Part II: 60 Days of Anguish
Robbed. Last September, God made a way for me to leave my career, I just had to make it through the 23-24 school year. I spent almost 10 months giddy with excitement over what this new season would mean for me and my family. A slower paced life, less stress and anxiety, more time to focus on family, more time to pursue passions. Fast forward to the summer when I was only 3 weeks away from starting this new, incredible season. One in which I had high hopes and big dreams.
But on July 23rd, my life froze in time with the grand entrance of the symptoms that sent me to the hospital. After my discharge, my symptoms continued to mutate. When one concerning ailment would seem to level out, a new, intense one would start its engine. And when I felt like those began to resolve, it would be back to the old ones again. I never knew what cocktail I would experience on any particular day. That’s when I started to believe the terrible reality: God had not allowed me to retire from my job so I could pursue greater things. In his mercy, he had allowed me to retire so I could come home to die.
Those sixty days were littered with doctor’s appointments and lab work, tears and phone calls to my mom who consistently offered me her strength when I had none. Brent worked from home on many days just because I was scared to be home by myself or to get behind the wheel of a car. I looked forward to going to bed each night because it would be a relief to turn off my brain, but at the same time, I was terrified of falling asleep for fear that I might not wake up. There were many nights I would be up in the middle of the night with a racing heart and nausea, and Brent would sit with me and just hold my hand.
Since this all started as heart attack symptoms, my first stop after the hospital was the cardiologist. During my initial visit, the doctor didn’t feel too concerned about my heart, but he still wanted to run me through a typical panel of cardiac tests: echocardiogram, stress test, and heart rate monitor. It was about the time the echocardiogram rolled around that my heart symptoms, except the chest discomfort, began to subside and I thought I might be getting back to normal.
Enter the neurological symptoms. Though concerns about my heart were lessening, my lightheadedness was not resolving, and my left cheek continued to tingle. I began experiencing headaches in a way I’d never felt before: pain and tension in the base of my skull, an ice pick stabbing in random places, and what felt like headaches in my face. I developed myoclonus, a form of seizure. For those of you not familiar with what that is, it’s an involuntary split-second muscle jerk that can occur anywhere on your body. For me, the spasm would occur about every 10 seconds in a new location that I could not predict. On Labor Day, the top of my left eyelid began to pulsate, and it continued, non-stop, for 10 days straight. This made reading and concentrating difficult. The doctor referred me for an MRI so we could rule out a multitude of neurological possibilities.
All that I have already mentioned doesn’t even include the insomnia, the weight loss, the tinnitus, the depression, the extreme muscle tension, the trial and error with medication and the toll that took. To dig into it all would take far too long.
Though only my family, my mom’s Bible study group, and my closest friends knew what was going on, I knew there was strength in their payers. It was hard pretending to be fine when I would see people out in public. It was hard missing all the things I was looking forward to in this new season. It was hard accepting this new reality when it looked absolutely nothing like I had imagined. Was this going to be my life from now on? And if so, did I really want to live it?
I cried out every single one of those 60 days for God to heal me. I knew he had the power, and I had the faith.
In early September, believing for a miracle, I went forward after one of our church services to have a member of the prayer team pray for my healing. I was confident that I was going to walk out of church completely free. And I believed it when I walked into the lobby. And I believed it when I sat in the car to drive home. And I believed, and believed, and believed…until a terrible headache formed only minutes away from my house.
What I failed to recognize is that healing comes in more than one way. And sometimes what we need healed is the very thing we think is perfectly healthy.