Hospitalized?

Wow, life has really slowed down for me in the past weeks, and especially days. I should have seen it coming, though. For the past nine months I've been experiencing frequent achiness in my back, burning and nausea in my stomach, a constant throbbing deep in my shoulder, and heartburn that is only reigned by downing the prilosec day after day. During the last fall school semester my symptoms were annoying and slowed me down in my studies, so I saw my doctor. After running some blood work to check for possible gallstones or ulcers and not seeing any signs of either in my blood, her best effort was to put me on prilosec and see if that at least helped with the heartburn. For a few months it seemed to take care of most the symptoms, actually.

During the spring semester all of my symptoms began to bleed through again, but only slightly...I was busy with a LOT, and didn't want to pay attention to the symptoms. New boyfriend, getting through my physics classes, co-leading a small group, preparing for my summer missions trip, teaching college algebra twice a week, who has time to pay attention to irritating abdominal pain with a schedule like that? But now that I've been laying in the same hospital bed for five nights in a row, I reflect and see how God has one by one eliminated the things that crammed up my schedule, and how He brought my life to be about one thing: getting healed of whatever is ailing me.

It was soon after school, teaching, small group and Bible study took a break for the summer that my symptoms were not simply bleeding through the prilosec, but were becoming so intense that every attack knocked me off of my feet. My family and my sweet Brent observed many of my attacks and they all became increasingly concerned for my health. Heather listened to all my symptoms and observed my pain and was convinced that I was suffering from what ailed her last summer: gallstones. My family and I agreed that I needed to start getting more active in figuring out what was wrong with me. I did get more active in figuring this out, but slowly. I've been seeing doctors for weeks now, and lately have been told that if I get pain that is unbearable, I need to go to the ER.

So last Monday I got that unbearable pain. Brent drove me to the hospital, and after waiting in the ER for three or four hours, I was admitted to a very comfortable single room on a floor with very kind, reassuring and attentive nurses. And it was in that little room and on that floor with those reassuring nurses that I lived my life for the following five days.

Friends and family have been SO super kind to me while I've been here. Especially my sister Heather and my sweet boyfriend Brent, both of whom pretty much completely rearranged their schedules just to be with me and care for me during my time in the hospital. Brent was by my side almost constantly, he's always faithful to draw a smile from me even when my body's at the lowest of it's lows. And I'm so thankful that Heather saw it as a necessity to find a way for her to spend her days at the hospital with me...I don't know what we would have done if her dear kind friends hadn't stepped in to watch Georgie those three days in a row. Having Heather with me to comfort me and help me talk to doctors meant the world to me.

Man oh man, there are so many people who I just want to thank so much, God really blessed me with a lot of love from family and friends during my time at St Josephs. Would you believe, Harrison and Vika Hays, recently married on June 28 in Minsk, Belarus, stopped in LA for a few days before they flew for Hawaii, and came and visited me while I was waiting for surgery! I felt so privileged to be able to see and hug the newlyweds so soon after their marriage. They are SO CUTE. Such darling little love-birds. They made me laugh a lot, and they brought me flowers. :)

Before I went to bed my second night there, Brent's family and my friend Ashley came to visit me. They brought me a special gift of Bath and Body Works sweet pea scented bath products and a sweet pea scented candle because they remembered that is one of my absolute favorite scents. :) It was so fun to just light-heartedly chat with them, and at the end of their time with me they gathered around me, joined hands and prayed with me. I was so grateful to have believers surrounding me, to know that we were all petitioning the same great, loving, all-knowing God.

Heather has been updating my situation on her blog quite consistently, that's why I'm not giving you a play-by-play of my time at the hospital. I guess that's why this post seems so random and disorganized to me. :) I'll just end with one final thing.

For those of you who heard John Piper's last message at Resolved this year, my final couple of days at the hospital really helped the truth of his thesis sink in even more than it did in that auditorium. Usually I look forward to any opportunity to undergo anesthesia or sedation...have to admit I love that medically drugged up feeling. :) My hours after my endoscopy, for which I was sedated, were heavenly. Ok, maybe not heavenly, but wonderful. I expected the same cloud nine state for after my gallbladder surgery, but instead woke up being wheeled out of the operating room with entirely different, more disturbing sensations. For one, my tummy felt like it had been ripped apart and thrown back together. People were surrounding me on all sides tugging at me, putting an oxygen mask on me, trying to talk to me, asking me why I was crying, and through it all the most sickening nausea was overcoming me. I eventually begged them to take the oxygen mask off, and they replaced it with one of those horrible nostril tube thingies. I then told them I was extremely nauseas, so they gave me medicine which they promptly discovered didn't work for me. :( For most of the next six hours I was frozen in the same position, trying to wait out the debilitating nausea until it was time for me to try new nausea medicine. Those six hours were torture...I was dry-heaving, moistening my continuously dry-mouth with icky-tasting cotton swabs, and trying to sleep off my nauseas, sore-tummy state. At one point God was gracious enough to remind me of John Piper's sermon. I still remember how I felt during those hours, and am reminded that the revulsion I felt and the revulsion I still feel at the thought of those hours after my surgery can remind me of the revulsion God feels over my sin. And that thought TOTALLY magnifies "the scream of the damned." In three hours on the cross Jesus Christ paid the infinite price for my infinitely revolting crimes against God...the thought staggers me.

If you think of it, please pray that God would continue to give the doctors wisdom in figuring out what's wrong with me. It is a little discouraging to have spent five days in the hospital with invasive procedures and come home without an answer as to what is ailing me. But I can rest assured that God is all-knowing, that He is in control and knows what is best for me.

Anyways, I'm home now. :) The one I've missed the most is Georgie, and I'm finally getting to hang out with her again. She's been really cute to initiate a few hugs and kisses.

Heather is taking REALLY good care of me. She went shopping for all the comfort food she could think of, including my favorite kind of ice cream: rocky road. She even caught me trying to lift up Georgie for a kiss and had to remind me that I shouldn't be lifting because of my surgery...so thankful she's here to remind me of stuff like that, it's scary when the pain in my stomach from my straining muscles doesn't remind me. LOL.