Coming up this week is the anniversary of the fulfillment of a huge miracle in my life. I'd planned to share my story this week for a while now but after Pastor Wes Traweek's message, Awaken the King, yesterday at my church, I really feel like the timing is perfect.
Background information – sometime around
2011 I was “labeled” with fibromyalgia.
I never really thought the diagnosis was right but the doctors couldn’t
find anything else to explain my problems, so the label stuck. The traditional fibromyalgia medicines didn’t
really work for me, so my doctor and I came up with several meds to treat my
symptoms. I was functional but I didn’t
feel great. I was on 3 controlled
substance medicines and I hated that, but what could I do? I just lived with it…
Fast forward to 2019 – As I've shared before, my son was
getting married, I was struggling with stamina, pain, and migraines, and I
didn’t know how I was going to be able to do all I wanted and enjoy the wedding
festivities. So, being a woman of faith,
I prayed that God would do something, help me in some way to get through this. Be careful what you ask for - like I've said - God Moves in Mysterious Ways!!
In May of 2019, I got sick. I thought it was an inner ear/vertigo type
thing because I was dizzy and vomiting.
Then I thought it was a stomach bug because the vomiting got worse. I could barely function. Somehow, must have been the grace of God, I
didn’t miss Mother’s day, either bridal shower, or any other special events! But I was getting weaker and weaker. So, I finally broke down and went to the
doctor. He wasn’t sure what the problem
was but knew I needed immediate attention and sent me to the ER. After some lab work, we discovered my sodium
level had dropped to 106. For those of
you who aren’t in the medical profession, normal levels are between
135-145. My levels were so low I should
have been having seizures and possibly be dead!
So miracle #1, I was still alive and kicking!
I was admitted to the hospital and with IV fluids they got my sodium back up to normal and sent me home a couple days later. In hindsight, I can see I was not ready to go home yet. I could NOT make any decisions. 🙅 I was in tears trying to decide if I should shower at the hospital or wait until I got home. Definitely not normal!! And then it got worse! Evidently my sodium levels had been so low for so long my brain could not handle the rapid increase in the levels from the IV. So, by that evening my brain wasn’t working right at all! I was speaking gibberish, saying things like “W” and “I’m the only Kim” and making random signs with my hands and throwing a blanket over my head. 😲 My poor husband had to drag me kicking and screaming - quite literally - back to the hospital. There I found out that if you want to be seen quicker in the ER you just have to scream. But then they restrain you, so I wouldn’t recommend it! But all this craziness turned out to be a miracle in disguise because when a crazy lady comes into the ER they scan your brain to try to figure out what’s going on. The CT scan and MRI showed that I had a tumor on my pituitary gland, a non-cancerous macro-adenoma.
We watch a lot of the Big Bang Theory TV show, so I like to paraphrase this line and say "I'm not crazy, my husband had me tested!" 😂
I went home from the hospital in a much better state of mind. Not only was I no longer crazy, but I had
also been weaned off of all my medicines.
I had several follow-up appointments with specialists to see what needed
to be done for the tumor, but no one was really in any hurry to do anything at
this point, and I was fine with that! - But evidently God was not... The week of my son’s wedding my sodium levels
dropped again! I was back in the
hospital until the evening before the rehearsal! However, I did NOT miss the wedding and
appreciated being there all the more (as I shared in my post Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On).
After this second hospitalization
for low sodium, it was decided that the tumor was most likely causing these problems and needed to come out sooner rather than later. So, on August 21, I had brain surgery. I hate calling it that. It makes it sound like they cut open my skull
and went in with a melon baller! 😱 They
really just went up through my sinuses and cut the tumor out in pieces. But removing the tumor is just what needed to
be done!
It will be a year this Friday since my surgery and I can now say, beyond a doubt, I never had fibromyalgia! It was just a tumor! My sodium level is fine, I don’t hurt, I sleep better, I
have more energy, and I have not had a single migraine! I still have the aches and pains of getting older, as I shared in my Positively Purple post last week, but I can deal with that.
As it says in Psalm 30:2 "O Lord, my healing God, I cried out for a miracle and you healed me!" 🙌
Wonderful report, Kim.
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