The pattern has repeated itself so many times that I do not know why, in my humanity, that I am still here. There must be a God.
When suffering exceeds the limits of the human frame, or so it seems, then there must be more holding that person together. There must be a God.
Satan will use every and any negative emotion, event, infirmity, mental game, situation, deficit or even excess, pain, memory, experience, high or low to attempt to separate us from our Creator. When he ultimately fails, we know there must be a God.
Our worth has little to do with what others think, do, or say once we come to know Who knew us from our first moment of life. As this transcendence to seeking others to seeking God becomes real, we will understand that God has a personal form.
What that personal God shows us in His mercy and grace, speaks to our hearts in a way we can know and feel, so that we respond in submission and an eternal embrace. The love and acceptance you will find therein comes from Jesus Christ. He becomes not only THE God but YOUR God.
We are stewards of what happens to us just like the stuff that is given to us to use in our lifetimes. And if your journey like mine has included chronic illness, we still have a stewardship responsibility to use what has been allowed in our lives for some greater good. Yes, even the bad stuff. Use it to point others to the hope you have in Christ. What has He done for you? For what are you grateful? How did you overcome the grave marker of despair? How did you come to understand that the Lord is not Santa Claus and that bad things happen to good people in a fallen, imperfect world? And how did you become o.k. with all of that?
So what then about the meme above? What if others judge you anyways no matter your “testimony,” mock you, and really don’t care about what message you have to convey? You have to live your life anyways in concert with the tri-une God who will never leave you or forsake you. What He thinks is what matters most! His Holy Spirit will guide you along the way, take your prayers to the Father and let Him help you to know that Jesus Christ is real and really God. Oh and especially reassuring is that He will make all things right one day, maybe soon.
I write these thoughts as I sense gradual breakthrough coming in my battle over a horrific illness these past 8 years. Improvements are lasting more than a day. Treatments are starting to work and I can do some things that I enjoy at least one day per week. Sleeping is more restful for at least one, 4-hour segment with at least one of these during the nighttime where it belongs. The convulsive episodes are more consistently less intense, shorter, and sparing of at least one day per week. I am somewhat less reactive to more types of noxious sensory stimuli. Progress is not perfection but I gotta shout out that this time for me there are clear improvements in my life as a whole.
I knew a young bride some years ago as her wedding got closer, who faced the frequent harassment of an overbearing mother-in-law. Her own mother taught her a simple technique of taking the verbal assault as if they were splashes of water. The young lady learned to let those splashes of water run off of her like water on a ducks back, exclaiming in her thoughts, “QUACK! QUACK!” The little internal laugh of such a silly technique has actually helped me shed the critical remarks of others many, many times. With the COVID-19 pandemic, I have had several folks claim my conservative views were due to my health problems. No one cares about my Master’s degree nor extensive work experience in the health care field. I get shot down as one of those with a “compromised immune system,” probably o.k. to let go, to get sick, to die. Seriously! Or I am not someone whose opinion counts about anything important because I am not important. And that is a LIE. QUACK! QUACK!
Just don’t give up Gentle Reader, k? No matter what gets thrown at you or thrown against the walls around you, keep going. Lean on the Lord as the person of Jesus Christ to provide supernatural strength and wisdom. Dig into His Word if only for one verse at a time. Cling to it like a lifeline! These are crazy times indeed. Regardless the God of the universe has overcome it all!
Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ may just change more than your own life. JJ
1 John 5:4
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
The weight of my world is heavy on my shoulders right now. To move forward (or to even make my way through the current burdens) seems too much to bear. I seek my Lord’s face, lie face down in front of His cross, and just hold on for dear life during the hellish parts. In fact, holding on, just trying to breathe was the most I could do yesterday afternoon.
The local oral surgery group that helped me in the past, finally decided to move up my appointment for a consultation. I need an infected tooth extracted ASAP. Once I found out that it could be contributing to the worst of my health issues, my focus sharpened on getting it outta there! But that is a tough goal to achieve when the world is shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Most dental and hospital services are shut down if deemed “non-essential.” The definition of “essential” seems to vary among various medical specialties, however. Three weeks went by after my need was identified; no one could help me anywhere in my state or the country unless I waited at least two months!
After an hour wait in the waiting room of the oral surgery practice, everyone equally spaced for social distancing and many persons donning some type of mask, I was led to a dark and cold dental suite. A metal tray table near me was covered with layers of sterile tools and surgical draping. The medical assistant had already screened me for COVID19 by taking my temperature, instructed me that a new panoramic xray would be needed because they couldn’t get my CD or thumb drive from my referring dentist to work right, uploaded the new pano, and begun to review the consent forms for a tooth extraction procedure. Say what? TODAY? This wasn’t just a consultation?
Five years ago another oral surgeon in this practice required that extraction of what would be discovered as 2 infected teeth, had to be done in a hospital setting. Dr. R didn’t want the liability and clinical risks of a seizure occurring in their outpatient office setting. We agreed and braced ourselves for a $10,000+ bill, out-of-pocket! Such is the nature of dental care when done in the outpatient department of a hospital these days. The procedure was successful and miraculously our medical insurance paid for everything! The drain on our household emergency fund was reimbursed. We were amazed! And many of my symptoms improved over the subsequent 6-8 months of healing. I also had fewer triggers of convulsive episodes as a result. That is, after one hell of an initial recovery process, with virtually NO PAIN MANAGEMENT due to medication side effects. That part was hell.
So flash forward to yesterday, when I knew that this new oral surgeon would probably need a reason to schedule the extraction sooner rather than later, if it couldn’t be done with a simple numbing procedure in their office. Some Nurse Practitioner thought it would be alright to do so even after reviewing my case on the phone a second time. Not! But I still knew that Dr. S would probably have to see a seizure to make this determination. I know. Every single type of healthcare provider that I have seen while battling serious illness over 8 years has not take me seriously until he or she sees a violent convulsive episode in-person. And even when the Practitioner does witness one, the clinical assessment of my condition varies widely. Would Dr. S believe me that jaw pain and an infection was in fact triggering seizures like they had in the past? I came into this appointment having had only 2 hours of sleep the night before, hampered by a 40+ minute episode in the middle of the night when unable to fall asleep. Just tap on my teeth buddy, I have a feeling that you will find what you are seeking.
Dr. S said that the new pano clearly showed evidence of infection. Then he examined and tapped on my teeth. The violent hell that ramped up thereafter prompted him to schedule an extraction in the hospital as soon as possible!
It all started with a little shaking then quickly ramped up into twisting/writhing movements of my torso, intermittent vocalization, head-banging, and desperate gasps for air. “Just breathe. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth,” was the broken record I heard from the voices around me like a thousand times before. I was able to blurt out not to touch me (for additional sensory stimuli makes the episodes worse) and that supplemental oxygen might help. They put an oxygen saturation monitor on one of my fingers and wrestled a larger cannula around my face. My eyes pulled shut and my photo-sensitivity kicked in from the uncovered window in front of the exam chair, burning through my eyelids. The Doc braced me from the right and had another staff person brace me from the left so that I wouldn’t fall off of the chair. My arms yanked inward to my chest in a flexion posture, typical of these episodes. My head rolled back then pulled forward again and again like dead weight on a pulley. Finally I was able to get enough respiration going to push out the words for someone to get my husband. “Have him bring the glutathione . . . . from a bag in our truck.”
Steve basically knows what to do to help me in these moments of crisis. But someone else putting a rescue remedy in my mouth for me usually won’t work well. If he misses and the liquid or pill or snack bar runs down my face then that light-touch sensation sends me into a more violent tailspin of seizing. I have to find a way to get my arms to work, to hold the medicine of sorts, and to get it into my mouth between waves of waking seizure attacks. It takes every bit of body scanning and mechanics, awareness of my surroundings despite the finding that my eyes won’t open, and numerous calculations to figure out how to get it done. It takes many failed attempts before success. Are my arms working again yet? Can I flex my trunk forward to put the TMJ dental appliance into my mouth since I can’t bring either hand to my face? We all gotta wait it out through my trial and error.
Initiation of movement worsens the episode at all points once it has started and even when finally nearing its resolution. If I employ whatever cognitive override I may have to grasp a bottle and squirt something in my mouth from my clenched fist slammed into my chest wall, there is often a price to pay even if I am successful. Initiation of active movement triggers another spike in the wretched involuntary posturing that follows. And it kills my neck! Then there’s the hemiparesis phenomenon: virtually always I either can’t move my arms, move my legs, or move some combination of either one. Trying to open my eyes too soon brings the sensation of glaring light that triggers a slam backwards again. The worst part is that I am awake the whole time this torture is occurring. Most people are unconscious during seizures. Not me. I am aware and feel and remember everything. And there is very little I can do to help myself. Guttural cries or grunts or fires of grief often explode from deep within me, sometimes yelling for the Lord’s mercy. There can be screams of terror. Tears drip from my eyes before most of these are over. The experience is a living hell. And they still happen virtually every day. For eight years!
The extra oxygen did nothing to help me. I wasn’t sure if it would help this time or not. There was a time in the early visits to the Emergency Room that pure oxygen calmed down the episode. Not today. The glutathione did reduce the velocity of the involuntary movements. The “waking seizure” transitioned to a pressured-type of shaking. Little breaks started where I could catch my breath and try to breathe in the O2 in from my nose as directed. But the episode wasn’t stopping yet. The area below my tooth was still stinging and I knew that the episode might not stop until the pain subsided. The tips of my toes and fingers burned. At home we had topical lidocaine, a numbing agent that my Craniomandibular Specialist in Florida had ordered in January. I asked for lidocaine and helped the nurse anesthetist figure out where tooth #19 was in my mouth. She didn’t know. The seizing slowed another notch. I struggled like an addict shooting up crack cocaine to switch out bite splints, hoping to take some pressure off of my jaw. Then suddenly, the hell was over. Eventually I was able to open my eyes. And all I could do was stare out there in front of me, or to nowhere, at nothing at all. Anyone think there is cranial nerve involvement in this serious illness? Mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve? Yeah, me too.
The nurse needed consent forms signed for the tooth extraction to be scheduled in the hospital. Another 30 minutes later, I could move my arms and hands enough to manipulate a pen to sign my name. Over an over again, I worked hard to manipulate the pen. I had a little shaky spike. Eventually the papers got signed, I could sit at the edge of the chair, head to the bathroom for some supervised voiding, cautiously walk to the front desk, and leave the building as a beaten puppy. I was fried! And hungry!
I couldn’t wait to eat the food I had brought along with me while my hero, Steve, drove us to our next destination. I was faminshed. I had not had enough time to eat breakfast before the appointment at the oral surgeon’s office. Now there were more phone calls to make to set up my home healthcare that will begin this coming week. I needed to make arrangements for curbside pick-up with for essential and non-essential business we had to do before heading home. Life goes on and so do other aspects of my healthcare, my life. Steve had to get back home and back to work. Gratefully there were free plants in the mix as well. Maybe another time I can describe the score of free, cool-season flowers I acquired in exchange for a patch of yellow prickly pear cactus from our backyard . . .
No, it’s not all hell in my world. Yesterday there was much of it to bear though. Tomorrow will be better. The death of Jesus Christ on a Friday and His resurrection on a Sunday reminds me of this. One day, all suffering in this life will end including mine, including yours. Your sins can be forgiven, heart made whole, and hope restored Gentle Reader. Don’t bear suffering alone! I don’t. And I won’t no matter how much there is to bear. My Lord is the only reason I survive and in my spirit overcome the darkness of our fallen world to brain-dump here at 4:48 on a Saturday morning.
Passion stems from the Latin work pati, meaning “to suffer.” The stem pass comes from the word passive meaning “capable of suffering.” Pass was coined in the early 16th century to denote “the suffering of Christ on the cross.” English also acquired the word through the Old French word passion meaning “strength of feeling.” This has been transferred in our modern times to denote sexual attraction and anger. (From this website.)
I was watching an interview of actor Jim Caviezel who portrayed Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s movie Passion of the Christ. Jim has a powerful testimony of the physical trauma he endured during the making of that film. The movie came out in 2004 when I was in the beginning stages of divorce after my former spouse left me. I was devastated. Also within that year my grandmother and youngest brother had died, I lost my home, I had to change churches to begin the healing process (distancing me from my support system), my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent a serious surgery out of State, I lost my job, and had to store my things in 5 places while I began the first of what would become 5 moves of residence. One of these was after a condo fire which displaced me into a temporary apartment with only the clothes on my back for a time. Talk about suffering! Still this was nothing compared to what my Lord had suffered on the cross for my salvation. But I tell you, I simply could not watch that movie during that time in my life. I was too traumatized. It would just be too painful on too many levels.
This week marks the 5-year anniversary of when I first started having wretched seizure attack episodes on a daily basis. I had gotten sick with a biotoxin illness for 6 months before then when an “alternative” treatment modality triggered the onset of seizures. (These continued today although gratefully the pattern is changing some again and this could become a good thing.) The suffering with these often violent convulsions has been tremendous. Never would I have imagined such a terrible, terrible illness. (See them here.) Even the tumultuous years around 2004 do not compare to what I have endured more recently. Even those who agonized with me during the various aspects of the stress 13 years ago do not compare to what my beloved husband Steve has endured with me during this illness. Suffering of this magnitude brings hell to earth for a part of every day.
There are other periods of time that I would characterize as suffering: the incidents of abuse in my childhood. Some were sexual, others physical beatings, and several involved satanic rituals. All were profoundly damaging and required years of help, love, and the healing grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ to overcome. The abuse kept my mind, body, and emotions trapped in various ways for decades affecting my ability to function as an adult woman. Somehow I did find my way out when I found Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; eventually the pain, the “suffering” largely went away. Self-destructive habits and negative thought processes faded. Forgiveness and healing took its place. I became more whole, interestingly surging even now to a new level of peace as the seizure attacks lessen. Suffering from abuse no longer troubles my spirit.
The Lord doesn’t waste anything in His plan for our lives. After 2006, I got to experience a magnificent restoration from the “years the locusts had eaten.” (Joel 2:25) For example, the insurance settlement from the condo fire (where I was renting an apartment) ended up paying for beautiful décor in a condo of my own where I could rebuild my life as a single woman. Flash forward to more recently and I wrote here of the blessings that have come despite enduring a serious illness including meeting all of you through this blog! And all that childhood sorrow gave me a compassion for others that has served me well caring for others for decades as an occupational therapist. Despite my suffering, I am grateful that my Heavenly Father and Husband has allowed me to see His hand, His plan that has masterfully created goodness from the suffering He ultimately allowed for His glory. I now believe it was all for my good too.
Collage art wall mural in the hallway of my condo with a self portrait too.
And what about the more contemporary definition the word “passion?” The connotation of emotional, physical, sexual energy? Let’s just say there is much in my life now to be passionate about in having a wonderful husband (my “intended beloved”) who loves the Lord and me too. Then there’s my love of growing things in the garden (from my mom) that has kept me moving forward on my worst of days in addition to my best of days. I love digging in the dirt! Perhaps most importantly is my passion to champion the calling of the Holy Spirit when He compels me to: serve someone, encourage someone, love someone, share the hope found in Jesus Christ with someone. When I hear the call of the Holy Spirit moving me in a particular direction, I move forward with a razor-sharp focus that consumes whatever energy and resources are available to me at that moment. Whether it is in the middle of the night making my husband’s lunch for work the next day or baking cookies (despite a terrific headache) for that service dude who is having a really, really bad day. Me and my Lord getter done!
This I have come to know: that if the Lord calls, He empowers us to respond. That is what passion is all about, good or bad. And guess what? He made the suffering, all of it, good for us on Easter morning. How about if we keep this in mind the next time he calls?
It makes everything better from one end to the other.
When I thought a drug might be my saving grace
I found that it was water that was my Lord’s gift of grace.
In 3 days and 2 nights 4,000 ml ran through my veins
In addition to many drugs in my tummy not my veins.
There was sparing of upsets from what I could not tolerate before
That number of drugs with Pepcid became my friend now like never b—–.
My Lord knew then showed my naturopathic Doc a few days later
That I would need to push fluids like never before for now and onto “later.”
So Smart Water and minerals in our Big Berkey will be my constant friend
When isolation of this Shingled hell keeps me from family and friends.
The Lord makes up the difference (as He always has) and grants me sleep
These last few days have been for rest and recovery and the deepest of sleep —
“To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…”
Hamlet does question if even death will bring dreams that will prevent peace when it comes.
But he is wrong for peace is granted here and now for those who believe no matter what may
For those who believe in the Lord who conquered death and knows the beginning from what may.
So once again, a thousand times I shall again proclaim
Alone in my Jesus I will drink the victory only He can proclaim!
************
If you are struggling this night, Gentle Reader, please hang in there. Let me know your needs and I promise to pray as I lay your alms before our mighty Lord of Lords. He cares for you, He cares for me. And Lord willing, we are going to get well sometime between now and the day of His return. Oh how I do hope you know Him this way? JJ
Hydration is key in health and down to the other
Jesus is for the Wounded 
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