9/4/03 Thursday 9 am
This is the day we see the specialist in LR, and I am asking God to have mercy on us in every way. Phil seems to be doing somewhat better and yet he was crying again yesterday. When I asked him why, he said, “Sometimes I think I won’t ever get better.” I kept thinking about that phrase “sometimes I think”. That is what is wrong with us - sometimes we think, instead of simply trusting God.
During my “Breaking Free” Bible Study this morning, God again gave me Isaiah 61:3 and I felt like He said that instead of ashes, mourning, and despair, He will give me a crown of beauty, the oil of joy, and a garment of praise.
I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel.
Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful. Jer. 31:3-4
5 pm
We had a very easy trip to LR and a friend met us in the waiting room. We got there an hour early and they took us back 45 minutes before our scheduled appointment! We were very surprised at what the doctor thinks that it actually is. Dr. K. thinks that Phil has atypical inflammatory bowel disease and that the Pyoderma and the Rheumatoid Arthritis symptoms are a “side-effect”. If this is true, I think that it is very good news. He said that you treat bowel disease with something other than a steroid. He said that prednisone can make you feel “crazy” and can definitely cause blurry vision, and that these side effects should decrease as the dosage is decreased. He is going to let Dr. D. make the decisions on the prednisone. He looked at Phil’s ankles and said that it definitely looks like Pyoderma. The only bad thing was that Dr. K. is absolutely insisting that Phil get a colonoscopy and the thought of another procedure is almost more than he can bear. While none of this is good to have, inflammatory bowel disease is far better than Arthritis, and I am very encouraged.
At first, things didn’t seem to be going very well, and since we were taken back before our friend even got there, I went out to talk to her while Phil was waiting for an Xray,. She sat in the waiting room the whole time praying for us. She is a true and precious friend. When I went back to Phil, I started seeing things differently and then when Dr. K. came in the second time, I asked a lot of questions and was actually encouraged. Prayer changes everything.
This morning during quiet time, I felt like God said, “I don’t want you to be afraid.” Of course, I felt a little fearful then, wondering what was going to happen. As Dr. K. was examining Phil, he was very interested in his spine because he hadn’t known about the birth defect in his vertebrae. At one point he wondered out loud if Phil had “Ankylosing Spondylitis”. Of course, I knew what that was because I had read all about it on the Internet! It is a very bad form of inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine. I had a brief struggle with fear and then made a decision that I was absolutely NOT going to live like that again. I refused to fear and then it was gone, and after the Xray, Dr. K. said that Phil’s spine was fine.
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