Sometimes healing's in the meds

There was a time when I fought taking medicines. It was at a time when the sermons were about what you say is what you get. Claiming your healing in Jesus' Name and getting healed: if you didn't, you lacked the faith to make it so. I now believe that this is unbalanced teaching and do not follow it. However, at the time it made me feel very guilty about taking my medicine.

I do believe that God heals today. And I do believe that faith can make you well. But I have lived long enough with chronic illness to know that this doesn't happen all the time and that most times our prayer should be "if it is Thy will, please heal me!" Faith teachings often miss the fact that God is God! His Will may not be an immediate healing...I don't know why: I just know that I must accept my health as being in His Will. To struggle against this is to make yourself worse through faulty and negative thinking. We are called to walk in faith, not by sight.

In those years, I felt extremely guilty because I suffered from depression that was caused by a chemical imbalance. I tried many times to come off my tablets, usually after a healing crusade, and I fell- straight into the Pit of Despair. This fall often required more medication than before to get me to the place of health I was in when I thought I had been healed. And it took many many weeks of feeling awful before they kicked in again. Not a good place to be.

As I grew in my faith and relinquished my health to the LORD, I acquired many more medications. All of them are vitally important to keep my heart functioning, my blood pressure normal, my blood thin, my cholesterol down, to prevent my kidneys from making kidney stones and to regulate my under active thyroid. Not to mention other things to keep my eyes from drying out and to minimise the pain of fibromyalgia and back problems and to reduce the gastric acid that some medications cause. And of course, the anti-depressants to normalise my neuro-transmitters.

Once I would have held these tablets in my hand and fought taking them. Not any more. I now adopt a spirit of gratitude as I take my medications, for without them I would not be alive for very long. I feel that my medications are a gift from God to allow me to love and serve Him a little longer here and now. Life is after all, God's Will and I am grateful for each new day.

I believe that God gave man the ability to make medications and that ensuring a better quality of life is in God's Will. For Christ came to give us abundant life. Laying in a sick bed with angina and pain is not an abundant life.

I would urge you to have a rethink about your medicines if you have been told that they aren't in God's Will for you. Try to adopt a glad and grateful attitude as you take them. Rejoice that you live in a place in the world where they are available and be glad. Joy and life are in the Will of God, or else why would we see Christ healing many ill and afflicted people? He told us He came to do the Will of His Father!

May you be well, no matter what it takes and may we bless the LORD together for His goodness to us!

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. Acts 10:38

Twelve years old today

Twelve years ago today, I had two stents and an angioplasty in my heart. I was so nervous but was glad that at last the day had come, especially that I was still alive to have it.

I had angina for a month previous to the procedure and tests were positive. I would need either stents or bypass surgery. I had 99% blockage in my heart vessels and I was told that I could literally drop dead.

Told not to get the heart stressed but to take things quietly, I was forbidden to go to my beloved step-father's funeral. He would have told me not to come if he was able. It was very hard.

As a public patient, I had to wait my turn for a bed. Not having had a heart attack yet, I was not on the top of the list. It was a long three weeks.

I was discharged a day after the procedure and I felt sore where they had inserted the stents and also in my femoral artery where my groin was bruised and swollen.

But I was glad to be alive. Ten years earlier, I would have been looking at open heart surgery like my father had.

Today, I still have angina. I am on blood-thinners and often have to put a nitroglycerin tablet under my tongue. Another angiogram later showed damage done from where they entered my heart, and it also showed I have a hole in the heart making it so that the blood does not oxygenate properly. My lungs are working overtime apparently. Which would explain my breathlessness.

One cardiologist told me I have the heart of a 85 year old. It could make me fearful, but I remind myself that God knows my days and He is in control. I will die exactly when He wills.

I remain grateful that I went to the doctor initially about a heavy weight feeling on my chest that woke me up. If I had ignored that, I most certainly wouldn't still be alive.

As I reflect on the advances in cardiology, I praise God for His mercy, and I raise a glass and offer a toast for my stents: twelve years old today. 

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom. Psalm 90:12 

Sometimes you just have to be separate

Night time has proven to be a difficult time for Chris and I.  We both have problems sleeping and often we keep each other awake.

Chris has osteoarthritis in his hips and shoulder and finds it hard to drop off to sleep. His legs are restless and jumpy and painful he often suffers from bad calf muscle cramps. It is not unusual for me to find him making himself a cup of tea in the middle of the night because he can't sleep. Plus we both have sleep apnea.

But more often than that, it is I who makes it hard for him. I usually go to bed full of pain and can't really get to sleep unless Chris rubs my back. He is very good like that and I usually get to sleep quickly. However, I grind my teeth in my sleep, stop breathing for about a minute, and snore. 

My medications cause GERD which has resulted in me having aspiration pneumonia and left me with asthma. I often wake up unable to breathe, and need to use my inhaler. My blood-thinners Clopidogrel and aspirin (for my stents in my heart to stay open and for antiphospholipid syndrome), cause me to have nosebleeds in my sleep as well.  Poor Chris is often disturbed again with this. So we are not good night time company.

Obviously, not all these things happen every night, but a good lot do and we have often considered sleeping in separate rooms. However, I have a problem with that because I love cuddles and sex if it happens, and I love sleeping in Chris's arms until I drop off to sleep. It has been our custom for the 22 years we have been married.

So we have worked out a strategy for staying close, yet sleeping separately. Chris will come to bed with me, and when I am asleep, he will come out to sleep by himself if he can't drop off.  We haven't actually got another bedroom set up in our new small house, so Chris sleeps in the recliner rocker. 

We are very passionate with each other and very demonstrative and we often sit watching TV holding hands. So there is no problem with closeness. And there is no problem with sleeping separately for the most part.

This situation is not ideal, but when chronic illness threatens to deprive others of their needed rest, something has to be done. We don't see any harm coming into our marriage through separate rooms, in fact, we think under the circumstances, it would enhance it...sometimes you just have to be separate.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

"When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. ” Proverbs 3:24

Taking my medicine gladly

There was a time when I fought taking medicines. It was at a time when the sermons were about what you say is what you get. Claiming your healing in Jesus' Name and getting healed: if you didn't, you lacked the faith to make it so. I now believe that this is unbalanced teaching and do not follow it. However, at the time it made me feel very guilty about taking my medicine.

I do believe that God heals today. And I do believe that faith can make you well. But I have lived long enough with chronic illness to know that this doesn't happen all the time and that most times our prayer should be "if it is Thy will, please heal me!" Faith teachings often miss the fact that God is God! His Will may not be an immediate healing...I don't know why: I just know that I must accept my health as being in His Will. To struggle against this is to make yourself worse through faulty and negative thinking. We are called to walk in faith, not by sight.

In those years, I felt extremely guilty because I suffered from depression that was caused by a chemical imbalance. I tried many times to come off my tablets, usually after a healing crusade, and I fell- straight into the Pit of Despair. This fall often required more medication than before to get me to the place of health I was in when I thought I had been healed. And it took many many weeks of feeling awful before they kicked in again. Not a good place to be.

As I grew in my faith and relinquished my health to the LORD, I acquired many more medications. All of them are vitally important to keep my heart functioning, my blood pressure normal, my blood thin, my cholesterol down, to prevent my kidneys from making kidney stones and to regulate my under active thyroid. Not to mention other things to keep my eyes from drying out and to minimise the pain of fibromyalgia and back problems and to reduce the gastric acid that some medications cause. And of course, the anti-depressants to normalise my neuro-transmitters.

Once I would have held these tablets in my hand and fought taking them. Not any more. I now adopt a spirit of gratitude as I take my medications, for without them I would not be alive for very long. I feel that my medications are a gift from God to allow me to love and serve Him a little longer here and now. Life is after all, God's Will and I am grateful for each new day.

I believe that God gave man the ability to make medications and that ensuring a better quality of life is in God's Will. For Christ came to give us abundant life. Laying in a sick bed with angina and pain is not an abundant life.

I would urge you to have a rethink about your medicines if you have been told that they aren't in God's Will for you. Try to adopt a glad and grateful attitude as you take them. Rejoice that you live in a place in the world where they are available and be glad. Joy and life are in the Will of God, or else why would we see Christ healing many ill and afflicted people? He told us He came to do the Will of His Father!

May you be well, no matter what it takes and may we bless the LORD together for His goodness to us!

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. Acts 10:38

Lupus: a hard one to call

Over the past 15 years, I have had so much trouble with aching joints and muscles and tiredness that I have had several series of blood tests for Lupus. Fifteen years ago I have been diagnosed with severe fibromyalgia but there is a question mark over whether I have lupus as well. I am sick of going to the doctors and not being taken seriously.

In spite of getting repeated highly suspect blood results, I am still waiting for a diagnosis. Two years ago I went to a local rheumatologist to get a second opinion. He told me he thought I may have it and asked what my original rheumatologist Dr H thought. I told him she said she wasn't sure and therefore diagnosed me with non-specific connective tissue disorder.

Straight away, he announced that he too thought I didn't have it: after all he had gone to school with Dr H and she was an honours student- if she wouldn't call it Lupus, he wouldn't. I left totally frustrated! And not helped at all. It was an expensive and futile visit.

For anyone who has a diagnosis of lupus or who cares to read further, here are the reasons I believe I have it. Posts are written by myself on But You Don't Look Sick Board.........

Hi. I have been to a rheumatologist and was told that I have Unspecified Connective Tissue Disease and she is not ruling out lupus.

My symptoms are:

extreme fatigue

fibromyalgia

dry eyes and skin

+ANA- has tripled in 12 months

constantly elevated ESR (mild)

diabetes 2

hypothyroidism

cardiovascular disease- 3 stents inserted in Oct this year thrombosed radial artery after angiogram

antiphospholipid syndrome

polymyalgia rheumatica

worsening fatigue

sunburnt look across my nose and cheeks

maddeningly itchy raised rash on my back and spreading out to shoulders, and now going up nape of neck and into my scalp- scalp is bleeding from scratching it

severe muscular pains and sore finger joints

swollen glands at back of neck and behind ears

difficulty focusing on things

one lot of eye styes after the other

Mesenteric panniculitis

Dermagraphia

Grape like blood filled sores in back of roof of mouth that burst and ulcerate- no injury, just happen

Painful fingers- one cant extend straight- wrists and neck and toes ache but not positive for RA

Butterfly shaped MILD transient rash like sunburn after being outside or tired

Extreme fatigue like fibro flare but lasting a month now with mesenteric panniculitis symptoms again

I am not anaemic though. Does this mean I don't have lupus? does it sound like I do have it? I dont want the disease per se, but maybe if I finally got a diagnosis, they could treat it.

Last year I had a return visit to Dr H and she scarcely looked at the results but seemed obsessed with the fact that I have had 3 stents put in my heart and am obese. She said she would put me on Plaquinel if I continued to have pain. I do not intend to consult her again. She diagnosed my identical twin as just fibro, and she now has full blown lupus SLE. My cousin has it also and one cousin has a granddaughter with it... so there is a very strong family history.

Fast forward to today and nothing has changed except I am losing my hair at a rapid rate. My left leg is visibly swollen and painful. My ANA and ESR are even more elevated. I have antiphosphilipid syndrome but most other tests seem OK. Though one with a River Viper serum (?) was abnormal.

The ANA+ was 1:80 in 2005 then 1:323 in  2015 and this latest one last month is 1:600 . There seems to be a lot of inflammation but he doesn't know what is inflamed. Tomorrow night I am going to see my doctor and Chris is coming with me. There are now issues with my bleeding too easily. Blood thinners are too potent for me I think. I am a mass of bruises! I cry with joint and muscle pain.

I know lupus is a hard one to call but I want an answer and am requesting more tests and a new rheumatologist. This time I won't tell him about Dr H! Any thoughts and prayers are always most welcome. I just want to be without hurting!

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Psalm 103:2-3