Enough

I'm pretty sure no one has looked at this in the past three years. I know I haven't. And honestly, part of me hopes no one will read this. Because this is not a happy story. Can joy be found within it? I believe so. But happiness? Not so much. Because you see, pain isn't happy. People don't want to hear about pain. They don't want to hear about your hurt. They want to see a smiling face and when they ask how you are, they want you to respond in a generic manner that doesn't require them to invest anything into the 'conversation'. Because they don't really want to know how you are doing. They are just being polite. People don't want to hear that you are struggling, that everyday is difficult and painful and you often feel crippling loneliness because no one can really understand your pain. So that's part of why I'm writing this on here. No one will have to read it. I can just get it out and let it be said. Let it be said that I am in horrible pain on a daily basis. That the only reason I can function within normal society is because of pain medication. That most days I don't want to leave my house because it is so freaking hard. This is my life now. This is my story.

Almost three years ago, I married my best friend. It is the second best thing that has ever happened to me. The first being Christ Jesus choosing to save me before the foundations of the Earth were formed. I knew that I had a bad back. The summer before, my doctor told me off for wearing flip flops too much and told me to stop running because I was experiencing some back pain. I heeded his advice, stopped wearing flip flops, and stop running. (That was no big hardship for me. Running and I were not getting along anyway.) And the pain went away and I didn't think of it again. Until my husband and I were moving into our first apartment. Some very heavy furniture got stuck on the stairs up to our apartment and my father-in-law threw his back out trying to move it up. That left my husband and his mother, all 5 foot 1 inch of her, to try and move the furniture. They needed help, so I helped. And that's where it began.

The school year started up and I was in a second grade classroom for my student teaching. It was my last semester before I would graduate college. And I began noticing weird things. My leg and foot would fall asleep while I was standing up. My back hurt anything I tried to wear heels or shoes without arch support. I was having trouble sleeping at night because I couldn't get comfortable. I was able to ignore it for six months. Then I finally made an appointment with my doctor. She immediately referred me to an orthopedic doctor. I had an MRI and X-rays taken, and discovered I had a herniated disc. I had an injection in my back to try and help with the inflammation and then I started physical therapy. It helped for a little while, but then it wore off and I was in a load of pain again. Right when we were deciding what our next move would be, everything changed. By this point I had graduated from college and had been subbing as much as I was physically able during the spring. But I wasn't in college anymore and therefore, could no long be on the college's insurance plan.  My husband did not have a job. He had been applying everywhere, but no one, I mean NO ONE, was hiring. So we decided to go with private insurance and hope one of us would get a job soon. At the time, I knew nothing of pre-existing conditions. That would change very quickly.

I can still remember the anguish I felt when I got the letter from our new insurance company saying that they were putting a rider on my plan that they would not pay for anything dealing with my spine. In general. I crumpled. My husband was away and I was alone in the apartment. I remember falling to the ground and crying and asking God what I was supposed to do. I was already stressed and anxious because my husband didn't have a job and subbing doesn't pay much, especially when you are in so much pain, even the thought of subbing makes you cringe. Funds were short. We were borrowing money from my husband's parents just to get by. And now this. I didn't understand why God would let this happen to me. I was in pain and I needed help, and it seemed like He just didn't care. Over the next year, this feeling would grow and grow, to the point where I wasn't even sure if God wanted what was best for me. I wasn't sure if I trusted him at all.

That was probably the hardest year of my life. My husband didn't have a job. I didn't have a job. I was in a considerable amount of pain, but could seek no help, because we would have to pay out of pocket for any medical care I received. I never left the house. I was very unhappy because I felt that I had disappointed everyone in my life. I felt that my parents were ashamed of me and my friends were tired of hearing about my struggles. I started having anxiety attacks again. I no longer trusted God to keep me safe, so I was worried constantly. Then, things started looking up. My husband got a job at Lowe's. We started to actually earn money! But his job was considered part-time and so he received no health insurance. That summer, the summer of 2012, I realized that I was in a really bad place. I didn't trust God to not let horrible things happen to me because horrible things were happening to me. I believe that God is in charge of all things, and that meant that He was to blame for my suffering. I was angry and I was hurting, in more ways than one.

Thankfully, I had a church family who loved me and saw that I was in need and in one week, two different people told me I should contact our church about counseling. I saw the wisdom in their words and contacted the counselor at our church. We began meeting once a week that summer for two months. And many things started to become clearer to me. God was not a god that I could stick in my pocket and have him do exactly as I wanted. God is a God who desires my sanctification. He is a God who loves me so much, that He will not let me live my sinful life in peace. He will purpose pain, hurt, and sorrow into my life, so that I may become more like Him and glorify His name. I was not hurting for no reason. There was a bigger purpose in place that I couldn't, or more likely wouldn't, see. I began to see all the sin in my life that was destroying me and I began the process of healing my relationship with God. And God has proved to me, over and over again, that He is in charge of all things, the good and the bad. And He is good through it all.

In what I can only describe as a pure work of God, I was offered a job at a Christian preschool as the lead teacher of a pre-k class. I was hired the day in-service started. It was a perfect fit. I was still in a lot of pain, so I was worried that working at a public school would be way too much for me. But the preschool was only four days a week, six hours a day. I was ecstatic. Since I had a job, I began going to physical therapy again, but only once a week, since that's all we could afford. My husband got a job at Academy as a Team Lead and was making more money. He was full time now, so we knew he would be getting benefits eventually and we couldn't wait for that! It seemed liked things were getting better. Until they weren't.

I stopped making progress at PT. I actually regressed and had to go back to the exercises that I had started with at the very beginning. I was limping around school all day because of the pain. I started having to take my pain medicine at school, because I simply couldn't make it through the day without it. My physical therapist became very concerned at my lack of progress. And the pain had become unbearable. Imagine that you have been sitting for a long period of time and your entire leg has fallen asleep. You get up to try and walk it off and you get that pins and needles feeling and your leg still feels a little numb. Now take that feeling and crank it up 1,000 times. That's how my leg was feeling. And then the burning started. That's the only way I can describe it. It's like someone is burning your nerves from the inside out. It started in just my little toe. And then it was all my toes. And then it was my whole foot. And the only thing that would make it go away was laying flat on my back on the floor. When I told my physical therapist about it, she told me that I needed to see a doctor and quickly. She was concerned about permanent nerve damage.

Thankfully, God provided and my husband's insurance kicked in through his company. As of May 1st, we were on a new plan. I made an appointment to see a spinal neurosurgeon on May 2nd. He sent me for a MRI and when the results came back, he told me he didn't know how I had been living with this for almost three years. Because, you see, there was almost no disc material left between my two vertebrae. Almost all of it was out of the disc sac, pressing on the nerve going down my right leg. He scheduled me for surgery in June. And this is the first time pain relief, real pain relief, has been on the horizon for me. I have been in almost constant pain for three years. I can't tell you how excited I am for this surgery. I know there are risks and there might be some permanent nerve damage, but God has been with me this whole way. And He will see me through.

So while happiness has been in short supply for this bit of my story, please believe me when I say there has been an abundance of joy. Joy in that my Savior is enough. Joy in that He relieved the pain for a short while, so I could teach the children at my church. Joy that He gave me a husband that loves and supports me, no matter what. A husband who doesn't mind eating pasta for the 5th night in a row because I don't have the strength to go to the grocery store or cook. Joy in that He gave me a sister-in-love who encouraged and understood my pain.

Everyday is hard for me. Every day is a struggle. Today is hard because I slept on my right side last night and that always irritates my back and leg and I have to go grocery shopping and go up to school to get ready for the week. But God is good. And that is enough.