Jeremiah 33:6
Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.
Sometimes healing happens miraculously, other times healing is a process that you must go through. Recently I attended a class that led me to think of my healing process, so I decided to share it. In 2016 I started experiencing episodes of extreme nervousness, insomnia, anxiety, and agitation. I would go days without sleep and even the sound of my phone ringing was irritating so I kept it on vibrate.
I went to the doctor every three weeks trying to find out what was wrong and trying different medications to control the symptoms, but nothing worked. One medication I received for insomnia caused me to go to sleep so quickly, sometimes even mid-sentence, so that was a fail. My doctor diagnosed me as bi-polar, and even though I knew I wasn’t, I started seeing a psychiatrist weekly, because I was willing to try anything.
These weekly visits did nothing to help my symptoms, but I learned how to express my feelings more, instead of holding everything in. My schedule remained filled with follow-up doctor appointments until things finally took a turn for the worse. One of the worse symptoms that we were unable to control was my erratic heartbeats. On April 8th as I prepared to pick up my boys from daycare, my heart paused causing me to fall, and hit my head on the hard wood floor.
By God’s grace I woke up on the floor in a pool of blood, but I remember having a peace, and I somehow knew that I would finally find out what was wrong with me. I knew everything would be ok and I wouldn’t be sick anymore, but what I didn’t realize that healing is a process. My first step was to get my boys then get to the hospital. A friend helped me make this happen and once I made it to the emergency room things got worse. I was greeted by a former co-worker and before I could finish telling her what happened I started having seizures.
When I woke up and I was told what happened, I immediately thought God had placed me in the right place at the right time. That was until one of the medications that had been prescribed to me triggered a false positive for PCP on my urine drug screen. The hospital dismissed me with medications for seizures because they thought what happened to me was drug related.
I decided to stay with my friend since she is also a nurse, then two days later my real nightmare began. I woke in the middle of the night with a sense of doom and I knew that if I didn’t make it to the hospital soon, I would die. I woke my friend up and told her that something was wrong, but she reassured me that I was fine, but I knew that wasn’t the truth. Out of desperation I eventually reached out to two other friends who are nurses for help before she agreed to take me back to the hospital.
I later found out that I had been misdiagnosed with bi-polar disorder when I was experiencing a thyroid crisis. Basically, my thyroid gland was excreting too much hormone and speeding up every function within my body. It increased my heart rate to a point it could no longer keep up and it finally stopped. The injury to my head caused my brain to swell and press against my skull. Before any procedures were performed to reduce the swelling by the grace of God it subsided on its own.
He had kept me again, but I still had work to do. The swelling to my brain affected my speech, I stumbled when I walked, and my memory was limited. I didn’t know how old I was or the current year, but my medical knowledge was intact, and I knew Obama was president, and I told everybody. I received radiation treatments to destroy my thyroid gland, so now I take a daily replacement supplement.
After discharge I stayed with a friend for a month before the real work started. The biggest problem I faced was my memory, it was horrible. I would dress the boys for school in the morning and before returning home after dropping them off I had no idea what they were wearing. I tried to remain focused on God’s word from the beginning that I would be fine, but I felt hopeless.
My oldest son stepped up and helped a lot becoming a voice to constantly remind me of things I needed to do. Cooking was difficult because I would put something on the stove and often forget about it, so I started baking a lot of dishes. I set the timer on the dryer so I would be prompted to complete the next task. I continued to have frequent visits to the emergency room due to the problems caused by my declining hormone gland.
During one of my last emergency room visits, I crossed paths with a doctor that changed everything for me. He had experienced a brain injury that left him with less than a one-minute memory. He would have a doctor’s appointment and before he would return to his car, he would not remember the appointment whatsoever. He shared with me several tools and things to do to help restore my memory. I finally had something that I could follow from someone who has been down that same path.
Once again God had placed the help I needed, in the right place at the right time when it was needed. After three months of strengthening my brain using these tools things finally returned to normal, well my new normal. Things were better than before I was more focused and determined to accomplish all the goals that I set for myself. My life could have easily been over so many times, but God, and for this reason I won’t waste it.
During this journey I realized that most people fail to properly heal because they are lacking the proper tools and motivation. If I would have listened to the advice of my neurologist, I would have excepted disability and threw myself a pity party. Many people will show up to try to set your limits for you but remember you and God can only set them. Instead of listening to the negative reports, I chose to hold on to the words God gave me at the start of my injury, that I would be fine.
We often expect miracles and healings to happen immediately, and it’s amazing when they do, but other times it is a process. Healing is a process that you must see to the end and trust the words of God that you will be made whole. Whatever you may be facing never give up and trust the process you will be happy you did. My journey continues…
