God in Adversity

A week ago yesterday I had neck surgery.  I had a double fusion and bone spur removal.  My neurosurgeon said that when she opened me up and started to rummage around in my cervical region she discovered I was actually in worse shape than she had originally thought.  After surgery while I was in recovery, she told Janey that she didn’t know how I was able to continue functioning; much less functioning at the level I was at.  Janey knew the answer though, God. 

In fact, God has been present through this whole situation.  You see, I’ve already had one neck fusion way back in 2001, so when my neck started to hurt strangely again in mid-2011 I did not go see a doctor.  Why?  Because I sensed I would wind up in surgery again—I do not like neck surgery. So I figured I would try yoga, or different weight-lifting exercises, plus, I was optimistic that the pain would eventually go away.  It didn’t, it just got worse.

 Anyway, after my collapse at Lowe’s and rush to the emergency room (see my entry What Happened), the ER staff conducted several tests while I was unconscious to figure out what happened.  While they never figured out what caused my collapse, they did have images showing how seriously pinched my spinal cord was. 

Once my regular doctor and a neurosurgeon I’d never met before got a hold of the ER images, they started to pursue me via phone calls to “strongly encourage” me to get one more test because things didn’t look good. I finally relented and got another MRI. Within 24 hours they had the results which, among other things, showed “spinal cord deformity.” When I heard this phrase I started to get concerned myself.  Plus, the doctors’ phone calls started up again; I was being pursued even more intensely than before. 

I was beginning to grasp the seriousness of my condition; this was not a run-of-the-mill disk rupture.  When I finally saw the neurosurgeon, she showed me my MRI images. 

I gasped. 

I’ve had a lot of medical tests over the years (I have more than one genetic defect), and many of the test results have been less than desirable, but this result actually caused me to gasp:  my spinal cord was seriously pinched in two places by bulging disks on one side of my spine and bone spurs on the other side of my spine.  The pinching was so profound that if I had anymore even minor head or neck trauma, I could be paralyzed from my neck down for the rest of my life.

You’d gasp to.

As she went on to explain my options, surgery or increasing pain and increasing risk of paralysis, my soul did not start to spin in a spiral of discouragement like it would have a few years ago.  However, she continued with her explanation by telling me I needed to stop running, not just now, pre-surgery; but most likely for the rest of my life.

 

“But…but, you don’t understand,” I said, voice stammering.  “I love to run.”

“Your spine can’t take the pounding, especially with a triple-fusion,” she responded matter-of-factly.  Doctor’s are so good with that ‘this is no big deal so just suck it up’ tone of voice.

So now, in just 15 minutes I’m seeing the danger I’m in and I’m being told to give up one of my most favorite activities. Not only that, they had begun to set the surgery date for barely a week away.  Seriously?  Just the day before I was happily running on a mulch trail engrossed in prayer. Now I’m being told walking is all I can reasonable do and in a very short time I am going to have a very serious surgery.

All of the sudden I was not having a good day!

Discouragement, and worse, is now beginning to close in.  So I silently prayed for God to stave off the encroaching darkness and to give me the courage to face the reality before me.  Oh, I also needed strong doses of peace as well.   

And God did.  He did in big ways.  Yes, I had the surgery; and yes I may never run again, but the work God is doing in my heart and the way Jesus has showed himself to me through this is mind-blowing.  The Holy Spirit is daily comforting me and I’m excited to share this with you. 

…but that will be my next entry, so please stay tuned, God is being glorified even in what appears to be a deep adversity.  The God of Light is real, so please tune in again for my next entry.