My Story - September 2003

This is the story of the most difficult time of our lives. May the telling of it bring hope to others and help me to heal.

9/19/03 Friday 12 noon

We’re back in the hospital again but this time it’s for a colonoscopy. Actually, the procedure is finished and we are waiting for a barium xray because, just like three years ago, Dr. B. could not see everything due to the diverticular disease. He wants the xray to check for strictures or tumors. Since we are here to find out about inflammation and not tumors, it’s too bad he has to have the x-ray, but the doctor wants to be thorough.

When I asked Dr. B. if he saw any inflammation, he said no, but I am not sure exactly what he meant by that. I will have to ask him more specifically when I talk to him after the x-ray. If we end up without a diagnosis, I don’t think that would bother me.

A most amazing thing happened a little while ago. I went to the business office and was ministered to by the woman I talked with! Since we had to go to the hospital yesterday for pre-admittance, we decided to go to the business office to talk about our bills. Tenet, the company that owns the hospital, has already turned one bill over to a collection agency (even though we have been consistently paying on it), and I wanted to try to stop that from happening with the other two bills. We talked to a woman named Sharon and she said that unless we pay $30/month on each bill, they would end up going to collection. She was nice, but there was nothing she could do.

I prayed and prayed about it, asking God to show me what to do. Since we don’t know how many months he will be off of work, it seems to me like it would be irresponsible to pay that much on a bill. This morning, I decided to go back and talk to Sharon, and she was really happy to see me because she said that we had been on her mind since yesterday. She advised me to pay $10/month on each bill, even though they will still probably be turned over to collection. She said that we need to trust that God will take care of us, and when I told her that He is the only way we have gotten through this, she started to talk about Him more openly. It was wonderful! Here was this woman in the business office ministering to me! God is amazing!

The other wonderful thing that God did was to provide someone to be with me during the worst part of the waiting. It turned out that the place they do colonoscopies is next door to the lab, where Bill works! He and his secretary were wonderful to me!

I was able to come early to the dance class yesterday and help Jean sew. I learned how to make some dance costumes and think that we accomplished a lot, but the best time was in the evening after the class. We prayed together and it was a sweet time. Jean is a wonderful friend and our relationship is so relaxed and easy. I can be myself around her and not worry about anything.

It’s been a rough week and I’m glad it’s Friday. Hopefully the weekend will be better.

6:30 pm

We received good news! After all the testing was complete, Dr. Bell told us that his colon looks like it did 3 years ago and he definitely did not see evidence of inflammatory bowel disease! We consider that to be good news!