And It Hurts Again

Written On August 12th

“Enemy, Familiar Friend, My Beginning And My End, Broken Truth, Whispering Lies, And It Hurts Again..”

-Red

Pain. We all experience it at some point in our life. We see it every day in other people’s lives and it scares us. No matter what kind of pain it is we will eventually experience it.  We avoid it, run away from it and try to hide from it but in this broken world it always ends up finding us at one point or another. Even though we all know that we will run into pain at some point we are almost always shocked when we end up experiencing it.

Right now I am sitting in the surgical observation unit at RUH (Royal University Hospital) in Saskatoon. I see, hear and feel pain all around me. After the emergency surgery I began to wonder if the sharp pain that came from the open incision would ever go away. The only thing that kept me going at that pain was the knowing that I would be getting some more morphine soon and that in a few days I would be back in the OR (Operating Room) in a few days where they would open me back up and then properly close the incision. I also longed for the anesthetic that I knew would keep me asleep for a few hours and away from the constant pain that would never leave me alone and kept me awake all night. Knowing that I would be pain free and away from this broken world, this broken body and the anxiety that comes along with it comforted me a little bit.

As the nurses push the pain and anxiety medication into the port in my central line which I had found implanted in my chest while I was under for my first emergency surgery I feel a little bit of relief but it doesn’t last long. I fall asleep for about a half hour but then the pain comes creeping back. When it hits me it is like I have been stabbed in the stomach and I jerk awake. My whole body shakes and the muscles in my stomach that had been sliced through tense up along with every other muscle in my body. This only makes the pain and anxiety worse. It seems as though there is no escape and at the moment there isn’t. I will myself to pass out from the pain so that I can hide inside of myself but I have no such luck.

As I lay in bed waiting for my next surgery I try to get myself to another place, a place that I love, a place where I am playing music and feeling the rush of enjoyment with every beat in the drums, every key on the piano and every pluck of the strings on my bass guitar as I play. It doesn’t work. My thoughts turn to Christina, her beautiful long brown hair and her wonderful smile. I find myself missing her and being willing to do anything to have her here beside me at this moment but that will never happen. She is gone. It is August 12, 2011 and tomorrow will it will be exactly one year since she passed away. The emotional pain only makes the physical pain worse. I want to cry, I want to scream and ask God how he could have taken her from me like that. Alone and afraid very shortly after the car accident but I can’t do that because it hurts too much. When the medication is finally strong enough to put me to sleep I am thankful at first but then the nightmares come. They torment me as the images run through my mind. For some reason I am in the car with Christina when she has her accident. I’m not hurt but I can see her laying there broken. I try to help her as I hear the wail of sirens in the distance. I do everything I can but she has lost too much blood. I hold her in my arms and feel her leave me. I wake up crying as this all too familiar pain washes over me.

I can’t get away from it.

How do I deal with this?

I really have no idea.

Lost, Confused, Turned Around And Scared But Still Hopeful .... I Think

Hey all, I have a few major things that are going on in my life that I could really use prayer for. At the end of this last school year I became really sick and ended up being stuck at RUH (Royal University Hospital) for a few weeks. As some of you may have heard I am taking the summer off and doing nothing but trying to get my condition under control. This means that I will not be working at all and my summer will pretty much consist of seeing several doctors, resting/sleeping a lot and hanging out with friends. This also means that I will not be attending Bethany this coming fall because I will not have enough money to pay for school and I feel that it is best for me to take a school year off to work and get my life together. I am currently living in Saskatoon and I plan to stay here throughout the school year as well so I will be coming out to Bethany to visit.

I have gotten a new specialist at RUH because my old one was ignoring me and not really doing his job at all. My new specialist, Jenifer Jones, is amazing and she has ordered some very extensive testing that will take place throughout the rest of the summer. Please pray for wisdom for her as she reviews my case and looks through my charts (my medical chart is bigger than a phone book) for ideas on how to properly treat my illness and give me a better quality of life. She has already looked at some previous testing and told me that it looks like they may not have the proper diagnosis for my condition. If this is true my treatment protocols could change drastically. I am very happy with my new specialist so I guess that is a prayer and praise item.

I am also seeing a pain specialist now (Dr. Fern) and he deals primarily with methadone treatment. Methadone can be used to treat people with chronic pain issues like myself and it can also be used to help get people off of highly addictive medications and street drugs. Dr. Fern is slowly lowering the dose of my narcotic pain killers while he slowly raises the dose of the methadone. The goal here is that I will be able to get off of all of the high grade narcotics that the doctors have beein using to control my pain and we will be able to be on only the methadone for pain control. Unless God decides to heal me this methadone program will be a life long program for me. All of this change in my medications is hard to deal with and it would be great if you guys could pray that I can get through this and deal with the stress and anxiety of it all in a healthy way. This methadone program is very intense and because I am new to it I don't fully understand a lot of it and that scares me. Dr. Fern is also a very good doctor and he is very compassionate about the pain that I have experienced on a daily basis for the past ten years and continue to experience every day. This methadone program and Dr. Fern are a very good thing and will most likely give me a better quality of life but the beginning stages are difficult and at times very painful and stressful. I need to go to the pharmacy every day to pick up my methadone dose and have them watch me take it and then I need to sign for it for the next three months. This is because methadone is a highly controlled substance. For the past week I have been having quite severe pain that comes and goes and this will continue until Dr. Fern is able to find the right methadone dose for me. I could really use your prayer and support in this area. The methadone program is a good thing and it is beginning to work a little bit so that is a good thing. This is what I would call a praise and prayer item as well.

My other major prayer request is that I will be able to find a room mate to rent the two bedroom basement suite that I am living in. I will need a room mate that can move in at the end of August/beginning of September. If I am unable to find a room mate I will need to look for a one bedroom place that costs less and that can be very difficult to do in Saskatoon. The basement suite I am renting is not anything special but it is nice and in a nice part of town. It is only a few minute drive from 8th street and about a 15 minute drive from U of S. The whole suite is already furnished except for the bedroom that would belong to my room mate. The suite is located on Wiggins Ave South and rent between two people would cost $350 each. I would really like to stay here and not have to move because moving can be very stressful for me and getting used to a new place to live is difficult for me as well just because of some of the medications I am on. I have no gender preference as to who my room mate is because right now I just need to find someone. It would be great if you guys could pray that I will find a room mate and if you hear of anyone looking for a place to rent in Saskatoon please tell them to contact me.

So that was quite the long praise/prayer request but I guess I just had a lot to say today.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your summer.

Cheers.

Remember To Live

Lately I have found myself sitting here in this hospital bed at RUH thinking about what it looks like to really live. I sit here and wonder what it would be like and if I will ever be able to really live. As I think about this I am struck with fear, sadness and resentment. I close my eyes and wish that I could wake up from this nightmare leaving all of the pain, suffering and confusion behind to fade away like a dream. As I continue to think about this the more I realize that so many of us, myself included go through life wanting everything to be perfect and there is nothing wrong with striving for things to be better but we so often get so caught up in wishing life was better that it ends up passing us by and we have nothing to show for it. Even though life can be insanely hard and frustrating at times I believe that I just have to hang onto God and go with it while trusting that he has the best planned out for me. I don’t want to be someone that sits waiting for that perfect moment to really live. I need to remind myself that pain and hardship can never take away the amazing gifts of love, passion, friendship and community that God has given us. Even though we live in an imperfect and broken world we can stand up and decide that this is our time to live and not allow the hardships that come with life stand in our way.

Remember to live.

Cheers.

And Now You’re Dead Inside Still You Wonder Why….

Life. It’s messy, it’s scary, it’s painful, it’s intense and at the same time it is an amazing and beautiful blessing. We gain and we lose, expect the amazing and crash into disappointment but still we go on and tell ourselves that it will all work out, we hope and pray that it will be okay. We often don’t realize the change as God begins to work in our lives, while he hears us praying for life to stop crashing down around us. It is always great to have someone close from the outside looking in to stop us and show us what has changed and what God has built up in our lives when we are feeling like everything is still falling and nothing is getting better.

Right now this person is my mom. She has been amazing, given me hope and gave me someone close by in this world to hold on to during those hard times.

I want to encourage all of you that read this to just be thankful for the person or people in your life that give you hope and someone to hold onto those hard times in life and let them know how amazing they are.

Cheers.

Hope For The Paralyzed

I know I haven’t posted anything since March. I hope that I can blog more regularly throughout the summer. I won’t be working this summer; instead I will be recovering, physically and emotionally. Second semester at school was difficult for me. I often found myself feeling confused and discouraged. There was so much work to be done and trying to cope with my illness, get my homework done and deal with feeling confused and discouraged left me feeling as though I could never catch my breath and like my world was falling down around me. I still often feel this way but I have hope that this summer will be a time when I can heal and begin to understand the place that I am in and rebuild all of those parts of my world, my life that I felt falling down around me. I know that I will need to make changes as I begin to heal. The thought of these changes sometimes leaves me feeling lost and insecure, uncertain of what comes next and wondering if I will be able to make it through this.

Right now the constant struggle to breathe (something I have always taken for granted) is definitely adding to my anxiety. My chest almost always feels like it is about to collapse. This is due to a flash pleural effusion. I was admitted to Rosthern SK Hospital with severe symptoms from my colitis which deteriorated into a colitis attack while I was in emergency as the nurses tried for the ninth time to get an IV line started on me. After they got a line started on me they were able to get the colitis under control fairly quickly. Due to the severe nature of the attack I was hospitalized for a week and given IV fluids and medications. At the end of that week is when the flash pleural edema occurred. I have had to deal with colitis and severe pain for the past ten years and while it can be discouraging, frustrating and scary at times, there is no feeling like having your lungs fill with fluid as you gasp for air and feel like you are drowning. Lucky for me the nurses responded before I needed resuscitation and got me to the ICU. They managed to drain enough of the fluid within two days that I was able to breathe without a full oxygen mask infused with medication to keep my lungs open.

Even though I realize that because of my illness I need help from others to do things that a healthy twenty two year old guy would be able to do on his own but right now I am finding myself frustrated and depressed by how little I am able to do and how much I need to rely on others just to get through one day. I am unable to play bass or drums right now and because of my love of music this is very difficult for me. Even as I type this I find myself frustrated by how difficult it is to type because of how shaky my hands are from my medication.

Through all of this I have really been able to see how blessed I am to have so many people that care about me and are willing to help out when I am unable to do much. I would really like to thank my mom for her willingness to come out to Saskatoon area to help out as I recover. I would also like to thank my dad for his sacrifice of being away from his wife that he clearly loves with all of his heart for the summer and my grandparents for letting us stay at their place until me and my mom can find somewhere else to live for the summer. I would really like to thank all of my friends for their prayers and encouragement through this hard time.

Right now I can’t help but wonder why God has allowed me to have even more health problems to worry about right now and I also find myself wondering why I can’t seem to find him on those long nights when I am awake all night because I am in pain, unable to breathe, feeling anxious and restless. Through my faith and my relationship with him I know that he is here with me through this hard time even when I can’t feel him close to me. I also know that he is not allowing me to suffer for no reason and that something good will come out of this situation even if I can’t see what good could come of this at the moment.

To all that read this please continue to pray and know that I am incredibly grateful for you guys and your love and support. Please also feel free to comment on my posts and share your thoughts on what I have written.   

"In The Hearts Of The Blind Something You'll Never Find Is A Vision Of Light" - Flyleaf     

Cheers.

Hallelujah For The Blood Of The Lamb That Was Slain

Lately I have been having a hard time. I often feel like I am not even in control of my own emotions. There are times when I feel desperate, alone, forgotten, angry at God and myself. There are times when I feel like I feel like a burden to the community that I live in and that for some reason God is nowhere to be found in my life. The good thing is that I know that these are my imperfect emotions speaking in a broken world. Yes I do have a body that is broken and I have found that all too often I allow Satan’s lies to enter my thoughts and then I make the huge mistake of believing them.  

Even though I feel desperate, alone, forgotten, angry at God and there are times when I feel like I feel like a burden to the community that I live in and that for some reason God is nowhere to be found in my life I know that these thoughts are not true.

Right now I am asking my readers to pray for me, pray that I can have the strength to not allow myself to believe these lies and live as the wonderfully made person that He made me to be. I also want to reach out and encourage those of you that may be feeling the same way and challenge you to join me in asking for prayer and fight the thoughts that Satan puts into our minds in order to tear us down.

I would like to share the lyrics of a song by Tenth Avenue North that have really been helping me through this hard time.

Hallelujah – Tenth Avenue North

At first I am afraid but not because of fear

But the Holy of Holies is drawing me near

Your voice like thunder shakes the ground I’m on

So hide my face in the shadow of Your wings, oh Lord

Hide my sin from the beauty here before Your throne

Your throne

Hallelujah for the blood of the Lamb that was slain

Hallelujah for the blood of the Lamb that was slain

And so we enter in to see Your face, yeah

We enter in to see Your face, oh God

Well I’m falling to my knees. I feel the earth beneath

With the weight of my sin, and this crushing unbelief

Could You really love me with all that I’ve done, oh Lord

You spread Your hands

And made a refuge for the weak and blessed

The weary, bruised, and broken

Took our sin. Inside Your wounds we hide away

Inside Your wounds we hide

Lyrics And Music By Tenth Avenue North

Cheers

Frustrations

Most of you that know me are aware that I struggle with a chronic medical condition that causes me to have to deal with pain all day every day. Right now my condition has been flaring up a lot and it has been very difficult for me to see how all of these hospital stays can do anything but make focusing on the rest of my life and my studies at Bethany College harder for me. When my condition does flare up I need to deal with more pain than I would on a normal day and it has been a challenge for me to stay positive through all of this.

Even though having to deal with increased flare-ups has been hard and discouraging I have been doing my best to be positive and remember that God isn’t allowing me to go through this for nothing. I am just trying to smile and be thankful for what I have in spite of this situation. My friends and family have been very supportive and the community at Bethany College holds me in their prayers. This is a huge encouragement for me. I know that I can’t that do all of this on my own and I would like to ask my readers for their continued prayer and support.

I would like to thank everyone for their support and help when I am weak.

These songs by Fireflight have been an encouragement to me in times when I wonder if it is all worth it and I would like to share them with you. They are a great band and I would like to encourage you to buy their CDs.

 Recovery Begins (By Fireflight)

I talk, I talk too much
I never open up
To what You need to say
My words get in the way

I search for stillness
But worry kills it
I need to clear my head
I'm tired, I need to rest

It all comes down to this
The quiet in the end
I listen for Your voice
Recovery begins

The times I hear You most
Are when You bring me close
I'll follow as You guide
While darkness turns to light

Whisper to me, whisper to me
Whisper to me, whisper to me

All I Need To Be (By Fireflight)

Hoping with each new day
I'm moving forward, I push the fear away
And I let go
'Cause I'm so through with barely hanging on
Leaving what's in the past behind
I come closer to crossing over the line
And I won't stop
Until I get what I've been fighting for
You've said it all before

Tell me again that I am strong
Tell me again that I won't fall
I need You here to fix me where I'm wrong
Take me beyond what I can see
Break me, make me believe
You have made me all I need to be

Knowing all that I can do is be open when You start to move
In my heart
And now my God, I finally hear Your voice
You've said it all before

Who I am is all I've got
And I can't be who I am not anymore

(I am strong, make me believe)
You have made me all I need to be
(I am strong, make me believe, make me believe)

Realizations

I have been thinking about a lot this past year and one of the things that has weighed heavily on my heart and mind is the trials that I have had to deal with every day for the past ten years because of the chronic and painful physical illness that I will have to continue to deal with for the rest of my life. I have realized that over the past year I have been focusing on the negative effects that this illness has on my life and allowing them to control what I do and how I feel.

I have realized that what I should be doing is focusing on the lessons that I have learned and how living with this illness has shaped me into the person that I am. It has also strengthened my relationship with God. It has taught me that I can’t always rely on myself and that I need to be open to accepting God’s guidance and the support of those that care for me. I have realized that instead of looking at what this illness has taken from me I need to focus on what I have gained through this experience.

Through being sick I have learned to rely on God as he has allowed me to experience his grace, mercy and teach me amazing life lessons as I have walked through this difficult experience. The good that comes from having to deal with this illness doesn’t just stop with me. God has given me a story about how he walks with people through hard times and brings great things out of a seemingly impossible situation if we would only be open to looking for them and focusing on them. God has given me several opportunities to share this story with others and work through me in order to help others.

As this New Year has begun I have decided that it is very important for me to work harder to only look at the positive things that have come out of the hardships that I have to deal with and not allow myself to get caught up in being angry or depressed when I am having a harder time working through being sick.

One of the people in my life that has played a major part in helping me come back from looking at the negative impact that my illness has in my life instead of the good is my friend Rachel. I am incredibly grateful for her encouragement, advice, care and understanding that she shows me every day. I also admire the patience that she has for me when I am going through a hard time because I know that I can be very stubborn sometimes. 

I greatly respect and admire her and want to thank her for being honest and being my friend. Thank you for seeing me for the person that I really am and not just the broken exterior shell that I and rest of the world just can't seem to see past sometimes. That means so much to me. You are a great friend and one of the only friends that I have that has told me that they don't even see the sickness that hurts me every day but instead sees me for who I am as a person instead. That means more to me then I could ever put into words. I have learned that because I have been unable or maybe partly unwilling to look at myself in a positive way when I am feeling down about not being able to do many of the physical activities that other people my age should be able to do. She has helped me get back on track and into a frame of mind where I focus on the great things that I can still do with my life despite having this illness as well as the things that I am better at because of the trials that I have had to deal with because of having a chronic illness.

One thing that she told me just the other day that really hit home for me and helped me come to these realizations is; “You let your body rule you. You are not broken, your body is just the way God made it, and God doesn’t make mistakes. You let this one part of your life rule you and it shouldn’t”. This got me really thinking about why God has allowed me to experience this illness and look at the amazing things that I have experienced and learned because of it.

I guess what I would like to say is that my friend is right. I Am Not broken, God doesn’t make mistakes and I need to really work to look at the good that he has done in my life, the good he will continue to do and the good that I am able to do for others because of the experiences that he has allowed me to go through.

I still have a ways to go before I am able to get to a completely positive frame of mind but I am determined to get there. I know it's cliché but I guess this is my new year resolution.

Cheers