Testimony Two

When I was in the hospital, one of the first nurses I "met" after waking up introduced herself to me: "Hi, I'm Grace.- Amazing Grace." She told me that I had been very sick, was close to dying but God intervened and gave me a miracle and saved my life.  She then said she had two pieces of advice for me:  only eat the food God made and give testimony to the work God did on my behalf and give Him all the glory.

So that's what I'd like to do this morning... give God glory for sparing my life, for answering our prayers and giving us a miracle and secondly, I want to personally thank you all for how you loved and cared for my family while I was in the hospital.

During this Advent season, I've been reading and meditating on the Incarnation: God breaking into ordinary, everyday human lives... becoming flesh...a tangible expression of the Divine... a relate-able God.  As a church we're called to imitate Christ and become "incarnational" - a tangible expression of God to those around us - to one another and to the world / unbelievers.

Well, I want you to know that's what you've been to us- incarnational- during this crisis.  Each note, card, email, meal, act of service, gift card, encouragement or scripture shared.... these were all gifts from God to us - tangible expressions of his love and care for us. And I want you to know how much they all meant to us.  We are overwhelmed by God's love - as expressed through you.

Another thing I want to mention is how much I appreciated your sending me scripture or telling me what verses you were praying for me.  This is no small thing!

God tells us that His Word is breathed out by Him. it's active, living, breathing and Jesus said the words he spoke are spirit and life.

My sister told me that while I was sedated during those ten days she would sing and read scriptures to me and I would cry and Ron would read Psalms to me when I would get agitated and I would calm down. So even in our unconsciousness, our Spirits respond to God's word!

I believe that it helped breath life into me and ministered strength to me.

Lastly, I want to thank you for praying - for really praying for me - for empathetic, intercessory praying - for going before God and petitioning him for my life and healing.

And now, I'm here because God intervened, granted our requests and gave us a miracle!

So, Thank You. Thank  you for praying me back to life and for being a conduit of God's love and care for me.

We are so grateful!

Testimony One

I want to personally thank the church for praying - for really going before the Lord, petitioning for my life and healing, for taking care of my family while I was in the hospital and for your outpouring of love for us.

Back in September, I took a 2 week personal retreat to Michigan at my in laws for a chance to prepare my heart for the coming season. I knew I had a serious disease and was gearing up for a season of trial and suffering - I didn't know what it would look like, but I did research some of the treatment plans and  it included chemo and high doses of steroids.  I took along a book called: Be Still My Soul by Nancy Guthrie, that dealt with God's purposes and provision in suffering.  I had 2 weeks of enjoying solidtude, praying, meditating, reading scripture and gaining strength from the Lord.

When asking the Lord for a "word" for this season, here are three of the stand out portions of scripture I felt he gave me:

1.  2 Cor. 12:9-10 - My Grace is Sufficient for You.  I will be strong in your weakness.

2.  In the Psalms - the themes over and over again of God being my refuge, strength, high tower, rescuer and covering me under the shadow of his wings.

3.  Isaiah 43:1-3 - where God tells me to "fear not" the waters won't overtake me and neither will the fire consume me.

Now, standing on the other side of this crisis, I can say that God is faithful to his word!  His grace has been sufficient and he is strong in my weakness - he has been my refuge and I felt hidden under the shadow of his wings during the entire ordeal - I wasn't overtaken or consumed - I don't really feel the full effects of what happened to me and he rescued me from death!

When I read through the words of the hymn How Firm a Foundation - that's my theme song... God's word proved a firm foundation for my faith during this trial.  God used His Word to prepare my before hand, sustain me during the worst circumstances and now is using His Word to comfort my during recovery.

Someone asked me what God was saying to me "while I was sleeping."  I only remember one thing really...  At one point, I remember thanking, "Lord, I'm just sleeping and not praying, or fighting or crying out, I'm just resting, laying here. I think I should be doing something."  And I felt the Lord reminding me of a few things:

1. The church was praying for me and "doing battle" on my behalf.
2.  Jesus himself intercedes for me - that's what he does.
3. That I just needed to go on resting in what Jesus was doing for me --- isn't that the gospel?

And where our hope lies?  In Jesus who loves us and lives to intercede.

Journal: Progress

It's very strange to wake up after 9 days and to be told all the harrowing experiences you had and having been  hooked up to all the machines that were helping keep me alive while they were trying to get the Wegner's under control... I slept right through it.  And, when I woke up, I didn't really feel the effects of all that happened to me. I don't remember any of it. Although I was weak and couldn't stand or move much on my own, I felt good.

After 19 days in the hospital, I was released. We decided to bring me home instead of putting me in a Skilled Nursing Facility (nursing home) that would have been 30 minutes away.  Courtney let us move into her apt while I'm convalescing and we're remodeling our house.

My progress has been steady.  The first week I was home, I was so weak and had lost so much muscle mass (I read that for every day you lay in a hospital bed,  you lose 2-5 % muscle mass EACH DAY!) So no wonder I couldn't stand or walk or get out of a chair or hold a pen!  Ron had to help me with everything from getting dressed to going to the bathroom to getting from the bed to the wheelchair. My legs were like jello - I couldn't put any weight on them without collapsing.

By the second week, I was able to dress myself and get out of a chair with no assistance as well as get ready by myself and walk with the walker short distances.

By this, the third week, I can walk in the apt. with no walker, basically do everything independently and just need help opening things or lifting things.

So now we are just getting used to the routine of going to dialysis 3x a week: Tues. Thur. Sat for 4 hours each afternoon from 1-5 pm.  It's pretty boring to sit there that long, but it's amazing that this is keeping me alive by functioning as my kidney while mine are out of commission.

The nephrologist (kidney doctor) said he is hopeful that the dialysis is only temporary - but cannot commit to how long temporary might be - so I don't know if it's a matter of months or years.  I am currently at 2% kidney function and if I get to 5% I'd only have to do dialysis once a week and if I get to 10% I can get off it completely.

At my first appt. with the Rhuematologist, she was amazed at my progress and told us that usually her first follow up appt with Wegner patients who went through what I did would come on a stretcher. She couldn't believe that I came in a wheelchair - and was beginning already to walk.

This certainly is evidence - continuing evidence - that God is intervening, giving me strength and health  and enduring, enabling grace!

Journal

Well, I certainly have some catching up to do!  This has been an eventful 6 weeks and I wanted to journal about it - so the next few posts won't be current information but just recording what's been going on.

While I was in Florida, the last week of October, for a Sov Grace Leader's Conference, I became quite ill.  My stomach hurt, I was nauseous and I couldn't eat.  I thought I had an ulcer and the flu so didn't eat and rested as much as I could.  On the day we were to fly out, I almost didn't make it and when I got home, spent the next three days in bed. Knowing I had a doctor's appt. on Monday morning, I was just trying to make it until then.

By Monday, not only was I very sick, I was trembling all over and couldn't stop shaking.  When I got to the doctor's office, she took one look at me and sent me across the street to Emergency.  Once there, after many tests, they came back to tell me that I had Stage 5 kidney failure and needed a kidney biopsy and transferred me to ICU.  Because my blood levels weren't good, they couldn't do a biopsy until later so I waited all day Tuesday and most of the day Wednesday for them to stabilize.  By Wednesday late afternoon, I started spitting up blood and they were concerned that I was bleeding in my lungs so they said they could do a voluntary intubation or try a procedure first and if it didn't work, do an emergency intubation - we chose the voluntary one in order to skip the first procedure and eliminate the risk of waiting.

That's the last thing I remember... waiting to be intubated and praying because I was really afraid.  The next thing I remember, I woke up 9 days later to see my entire family around the bed - encouraging me and telling me that I was going to be ok.

Since I don't really know exactly what all what on during those 9 days - I have had to rely on information from the family to fill in the missing parts: that I was on a respirator and a machine that collected blood from my lungs, was receiving massive doses of chemo and prednisone, had a procedure called plasmapheresis, and daily dialysis....

After three days or so, Ron said that it looked as if I was dying (and the doctors said I was close, but don't give up yet.)  so he took each of our children in to visit me- just in case. I don't think they had seen me yet, since it was upsetting to see me all hooked up to so many machines. He didn't want me to die without them seeing me first.

The entire family spent many, many hours in the waiting room and in my room - Zach took off lots of time from work and spent the night to give Ron a chance to go home to get some rest.  Ron pretty much spent every night with me in my room.  The nurses were so kind to let all the kids come in at the same time, ignoring the 2 visitor limit.

They spoke to me, read scripture, and held my hand, and just sat with me. At times the doctors would pull back the sedation and ask me questions - was I in pain? (the answer was always no.) could I squeeze their finger (I could).  I don't remember anything, but the family says that I would open my eyes and would look and respond to them at times.

At some point, all the measures the doctors were taking to save my life - worked - and I started improving. My lungs stopped bleeding, they pulled back the sedation, I was awake and ready to start breathing on my own, so they took out the breathing tube.  This is really when I start remembering - the whole family was around and I could recognize each person - I tried to talk but was very weak- and a little confused.

(End of part one.  To be continued...)