Today, February 23 marks four years since I was diagnosed with a PE, which is a Pulmonary Embolism.
My journey started in May 2015 when my already shaky health started spiraling out of control. I was sitting at a soccer banquet and the room started getting dark and spinning. I tried to eat something. I did all the things I knew to do, thinking it was an adrenal crisis. Nothing seemed to help. I was taken to the E.R. to be told it could be an interaction with meds or anxiety, but there was no real answer.
While in the E.R. they would ask me “Are you anxious?”….Well now I am, I am in the E.R. DUH
This cycle continued for the next several months. Several more trips to the E.R. with no answers.
One morning in July after another trip to the E.R., sitting by myself in a quiet house I found myself in a state of HOPELESSNESS. I could see no end in sight to what was going on each day, and I felt like it was getting worse. I found myself looking at another day of trying to be strong for my family and those around me but then just waking up hoping it was time to go to bed again because of how hard each day was becoming.
I knew what I was supposed to do…read my Bible, pray. But I found myself too exhausted to even do that. I found that all I could do was listen to worship music. Worship is my place where I go to settle my heart and mind when things are out of control. Things were DEFINITELY getting out of control.
I was entering what people said would be the time of our lives. We had two kids in college another married – we were “Empty-nesters” but I could barely get out of bed.
So in my HOPELESSNESS I cried out to GOD. “WHY is this happening?” “When will it stop?” “Will it ever stop?” “Tell me what to do and I will do it.”
As I was sitting in the quiet of that July morning listening to worship music, this song from Hillsong Worship came on.
I will exalt you….you are my hiding place my safe refuge….I will not fear for you are with me.
I would love to say that everything turned around that day but for the next 7 months the cycle continued. I would have good days thinking the end is in sight, but that would be followed by really bad days.
Now fast forward to the weekend of February 21, 2016. I had a rough weekend. I was going to my Oma’s to celebrate her 92nd birthday and as I was walking up the stairs I had the same feeling as I did back in May 2015, but even worse. I felt like I was blacking out and I was not able to get air. Something wasn’t right. Thinking it was the same old thing, I went home and went to bed to rest like I had many times before. But this time was different. I was sick enough I couldn’t even muster it to get out of bed to go to the bathroom without help. I was not able to get a complete breath. My daughter Bethany had come home from college for the weekend and I couldn’t even get out of bed. I knew something wasn’t right.
I felt like I was losing myself
On Monday I called my Dr.’s office, and they had me go in and get blood work done. “Let’s just do a D-dimer just in case.” The next morning I got the call from my doctor that the d-dimer was positive…. “Let’s do a cat-scan. We think it might be blood clots.” They couldn’t get me in until 6 pm that evening, so that gave me plenty of time to consult Dr. Google to see what BLOOD CLOTS really meant.
Do you know that in all my research that day, not once did I come across the severity of what blood clots meant!
Nothing in my research of blood clots told me
that blood clots were the #2 killer in the world
God had His hand on me!
Finally, after what seemed like the longest day of my life I stood up to leave for the cat scan, and at that moment I clearly heard God say to me:
“This will not lead to Death”
and a peace came over me. There are few times in my life when I hear the audible voice of God. This was one of those times.
I didn’t know what was going to happen after I walked out of my front door, but God did.
I arrived at the hospital for my cat scan and before I could return to my car I got a call from my doctor telling me to go immediately to the E.R. Not only did they find a clot, but they found both lungs full of clots. The Dr. described it like splatter paint on my lungs. The next day they did an ultrasound of my leg to find a clot that went from my knee to my groin.
I remember hearing nurses say, “She walked herself in, can you believe it?”
I knew something was different when I walked into the E.R. and a whole team started working on me. Like all the many E.R. trips before I had my earphones in and I was listening to “I will exalt you” all the time knowing that this would not lead to death – God’s got this!
The next few days were a blur. God’s hand was on me.
Because He was with me I didn’t have to fear. He was my hiding place and my safe refuge.
From that morning in July, and over the next 7 months that led to figuring out it was blood clots, many a day came that all I could do is lay and listen to worship.
I WILL EXALT YOU became my theme song.
I listened to it 1903 times.
That’s 14,120 minutes or 235 hours or 9 days
Still not feeling better…I will exalt you….
Dr.’s have no answers…I will exalt you….
Can’t get out of bed…I will exalt you….
Bad report from Dr…. I will exalt you – I will not fear…
I could focus on my circumstances, or I could put my hope in God. I had no choice but to lean into Jesus.
I had to take the step of obedience and say, “God I chose to exalt you even though nothing around me gives me a reason to.”
The recovery was hard, but I look at where I am now and I can see God at work all through the process. I had to fight hard to not give up. At my 6-month follow up they found no signs of damage caused by clots and no residue of the clots. That is a miracle. They ran all the tests and I no longer have to take the medication for clots. Praise the Lord.
Many of you are living in a place hopelessness – Health, kids, finances or loneliness.
God is a God of HOPE.
You are not alone. You don’t have to go through this alone.
If you need someone to talk to please email me. I would love to hear your story.
