God always knows what is best for us, even when we think he doesn’t. I was now 48 years old, mid life, with 2 tubes in my stomach, no job, no vehicle, and living in my best friends back bedroom. How pathetic does it get? That’s definitely how my mind was looking at it. If I had been looking at someone else’s life, I would have not thought they were pathetic, I would have felt bad for them and wondered how I could be of service to them. I was not really counting my blessings at this time, but they were still there.
Isaiah 55:8-9. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” This is the Lords declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Life as I had previously known it was over and something new was going to have to start because things were different now. I had to learn to depend on others, which was completely different for me. I had been taught to stand on my own; that you never fully depended on anyone. Even when I was married I never fully relied on my spouse, which is probably one of the many things wrong with my marriage that ended it. My stomach was feeling pretty good from my surgery and I seemed to be able to take care of my feeding tube by myself now. About a week after I retired from my job I started having this relentlessly migraine headache. I have been on the same migraine regimen for years and it has worked well, so this was concerning to me. I called my Primary Care and scheduled to see him. I went in on July 30th and we did the usual intervention, a Decadron shot and a steroid dose pack. This normally breaks any headache that I have, unfortunately it did not work this time. Twelve days into the migraine I end up in the local standalone ER for treatment. Of course they knew me because of all of my stomach issues but have not seen me since I had my feeding tube placed. When you come into the ER with a migraine headache and you haven’t had a CT Scan of your head recently you automatically get one to rule out tumor or aneurysm. Fortunately I did not have either of these, so the ER treated me for the migraine and I went home and rested. I was hoping that this would break the cycle of the migraine, but it did not. I don’t want to go through every intimate detail of this migraine with you but it goes basically like any other break through Migraine that I have, except this one lasted over 90 days. Friends, imagine having a jackhammer inside your head, while you are stumbling around drunk from some vertigo and extreme nausea and light sensitivity for 90 days, that’s what my migraines are basically like. They have not changed since I was 8 years old. They tried 2 new medications that I ended up being allergic to, one of which sent me to the ER, but in the end they sent me to pain management for botox injections, which finally gave me relief for the migraine. It is now the middle of October 2024 and I have been free from stomach pain since June 2024, that’s 4 whole months. I am truly excited about how this is going. I am getting used to being in my back pack in public, although it does get heavy and sometimes people stare.
In mid October I notice a red spot come up again around my j-tube site, so I go ahead and call my GI Specialist. The nurse makes and appointment for the 18th of October. I really hope it is nothing because my friends are wanting to go to a fall festival and pumpkin patch the next day and I really want to go with them. I don’t get out of the house much anymore because of my feeding tubes and going along with them sounded like fun. My GI Specialist looked at my
j-tube site and said that it wasn’t infected at the time, but it could use some steroid cream around it to help heal that reddened area and help the soreness. So he prescribed a cream for me and scheduled a 6 week appointment and I was on my way. I went to the Fall Festival with my friends, but by the end of it my j-tube site was really sore. I just attributed it to having my backpack on for a long period of time and figured that when I got home and rested that it would ease up. When I was cleaning my tube sites at bedtime I noticed that around my j-tube was a purplish-red looking pus pocket. It was hot and painful to the touch. Around this spot redness extended further with some swelling. I called my best friend into my room and showed it to her and told her that I thought I needed to go to the ER and that I didn’t think it should wait until morning. True to my intuition it did not need to wait. We went to the local stand alone ER and when the doctor looked at it, started marking the reddened area around my j-tube. He explained that I now had an infection with cellulitis. The doctor explained that if the redness moved outside the area that he had drawn that I needed to immediately return to the ER. There were other conditions that I would have to be aware of over the next few hours and days. I was given a shot of antibiotics in the ER with some other things. For home medicine I was given oral antibiotics for 10 days and an ointment for around my tube.
I don’t know how many people are really told that these things can or will happen once they get a feeding tube put in but I was not. My expectation was to have a feeding tube placed and feel all better, but there are different struggles to go through. What I do know is that not every tubie (that’s what they nickname people that have feeding tubes) goes through the same struggle. There are struggles in every aspect of life. I never want anyone to feel sorry for me. What do I want them to feel? I want people to look at me and see the Glory of God shining through. I want people to look at me and see that this is still life, not the verge of death. I may not be able to do all the things I used to be able to do or even some of the things I still want to do, but God is still allowing breath in my body every day. I share my story with you so that maybe you are comfortable enough to share yours with others who need it. There are so many out there who are uninformed or just need comforting. Always let God lead you in the direction that you should go.
2 Corinthians 12:6-10 For if I want to boast, I wouldn’t be a fool, because I would be telling the truth. But I will spare you, so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me, or hears from me, especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan, to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.“ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weakness, so that Christ power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
