Jonathan does not have time for debilitating Lyme-like symptoms and pain and bizarre gastrointestinal issues like a fistula--and yet, something has to be done. He is depended on for overseeing multiple jobs with Building Hope Enterprise often with workers who may or may not show up), besides other mission-related work like praying at two evening wakes and a funeral for a homicide victim last weekend and picking up several people for church--and helping see that I get to all my medical places as well as his.
Thankfully, a few days after I started him on a regimen of doxycycline antibiotic for possible Lyme or similar insect-related infection (based on my research and using leftover antibiotic I had on hand until his doctor can prescribe fresh), he observed a small but noticeable decline in the pain he'd been experiencing, which told me we were on the right track.
"We have to be our own doctor!" I said with both despair and hope the night I yanked the antibiotic bottle from the kitchen cupboard and handed Jonathan his first pill.
When we were making plans Tuesday for him to travel the 3 1/2 hours to Sioux Falls the next day to get a hopefully more detailed and accurate Lyme/coinfections test yesterday, I offered to go with him to help drive so he could do paper work. I was hardly up to it myself, but with the cruise control, I managed to get us all the way to Mitchell yesterday morning before I was too weak to keep driving.
The doctor who turned in the Lyme test there urged Jonathan to get surgery scheduled ASAP for the fistula that had started to cause problems in the last few days.
But saying to schedule a surgery and doing it are two different things.
The gastroenterologist (you have to pronounce that word in separate syllables to get the whole word figured out) in Sioux Falls took one look at Jonathan's MRI and refused to see him.
"You need to go straight to the Surgery Center," the doctor's office said.
Well, that was easier said than done, too.
First of all, the surgery center refuses to see anyone without a referral. So trying to track down a referral from Jonathan's urologist was the next step and took at least one or two days. We still don't know if the referral has arrived to the surgery center yet even though the urology office claims they sent it.
Meanwhile, I have spent hours researching Jonathan's nasty kind of fistula, which is acting like an abscess at this point, and trying to figure out what home remedies we can use to keep it from worsening while we wait for the medical system to fit us in. Of course, we could go to the ER, but ER surgeons would likely not have the specialized skill needed for this kind of surgery. They could probably do something but might not do the best job.
Anyway, I looked in my book Be Your Own Doctor and decided to try the author's recommendation of a charcoal/flax poultice to help draw out any infection and possibly help healing to happen before surgery. Her testimonial stories in that book are nothing short of miraculous.
I knew charcoal was going to be messy.
Charcoal is anything but pretty although it is clean and totally safe and harmless. (Even ERs use it for poison cases or drug overdose, and the blood of kidney dialysis patients is put through a charcoal filter, if I remember correctly. You can drink charcoal water safely to help clear out infections of most any sort, this author wrote.)
Upon arriving home yesterday evening and after helping to unload the car and put away things, I tried to think of the steps to take toward a poultice or whatever else Jonathan needed. Once I stood for a while in the bathroom asking myself why I was so upset. As if my own physical issues aren't bad enough, now I'm having to singlehandedly help a totally discombobulated hubby through not just one but multiple issues--some of which are not well treated by regular doctors or the conventional medical system.
My personal question had a personal answer that I realized and came to terms with.
Just pausing to check myself and my attitudes didn't fix the issues but helped me see and verbalize to myself what they were and accept the things that I had no control over.
I was still tired, upset, and overwhelmed, but I was able to keep moving without blowing up.
In Sioux Falls, per Be Your Own Doctor's instructions, I had purchased a canister of activated charcoal made from coconut shells and whole, fresh flax seeds which Jonathan ground in his coffee grinder. I mixed equal parts together of those two things with enough castor oil to make a thick paste.
Up in the attic I found some old throw rugs and old towels and an old torn sheet that I spread all over the carpeted floor in our bedroom, because I didn't want to have to clean stray charcoal from the carpet like I had to do a few months ago when we used charcoal for something else. And I applied the poultice to plastic wrap and flipped that over and applied it to the fistula for overnight.
About 10:30 I finally collapsed into bed, suddenly realizing how terribly tired I was.
Ten minutes later, the non-stop dry lightning that would set a neighboring rancher's hay stack area on fire by morning was being added to with thunder and the possibility of rain.
"Oh!" Jonathan gasped. "I don't know if I closed the hatch on the back of the Honda!"
There was no use in lying there mollygrubbing.
Jonathan had to stay tight with the charcoal poultice so
I got up and put on shoes and a robe and went out and closed up the Honda which not one of us, including myself, had remembered to check after unloading our stuff.
I took some Hyland's calming tablets to try to sleep.
And I thought about the words that had been going through my mind during the evening:
"All my life You have been faithful.
All my life You have been so, so good."
Those words were not going through my mind because I was so good or so spiritual or because I was making this specific choice to--you know, do the right thing and have the right attitude.
They were just there--a result, I think, not just of God's faithfulness to me but also of the fact that in my life and home, music and song has been included.
Music has been a big part of our lives.
And when overwhelm comes,
rather than curses and swearing and complaints,
the words of a song about God's faithfulness and goodness were coming unbidden into my mind.
We were overwhelmed.
Desperately overwhelmed.
But we were also overshadowed--
overshadowed with God's goodness and faithfulness--
the goodness and mercy I sang about the night before when I noticed Crystal trying out a new piano arrangement of "Surely Goodness and Mercy Shall Follow Me" to play at church sometime.
She played and I sang.
And even though we are still going through the valley,
goodness and mercy are following us,
overtaking us,
overshadowing us.
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