Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Wow, it's been a long time!

I looked at my blog today and realized that it has been mor than 10 months since I posted. A lot happened in that 10 months. Last fall, I kept getting sicker and sicker and no one could really figure out what was going on. Finally, on December 3, I went to the ER. They did a CT scan and discovered that the endometriosis had created huge lesions in my abdomen. There were several of them and the largest one was more than 3 inches in diameter. The lesions were bleeding into themselves and twisting my other organs out of place. I was taken by ambulance to the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City.

On December 8, I had a hysterectomy. It was pretty complicated. It took eight hours for them to do the surgery. In the days leading up to and including the surgery, I required seven units of blood. I began recovering and on December 13, I suffered a perforated bowel. The mortality rate for that condition in 90%. But God has other plans for me. I was taken into emergency surgery where they repaired the perforation and gave me a colostomy. That was not fun. They had to leave the surgical wound open to prevent infection. On December 23, I finally got to go home but with a colostomy and an 18 inch hole in my belly.

Until March, I had nurses coming to my house daily to check on me and pack my wound. Slowly but surely I healed. In April, I went back into the hospital to have the colostomy reversed. The surgery went well but the next day when they did my lab work, my heart enzymes were elevated. They told me I had a heart attack. I was moved to the cardiac care unit and had multiple tests run including a CT scan and and angiogram. All the tests revealed evidence of a heart attack. My sweet husband got on the phone and called friends all over the country and asked them to pray for me. The doctor scheduled a heart catheter and prepared to put a stint in the damaged artery. When they went in to do the heart cath, there was no damage. In fact, there was absolutely no evidence of the heart attack! My heart is as healthy as someone 20 years younger than me! Being unable to explain it, the doctors removed the heart attack from my medical records. We know what God did, though, huh?

I had some other complication but was finally allowed to go home after 13 days in the hospital, again with an open wound. Here I am three months later, still on the mend but alive and relatively well. My regular doctor ran my blood work last week and couldn't believe how well I am. My cholesterol is only 148 and my fasting blood sugar is almost perfect. I'm still having some problems with muscle pain, but having been bedridden for more than 2 months, that's too be expected.

Now, I'm just trying to live for my family and waiting expectantly for what God has for me in the future.

Philippians 4:6-7 "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."