Finding Out You Have a Chronic Illness

Update!! I gave a speech about this at a Holy Grounds for FirePit Ministry in 2017!

Here is a link to that talk: https://soundcloud.com/firepit-ministry/working-through-the-numbness-a-story-of-awakening-1

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“God doesn’t give the hardest battles to His toughest soldiers, He creates the toughest soldiers through life’s hardest battles.”

A month into my first summer after graduating college, I ended up in the hospital for two weeks. There I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, which is an autoimmune disease, and had a massive flare up that caused my entire colon to be inflamed.

Throughout our lives we have all gone through different trials and hardships that we have to overcome. Now, I am a very optimistic person. So usually when I am going through something hard, I am trying to figure out some kind of silver lining and learn something from the experience.

Usually people are more prone to turn to God in bad times. This was true when I first started having symptoms. I kept on praying through the difficult moments such as having to cancel plans because I was in so much pain and when I had to cut down my pride and ask my mom to come help when I simply couldn't bear it alone anymore.

When I was in the hospital, I felt so broken and dehumanized (only made slightly more bearable when I got visits from family and friends). It was hard to accept that it was possible for this to happen. It was even harder to accept that there really isn't anything that caused this disease. Ulcerative Colitis just shows up, and researchers aren't concerned with how people get it. Right now they are trying to figure out how to cure it because the only 'cure' they currently have is to remove the colon.

I have never felt so distant from God at this time. All I can use to describe the experience is numbing. I mentally didn’t want to accept that I had this disease. I physically couldn’t do anything but lay in the hospital bed for the first week, so my days were spent staring at the wall and trying to keep track of the influx of nurses, CNAs, doctors, nurse practitioners, and dietitians. My amazing mother was there with me during the days, but she was so anxious about what was going on with me that we didn’t talk that much. I was so shocked by what was going on that I simply didn’t know what to do with God.

I knew that this was just a hurdle that I had to get over and I knew that God was going to help me get through it. I kept this up for the first week even though it was a rough week. I had constant pain in my abdomen, which was about twenty times worse than period cramps. I remember asking the nurse for a heating pad, but apparently they are hard to come by in the hospital. Instead my amazing nurse came back with about twenty heat packs(little pouches you break and magically create heat), and I ended up using all of them in the entire section of the hospital I was in.Week two was more difficult because I ended up needing to get a nutritional pic line in my arm instead of just the IV fluids, and every day the doctors changed the day I was supposed to go home.

My prayer every night would start off with "Thank you for today." However, I would get upset over my current situation and my prayer would falter out. We are called to love and praise God in all circumstances, but I have never been through something like this before. It's hard to be grateful when you find out that you have chronic disease that came out of nowhere. And I’m human. It’s impossible to be joyful all the time. In the bible, Jesus was sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion and during the crucifixion he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

“No healthy Christian ever chooses suffering, he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not.”

God isn’t demanding that you happily praise him from the rooftops- he is calling for your faith and trust.

After two of the longest weeks of my life, I was finally discharged from the hospital.

I was extremely weak (I lost twenty pounds), and my mind was still numb from the whole ordeal. I caught myself staring at the wall too many times to count. I was put on a low residue diet (pretty much no nuts, veggies, fruits. Healthy foods can now be trigger foods that cause flares) and we figured out that my flare made me lactose intolerant, which lasted for about a month and a half.

I continued to be upset with God even though I read a lot of inspirational religious quotes on Pinterest. Throughout this time, my mom and I would talk about where we were spiritually (we were both in rough spots). So of course she went and bought a Christian movie during a grocery trip. **Side note- I don’t like Christian movies because they are very hokey and are not well done** I put off watching it for days and instead went through several seasons of Modern Family. Eventually, I could tell my mom was tired of it and wasn’t interesting in watching any action movies(we went through all the rom coms in the hospital), so we watched this movie. The Shack.

In this movie, this man’s daughter is murdered, which causes him to question everything he believes. He gets a letter to go to the place where she was killed, and he encounters the trinity. His frustration and struggle with God hit the nail on the head on where I was at. I’d have to watch it again to pick out exactly the amazing responses they had about going trials and why they happen and how God is with us through it all. Like dang. If you are ever mad at God- watch The Shack! (and have tissues nearby) Something just clicked in my mind after watching this movie and I felt like I was finally able to process everything clearly and move forward in accepting my ‘new normal’.

I realized that even though I felt distant from God, he continued to shower his love on me every day I was in the hospital. For whatever reason, I expected some kind of grand gesture from God and forgot that he works through people. One of my favorite things in the entire world is flowers. I got so many flowers from my amazing friends and family throughout my stay that we couldn't fit them on the counter anymore! I had friends come in and visit me, and my best friends were constantly messaging me to help keep up my spirits. On my worst day, I got a call from one of my aunts in California, and the hospital therapy dog came to visit.

Since I've been out of the hospital and finally felt like I was getting my mind back, I was finally able to process what happened and try to learn something from it. This is what I've gleaned so far:

1. I realized that I really dislike making people sad. Telling someone that you are sick and in the hospital is not something anyone should have to go through. I have always tried to live with the belief that no one should leave you feeling unhappy.  
2. Nurses are such a blessing, and I am grateful for them on a whole new level! 
3. Change is a fact of life, but how you react is what matters.

There were a lot of things that helped me during my recovery from the hospital such as listening to Father Mike Schmitz talks, finding other people with autoimmune diseases, and being able to be back in the world through simple tasks such as going to mass or grocery shopping or riding my bike.

Now, I am taking medication that is supposed to help, and I am getting a form of chemo every two months to make my body stop attacking itself. It seems to be working so far, and I haven't had any major symptoms in months! If you really want to know more about the other aspects of UC, I have attached a couple of videos below that helped me process what it is. However, no two UC cases are similar, so the symptoms/flares vary from person to person.

I don't know why I got this disease, and I may never fully understand. I do know that I am surrounded by amazing friends and family who love and care about me. I know that God never abandons you when you are suffering or distressed.

I will leave you with a quick story by Mary Stevenson that I have on one of my prayer journals.

"One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints. Other times there was one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints. So I said to the Lord, "You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, You would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed You most, You have not been there for me?" The Lord replied, "The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand, is when I carried you."