Forever Beloved - Faith, Love & Truth

December 31, 2016

Living With Adhesion Related Disorder

I opened the door and felt the warm summer air hit my face. I felt strangely numb as I walked to my car. I put the key in the ignition, heard the music begin and the cool air circulate. I was consumed by my thoughts, a mixture of excited and total sadness.

I had just left my appointment and finally had a diagnosis.

Adhesion Related Disorder.

This medical path I’m on began four years ago. I accepted my journey almost as soon as it began, knowing it was a path God had chosen me to walk. I know that He has a perfectly perfect plan through this. It has been full of so many overwhelming blessings, I can trace His hand through it all!

I thought accepting this journey as His plan would make it easy.

He reminded me through lots of prayer and bucket loads of tears that this life isn’t promised to be easy, but it is going to be worth it.

I’m in pain every day, as these adhesions twist and turn inside me. I imagine them as octopus tentacles, grabbing onto different points every day. Pulling them in directions they aren’t meant to go. Weaving their way around my intestines, attaching to my ribs and most recently wrapping around my sciatic nerve. Some days are easier than others. But make no mistake, each day is full of pain.

ARD {Adhesion Related Disorder} is something that isn’t heard or spoken of very often. To be honest, before my diagnosis I hadn’t heard of it. Adhesions are basically the bodies repair system gone haywire. They are essentially the healing process after trauma or inflammation which has been afflicted on a part of the body.

Adhesions are an almost inevitable outcome of surgery, and the problems that they cause are widespread and sometimes severe. It has been said by some that adhesions are the single most common and costly problem related to surgery, and yet most people have not even heard the term. This lack of awareness means that, excluding infertility, many doctors are unable or unwilling to tackle the problems of adhesions. Dr. David Wiseman

Healing of course is required to help stop bleeding, repair tissue and to get the body working again. Unfortunately it is the same repair system which leads to ARD, as the equilibrium goes into overdrive and creates far too much scar tissue (Adhesions).

Once adhesions take hold inside the body (especially in the pelvis and abdomen, where all my surgeries have been) they can cause major issues including:

Organs sticking together
Bowel obstructions
Digestive issues
Chronic Pain

The hardest part has been overcoming the stigma that comes with chronic pain. When people hear those words, some of them assume it’s in your head and your being over-dramatic. To be completely honest, it embarrasses me. I constantly feel I need to prove myself and my condition to others. I don’t want people to automatically think that of me. For that reason, I’ve kept it private with only close family knowing.

Until today.

So I thought the best way to combat that stigma is through education.

Having chronic pain means many things change, and a lot of the changes are invisible.

Unlike having cancer or being hurt in a car accident, most people do not understand chronic pain and its effects. Those that think they know, many are actually misinformed. These are the things that I would like you to understand about me.

Please understand that being sick doesn’t mean I’m not still a human being. I have to spend most of my days in pain. And pain is exhausting. But I’m still me, stuck inside this body. I still worry about work, my family and my friends.

Please understand the difference between happy and healthy. When you’ve got the flu you probably feel miserable with it, but I’ve been sick for years. I can’t be miserable all the time. In fact, I work hard at not being miserable. So, if you’re talking to me and I sound happy, it means I’m happy. That’s all. It doesn’t mean that I’m not in a lot of pain, not extremely tired or that I’m getting better. I’ve learned over the years how to cope. I am sounding happy and trying to look normal.

Please understand that I know my body. If I say I have to sit down, lie down, stay in bed, or take medication now, that probably means that I do have to do it right now. It can’t be put off or forgotten just because I’m somewhere, or I’m right in the middle of doing something. Chronic pain does not forgive, nor does it wait for anyone.

Please understand that I would like nothing more than being normal. I would love to wake up each morning and know the new day ahead wouldn’t include pain. I would love to plan shopping days with my Mama without fear of being sick. And more than anything else, I would love my husband to have a healthy wife and a normal marriage.

My sickness has, as I’ve said for years, been filled with blessings directly from God. Throughout it all I’ve learned if we turn toward God in our pain, He can use our suffering to mature our faith.

Information on Adhesion Related Disorder.

December 30, 2016

Searching For Confidence

I pulled into the parking lot, grabbed my camera bag and headed out for my photo shoot. Before my feet hit the ground, she excitedly ran over to me.

Guess what I had done? The tummy tuck we always talked about.

As soon as she spoke those words, she looked me up and down. The next words she spoke left me feeling like I had been punched right in the gut.

It’s really too bad you got sick, you were looking so good before that.

The photo shoot felt like a blur. All I wanted to do was crawl back into my car and cry my eyes out.

As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer.

Words matter.

Words hurt.

The things we speak to each other carry so much weight. The things we speak to ourselves determine what we believe.

On the drive home, through many tears, I ran to God. Y’all have no idea how many times He’s held me while I’ve ugly cried. I talked to Him like He was sitting right beside me. Thank goodness He doesn’t judge my swollen face and puffy, red eyes.

For most of my life I’ve been a Negative Nancy and a Debbie Downer. As far as negative talk went, I was a pro. I could talk a mean game and cut to the bone with my words. The sad thing, this all went on inside my head. My entire life, I’ve compared myself to others around me. I was too fat, my booty was too big, I hated my nose, my teeth weren’t white enough and now lets add to it a stomach that is riddled with scars and looks like a road map.

Over the past few years, I’ve had a lot of bad days. I mean horrible, breakdown, take you to your knees days. Add to that the stress of multiple surgeries, weight gain, hair loss and scars beyond scars.

And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I am beautiful as I am because I’m a daughter of the King and I’m made in His image. The tears slowed and a smile graced my lips.

I don’t have to compete with anyone.

My entire life I’ve been striving to be someone that I’m not.

I was searching for confidence in places I would never find it.

My husband loves me as I am. My friends love my heart. My scars from a bazillion surgeries tell a story of survival. I am perfectly perfect as He wanted me to be.

A precious gem’s beauty isn’t always recognized until it enters the hand of a skilled jeweler who knows just how to clean and cut the gem in the way that will best reflect the light that shines on it.

I can be confident and so can you! We can walk through this world with heads and hearts held high as daughters of the King. Daughters who are messy and broken but transformed into beautiful simply because we are His.

True beauty is found on the inside. When we allow Him to guide us, mold us, to cleanse our hearts of anything that doesn’t please Him it’s reflected on the outside. We are beautiful on the inside and outside when we acknowledge Christ’s deep and abiding love for us. Love that doesn’t change with our appearance. He loves me in spite of my scars, booty, nose, bags under my eyes and droopy eyelids. His love is always, always, forever there and He accepts us exactly for who we are.

Sweet girls, embrace this truth with me today.

December 29, 2016

Is Your Marriage Worth Saving?

I remember the exact moment those words flew past my lips.

I hope I’m not pregnant, this marriage is worthless!

I remember everything about that moment…where I was standing, what I had on, what the lighting looked like and more than anything I remember the look on his face.

In that moment my marriage felt hopeless and to be honest, not worth saving.

I want to tell you this, from my heart directly to yours, every marriage is worth saving.

Sometimes marriage is hard. Really, really hard. And by hard I don’t mean disagreements over where to go to dinner. I don’t mean dirty, wet towels being left on the floor. I mean in the trenches, fighting the battle to bring darkness into light, when satan comes at you from every direction to steal your joy and your hope because he knows he is loosing ground kind of hard.

When my husband and I went through a rough in-the-trenches season of marriage there were only two things that helped us survive…handing our marriage to God and clinging to hope

When it feels like all hope is lost, hand that relationship over to God. Pray for His direction, discernment and allow Him to lead you. Oh, how many times I’ve hit my knees praying for the right words, actions that would please Him and a heart that follows His.

Please, I plead with you, don’t make a rash decision while your heart is hurting. Many days, divorce sounds like the best and sometimes easiest option. Believe me, there were days that through my tears and brokenness I just wanted to throw my hands up, admit defeat and file for divorce. But I heard God consistently telling me to stand for my marriage, regardless of what the world told me to do. He showed me divorce extracted a high price, a price I simply wasn’t willing to pay.

That may be the end result for your relationship, though I pray not. That decision may even be out of your hands. If it is, cling to God like never before and allow Him to carry you through it.

When you hand your marriage over to Him, you open yourself to a beautiful reconciliation full of grace. A relationship that, once it has endured the storm, will come out of it stronger and new. Through fighting in the trenches side-by-side, all the late night conversations, all the deepness, you now know each other differently. This is the blessing of true healing from the hands of God.

But in the midst of the battle, God hears us. He hears our cries. He can see into the deepest depths of your heart and He knows exactly what it will take to restore Hope into your heart, into your life and into your marriage. He doesn’t wait for us to “clean up our act”. He meets us where we are and loves us just as we are, sinners. He showers us with His amazing grace. We have a God who not only knows our doubts and hopelessness, but our tears and pain break His heart.

At times, taking it day by day seems like such a big task. Take it minute by minute if you must, and allow His grace to carry you through each one.

I know even reading this post made your heart ache and your eyes well with tears. I wish so very much I could reach through this screen and give you a big hug and just cry with you. One day the pain will be a little less, I promise. One day your husband will walk past you in the kitchen, brush up against your arm and you’ll feel those butterflies again. The good days will be more often. And each week, there will be more glimpses of sunshine. Eventually your good days will run together, and smiles and laughter will abound. Trust me, you will get there if you allow God to heal your heart. He brings beauty from the ashes.

The beautiful thing about marriage is you get a front row seat to watch His glorious, redemptive work. His answers don’t always come as quickly as we hope. It isn’t always the answer we want or expect. And yet, He is faithful. He is good. And we will praise Him still.

You will move on past this. You will hold your head high, knowing the storm may have knocked you down but it didn’t win.

By the way, I found out the next day that I was indeed pregnant. And that was 18 years ago! I am so thankful that our love story didn’t end there, that it did have many more God-scripted chapters to it. The reward of restoration was well worth the wait. And I am eternally thankful that our love was rescued by God!