36 Hours / 12 Days and Counting

12 Days and Counting

Endocrinologist 3, with Mass General, has given Nichelle an appointment for May 12 at 1:00 p.m. Nichelle is thrilled. Please pray that this doctor will be determined to find out precisely what is wrong with Nichelle and treat her, or immediately send her to someone who will.

36 Hours

Nichelle experienced about 36 hours of “normal” life this weekend. She was without pain, and had no trouble walking or doing regular activities from Friday afternoon through late Saturday evening. We even got to go to our church visitation program Saturday morning.

She went to church on Sunday morning, but experienced a rapid degradation again. By the end of the service, she needed help getting down the stairs, and needed someone else to drive her home. (I was at home with David, who was sick.)

Nichelle wrote in an e-mail earlier today,

Of course, I was grateful for feeling “normal,” and for being pain-free for the first time in a very long time. I give Praise to God, my Lord and Savior, for His great love and care, and for each of you for your continued love and support and many prayers.

I find Nichelle’s worsening illness is wearing me down (after 13 years with these symptoms appearing periodically, the last 7 of which have been difficult, and the last 2 of which have been extremely disruptive both in symptom severity and percentage of time per year they have been present). I noticed this weekend while she was well that I was dampening out any feeling that might be described as “experiencing hopefulness,” as such feelings have been rewarded repeatedly with crushing disappointment. I still have hope that God will lead us to a treatment eventually, but it seems to have become my own quest to destroy the One Ring—even as we may be getting closer to Mordor.

Addendum: May 2, 2006

My goodness, I was in a funk yesterday! My reading in Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones) coincided perfectly with my mood, and was exactly of what I needed to be reminded. Now I know why it’s taken me so long to get to that particular chapter: God was orchestrating the timing.

All things may seem to be against me ‘to drive me to despair,’ I do not understand what is happening; but I know this, I know that God has so loved me that He sent His only begotten Son into this world for me, I know that while I was an enemy, God sent His only Son to die on the Cross on Calvary’s Hill for me. he has done that for me while I was an enemy, a rebellious alien. I know that the Son of God ‘loved me and gave Himself for me.’ I know that at the cost of His life’s blood I have salvation and that I am a child of God and an heir to everlasting bliss. … Faith reminds itself of what the Scripture calls ‘the exceeding great and precious promises.’

…

I do not suggest that you will be able to understand everything that is happening. You may not have a full explanation of it; but you will know for certain that God is not unconcerned. That is impossible. The One who has done the greatest thing of all for you, must be concerned about you in everything, and though the clouds are thick and you cannot see His face, you know He is there. … Now hold on to that. … Nothing can happen to you but what He allows, I do not care what it may be, some great disappointment, perhaps, or it may be an illness, it may be a tragedy of some sort, I do not know what it is, but you can be certain of this, that God permits that thing to happen to you because it is ultimately for your good.