Tag: suffering

A matter of perspective

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Monday’s perspective:

The level of sunlight raises up then down in the hallway beyond my bed
Like a child playing with a dimmer switch, how I know where these thoughts have led!
How can I get up and face the world one more, yes one more day?
When so much suffering met me here or there, no matter where the level of light has shone along the way?
Still one cannot judge the next moment based upon the past…
You just cannot predict when joy, when peace, when hope will come at last?
Simmer down inner child and let the sovereignty of your Lord speak.
You must remember how He delivered you in the past when you were so weak.


Your fears, your toils were measured by My drops of blood while I hung on that cross
I saw, I see, I weep, and I am always right there when you feel lost.
Hitch your heart to Mine choosing faith that freedom will come in due time
Watch for My answers, My leadings, My deliverance some now, some beyond a simple rhyme.


There is hope. There is more. There is a heaven, I promise as I know you have seen.
Walk towards My light dear one: what’s coming is greater than what has been . . .

Friday’s perspective:

In time the beatings diminish

And you catch your breath to finish

The week that held too much, oh dear

Gave way to Friday and better news to hear.

Things moved forward:  medical tests and even some healing

Living more in the facts by golly with less in the “fearful feelings.”

I might even go out soon:  making plans for the days ahead Lord willing

Better get the pup.  It’s time for a ride to pick up the bacon, the drugs, the groceries:  excuses good enough to put off another day the cleaning!

May the Lord bless your weekend, Gentle Reader.  JJ

I learned it from Charlotte

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She was wearing an oxygen cannula 24/7 and needed to take a break to rest after walking from one end of her house to the other.  Having battled breast cancer years ago, she had come into the late stages of another bout of cancer that would take her life a year later.  She was no longer able to leave her home except for medical appointments and did so with a supremely taxing effort.  Too weak to perform all but the most basic of daily living chores, she still had an amazing ministry that reached across the country . . .

Grief Share, friendship, mentoring, older women, younger woman, grief, loss, grieving, fellowship, Charlotte
From left: Julie, Miriam, Charlotte, Mary, and LuAnn from a Grief Share Ministry in 2007

Charlotte prayed for persons that she had found in an online “care” ministry.  These patients had opened up a personal webpage usually when in the hospital to facilitate communicating updates on their medical status to loved ones.  Charlotte searched the database for individuals that spoke to her heart then enlisted prayer warriors she knew via email and social media to pray for them too.  I was in awe of her outreach!  Exhausted from chemotherapy, radiation, or just taking a breath was no deterrent for a woman with a heart bigger than anyone’s I had known.  “I have the time,” is all she would say about it.  And time was her greatest gift as she spent it in the service of others, lifting them before our heavenly Father’s throne of grace.

So when I have been bedridden over the past few years, I have taken on my own version of Charlotte’s prayer ministry.  I pray for everyone I can think of until I can get out of bed again.  I was often amazed that once I got started, the Lord would bring so many names and faces to mind:  persons I had met online, an individual named through a prayer chain, or maybe someone I saw in public when able to leave our own home to go to medical appointments.  “I had the time,” so humbly to pray would be the best use of it.  It has been amazing to me when these instances occur . . .

Today a bunch of folks came to mind during 2 hours of continuous seizure attacks after injections of antibiotics at my doctor’s office did not go so well.  I lain on a hard treatment table in the dark to shield my eyes from the bright lights, hoping that the hell would not go on as long as it had during treatments earlier in the week.  My neck throbbed from the violent shaking, thrashing, odd posturing, wailing, repetitive pulling forward of my flexed torso, and general torture of it all.  (Unfortunately the facet block injection in my neck 3 weeks ago had already worn off!)  Sure, the nurses checked on me every so often; they had seen these episodes many, many times before and knew the score.  There was an agreement however, that if the convulsions persisted they would call an ambulance to take me to the emergency room of the hospital adjacent to their office building.  I doubted if that would do any good.  Would she be making the call the next time she came in the room?  The next time after that?  The total duration had already exceeded 90 minutes which was well beyond our agreed upon period.  “Is there anything I can do for you?” she would ask in plain English.  Sigh.  Not really.

Then she came back again and I squeaked out to yes, please ask the doctor if he could do a chiropractic adjustment on my neck.  It might help stop the wretchedness as it had in another appointment in the past.  Finally another nurse came back with the good news:  the Doctor would see me!  I began to cry . . .  then praise the Lord . . . then pray some more.  Soon my time thrashing about whilst laying flat on my back and mighty sore gluteus media from 6 injections this past week would be over.  I had so much to do later this evening before a surgical procedure tomorrow.  I had better get my time with the Lord in now not knowing how the rest of the day would fare.

Things got better after more gut-wrenching yelps, yells, screams, bursts of hot tears, yada, yada with the chiropractic adjustments and I was finally able to leave the building under my own power about 20 minutes later.  Whoa!  Shell-shocked I had made my way to the bathroom, put on my coat, and gathered my things to leave as if moving slow-motion in a black and white flick from the 1950’s.  But the evening was just getting started so miraculously the pace revved up a bit from there.

Within the hour I would be tossing all precaution to the wind and digging in the garden with our pup chewing a bone nearby!  Whaaat?  Hey, I figured that I’d get the borders of 2 flower beds tidied up knowing that I would likely be on a lifting restriction after placement of a power port in my chest wall early the next morning.  SO I DUG, DUG, DUG LIKE THERE WAS A TREASURE OF GOLD HIDDEN IN THERE SOMEWHERE!!!  Even the darkness and the drizzling rain did not stop me from doing what I love, doing the most that I could possibly do in some sort of a cathartic shedding of my personal hell on the way to and earthly Garden of Eden.  Well, sort of!

Maybe Charlotte would smile at how things turned out for me this evening.  It’s been about 7 years since her passing.  She had an impact on my life for sure.  If she were still around I would give her a call and listen some more to her wisdom that helped transform my life at another tumultuous time.  Well I guess that is happening again dear friend.

Thank you Jesus for Charlotte’s legacy.  Perhaps someday together we will tend to the sumptuous riches in the gardens of our Savior’s wondrous dwellings that You have prepared for us to bask in Your glory one day and forever.

There is so much to look forward to Gentle Reader.  I hope to see you there too.  :JJ

So much to consider

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Phil 1:12, Philippians, trials, suffering, endurance, Christian, crisis, long term, illness, chronic, humor, gallows12 But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel.”  Phil 1:12

Just as this picture and this scripture present two extremes of perspective for the activities of life, they are united in one theme:  we shall rejoice with Christ as our guide!  Yeah, I know that is a stretch . . . but we do know that the God of the universe has a sense of humor too, right?  I mean he created aardvarks, zebras, and tse tse flies!  What’s up with that?  Oh I know that the Original Adam named them all but just how did he do that?  They were all such weird creatures!  So it follows then that humor can help us endure many kinds of extremes, even the ones you and I are facing today.

Take for another example the thieves that attempted to steal gasoline from an RV.  This is a true story:  instead of tapping off the gas line they ended up tapping off the septic line instead!  When the fluid started flowing it was not fuel it was the polar opposite:  stool!  So sad.  Such a righteous punishment I must admit!  And as a grateful owner of a travel trailer all I can say is:  Tee hee with a smirk.  ;}

I cannot say that I can relate to the paradoxical themes of life with much right now with much lightness of spirit right now, however.  I’ll just keep it simple:  there’s some good and there’s some that is not.

On a good note I am grateful to report a widening of social contacts of late.  I’ve reached out to some old friends and some newer gals have jumped back into my world from my local church.  I appreciate the friends that I’ve met online (and you know who you angels of mercy are) and hope we can extend our fellowship.  All of this is good.  It’s amazing how all believers in Jesus Christ share a common unity even when the circumstances of our lives can be so different.  We all have our daily wants and needs; our Lord cares for the desires of our hearts tenderly and for these we can pray in earnest for one another.

On a less good note, new I.V. antibiotic treatments for chronic Lyme disease are going quite roughly.  Yup, revisiting Lyme since the persistent seizure attacks sure look like the episodes of others dealing with the neurological complications that can happen long after the acute infection has come and gone.  It was 4 years ago that I first started treatment for Lyme when things got sidetracked for treatment of mold and mercury toxicity, dental issues, Candida, parasites, and a possible oxalate burden exacerbating fibromyalgia pain.  Use of a Rife machine brought daily seizure attack episodes and treatment of Candida escalated them from 2 to 5 hours of convulsive episodes per day!  I was bedridden the better part of about 4 days each week this past Spring, Summer, and Fall.  So beginning in January I was started on high doses of IV Rocephin (antibiotic) and I remain sickly but out of bed more of the time.  This treatment coupled with the wintry temperatures below freezing have brought incredible pain.  However, the days that I am up until daybreak every night of the week has cut down; tinnitus, brain fog, and other executive functioning skills are sloooooowly shifting for the good.  Sometimes even the pattern of convulsive episodes shift as well (thank you liposomal melatonin!).  Just maybe these past 4 years have not been wasted after all!  It appears that each new treatment has prepared me for such a time as this:  we just might be able to treat this remaining beastly diagnosis and its co-infections to get well . . .

There is so much to consider.  Will I continue on antibiotics long term?  Will my health insurances help us out or cut us off next week?  Will I be able to get a port to spare my aching skin and forearms from repeated pokes and dressings that trigger more wretched episodes?  When would I transition back to more herbal-with-pharm-grade supplemental interventions?  Will the reactivity to mold and fragrances ever come down or do I have to go live in a pristine environment somewhere for a few months later on to fully detox?  How much more stress can my beloved husband, Steve, be expected to bear?  And how will we pay for all of this?

As the frigid Winter temperatures of the Midwest bring more of a sense of retreat than charging forth into the unknown, we are choosing to press on anyways with my treatment for chronic Lyme disease.  I just wear long underwear everyday to keep warm!  We are starting where we are with a local, Lyme-Literate Medical Doctor who has treated dozens and dozens of cases successfully.  I know that to be true.  I have met many of them when we had a local Lyme disease support group.  I noticed that each of us facing this dreadful disease had chosen a somewhat unique path to his or her recovery based upon the damage the infection caused to our bodies and our individual resources.  (See this link for more info on chronic Lyme.)  Perhaps my case was one of the more severe.  Perhaps the Lord had more than “recovery” in mind when He allowed this serious illness into my life.  There is so much to consider that simply was not on my radar over 4 years ago.

If you have found this blog by way of your own journey through chronic Lyme disease or some other serious illness, know that I am praying for you.  There is hope!  You are not alone, Gentle Reader.  Please comment below and allow me, if you like, to connect you with a larger community of those finding meaning beyond his or her diagnosis.  Our Lord, Jesus Christ, grieves for your suffering, your fear, your broken heartedness.  He sees you and will see you through what you are facing as He has done so for me and Steve.  He loves you more than anyone (including the furry pup above who has found his prize squirrel in the sunshine of a better day).

May we both smile some day in the arms of our Heavenly Father for having connected this day, for His glory.  And, um, when we get our prized prey I’ll just say, “please pass the catsup.”  Squirrel on the Bar-B-Que anyone?  Ewwwwww!  :JJ

Weary from the road

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Christmas chocolate.small

“They say no pain no gain

I say roses are worth the rain!”

Or so the song went that I wrote back then

When “recovery” seemed like something I could attain.

Decades later I realized the wisdom of Robert Hasting’s Station

A place where you reach your goal, Nirvana, the prize, all you’ve been awaitin.’

Too bad life is often not like that:  the good, the bad, the ugly all take their turn

You never really know what you are going to get when your head lifts from the pillow at dawn.

And so goes my new treatment when things have gotten worse before getting better,

How is this even possible when it appeared the Lord orchestrated these steps to the letter.

Now faith means holding on to that which is unseen for the promise of my Lord’s Day

When the suffering will end, be redeemed for glory whether it comes soon or some other way.

I borrowed my beloved’s belief tonight when mine was just too shaken to go on any more–

With love in his eyes, his heart he prayed for healing and more once again like so many times before.

We know our Lord hears us and that we have His will, His heart within our own

I just pray I can hang on this weary road that seems to have gone on just too long.

[Please send chocolate . . . pure unsweetened cocoa butter works best right now.  JJ]

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My hope this night is the promise of my Lord and Savior that, “He will wipe every tear from (our) eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  Revelation 21:4  Somehow, someway, I am going to make it, Gentle Reader!

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 . . .

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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