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| Why Me? The title of this entry is "Why Me?". How many times have you said those words? I know I have cried them as I faced various problems in my life. Today, they have a very different meaing for me. In 2009, I had a thyroidectomy. I suffered a complication from that surgery which resulted in me having a disorder called hypoparathyroidism. The parathyroid glands are small kidney bean shaped glands nestled behind the thyroid. Because they share blood supply and such with the thyroid glands, they can be damaged when the thyroid is surgically removed. Hypoparathyroidism is a rare disorder and is generally the result of a post-surgery complication. The parathyroid glands regulate the calcium level in our blood. Parathyroid hormone is needed to be able to draw calcium out of our bones when it is needed. I became acutely aware of the impact of this hidden homeostatic system when mine no longer functioned. I was faced with the challenge of managing my blood calcium levels by eating lots and lots of Tums -- up to twenty-four a day. The level of disability folks with hypoparathyroidism experience varies from person to person. For me, it left me unable to work. My blood calcium level has never gotten back up to "normal" since my surgery in 2009. For years, my parathyroid glands did not produce ANY parathyroid hormone. Well, I say "glands" but I suspect the surgeon only preserved ONE gland. When I asked him post-op how many of the parathyroid glands he was able to save, his answer was a bit vague. His only response was, "I thought it was so big, it would be fine. That left me to believe he had only salvaged one of the four tiny but important glands. The fact is, you only need one FUNCTIONING parathyroid gland -- keyword: FUNCTIONING. I guarantee I thought "Why me?" many times from 2009 through 2014. Well, I still think those words but now they have a different meaning for me. Something happened in 2014 to change that. In 2014, I visited a tiny church in Wagoner, Oklahoma. I actually had gone hoping for prayer -- the old-fashion laying-on-of-hands kind of pentecostal praying. I was spiritually and emotionally drained the day I walked into that little church -- the day I walked in there with my walker -- sitting on it at the back of the church as the service started. I was not looking for any kind of physical healing. At least, that was not my plan when I entered the church. However, when I was afforded the opportunity for the pastor to pray for me, I did ask to be anointed with oil -- the standard kind of thing for prayer for physical healing. At the end of the service, something unusual happened: the pastor asked the whole congregation to pray and fast for the next week for my COMPLETE healing. In all my sixty-five years, I have not seen a church pray and fast for a whole week for a total stranger. At first, nothing happened. A few days later, I actually said to God: "God, I guess it is not your will to heal me. Please help me to live within the parameters of this disorder." Then something happened. It was a couple weeks later when I noticed a change in my skin. One of the affects of hypoparathyroidism for me had been that my skin was rough and would slough off by the handfuls when it got wet. What I noticed that day in 2014 was that there was no noticeable sloughing. "Was I being healed?" I wondered to myself. The answer was yes -- I was being healed. Six months later, I put my walker in storage and I haven't needed it since. My health is better than it has been in twenty years. Have I been COMPLETELY healed? Well, technically no. I still suffer from diabetes. My blood calcium level is still slightly below normal. I still have some symptoms of fibromyalgia. BUT: I am preparing to go back to work. In so many ways, my health has been restored. I can do things for hours on end whereas for the five previous years, I could only manage about one hour a day. Now I ask, "Why me?" Why did God choose to bestow this miracle on me? I do not know the answer to that question but I will tell you this: It is so exciting, I must tell folks about it and I appreciate it so much that it is a JOY to have to stand in line at the grocery store -- something I was not able to do for the five years that passed between the time I became disabled and the time I was miraculously healed. Why me? I do not know. ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ Written for a Wodehose Challenge. Click here for more information ▼ |
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