(For the back story to this post see "Note to my readers" and "He knows Where You Are!" April 6&7, 2014)
My recovery in the hospital was miraculous. On
Tuesday, the doctor told me it would be a minimum of a one week stay. On
Thursday, to everyone’s amazement, he signed my release papers and sent me
home. It was during the last hour in the hospital that I noticed some oddities.
I mentioned them to my nurse, but she did not perceive any significance to
them. They were little things. My diet soda tasted off and the mattress, where
the sheet had slipped off, felt very strange against my back. Neither of these
slowed my release.
On the way home from the hospital we stopped at a
grocery store. When I reached to grab a frozen item, the air in the freezer
felt hot. (I even told the store manager his freezer was broken, but that it
must’ve just happened because the food was still frozen hard.) When I arrived
home and put the food in my freezer, it was blowing ‘hot’ air too. Jan put her
and in the freezer and said the air was perfectly cold. The oddities were increasing.
I attempted to read but everything was blurry. Looking out the window I could
see clearly far into the distance. My normal vision is perfect up close, but I
need glasses for distance. Things were becoming quite confusing.
Over the next several days I noticed that sweet
tasted bitter and that sounds were amplified. I began getting sudden sharp
pains for which there were no apparent cause. Pain relievers did not seem to
help, nor did massaging the area where the pain originated. The pain never
stayed long in one area, but would pop up from another area. Mostly these came
from the lower legs or outer arms. And then the greatest symptom became
apparent. My face had totally paralyzed. The jaw still worked and I could open
and close my eyes, but nothing more. With all my strength and concentration, I
could not cause the corner of my mouth to rise into a smile. Nor could I
produce any movement from an eyebrow or my forehead. What had started as
oddities were now a cause of great concern.
The following weeks contained many doctor’s
appointments with several different specialists. These brought varying
diagnoses for which the symptoms didn’t really fit. The symptoms all stayed the
same or actually were getting worse. That ‘yet another’ appointment that I
didn’t even want to keep, finally gave me the right answers. An ear nose and
throat doctor put needles all over my face and ran some electrical currents.
After this test, he called me into his office and told me I had “bilateral
facial paralysis.” He stated that the cause of all the other symptoms in my
body where the same. My blood sugar had risen so high, so fast. This had caused
the nerves to swell and bruise. When the swelling went down, the bruises
remained and were mixing up the signals my body was trying to send my brain and
vice versa. The sense of cold on the fingertip crossed a bruise where turned to
warm. It was this crossed signal that reached my brain. The nerves that feed
the face are at the base of the skull. Here the bruising was the worst and the
signals from my brain were stopping completely, causing the appearance of
paralysis.
If the symptoms had started earlier and been
diagnosed while I was still in the hospital, and aggressive drug treatment
would’ve been indicated. Too much time had transpired for this to have any
effect. The other treatment for this condition was simply time. The percentages
I was given of everything returning and complete normalcy were very slim. I
knew deep within that regardless of how small the percentages were, I was in
that group and would get everything back. I was right. It took months, but that
strong faith that God placed in my heart on day one proved true. (This
unwavering faith surprised me more than anyone else.)
I learned so many lessons about the faithfulness of
God during this time. I struggled to even walk up and down the stairs that led
to my apartment, but I knew the presence of God with every shaky step. When all
is going crazy around us, we can still experience and trust God with
everything. I had a realistic view of all that was happening, but I had a
confidence beyond my own strength. My doctor even shook his head after
questioning me several weeks into this process. He said, “You really don’t need
to see a psychiatrist, do you?” I told him that I cried when I needed to and
that I had people who would listen, encourage and guide me through this. With
God’s constant presence, I really was okay.
The greatest lesson that I learned comes from a much
quoted Scripture.“For we walk by faith [we
regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to
God and divine things, with trust and holy fervor; thus we walk] not by sight or appearance.”
(2 Corinthians 5:7 AMP) For months I took showers by knowing where
the temperature dial was to be set. Not doing so could have caused my skin to
be scalded. I had to ignore pains because there was no actual cause. The
sweeter I tried to make something taste, the worse it became. I learned to pay
attention to simply what I knew was real. I could not be swayed by what my
senses our perceptions where experiencing. To do so could actually result in
pain and death.
In all
circumstances we are to live by this principle. God’s word is true even when it
seems like everything around us this contradicting it. We set our lives to live
by believing the truth, found only in Scripture. We cannot let what we see
around us become more real than God’s promises. Neither circumstances, nor what
anyone believes can negate God’s word.“Let God be
true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that
you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4 NIV)
Prior to this experience, the above
verses were truths that I was trying to believe. Now they are just a part of me.
When I keep my focus on God, it is harder to believe anything that opposes His
promises. Many storms have come in my life since this time. But God’s word
stands true through them all.
If the world is screaming fear and doom
at you, remember my hand in the freezer.
Whatever it feels like, it cannot negate the promise of God. Face today remembering, “…If God is for us, who [can be]
against us? [Who can be our foe, if God is on our side?]” (Romans 8:31b AMP) and “Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved
us.” (Romans 8:37 AMP)
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