For
the past five months, I have been fighting a hard battle. I have been sick with
an unknown illness.
It started off benign enough,
annoying, but not enough to require doing something. It got a little worse, so
I took over-the-counter medications to alleviate some of the symptoms. It
persisted, so I saw a doctor. They gave me some medicine, but it didn’t really
help. Things quickly got worse and we immediately went to another doctor. They
told simply they had no idea what was wrong but they would collect samples and
run tests. One test came back negative; the other was inconclusive because the
sample was in the container. They collected another sample and it came back
negative, so the doctor prescribed me another medication. It seemed to help for
a couple of days, but that was all. My symptoms continued to get worse. We went
back to the doctor and they gave me some medicine to control the symptoms and
referred me to a specialist. We went to the specialist and the doctor was
unsure what was wrong but was going to run tests and a procedure. The tests
came back negative and it was three weeks until the procedure. Those three
weeks were some of the worst, the anticipation being much worse than the actual
thing. The procedure told us a few things that I didn’t have but not what I do.
The doctor didn’t know what else to do and referred back to the first doctor I
saw. All of this back and forth and waiting has taken quite the emotional toll.
Last year, I truly began a
relationship with God. I enjoyed it so much. For the first time, I could see
and feel God moving in my life. This illness has been THE BIGGEST test of my
faith and there are times when I feel like I’m failing. I can’t count how many
times I have told myself and others have told me, “Even if we don’t understand
it now, God has a reason.” I’ve heard it so many times it has become my mantra.
There is also the saying, “God doesn’t work on our schedule,” a phrase I have
come to find painfully true.
Despite all that, I still find
myself feeling exhausted. Every morning, I would wake up and know that I was
going to be sick and there was nothing I could do about it. This illness has
also caused me to develop a fair amount of anxiety. I was unable to leave my
house due to this illness. Every time I leave to go to school or even the
doctor, I get anxious that I will be sick and unable to leave in time. It takes
so much to fight through those feelings as well as physical symptoms, I find
myself just wanting to crawl in a hole and not come out until it’s all over.
Nonetheless, fight I do. My mom put
it very well, “You can either keep fighting, hard as it is, or you can watch
life pass you by.” I’m still going to doctors, still having tests run, still
waiting, still fighting. I just wish I knew if I was winning.
My brother went through much the same thing a few years ago. In time he found his answer and was treated. I'll keep you in my prayers. I'm sure God will help you like he helped my brother.
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