Thank you all who have written to ask about my absence. I'm not doing well. Many visits to the hospital, sometimes once or twice a week. One time with my mom in the bed beside me because we were both too ill to even check on each other or help each other for over a week, except to call each other on the phone. Finally we both got too dehydrated, too much pain, and mom had a kidney infection. She was quickly feeling better after her second antibiotic pill. I was told my condition would get worse before it got better, and although I denied it because I knew the Lord would step in...the Dr. was right. It is getting worse before it's getting better.
Lupus doesn't like it when there are drastic weather changes multiple times in a short time period, so it caused red, angry, raging, painful inflammation throughout many organs in both Mom and I. It affects every function in our body and feels like you are dying, even though we are not. It amazes me that a person can suffer so much and there is no help for them...that they pray for it to stop or pray to go be with the Lord, but that doesn't happen either. They pray for help from another human being and yet they are left alone.
I often tell the Lord to forgive me for not being completely positive right now. This pain is so distracting, and so much "louder" than the "still small voice" of the Holy Spirit, that I seem to have forgotten all the lessons I've learned. I'm sure I will recall them soon, but I sure appreciate the friends that God gave me to remind me of the encouraging thoughts when I have forgotten for the moment.
I know things could be worse. I know there are others in worse condition than me. Somehow that doesn't make the pain any less. With grief that makes you feel like your life is over (though logically you know that's a lie), and then physical pain that makes you feel more than half dead, it's tough to think anything at all, good or bad.
I pray to be MORE useful to the Lord, to be able to do MORE, but become more and more useless. With this mourning, I'm sure this is part of what caused the lupus flare up, but the Lord had been carrying me and helping me. The emotional comfort that it took me 7 years to get after my first divorce, had come to me just 3 weeks after this loss. I was able to dream again and make new plans for my life that is starting over, and had a lot of hope for the future, then it seemed I was slapped down...to show me that none of those dreams will be possible.
I know all this will soon pass...it's just hard while I'm "walking through the fire"...and inflammation throughout your body DOES feel like I am walking through fire.
Not able to even shower or dress or get up longer than to get a drink of water, so Mom and I are living on these medical nutrition drinks that supply all the necessary nutrients. I am praying for strength to drive Mom to her doctor in another town tomorrow. I am afraid of the way I will pay for that trip afterwards, because I know how my body reacts when I overdo when I feel this bad. Hoping not to end up in the hospital, but maybe that's where I should be, to get the care and treatment that would help me get well. I just have not gotten an emergency room Dr. willing to take on such a complicated case as mine yet, so they send me home to suffer. I can't get to see my own Dr., because I can't wait for weeks for an appointment, and even if I got an appointment tomorrow, I could not sit up in the waiting room for the 2 hour wait that it takes to see her, but she is not allowed to come to the emergency room to see me or treat me there either. It makes me wonder what is the purpose of having a Dr. if I can't get them to treat me when I am too sick to even sit up.
Sorry to complain. I'm just emotionally and physically overwhelmed right now, as all humans can get. Thanks for your patience with me.
Blessings, Sheila
