night in the ICU that night because of how much they had to give me. I also wasn't able to see my husband for 5 days- almost no communication at all- because he ended up getting the worst stomach flu he's ever had in his life, probably from taking me to the ER that first night (a nurse told me it had been going around). It was horrible not having my best friend, my partner in life, there with me like he had been the last time I was in the hospital. But I know it wasn't his fault. Luckily my parents were there by my side most of the time and a HUGE support, and I had many family members, friends, and church members praying for me & visiting.

I still have two stones (one in each kidney) that haven't started coming down yet, so if they'll stay up there, I can get them "shockwaved" (broken into little pieces by basically beating my body to bruises) in an outpatient procedure. Unfortunately, I think one of them might be moving because I'm having more pain & irritation on the left side of me and in my bladder now. But I just have to take this hour by hour, day by day.

In this post, I'm not going to go into the details of my hospital stay, or the issue of my urologist leaving for vacation that weekend and therefore leaving me with an incompetent, horrible hospitalist dr. (because there were NO OTHER urologists who work at this hospital!) who decided to tell other dr.'s and nurses that I was a "drug seeker" just because I have tons of health issues and have a higher tolerance for pain meds because of my back problems. Huuuuuuge story about her sometime in the future.... here's one little preview: She decided to discontinue ALL of my medications (for crohn's disease, pain, EVERYTHING I was taking at home); she apparently likes to take patients off of all of their meds and "start over" because SHE knows what's REALLY wrong with the patient... and it took my nurse over 3 hours that night to go through my chart history, find all of the meds that I was on, and get them all approved again by the new hospitalist on call that night. Do you know what happens if you stop your crohn's meds like Prednisone? You can die.

Anyway, back to the pain after surgery and the day after surgery...What happened was I had inflammation and fluid build-up in the kidney from after surgery that was causing more pain and bleeding. There are so many details and there's just not enough time to write it all here. But I needed pain meds to manage this pain and observation to make sure the other stones weren't coming down and that the inflammation wasn't causing any blockage.

 I will say that God did some amazing things, and breakthrough came. Many advocates (nurses and advisors who happened to know my dad- he is a teacher at the adventist school and the hospital is adventist, so he knows tons of people and has taught their kids- and the truth about who I really am) came to my side and defended me, and I ended up getting rid of the crazy dr. (after hearing many stories of the crazy things she's done, I hope she gets fired... we are writing a letter and one of the heads of the hospital who we know has already written her up). She was replaced by great doctor who listened, understood, and gave me what I needed to recover at the hospital. My urologist came back from vacation on Monday, and that's another story in itself also.... because I had told him about my body having horrible pain from the stent last time I had a stone removed, but things were not ready for me post-operatively like they should've been.\\

I will end with this quote:

"I find beauty in not only the beautiful things in life, but the bittersweet and sad as well. To me, there is something poignantly lovely about the human experience from its splendor to its grief. God created all our emotions, not just the happy ones, and for His good purposes. That's why a good cry can feel so good. And hitting our limits forces us to look outside ourselves for a Savior. It is in the plea, when we're at our end, that we can find that which is truly life-giving. Personally, my moments of deepest grief, deepest pain, have resulted in the most beautiful seasons in my heart. I've met God more intimately in those moments than in all the other pleasant ones combined. What isn't completely lovely about that?"

~ Leslie, http://topofthepagewithleslie.blogspot.com/

Blessings and botox

My hubby got Botox today...But not for the "usual" reasons! (Not that I'm against Botox for cosmetic reasons, but we are NOWHERE NEAR the age to be thinking about wrinkles and sagging, and would never be able to afford this treatment if it wasn't covered by our health insurance.) Botox is now used as a treatment for chronic, severe migraines. So, he got poked a good 20-30 times around the head, neck & shoulders, and we're praying that in the next couple weeks, his headaches will go down in severity and frequency.

Last night was reading around over here and one of the projects this blog is doing is earning money for disabled people in poor countries who cannot even afford a basic wheelchair. One lady wrote about how thankful she was for her disabled daughter to have all of the opportunities for care, therapy, and having any/all medical treatments available here in America. I started thinking how blessed I am, even with all of my and my husband's health challenges at such a young age, to have access to many medical treatments that so many others do not have. Sometimes it takes months, years, to find a treatment or a medicine that works without having too many negative side effects, but we are blessed to be able to try them! I cringe when I look at the possible side effects of certain medicines I'm on, but I also know that without them I would not be sitting here on my couch.

When I think about how there are so many disabled people who do not even have access to a simple wheelchair and end up begging on the streets for money and food, unable to go anywhere unless someone carries them, my heart aches. I am so blessed to live in America. I admit that when I think of living in the U.S. and healthcare, I do not usually come up with the word "blessed". But you know what? It's true! I am blessed to have the health care that I have, even if I regularly pull my hair out over the expenses of it and the way that the insurance companies operate. I am blessed that my health insurance covers thousands of dollars worth of medicine & treatments that weren't even around 10 years ago! It is just a crazy thought.

So, to wrap it up, these were just my random thoughts for today. If you would like to learn about the Free Wheelchair Mission, visit this link. The blog itself (Life Rearranged) was really encouraging to find, because it focuses on having a place where people can come and share their stories of caring for someone with, or having Special Needs. Although I don't really fit into this category, it was inspiring to read a lot of these women's stories about everything they've gone through and how they still have hope through the darkest times in their lives.

If any of you have chronic health conditions, or children with special needs, I really recommend this blog. I do believe that God is good and faithful even through the hardest times in our lives. I believe He hears our prayers and answers them with His perfect timing, and I believe that the hardest things we go through can be the times that we can grow the most in our faith, our hope, and our perseverance.

I do apologize if I was rambling on and on as I am really tired and need to go to bed! I realize this was a rather un-entertaining post, but sometimes I just need to write about what's going on in my mind. I will try to incorporate more pictures and interesting stuff next time I post! :-)

~Melissa