My Testimony of Healing

Sunday Feb 1, 2015 will be 3 years since that still small voice of My God and my King whispered to me that he was going to heal me!  So much has happened since then but this is a testimony I wrote a year ago, or has it been two years already!?   

Anyway, thank you again Lord for bringing me through this time!  

To God be the glory, great things he has done! 

1994 started out cold and dreary and as my usual, I contracted Bronchitis.  It took 3 courses of Prednisone and multiple other drugs to get it all under control.  And many many weeks of just sitting around because the drugs made me too hyped up to sleep and yet too groggy to do much of anything else.  It was a weird time.  I played Donkey Kong all afternoon while the kids were at school.  Our oldest was quite good at it and would beat my afternoon’s work on the game during his 45 min of allowed play time. 

When I started feeling better in Mar that year, I immediately got to work on a party for my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary.  Our whole family was gathering together to celebrate.  I have a vivid memory of the first time I realized something was wrong with me.  I had bought a card, just one single card at the Hallmark store.  It was slipped into one of those small paper ‘card’ bags.  With just one card in the bag, it was quite light and very thin.  Not much to hold onto as I walked out of the store and before I passed the edge of the store I realized I could no longer hold onto the bag! I remember slipping it under my arm to hold onto it.  Boy, this is weird, I thought and then wondered if I had arthritis forming.  I think I even told people that I probably had the beginning of Arthritis in my hands.  However, as the weeks passed and I did all sorts of things for the party, such as stenciling my kitchen (yup, it REALLY needed to be done!) I realized that this was getting to be a problem.  The night before the big party, all my siblings and nieces and nephews gathered at my house for home made hoagies.  My mom had actually been a pro once upon a time and knows how to make delicious hoagies.  I was in so much pain that I was almost in tears, standing next to my mom at the counter working on the sandwiches.  I didn't want to tell her I was hurting and take away from her weekend.  

After the party, I continued with life but found that my pain was directly connected with what I did or didn’t do.  I finally went to the Dr when I realized that practicing my profession (hairdressing) was a big source of pain for me and would keep me from taking care of my family.  I had to stop doing hair.  The day I was supposed to give my 8 yr old a perm I knew I couldn’t do it.  My hands and arms were swollen from a perm I did the day before.  I just couldn’t do her hair.  That is what sent me to the Dr finally.  I didn’t want what was at that time just a hobby for friends and family to interfere with my taking care of my family but I also didn’t want to give up doing hair.  Little did I know, it would be 18 years before I could do a perm again!  BUT…for 18 years I never thought I’d ever do one again! And now that I could do it again, no one much gets perms!  Except my mom who is anyway, my most loyal customer. 

My family doctor diagnosed me as having carpal tunnel syndrome.   I was sent to PT.  After 6 wks of PT and no improvement, my therapist told me that she couldn’t do anything else for me till I had a new diagnosis.  She was pretty sure she knew what that would be but couldn’t tell me since PTs are not allowed to diagnose.  So, I went back to my family doc who sent me to an orthopedic doc, then a Rheumatologist.  I also went to another Dr at U of Penn and then a neurologist at Jefferson.  I also went to a blood doc? And finally the Neurologist sent me to a pain doc who worked along with a Pain Management Psychiatrist to manage my pain.

I was Dxed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy by the Rheumatologist.  When we learned this, I was devastated.  I knew someone with a severe case of RSD.  I didn't realize however at the time that my case was not anywhere near as severe as hers.   RSD has a large spectrum of symptoms and degrees of pain and disability.   I was at the low end while she was one of the worst patients her RSD specialist and leading doc of the disease said he’d ever seen.  She had a ream of paper fall on her arm and ended up coming close to losing her life over this ‘syndrome’.  I have lost touch with her but wonder often how she is doing these days.  

I remember hitting a really low, scared time during this whole odyssey of finding out what was wrong with me.  I mean, thinking that I had the same thing as our friend Carol and knowing from what she told me, I needed some quick intervention to get it in remission.  There is a 3-6 mo window of opportunity to arrest the development of the syndrome and possibly put it into remission.  Not getting to a Dr who could/ would treat me till my six mon window was past was scary.  

One day I was expressing fear to my husband Darryl.  He took me in his arms and said that if this is what the Lord had for us, we would deal with it.  What encouragement to me that was and I have over the years clung to that and known we could deal with it.  He has no memory of saying that to me!  J  Sometimes we say things to someone that doesn’t mean so much to them, but means the world to them!  Over the years, I was like many others when faced with a disease, disability, etc., tempted to say Why ME?  And the Lord taught us over the years to say Why NOT Me?  We live in a broken, fallen world full of sin, heart ache, loss, disease, syndromes.   Why not me became my mantra.  I did not deserve God’s mercy to not have anything wrong with me. 

During my 18 years I had the following symptoms:

Pain- intense, stabbing, burning, numbness, tingling, electrical (literally, a zapping feeling that would shoot across my body).  I’d feel like I had a broken bone.

Swelling

Sore muscles.  This pain was so similar to what I hear people have for Fibromyalgia. I was told by several doctors that I might have Fibro but then I’d say something that was happening to me that was definitely NOT fibro and I’d never hear that from that doctor again.  I believe that RSD can cause any kind of pain to hit us and since Fibro has much pain, its just another of the types of pain and RSD patient can have. 

Extremely Sensitive Skin- a fly landing on my skin would hurt tremendously, air blowing across my arms would hurt and make the pain worse the next day.

Insomnia and night sweats when I’d wake up soaking wet. I had nights when the electrical zapping feeling would shoot across my body and then I’d feel as if I was smothering and would not wake up.  I would try to relax by realizing that dying would be such relief cause I would be at Home with the Lord. 

Motion sickness.  This was so hard to deal with cause I couldn’t talk to two people in a conversation, turning my head side to side caused nauseousness. Shopping was just as bad.  You don’t realize that as you walk down a grocery aisle, you scan both sides of the aisle at once.  This would make me sick to my stomach.  I learned to walk down the aisle looking at one side then the other.  It took forever to shop and I still haven’t relearned how to shop by scanning both sides of the aisle as I walk between the shelves! Just one more item in a long and growing longer list of things to relearn, to make a natural process in my life.

I can expand later on the symptoms.

The thought of being around people was too much for me.  I would get a stomach ache and pretty much back off from most meetings, gatherings, etc.  It was too much for me to be among a crowd.  There were times I could do it but it took a huge amount of adrenalin flowing. 

Vibrations, light, sound, touch and any activity at all caused the pain to increase.  

My hair would grow really fast or would fall out.

My nails would grow really fast or get brittle and break.

A bee sting would put me in bed for 3 days.  One year I was attacked by angry ground bees.  I spent most of three weeks in bed and ended up in bad enough shape over all that I ended back in Aqua Therapy.  It was 6 months or more before I got most of the pain under control again.  And a couple years before the pain in my neck was relieved. 

I've been in PT, OT and Aqua Therapy.

I've taken Clonidine, a blood pressure drug that for some RSD patients relieves pain.  With Clonidine on board I could actually use my hands.  Before we got the dose correct, I couldn’t hold a metal fork in my hand without pain and remember one time thinking a hamburger bun was really rough and painful to my hands. 

  Cymbalta gave me the closest semblance to normal I had over the years. 

I took Ox ir, oxycontin, fentynal patches and morphine.  Anti depressants. Anti seizure drugs.  Sleeping pills.

I"ve had 6 nerve blocks in my neck and many more in my back.

I've used a cane, a wheelchair, a riding buggy in the stores.  

I've worn wrist braces, carried a pillow to rest my arms on, and used a tens unit which blocks the pain signals to the brain through electrodes on the skin.

I couldn’t hold my husband’s hand, cross my legs, wear any shoe with a heal that hit right at my ankle, high heels (except on rare occasions), do perms. 

Pain of one sort or another 24/7 unless I got myself distracted enough and drugged up enough not to feel.  After quite a few years, we got the pain stabilized.  Always there, just not flaring out of control as before. I walked a tight rope between doing too much which caused pain and doing too little which also caused pain.

WE lived a very limited lifestyle, choosing our activities carefully.

 I was some what of a success story for the doctors because I wasn't constantly needing more and more pain meds.  And yet we lived a very restricted life.  

I was in that pain for 18 years!  

Sad to say that although I trusted God's will for my life for the 1st 16 years, I did not draw close to him for strength and comfort.  I drew close to books.  I could withdraw into fiction that didn't take any thought.  I was not having devotions and became like a dried up creek bed.  I had no Joy

 I did not feel worshipful at church.

After 16 years of the pain, the Lord got my attention.  We often have to go through a crisis for us to run back to the Lord's side.  And, we had our share that year.  

God convicted me of allowing church to become optional.  I used the RSD and not feeling well as an excuse.  The Lord allowed me to remember back when I was first ill, I went to church, pain or no pain.  And back then, the pain was far worse.  

I started going to church regularly but still just wasn't "feeling" it.  I called out to the Lord and he met me where I was.  He taught me and guided me along the way through scripture, songs, sermons, people that became like a light rain on that parched creek bed.  My soul started to revive.  

I started attending a women's bible study.  Those women taught me to pray.  To expect answers.  To see answers.  Then, one day, I shared with them that I was in terrible pain in my hips.  The RSD meds didn't help with this pain and nothing could be found wrong with them.  I was going to a chiropractor who had fixed my back which took away another pain that I'd been having for years and years.  But nothing helped my hips.  These women laid hands on me and prayed over me for healing of my hip pain and one of them also prayed for my healing from the RSD.  I knew that wasn't going to happen. It just doesn't happen!   Even after I realized the pain in my hips never bothered me after that day, I still didn't hope for healing from the RSD.  

My revival continued however.  I love these verses in Hosea 6: 1-3

 “Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will restore us,
    that we may live in his presence.
3 Let us acknowledge the Lord;
    let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
    he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
    like the spring rains that water the earth.”

The spring rains are blessings.  Spring rains in Israel were not showers but deluges. This is saying that when we draw near to Him, he will come to us with a deluge of blessing! 

For a few months, I walked closer and closer to the Lord.  

 He led me through confession of sins that I'd never confessed before and took me through acts of obedience.  Things that I should have been doing all along but wasn't.  Fasting. Praying. Scripture Reading. Studying.  Praising Him.  And, he even drew a line in the sand and said, I want you to obey me by wearing a hat during corporate prayer and worship.  To me, it is an outward sign of my desire to follow him in obedience.  And, to tell you the truth, I can't justify not wearing one at this point.  

Feb 1, 2012. I was fasting and praying and doing my bible study.  Darryl was out of the country.  I heard that still small voice once again saying to me...I am going to heal you! What?  Lord, is that really you I thought! But, I knew without much doubt that it was true.
The next morning on the way to bible study, I told my friend who believed me.  I would need her support over the next few months as others were quite skeptical.  

We were sitting there that morning listening to the video when we turned to Luke 13 10-14

10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues,11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for EIGHTEEN YEARS. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.”13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God

I turned to my friend and said... I've had the RSD for 18 years!  We both got goosebumps realizing that this was my confirmation that our gracious, loving, merciful wonderful Father had healing in store for me!  

Soon after, I was in a worship service where I just knew I had to claim remission. I had to tell people that this was what the Lord was going to do so that He'd get the glory for my healing!  

There is a rare occurrence of Spontaneous remission from RSD. That is probably what my medical records have in them.  But I know, without  a doubt, that My God reached down, touched me and said, Woman, you are healed from your infirmity!  

I had to go through a nasty withdrawal from the drugs but oh, was it worth it to me!  I am truly healed from the RSD!

During my withdrawal, the Lord allowed me to remember what he had said to me si many years ago when I was first in pain.. He had said: healing is not what I have for you.  But this time, I remembered a word that I wouldn't let myself remember all those years because I didn't want to think it was possible.  What he had actually said to me was

Healing is not what I have for you NOW!  For 18 years I ignored that word NOW only to remember it after he had healed me!   He showed me that his plan was all along to heal me. In His TIME!  

Then, I struggled with feeling guilty that he healed me.  I mean, Why me?  What did I do to deserve it and what did I owe him for it?  I've been at times afraid to share my story with people because I was afraid that it would make them jealous or hurt that he healed me and not them or their loved one.  I've learned that just as when I was ill and I had to change my Why ME? to Why Not Me?  I have to change my Why heal me? to Why Not Me? If God can be glorified through my situation, then yes! Why NOT Me!!!!!??? 

And as to owing God anything, I don't.  Except to allow him to get the Glory for the great thing he has done in my life.  Allow people to see that God does care and sometimes we have to wait a LONG time for him to work in our life.  

Karen Haag