I'm Baaaaack! Said the little lamb....

I just got out of the hospital today after surgery on a synovial cyst on the sciatic nerve. I felt better immediately --missing that electric current down the leg --and the unrelieving fist of pain in the hip --especially after tortured hours of sleep at night --when the nerve was compressed by the cyst for long periods --and would get especially excruciating when I would awake and try to move. I'd use a walker to slide, weeping, yelling, moaning all the way to the "do-nut seat" --the toilet --which allowed decompression of the nerve enough after 15 minutes or more --so that I could walk back to bed fairly silently and start the compression of the nerve all over again--because no way that I lay down could avoid the compression on the nerve. Sitting upright was tolerable during the day but to decompress, sitting on the do'nut was the most relief --along with pain pills which put me in the camp with Rush Limbaugh --abusing the pills --I'd take one every 2 1/2 to 4 hours to survive (sometimes less during the day) --morphine alternating with codeine --which I had in an earlier RX. Understand, I did not use all the pills I had --and am aware of no addiction tendency. I got pain relief --and now I am still getting some post-surgery incision site pain relief --but that pain can't compare with the sciatic nerve pain of this past summer --and especially the last 6 weeks or so. I've been complaining of a hip pain for a longer amount of time --and it remains to be seen how much better at walking and standing I'm going to be without that cyst.

One draws closer to the Lord in times of pain --begging Him as I touched the hem of His garment with all confidence in His reality and His power to heal --I was disappointed when, at the height of my pain, He didn't relieve me as quickly as I would have preferred --though the pain did subside if I could get to the do-nut!

I knew of a man once, who lost His faith, because God did not heal Him of back pain at a healing service --one where the Pentecostal speaker suggested that sufficient faith WOULD result in healing. I was disappointed that my child-like faith did not effect healing of my father from colon cancer when he was 58 and I was in my early 30's --and He died.

Nevertheless, God sent to my hospital room this lovely Nurse's Assistant whose husband had just died at 40. She said, "I'd heard of you as I used to go to Dr. So and So and my parents went to your husband," and they said you were " a wonderful Christian woman --so I am glad to meet you." And then she told me her husband died of pancreatic cancer at 40 just recently --and she told of how strong her faith was through it all --and her confidence that God sees us through these sufferings --even when He doesn't heal us --that He is good all the time --that He has purposes and plans in what He does. That His mercy and Grace are sufficient through our sufferings (which the Bible also says, along side the promises of healing), that His funeral service was a time of praise to God with all her children performing or speaking --a testament to their father's Godly witness in their lives. She spoke of a church and ministers who upheld them at every step.

My minister, too, came to us before surgery --and read a comfortable passage that I will share later when I remember what it was.

I know that we all will die of something. I know that suffering is part of our mortal journey through life. I am confident that immortality where there is no more suffering, pain, or death is our destiny --because the risen Jesus said so. I have experienced the comfort of the Lord through His presence in the midst of pain--the feeling that He IS there --that I AM His child --I am a sheep who belongs to the Good Shepherd --a lamb of the Lamb. I have known the beauty and blessing of the Body of Christ who ministers to us in our times of need, pain and sorrow.

Now, I praise and thank God for American health care --for the kindness and patience of nearly every employee with whom I had contact. For my skillful surgeon, Dr. Spetka --and his neighbor at the Toledo Clinic, Dr. Travedi in pain management. It's wonderful how these people can be so patient and caring, day in and day out --and also so skilled.



"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible