A faith sandwich: my battle with a steroid shot, anxiety and an abnormally normal MRI on my brain

A little background about the medical problems I've been having.  I get hemiplegic migraines (migraines with stroke-like symptoms: tingling in hands and feet, inability to focus, aura, can't think of words, slurred speech, INTENSE horrible headache, etc) and have had them since college.  I had regular migraines with aura since 1st grade, but they changed as I got older.  


So, I only had 2 last year when I learned pulsing lights were one of my triggers.  A month ago, I got two in one week and long story short, they were weird.  I went to the ER and as a preventative measure, they gave me a steroid shot (unknowing how it would affect me) and sent me home.  I couldn't sit down.  I couldn't stop crying. My muscles were rolling in waves and I had to be moving at all times.  My face was red and hot and I was scaring the kids.  2 ER trips later, I was sent home with Ativan and Haldol to just get me through this horrible reaction to the steroid.  The most it would last was 4-5 days which seemed impossible to me to endure, but with meds I figured I could hack it.  One month later, it's still affecting me.  


Now, I have random days when I experience extreme panic and can't sleep without meds.  All of the migraine stuff led my PCP to order an MRI.  I figured it would come back normal.  


It didn't.  


I was at West Tenampa with Jen when the doctor called and said the MRI was abnormal.  Jen just handed me her van keys and I got in while she settled the bill and we drove around.  I was a mess, thinking the worst, wondering what abnormal meant.  Knowing it could be this scary syndrome that I won't even mention it's so horrible, or a tumor, or risk for clots and aneurysm.  That evening and the whole next day, I was panicked.  I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to hear their worry, I wasn't up to pretending I wasn't worried.  


The fear I felt due to the MRI was amped up to about 10x the normal amount I would have felt, due to everything that has happened since that ER trip.  It wasn't rational, at all.  How do you fight irrational anxiety? You don't. You can't punch an invisible monster in the throat, right? 

Now I think my body has gotten used to reacting to high emotions and adrenaline with anxiety and I need to retrain myself on how to act, not react. I can do that. Through repetition and prayer and just getting through it. It won't always be like this. I've had to remind myself of that, everyday for the past month.

The neurologist called today and said that for a migraine brain what the radiologist called abnormal was normal for me.  TALK ABOUT A DEEP BREATH!  I was assuming that I had a long road ahead of me and I would just have to deal with it, but there was nothing wrong.  Nothing.  

No.  

Thing. 

Faith, I've found out this week, is like a sandwich.  Before an event happens, I am faithful.  Like, superstar faithful (the bread).  Then, something scary happens (the ham) and I lose it. I can't feel God, I don't have faith, I just speak it anyway. Resolution (the other piece of bread) happens and I feel my faith again.


I've been struggling with that this week.  Does that mean that when it comes down to something scary, I don't really have the faith I profess?  I think it's the opposite (I can safely say as "the other piece of bread")  Faith has nothing to do with feelings.  As found in Hebrews 11:1 it is "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."   No mentions of how we feel about it is made.  Which is nice.  


So, in that time of my problem, when I didn't feel Him and I was second guessing Him, I was speaking His Word anyway.  Last night, I was in full on panic mode, dry heaving, crying and Isaac laid his hands on my head and prayed a powerfully aggressive prayer and I felt the panic leave my body.  That time, I got to feel it and it gave me a little fuel for the rest of the trial.  


Now that I'm on the other side of it, I know I'm not dying (well, now...we all are, really), my brain looks abnormally normal, and I can breathe.  I have a new perspective on faith.  When I told Jen that I couldn't feel Him the time I needed to feel Him most, she told me to look around.  He was with me:  


**in my husband's arms


**in crazily coincidental emails from friends (I'm talking everyday for four days someone who didn't know what was going on randomly sent a message that they were thinking of me and sent me love)


**in help from my sisters-in-law who were willing to do anything for me


**in my parents taking care of the kids and me from the beginning.  


THAT'S where He was.  With me.  I didn't need an angel to show up in a dream to assure me (which would be wicked scary and cool).  I needed Him in what/who He put around me.  


KNOW THIS:  No matter what that MRI had said I LACK NOTHING in Him.  No matter how many more days on this earth I have, He is with me for every second of them.  NO ONE is promised tomorrow anyway.   


I want you to know, if you are going through something and you don't feel Him but have always believed His Word, speak it.  THAT is faith.  You don't have to feel super spiritual or completely peaceful to be faithful.  You aren't doing anything wrong.  Even Jesus asked if there was any other way before the cross.  And when there isn't any other way, you reattach an ear and get on with it (if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a really cool story in the bible:  Luke 22:49-51)






Today, I was listening to the song Healer, sung by Bethel and the first few lines astounded me.  It was right where I was.  I hope you let it bless you, too.  


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZGfzdvEe1I