Tag: Jesus Christ

Romans 8:28, encouragement, encouraging scripture, all things work together for good, hope, hang in there

Torture, water-boarding and more: Part 3

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[Eight hours have passed since I wrote Part 2 that chronicled the second phase of my recent hearing and vestibular testing at our local Balance Center.  Four hours of the eight were lost to persistent deep-brain convulsive episodes then passing out in exhaustion and tears for about 2 hours.  These episodes are different from those usually associated with epilepsy; I do not have epilepsy as I am awake, aware of my surroundings, sometimes able to communicate, and can often pinpoint the trigger of the living hell that follows.  (See this link for more information.)  The assessment was completed 1 1/2 days ago but its negative impact has lingered.  Here is my conclusion to this story with hopes of a little cathartic experience to follow as I use blogging to let go of the trauma that went before me.]

In Part 1 of this series I gave a brief history of the four years of illness that has precipitated the referral for testing at The Balance Center.  In Part 2, I shared the severe struggle I encountered with the first two parts of the second phase of test procedures rendering me useless on a treatment table with my own carbon mask covering my face, wretchedly seizing without end.  Eventually and by the grace of God the episodes finally stopped.  I learned that the 3rd phase of the testing would conclude in this third treatment room where I was lying and would normally take about 30 minutes to complete.  Alright, so again I rallied, sat up, got some new goggles calibrated, and got ready for battle.

The technician, “M,” had me lie back down on the treatment table for what appeared to be a simple process of keeping my eyes open in the darkened mask while she would be squirting some warm water into my ears, one at a time.  She said that the water would only be a couple of degrees warmer than my own body temperature but might feel much hotter than that.  She wrapped the left side of my head in A LOT of paper towels.  Then suddenly without any additional warning a massive blast of really hot water banged against my tender ear drum!  WTF?  (Seriously, I generally don’t swear so imagine something nasty like moldy f-ruitcake at this juncture!)  Then within seconds and before I could catch my breath CAME A SECOND BLAST of equally hot water!  Within 10 seconds I was massively dizzy, yes, the highest number on her 4-point scale, thank you very much!  How is this even possible?  What the heck could they possibly be testing through such a tortuous, water-boarding procedure?  I winced in more head and neck pain as the convulsive episodes immediately returned with a vengeance.  “Why Lord!?  Why all this suffering?” my heart cried.

I struggled as she kept telling me to keep my eyes open for two full minutes or we would have to repeat the sequence.  Oh dear not that!  All I wanted to do was close my eyes to retreat into the smallest cocoon in my mind and die.  (Someone please kill me now.)  Keeping my eyes open in a darkened room and blackened mask under these circumstances was more difficult that I can describe to you.  I was wearing my carbon mask PLUS the large black mask pictured in Part 2, much like Darth Vader in The Force Awakens!  Of course in the thick of the now-violent head banging it would be my only solace to close my eyes and hang on for a ride worse than a Mexican taxi driver racing along a dirt goat path along the side of a cliff.  (I know.  I have endured that too.)  I am not sure that I even breathed a peep for the remaining seconds.  “Please Lord.  Make it stop!” I pleaded in earnest.

“M” graciously gave me all the time that I needed to start to calm down enough to try again.  Perhaps, she said, she could allow me to skip the cold water-boarding torture test if I could only repeat everything on the right side too?  Well that almost seemed like some good news at last!  And there would only be one more test after this one.  “One more?  O.k.,” I thought to myself.  “I am not coming back to this holocaust-for-a-day ever again so I had better decide right now how much of this I can really take.”  And in the life of a believer in Jesus Christ the answer is faithfully:  all of it.  “Somehow, my Lord has seen me through so much hell in my life already,” I reasoned.  “Please Lord, help me finish so I can go home.”

The last 2 blasts of hot water were slightly less traumatic in my right ear since I now knew what to expect.  (Imagine that:  you are about to get burned in one of your most sensitive parts knowing that it will spike dizziness worse than any world-famous roller coaster ride.  You know that it is coming as the train click, click, clicks up the steep hill of the Gatekeeper at Cedar Point or some such nonsense.  Good times indeed.)  In that back room of The Balance Center I braced for impact.  Smash!  When the two minutes thereafter were done I wept from deep within my soul once again.  There no longer was anywhere safe for me, without sickness or pain, anywhere on the earth.  I am not being mellow dramatic.  I was a machetied puppy in my spirit and broken in my weary frame.  Everything hurt grievously.

In due time I was able to sit up, transfer to a chair, and finish the final light bar test.  I have no idea how I did this.  Suddenly the technician’s tempo increased and she revealed that she wanted to take me to the lobby so that she could clean the room!  I knew that I had taken longer than most patients in completing the battery of tests.  And that’s when her sweetness kind of stopped.  She re-appeared with a wheelchair as I was still deciding if I was alive or dead?  Could I move my limbs to get up or had I digressed into the neurological collapse that often follows severe convulsive episodes?  More shaking, more head-banging followed this time sitting up and it had not stopped yet when “M” returned.  (Those attacks are the worst kind, by the way.  No protection for my neck when flailing up in space.)  If my central nervous system was in collapse-mode then I would require maximum assistance to move.  Moments passed.  I breathed as best as I could.  I really needed to walk out of there under my own power . . .

And so I did.  I sat in the lobby for at least 30 minutes then another 20 minutes in my truck before even thinking about driving home.  I could barely eat a few bites of the makeshift lunch I had brought with me.  The words “shell-shocked” apply here.  By the grace of God I rallied again and was able to drive home.  Within a few minutes of arriving safely I came unglued, raced to our bedroom screaming and crying, overcome with grief, unable to speak to my beloved husband in complete sentences about all that I had endured that day.  My mind unraveled.  Somehow I completed the mold-avoidance procedures we follow when returning from any public place.  Hot tears streamed down my face, mixed with the cleansing water from the shower head washing away the horror, revealing the sinus and neck headaches, unmasking the fact that no where in my body was free of pain.  The bed received me at once with more thrashing/hell that was required to unwind all the damage that had been done.  Eventually I passed out for about four hours . . .

********************

Somewhere in this journey that the Lord has ordained for my life will be a glorious story of redemptive grace.  A miracle perhaps.  Healing?  Wisdom gleaned from the years the locusts have eaten, so to speak.  Blessings?  Those are promises that we all can count on when we walk with the Lord our God through His Son, Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28).  We will know that our trials will not be wasted.  Something good will come from them whether in this life or the next.  When I am more recovered from The Balance Center ordeal I will speak about this with more confidence that I can today.  What I want you to know is that I am not giving up.  My heart raced and I was unable to breathe during one of the most violent episodes that transpired during the test procedures but I did not die.  That being said, it is again crystal clear there must be more for me in the future.  I am still here so why not get ready to really live instead?  I can deal with that one for sure.

And so can you, Gentle Reader.  But if you are “dead” in your sins then that is a different matter.  Why not choose life in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ who will one day replace all of this suffering with fulfillment of His promises?  Please contact me if you want to discuss this further.  Please allow my suffering to bring you renewal, bring you cleansing once and for all.  We simply do not have any more time to waste!

Godspeed.  JJ

The view from here

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Strangely dim or so it seems at times with

My cries, my prayers, the scripture that rolls off my tongue to no where

All serving as a cathartic drug I suppose I suppose.

My mind is stunned in an electric shock of sorts:

Body thrashing, limbs violently shaking, breathing withheld for a very long time

Until the darkness that seizes me lifts its grip on my life with the deepest sigh.

Living in hell will bring weeping and gnashing of teeth it is written

Surely worse than mine yet I still don’t like the taste that visits me,

Not knowing from whence it comes, from whence it goes rendering me useless for hours on end.

The next big thing keeps me chasing that miraculous dream inside:

To find a cure, the right Doc, the right stuff to end it all already

Should it exist this side of heaven we both ponder my sweet friend.

“What will be the villain’s name?” I wonder then do not care

The left side of my brain is tired and just wants to go home, to settle here in my heated bed

To sleep perchance to dream, aye, there is the rub as Hamlet said.

Not much has changed:  the beaten-down headache remains the same;

The husband lacks sleep and cries softly as his love tears our heart strings painfully once more.

What will his own lean on the Lord reveal from the Divine gift of a brilliant  mind?

We ponder a move.  We ponder a Mayo run.  We try variations on old remedies.  We pray for fumes to carry on —

As day falls into night and our intimate distance is lengthened over and over again.

Psalm 41.3

Yes, this is hard, Gentle Reader, and not a path for you I would ever choose.

It came this way anyways ordained by my Lord exactly for now as you have faithfully watched it unfold . . .

The nightmare is not over yet:  the final scene unwritten with the cast still shy of their curtain call.

So we will hang tough for the fourth year, the fourth act, that melts into a joyous season as they say

Of Christmastime when all we should do is look up anyways from our worries, from our homested.

It’s all about that Baby right (the One in the manger with stench all around His head)?

Yes:  He has come to save me, to save you, to make right that which hangs low on a starry night, for those who believe dontcha know?

My Jesus Who saved me with perfect grace once and for all

Will bring me to a better place with a view I cannot see from here:  one that faith beautifies beyond hope, beyond dreams, beyond the best love that has carried me thus far.

And when that moment comes when heaven is the only expanse of scenery from here

Twill be no matter the bumps, the downhill runs, the heights with hind’s feet lighting on high.

I pray that I will get to see you there Gentle Reader:  it is with you I want to celebrate it all!

For someday our cares, our view will be transformed and it will be as beautiful as promised.

But just assure me this:  will you be there in my view?

With love, Just Julie

 

Be true to who you are

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This song will make the point of this post more clear.  Have fun as you listen to this upbeat tune from the Beach Boys!

<img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-4432″ src=”https://jesusisforthewounded.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/beach-boys.jpg” alt=”Beach Boys” width=”480″ height=”360″

“Just like you would to your girl or guy.  Be true to your school.  Rah rah, shish boom bah!”  And Gentle Readers I submit that this also applies to US TOO!

In a recent trip to the Emergency Room (yeah same story, different day) I was received by the male nurse who did my initial evaluation less than a month ago.  I remembered the gooley, inappropriate look on his face as he handed me a hospital gown and asked me to change clothes then waited for me to do so right in front of him.  He had the gown opened just below his eye level.  His eyes were staring at my chest.  The expression on his face was blank.  And I didn’t buy it one bit.

I really don’t know how I had the presence of mind in the middle of non-stop convulsive episodes and a struggle to breathe to ask him for some privacy.  He paused for a moment then looked up at me.  “Of course,” he said or something similar and handed me the gown.  He pulled the hospital curtain and continued typing on the portable computer just beyond what is also called the “privacy curtain.”  My beloved husband, Steve, assisted me in changing my clothing thank you very much!  My dignity in an extreme moment of vulnerability was spared.  Thank you Lord.

I know that this nurse is a medical professional.  He has probably seen thousands of naked bodies and women a lot better endowed than yours truly.  In a time of crisis, the medical professional assists a patient in changing clothes as a part of the procedures.  Yeah but they are not to do so while acting in an unprofessional manner.  He was not going to help me in that moment unless I was dead!  Period!  The rest of that visit went more cordially and more appropriately.  I changed clothing on my own after the assessments and treatments were completed about four hours later, thank you very much.

Flash forward to this past Tuesday night.  Mr. un-Wonderful was working the p.m. shift again in the ER and begins his nursing evaluation.  I cringe.  This time it was a petite, blonde nurse co-worker who asked me to donn a hospital gown.  The dude was within arm’s reach of the gurney upon which I am lying.  I felt his eyes upon me.  In that moment, shaking violently with convulsive episodes and struggling to breathe, I was glad that I had been trained as an occupational therapist and muttered as much.  As such I know more ways to dress and undress than the average person with virtually any disability that you can imagine.  I laid the gown over my clothing, covering my personhood, and struggled then succeeded to doff my own clothing and get into the approved garb.  Steve might have helped some; I don’t know as my eyes were closed.  The nurse  wasn’t happy but I was.  And in doing my own thingy, I remained true to myself.

The rest of the ER visit went as they usually do.  After about 750 cc of fluids, IV Rocephin, and a shot of Morphine (my first ever!) I was feeling better.  While the second bag of IV fluids diminished the severity of the episodes, the tremulous part of the episodes didn’t stop until after the Rocephin.  And that improvement lasted for about a day with barely a tic attack here and there.  Yeah God!

Now I am in the aftermath of trying to decide what to do.  The prescription Keflex (same cephalosporin drug class as Rocephin) has begun irritating my stomach.  While there were findings of a urinary tract infection in the ER, the urine culture was negative.  There are still fewer and less intense episodes overall:  the hell that plagues my life and keeps me clinging to the Cross of Christ for hours every day.  My Doc says to stop the Keflex.  I held the herbal Biocidin (anti-microbial) after the ER visit to avoid an interaction with the new prescription drug.  What shall I do now?  Hmmmmmmm.

I know what my gut is telling me to do:  be true to myself.  I will pray for the Lord to guide my very wise husband and me.  I will strive to be respectful to those trying to care for me with as much courtesy as I can muster in any given situation while protecting my own privacy and integrity when it is all that I have.  In due time we will figure all of this out and be much better for the journey the Lord has allowed for His purposes and our good.  Of this I am still sure.

And if anyone tries to tear down my alma matter, Mott High School and the mighty Marauders, well then I will be “true to my school” as well.  “Go team,” I will shout on high!   Lord willing, we are going to win!  JJ

 

 

Let the numbers tell this story

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While the numbers in my college statistics courses were fascinating and I applied them well in my Master’s thesis, I must admit that math was never really my forte.  I’ll blame it on Mr. Courtright!  Our Algebra II/Trigonometry course in high school was a constant source of frustration!  John and a couple of the other male students would pour over the text book with him at the front of the room trying to understand the lessons he was supposed to be teaching that day.  Yeah, you got that right:  high school seniors trying to figure out advanced mathematics on the fly!  I am so very glad that I never again had to sit through a traditional math class after that one!

Statistics are a different genre though.  Statistics often tell a story that we can use to make sense out of the stuff of life.  For example, landing one standard deviation from the mean (the average) in a bell-shaped curve can help us feel like things are going to be o.k. most of the time, in the right scenario of course!  Enter here special numerals applied to my recent trip with Steve to Georgia and South Carolina that will tell this story better than I can even without a calculator!  Oh how I wish some of these were more comforting than the majority of them though . . .

Over 7 days of camping in 2 locations, I was unable to leave the travel trailer 3 of the days due to illness.

My beloved Steve attended 2 of the 3 family wedding-related activities in Georgia and I attended zero.

We travelled over 2,000 miles in my truck with our 67-pound German shepherd, Elle, settled sweetly behind the jump seat of the King Cab.  Such a great traveler she has become!

I prepared about 96% of all of my own meals making this trip more of a “business as usual” affair than vacation in the realm of food.

One hour of the five that I spent in our friends’ home on Monday was spent in continuous convulsive episodes on their couch.  Thankfully the two young children had already gone off to bed when I crashed; graciously the three adults prayed over me for the Lord’s tender care as we all go forward from the significant stressors in our lives.

The kids and I planted 32 daffodil bulbs the morning we left South Carolina, overplanted with dozens of anise hyssop seeds.  Hooray!  By Springtime the view from the kitchen window of their log cabin will be alive with flowers interspersed amongst the numerous towering pines.

daffodils, mini daffodils, buttercup flowers, Spring flowers

A threatening wind storm with gusts up to 40 MPH forced us to leave a day early for safety towing our Camplite on the highways to get back home.  Just a few minutes after we arrived home at 4:00 a.m., the winds increased again closer to the estimate of 50 MPH by morning.  We had blown in just in time, praise the Lord!

Nearly 4 days have passed since we got home and I have yet to clear out, clean out the rest of the trailer as needed after a week of travel.  Steve completed the first 5 loads of laundry and about 3 more are left to go.  I have been sick in bed for most of the past 3 days, sleeping in late to recover from the nasties which characterize this wretched illness.

Over a dozen doses of a new anti-microbial treatment (Biocidin LSF) have brought both relief and a flare up of symptoms at times:  begun when travelling and continued back home when seeking a new direction, new relief, new hope for a future without illness.  Two violent convulsive episodes followed on Friday after an appointment with a new specialist and a new lab test, respectively.  Many more filled the 2 days that followed.  Perhaps this week (and 2 weeks shy of the 4-year anniversary of the first waking seizure attack) there will be an answer to end this suffering?  The odds are wearing thin lately for sure.

Yet through it all, I am reminded of the 3 days that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ died and paid the price for all the negative numbers, the heartaches from what is not right in our world.  He knows the mathematics of it all greater than I can ever imagine and holds it all tenderly in the palms of His hands, ready to redeem it for good when He comes again in glory.  I choose to believe the promise that His precious thoughts towards me and you too, Gentle Reader, outnumber the grains of sand on the earth (Psalm139), giving us hope for a better tomorrow.  For as He thinks fondly of the ones He loves, He also promises to wipe away our every tear someday (Rev 21:4) when the time is right:  when time is no longer numbered in eternity with our Heavenly Father, God.

And that my friend is a story worth writing about.  A world without limits.  A love beyond measure.  I just hope that when all is said and done, when it is time for rejoicing in the heavenly realms, that you will be there with me there too?  Let not these numbers be wasted!  Won’t you accept the love of Christ into your heart this day, this night too?  Oh how I hope so dear one.

With love, JJ

Known in the Gates: Part 1, Not Forgotten

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For those of us around when the iconic movie of the 1985, The Breakfast Club, came out, we probably asked ourselves which character we liked the best.  Was it the one called Sporto, the jock?  Carl, the criminal?  Brian, the brain?  Molly Ringwald’s character, the princess?  Or maybe it was the outcast gal in black?  (what was her name?)  Here’s a little refresher with the song that still gets my heart rate going, my feet tapping!  How about you?

This is one of those songs that once you hear it, you won’t be able to get it out of your head for about a day!  Sorry.  I really like this song!  I really liked the movie too.  The character that resonates with me these days is Allison Reynolds played by Ally Sheedy.  If you don’t want to watch all of the clip below, kindly forward to the scene in progress around the 5:00 to 6:15-minute mark.  It’s where she confesses her deepest sorrow:

Yes, I get this type of sorrow.  Try being sick with a serious illness for coming up on 4 years and see who remembers your name?  See who identifies with your struggles?  See who bothers to ask, who bothers to call?  The numbers have dwindled for me for sure.  I have kept in touch with my closest friends from Illinois and made new friends in the recovery-from-this-or-that communities online.  My beloved husband (whom I met then married here in Indiana), Steve, has hung in there through with me the worst of the torment, the lifestyle changes, the failed treatments, and the thousand-plus nights with disrupted sleep.  (Watch these videos if you want to know what I am talking about.)  Some folks I know have graciously followed this blog through it all.  Thank you!  I am always delighted when I hear from one or two of them now and then.  Nice.  Well sort of.  It’s just not the same . . .

There is a place where I am known very well and keep in close contact.  There is a place where I have not been abandoned, ignored, discounted.  The place where I matter most and my closest companion is always there, always here with me.  That place is in the arms of my Heavenly Father through my personal relationship with his Son, Jesus Christ.  He never forgets about me!  I savor His words He speaks of me (and you too, Gentle Reader) from Psalm 139:

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Oh how I wish I knew these words as a young woman when I first saw The Breakfast Club!  What matters now is that I get to lean on these words all of the time now in the quiet, dark places I have visited when alone with my Lord.  He has never forgotten about me.  I have always felt His presence even in my greatest hours of suffering.  He has spoken through the Holy Spirit often.  I have never felt “lonely.”  The Creator of the universe loves me!  I am so grateful.

But how well does he really know me?

To be continued in Part 2 . . .