To be honest though sometimes I don't love how it speaks to me. Isn't that an ugly thing for a woman who loves Jesus to say!?! But it's true. Sometimes His word speaks and I am given beautiful promises and I am overwhelmed by joy. Sometimes He speaks and I am told to stay put and let his timing play out and TRUST HIM. A gentle rebuke, but a rebuke nonetheless.
Usually, I even enjoy the rebukes. I mean, the God of the UNIVERSE I talking right to me...who am I to complain about what He says. And the rebukes, well, they're like that sweet friend who will tell you that you have a booger on your face. It's embarrassing and hard to hear, but hey at least you can go clean your face, right?
Well, lately, the rebukes have been less easily received by my yucky sinful heart. I keep hearing that He has His timing, I need to stop looking at my own situations and see things from His side of heaven, that I may not understand now but I will declare in the end that "He ONLY does marvelous things" like the Psalmist does. Stuff like that.
And that's been hard to hear.
Because I sorta just want a time out, a break, a vacation from the pain. But things keep getting more and more gnarly! But He keeps speaking the same things to my heart. And I am left to choose whether to follow my Jesus or not.
Of course I want to follow my Jesus!!!
But it's truly a minute by minute battle. As I sat in the hospital this week, I swung back and forth between completely freaking out and complete trust. It was strange how there was no in between. I was totally losing it and crying my eyes out in fear and doubt or I was completely okay and smiling at the nurses and telling THEM that I was going to be just fine and it would all work out. I'm thankful that the majority of the freak out moments were during my alone time in my room. Hopefully I didn't leave anyone thinking that Jesus is less than fabulous.
But that's my struggle. I know the truth. I BELIEVE the truth. But in the middle of the pain, it is hard to feel the truth or even want to see it.
Like in today's One Year Bible reading, I was totally blown away.
1 Kings 17 says
Man! I just FELT for Elijah here! The Lord has told him to go sit by a river that is drying up and to receive food from a dirty bird (ravens are considered unclean in the law). How awful!!! But Elijah obeyed. And as he watched the river dry up a little more day after day, he did not get up and leave. He did not decide that he must have "heard wrong" and take off to find his own way. He made a choice to sit there in the middle of the desolation and wait until he heard God speak. And God, well, He didn't make it easy on him. He waited until the river was completely dried up to give him another move to make. Elijah must have been freaking out, like really Lord there's not much left here.
But still Elijah TRUSTED and WAITED until he was given further instructions.
Whoa. Ouchie. That is some stinging conviction right there.
Then later in the chapter
...there's this widow, on the brink of death, just going through her final motions. But she hears this promise and banks on it, puts her trust in it, leans her full weight on the tightrope that is strung hundreds of feet in the air and begins to walk across. And does that tightrope fail her? Does she fall to her death and despair? No way! Gods promises never fail!!! And as she stepped out in trust, her provision never ran out. And I felt the Lord speak to me so clearly, "Jo, trust in My words so that you don't run out of sustenance spiritually!"
See! This is the kind of stuff that I run into all of the time. Such sweet promises, but alongside of the promises are the need to
press in,
keep running,
keep trusting,
don't give up!
But I just want a place to rest my head for a little bit, is that so wrong?
Well, yes, if you're caught in quicksand then a tiny moment of rest will in fact seal your fate.
So here I am, hearing Jesus speak and I'm so desperate because I know that I can't keep going for even another moment. That's why I need all of you! Thank you for praying for me. I KNOW that it is the prayers of His saints and His grace that is holding me up right now so thank you for being a part of that.
I'll really be leaning on your prayers these next few months too because things this last week got a bit gnarly. If you opened this post to hear about the One year reading and you don't want to hear my post brain trauma rumblings about my crazy hospital stay, then totally skip this last half.
It's just going to be a medical update.
So on Monday night last week, I for reals came closer to death than I ever thought I would without actually dying.
A month ago, I had a second surgery on my skull to fix some of the issues I was having from spiky metal things cutting into me constantly. The surgery went really great and at week two I was feeling pretty awesome. A few days later I started to have a pain deep in my neck and I just plain felt worse. Christian checked my incision but since it looked fine and that wasn't even where the pain was coming from, we chalked it up to a set back. And set backs after surgery are totally normal.
But every day the pain got a little worse. Then last Monday I woke up in so much pain that I could not move my head to either side nor could I touch my chin to my chest. Again, we checked the incision but since it was fine, we decided I must have slept on it wrong. All day the pain worsened and around noon the incision site began to be a little red. Over the course of the next 8 hours, it reddened and became raised and grew and all of the fun stuff that clearly spells "infection" so we called my surgeon and he set us up with an appointment for Tuesday morning. Honestly, the infection looked small so he thought it could wait. But I felt super uncomfortable so we called Christians dad who has been a registered nurse for over thirty years and asked him what to do if the spot opened during the night to keep it clear from bacteria until my appointment late in the day.
We also sent him a picture.
He took one look at it and told Christian that I needed to go to the ER IMMEDIATELY. He said not to wait even an hour. He explained that because of how close it was to the hardware of my brain covering, it was incredibly important to be seen right away. If the non-organic material becomes infected then they would have to drill out all of the covering over my brain and start over again. So he said to get in right away before it could reach the hardware.
Well, we showed up and they sent me straight to a room at the ER and the doctor came in and examined it and very calmly explained that he would be back very soon and don't move.
That was when I knew something serious was wrong. When doctors go get more doctors in the ER, usually things are a bit wrong at the least.
He came back and said I did in fact have a serious infection. He explained that best case scenario, it is a superficial infection and limited to the surface skin. Worst case scenario, it is deeper and that would be much different so let's not talk about what we would do until we know more. (It's always scary when the doctors say let's deal with that when we get there...)
He sent me for an MRI and a CT scan and they came back showing that there were deep pockets of infection in multiple places, but thankfully it had not yet settled in my brain. Once it settles in your brain, it is very difficult to get out and the mortality rate is very high. They had already called in a neurosurgeon and operating team and the surgeon came in to explain that although the brain had not yet been compromised, it could happen at any moment, so they were going to do surgery right then at 2:30 in the morning.
I was kind of eerie. I've never seen the operating room before because they always put you to sleep in the pre-op room. But there was no time for that so I kissed Christian and they wheeled me into the room and I sat there waiting for someone to put me to sleep. I remember looking around at the table and the boxes of medical supplies and wondering if they would forget to put me to out. They didn't forget, praise the Lord.
I came out and hour and a half later, alive, no infection in my brain, and a huge hole in my skull. They ended up having to take out the compromised hardware so they drilled out everything that had been put in by my surgeon before and then extra because the bone cement was a little farther over than the original hole. So I have a hole over 4cm, closer to 5cm most likely, in the back of my head. They left my brain open and vulnerable because they had to allow my brain to drain the excess fluid around the meninges (the covering over the brain) and until the infection is completely cleared, they can't put another covering over it or they will sort of seal the infection in and that would have to be removed and start all over again. The majority of the infection settled into my neck instead of my brain (praise God) so it was less deadly there, but they had to scrape away a lot of neck tissue. They explained that it would be very painful for a very long time because of how much they had to scrape away.
So I showed up in ICU with a hole in my skull and a drain line out of the back of my head (they called it a brain drain) and I was told that I cannot put ANY amount of pressure on the back of my head. Because of where my skull is missing, my occipital lobe is extremely vulnerable. Any pressure at all can cause immediate blindness as well as swelling in my brain and other stuff that goes along with that. I didn't hear much past "you'll go blind" to be honest.
Infectious Disease came back and confirmed that I had a gnarly staph infection that had taken over. My ICU nurse commented that I owed my father in law an awfully great gift this Father's Day because he had most likely saved my life. I was sort of shocked by that. I asked her if she meant I would have died if we hadn't listened to him and she said yes probably. Whoa. That's kinda crazy.
I spent five days in the hospital and came home Saturday. I have a follow up appointment on the 27th to have my stitches removed and talk about a game plan. I'm on gnarly antibiotics. If all goes well, I will have to lay on my side for at least one to three months (no pressure on the back of my head, remember). Any time I get out of bed I have an awesome helmet to wear. I'm in the most pain I have EVER been in in my entire life. If all goes well, after one to three months I will have a fourth surgery to close up the hole in my skull because it is very dangerous to have this open. So I'm in for months more of pain and surgeries and recovery and difficulty.
But I am trying to choose to look at all of the blessings.
I have an awesome father in law!
The infection had not crossed into my brain
I am able to handle oral antibiotics that make most people barf so badly they have to be on a pic line and do IV antibiotics at home
I have the type of staph that is not resistant to antibiotics
I am home with my favorite people on the planet! My kiddos are just the best therapy. They love to sit and play Legos while we listen to a bible study in my room. Their company is just healing.
I have a lot of help from people here while Christian is crazy busy with work.
Christian called THAT morning to pay our first months payment with kaiser because it is new insurance and without that, I would not have had a medical record number and things could have gotten dicey.
There's so much more for sure! My brain just gets a little fuzzy and I am running out of steam over here. So yeah, there's my update. Pease pray that the infection goes away, that I don't go blind or have complications of having my brain so exposed, that Jesus provides for our bills, that the pain lessens, and whatever else is on your heart. Thank you everyone for walking through this with me. It's going to be a longer hike than I originally thought!
