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’
50th 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
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