The headache woke me this morning as it always has for 1,737 days. Some nights the nuero pain blocker medication gets me to 5AM. Some nights 12:30AM or 3:30 am. No rhyme, no reason. I can only take the minimum dose 3x’s a day and be functional. It is what it is, and that is okay.
Looking back to Father’s Day 6/21/2015, I realize how far I have come. I can write, sometimes read several paragraphs, without starting over. No rhyme or reason to the damage area’s lasting effects on my brain functions.
On that day 4-1/2 years ago, it would seem there was not a rhyme or reason to what I was experiencing, or what was to come. If I had been given a choice I would have sad, “No thanks Lord, just take me home.” There would be many times I would ask Him for that in months to come. It was not a suicidal thought or depression issue, as doctors insisted I would have. It was just I was in such pain, like I had never known. I knew pain and fear, I thought, until this happened.
June 21, 2015
For days my head hurt. I felt, odd. Something was wrong. By Father’s Day it was worse. Maybe the pressure, or maybe my brain bleed started small. Had it leaked for days? No one knows. I remember going through the ER doors. My husband says I talked after the MRI. I do not remember that test. I remember fighting to not be put in the helicopter for the life-flight to Tampa General. I remember the EMT guy’s big mustache. Brain’s weird in the details it retains.
I remember the word “pray”. But, I couldn’t. I remember, “need pray”. Bits and pieces, phrases of Scripture. Not whole scriptures or references. Just key words and phrases. God has a provision for when we cannot pray. He thought of every detail.
Romans 8:26-28 NASB “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
The pressure of the air flight made my head hurt so bad. Maybe the DVA ruptured then. Maybe it already had. Maybe it bled more. I bled over and into the brain, a double bleed. It left a lesion. Everywhere blood touches it kills brain cells, the only cell our body will not replace. I was born with the DVA. All those years of migraines and tests never revealed the DVA. Why now? What rhyme or reason?
The air-flight was low, across the top of trees, maybe to keep pressure down. It was quick, or I was in and out and couldn’t tell. I do not know. The gurney legs bopped down and I briefly remember they rolled me across the tarmac and headed in to waiting staff. All went blank. My head hurt so bad. I was scheduled for surgery. Maybe I came around or suddenly was lucid. I remember a man standing there. In shorts and a ball cap, he looked familiar. He was traveling home from his Father’s Day with his own father in another state when he got a phone call. He was one of our pastors, Dr. Dowdy. He arrived and was waiting when they brought me in. He asked to pray for me. Even though I know the Holy Spirit groaned, God knew I wanted to hear someone pray for me. God had sent someone to pray. The scripture I kept vaguely trying to utter I could not. Pray, it just kept coming back; one word. The Holy Spirit prayed for me and sent someone to pray for me out loud. Peace came over me. I hurt so much but, I was not afraid.
An hour earlier my journey started when my daughter in Montana called her dad to wish him happy Father’s Day. Upon his description of my condition to her she urged him to get me to an ER. She thought I might be having a stroke. She had people praying. She started with her long time friend, Dr. Dowdy’s daughter Liz. Liz got off the phone with her and called her dad. He headed to the hospital and was there before Phil arrived (coming from FL Hospital by car). Rhyme and reason. God’s plan.
The bleeding stopped, the pressure dropped. The surgery canceled. I am so glad they did not drill into my brain. Prayer changed things. It always does. Had I died, their prayers would have still been answered. I would be healed and in Heaven. Sometimes we do not realize healing is here, or there. There was a rhyme and reason. I just could not see either.
I remember
- ICU
- plasma bags
- MRIs, EKGs, EEGs, CATs
- angiograms
- daily Dopplers.
So much bloodwork my veins unusable. Blood clots in my arms. 
- Funny compression bags on my legs.
- room at 60°. The nurses in sweaters bringing heated blankets to Phil (yeah some things you just stay mad about).
- head surrounded by ice packs
- headache, oh the headache
- Confusion
Would it ever end? What was the rhyme or reason to all of this confusion?
10 days in ICU then to the Nuerology floor. The nurse who took a disliking to me so he removed my IVs (once gone doctors orders were I could be discharged). The nurse was fine until he walked in on someone praying for me. For some rhyme or reason he didn’t like what he saw. His demeanor changed. The praying had changed things. He pulled out my IVs and within hours I went from the ICU to the floor, then I was discharged to home. I never went to a rehab.
My IV arm began to swell. The seizures started. Back to the hospital I went for five more days. Rhyme? Reason? That nurse walked into my room, his face froze; he left quickly. He never entered my room again. The admitting nurse had asked about my arm so I told her. I guess he had been reported.
Only God knows His plans and reasons. He does not always tell us why. We can trust He has a reason and let it go. God is sovereign.
So four years have past and I live with a headache, comfortably. Oxymoronic, I know. There is no rhyme or reason why in my way of thinking. I will never know all the “whys”. I just have to know, God’s plan, not mine. He has a “rhyme and reason” to the smallest details of our life. God is sovereign.
Some people meet me and think I am normal. Quit laughing. (Some of you are thinking she was never normal.) I do not want pity, never have. But, there is a rhyme and reason for my pain. It is part of my life, part of my testimony.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 “16 “Rejoice always; 17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.“
Not “for” all things, “in” all things. Big difference. God is sufficient . I do not thank God for the pain or the circumstances that brought me to this point. I thank Him for His plan, His rhyme and reason for the details. I thank Him that He is sovereign.
We have no idea what pain people live with in their lives: spiritually, physically, emotionally or mentally. Much of which seems to not have rhyme or reason. I guess what I am trying to impart is to trust God with the details. We do not need to know the rhyme and reason. Trust His sovereignty.
As my headache subsides to the status quo of the day, I can move on with the daly routines. I do not fret over that I still have my headache or let it hinder me. It is part of my life. I can trust God‘s plan and that He has a rhyme and reason. I can trust in His sovereignty.
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