Yesterday's Trip to the ER, and the No Good Thing

Doctors fix problems.
Medicine fixes problems.
Tests show which doctor or which medicine will fix the problem.
Right?
Yes.
Sometimes.
Maybe.
Sort of.
Not exactly.

The button doesn't work sometimes.

If you live with multiple chronic health problems like me (Addison's disease, asthma, hypoglycemia, scoliosis, and a cyst on the brain in case you wanted the list), you know that sometimes doctors shrug their shoulders at you, and medicine causes potentially fatal side effects, and tests send the diagnosis in the wrong direction.

For example: I've been having numbness and tingling in my feet, then hands, then lips, for a couple of weeks now. You'd think that I should go to the doctor and find out what is wrong and fix it. However...

1. I have multiple conditions and take multiple prescription meds. The above symptoms could be due to a possible 10 different things, or maybe something totally unconnected to the10 possibilities I thought of.

2. Depending on which doctor I visit, they have a different line of expertise or interest, so whichever is theirs is likely the direction they will test and treat. If I get the wrong one, I'm off in the wrong direction, possibly causing more harm than good.

3. If I decide it's a medication side effect, and start adjusting meds, again, I could cause more harm than good.

What to do? So many decisions. Finally, today, enough other symptoms were added to them that I went to Urgent Care, and then the ER. I just wanted somebody else to make the decisions for awhile. It didn't exactly work. Here's what happened...

It's been three years since I've had an asthma attack bad enough to go to a doctor for it. One of my asthma triggers is mold and this high humidity summer has been rough (literally) on my lungs. I went to Urgent Care and they gave me a nebulizer treatment (where you breathe in the medicine), and prescribed me a packet of prednisone (which if you've ever taken those, you know how fun they can be). Later I went to the ER because I wasn't any better. It takes a lot to get me to the ER, but not being able to breathe well will do it. They gave me 2 more nebulizer treatments (which made me shake so bad my teeth chattered), took blood (my veins don't like to give blood so it took some digging), did a chest x-ray because I mentioned having pneumonia once that led to surgery, and when all that didn't fix it, did an EKG just in case.

I got to use one of these, but it didn't have cute stickers on it. And no, that's not me. =)

I sat and waited and prayed, and then, as has happened so many, many times before, the doctor came in and told me the tests came back great, the bloodwork was fine.

What now? I asked questions, the doctor answered. I asked more questions, the doctor gave options for me to choose, basically something to try that might help, or might make things worse. I asked more questions, the doctor had to shrug.

Back to me making more choices because the doctor can't find what's wrong. This gets very old, needing to be in charge of my own mutinous body, needing to be the to one to decide if I should risk taking this mega antibiotic that could help me, or could put me back in the hospital with a dangerous reaction. Needing to decide if I should go to a specialist and which kind and where will the money come from and how guilty I'm going to feel if it doesn't fix anything.

Can you hear my mind moaning and my heart crying?

I did actually cry at the ER. Nebulizer treatments do that to me. As I sat there, shaking like a leaf in the wind, my head in my heads--I guess I was trying to hold my body together in case it shook itself loose--I asked my husband to read me Psalm 84. He read verses that comforted and helped, and then he got to one verse that I knew by heart, but today it whispered something special to me.

"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."

The ultimate responsibility does not fall on me. If I am walking with Jesus and living His way, I can leave the final result with Him. If the good thing is a clear test result, He will provide it. If He has reasons why the good thing is a vague result and no answers, then that is what will be provided. Even for those who walk with the Lord, but die, that was not judgement or failure on the part of some doctor, or on the part of the person. It was their good thing.

I fear making the wrong choice, following the wrong lead, taking the wrong medicine. God tells me not to fear. If I keep this verse in my heart, I will remember why. Seek His kingdom first, and let Him add what is needed. Walk with Him, cling to Him, and He will provide whatever is best. He already knows the number of my days. If I'm walking with Him, I'm not going to mess that up.

That is much peace to me tonight--I'm writing this at 11:45pm, after trying to sleep, trying to stop thinking about what I should do, trying to stop feeling badly. I will seek His direction. I might miss it and make the wrong choice. He can take care of that. If I delight in Him, all will be well, even when it's not. That sounds like a contradiction, but as God once said, "All things are possible to them that believe."

So I shall give my worries and fears and symptoms and pills and decisions to Him. And I myself shall snuggle into a ball in His large, comforting arms, and choose peace.

I hope you choose it today, too.

Related Posts: When It's Just Too Much

Urgent Care, Steroids, and Antibiotics-Here I Go Again

My New Year's Even Party, Another Exciting Trip to Urgent Care