It’s my tenth anniversary year. It’s hard to believe that 10 years have gone by – it feels like forever, and it feels like yesterday.
Ten years ago this year, my life changed in a way that I never imagined. I mean, we all have milestones in life. There are great things like graduations, weddings, celebrations, new jobs, new babies; and there are some not so great things like deaths, funerals, losing friends, and illness. All of these things can sidetrack us, positively or negatively.
2012 held a lot of these things for me and my family. From March to July, we lost 3 family members. Between funerals, there came a new baby. We were all weary when we stood in the same cemetery for the third time in 4 months, and when my uncle’s graveside service was over, I looked at everyone and said, “No one else in this family is allowed to get sick or die for the rest of this year”.
Those of y’all that know me know that I like to talk. Well, I don’t know why I had to open my big mouth, because one week to the day, it was me going to the hospital. I’ve had IBS (irritable bowel disease) since high school, so when I started having some stomach issues that weekend, I chalked it up to a flare. After all, there had been a lot of stress going on in the past few months. By Tuesday, the pain was so severe that I couldn’t stand up straight and my temperature was 104. I went to the living room and told my mom to call the ambulance or I was going to die.
I didn’t know how true that statement was.
Once I got to the hospital, they hooked up some IV fluids and then prepped me for a CT scan. The doctor on call seemed to think it might be my appendix or gall bladder. I went for the test, and when the doctor came in to give me the results, he said, “Well, it’s not your appendix or gall bladder, but it’s just as nasty. You have diverticulitis and it has abscessed”.
Basically, that meant that something I ate got stuck somewhere in one of the pockets in my colon, irritated it, and caused a major infection and the potential for a hole in my colon. They called in a surgeon and I got scared. I was 42 years old and I’d never been sick before, other than the routine colds, flu, etc. No broken bones, no stitches; I’d never even had the chicken pox!
When the surgeon came in, I could tell there was something different about him. I wouldn’t know until a little later that the difference in him was that he was a Christian.
He explained everything to me, my mom, and my neighbor who had gone to the hospital with us. He said that he believed he could heal it up with some IV antibiotics, so he was going to admit me for a couple of days and see what happened.
If you’ve ever been in the hospital, you know that you never get any sleep even though they tell you to rest. The beds are uncomfortable, it’s noisy, someone is always coming in to check your lines, your blood pressure and to ask how you’re resting. Well, I was resting pretty well until you woke me up! So the second night there, I was really uncomfortable. My side was hurting, my shoulder was hurting, and I felt like I couldn’t take in a deep breath. I chalked it up to being a big girl in a lumpy bed. When the surgeon came in at 7 to check on me, I told him about my side and the trouble breathing, and before I could say anything else, he asked me if my shoulder was hurting. I told him it was, and he listened to my abdomen and lungs, then sent me for a chest x-ray.
It was at that point that life as I knew it changed forever, although I didn’t know how drastic it would be. He came back to my room and explained that my colon had perforated (the abscess had come apart and now there was a hole allowing air and waste to get into my system) and I needed to be taken to surgery immediately. I didn’t have time to get scared – people started coming in and out of my room prepping me for surgery. They put a shower cap on my head, I signed my life away, hugged my mama, and they took me away.
When I woke up, I was missing 6 inches of my colon, had a 9 inch incision down my abdomen that they left open to heal, and a brand new colostomy (where they put a bag on your side for you to have bowel movements).
This is why I had a 10 day hospital stay that has turned into 10 years of living life in a different way.
I went from being a long term care/hospice social worker to being dependent on others for just about everything.
I went from working every day and earning a living in a career that I considered more of a ministry to being unable to work, having to fight for disability, and not having income for three and a half years until that disability application was approved.
I went from thinking I’d be able to have the colostomy reversed to having to live with it, and then being diagnosed with fibromyalgia and osteoathritis to go along with everything else.
Over the next few weeks, I want to share with you how God was there each and every day, every step of the way. How He sent friends, employees and volunteers of the hospital, and co-workers to encourage me and to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I will also share how He took people out of my life during this time, and how the past ten years has looked for me as opposed to the first 42.
But most importantly, I will share with you how it has all worked for His good and His glory. So I hope you hang in here with me as I share this journey that God has had me on, and how things are now.
Along the way, I’ll be sharing some posts on how to minister to people with illnesses more effectively and practically.
Hang on, friends, we’re about to get sidetracked!
I Got Sidetracked 