Salutations

I wrote this post strictly for your information and to catalogue symptoms. Sympathy and prayers are okay. But I just feel like getting this down. 

The last week has been a special challenge. A week ago I started into a pain attack at 1 AM which was blessedly abated immediately with a priesthood blessing and medications. Total miracle, no denying it! I slept within a half hour. At 3 AM I experienced a dull pain attack of a different place of origin and character (dull instead of sharp). It came and went like labor pains, waking me from sleep with each surge. I keep a massage ball at my bedside (it looks like a giant jawbreaker-sized marble with a base/handle on it) and dug it into my solar plexus where the pain seemed to originate. It radiated out from there. The pain subsided after two hours. At 5 AM, I was able to put the ball away and sleep without interruption thereafter. 

That morning, I managed to be a passenger in the car (extremely nauseous) to my dear reflexologist/zoning friend. She treated me gently, and I felt helped from her gift. Afterwards, I slept at home from 10 AM to 4 PM (with a couple short interruptions). I fasted completely until after 4 PM that day because I felt scared to eat and justified it as "gut rest." That evening, I made up for hydration and nutrition needs. Food was kind of okay again. 

I concluded that simple carbs, just fruit (okay, and chocolate), had done me in. I have a tendency to want to blame events in my body on something. 

Today--right now--I'm having yet another pain attack. Obviously it is bearable enough now to be distracted from the pain between surges. It started this evening before starting dinner. It felt as though I had something stuck in my esophagus: I've never felt that before. I hadn't eaten or drank in at least 45 minutes. The pain is spasmodic and comes and goes. Drinking water broke up the spasm long enough for gulps to pass through, but the spasm would resume immediately. Oh wait--a surge is starting...

Slightly better. It radiates into my back like a gallbladder attack and also into my chest, neck, and jaw. It feels like a heart attack, I imagine. I know my INR is low. My first thoughts were esophageal spasm, heart attack, and blood clot causing heart attack. 

Okay, better now. So anyway, I called for another blessing. (Go to Mormon.org to learn about priesthood blessings for the sick.) The power that I felt was more important to the words; it is a still, warm current. I felt comforted and enlightened. I developed a plan and felt comfort in it. 

My zoning friend invited me over tonight. My esophagus and heart felt beautiful, and no lots were detected. But the sphincter between my esophagus and stomach was rigid. 

To me, that explains the massage ball in my solar plexus last week. That explains my current predicament. 

Pause pause pause. 

And we're back. That was a bad one. I had to distract myself by turning on the TV. This surge convinced me to eat half a banana and take some more medicine (I only took a quarter dose before; natural childbirth warped my sense of pain--I know what a ten REALLY means and have a hard time justifying taking medicine). Now I'm chewing gum!

I like to think these spasms are lessening. But my longest pain attack was four hours long. I'm at four hours now. 

Another thing that happened this week was an emotionally really bad day. I mean REALLY bad. Gnarly to the max. As gnarly as you can get without needing intervention, I think. It was a real blessing a few days later though; I was able to connect on a new, deeply scary, depressed level that is hellish to the max that I hadn't understood before. This person desperately needed candid talk and an understanding ear. For the first time in my life, I understood this degree of the depths of despair. Heavenly Father is SO GOOD in all ways, and I especially was grateful for the harrowing day I had and that He let me get through it in one piece. I'm grateful a few days passed of clarity so I could understand another in the same situation. What a gift. 

I am amazed that Heavenly Father trusts me to handle some of these things He gives me to handle. And others too!

Wow, chewing gum (and swallowing frequently) has helped my sphincter a lot as I've written the last few paragraphs. How grand! I haven't had a major attack in minutes. Maybe things are settling down after all. What wonders. 

I challenge you to thank God on your knees for the most difficult parts of your life. It feels like they're a promotion to new and more qualifying opportunities (read that:greater challenges) to grow. Boy, I'm glad I can have these body experiences. I don't have fun during them, but I am grateful for the trust God gives me. I can never "curse God and die." I can only praise Heavenly Father in all these wonderful training exercises. Just a minute. 

Okay. Better. That was a doozy. 

Life is hard. My gnarly day last week was gnarly the most because I forgot who I was and what purposes these trials are for. But I stayed on the path. I don't know if I praised God very well that day, but I didn't curse Him. 

Truth: I'd like this bitter cup to pass from me. It's not tasty. Sometimes it's really hard to have fun and think around the various levels of pain. 

But as long as I have this bitter cup, well...

...I might as well raise my glass, toast to to my Maker, and then drink it with gusto. Cheers.