Hand Surgery

I have successfully made it through hand surgery! Since surgery life has been crazy in ways that I would not have expected. I had no idea what the healing process would be like, every question I asked the doctor her reply was 'everyone is different' which wasn't very helpful for me who loves to be over prepared when it comes to surgery! 

The surgery was harder and easier than I had expected. For a week after surgery my hand was totally useless, I was one handed. I had the week off, praise the Lord, but it didn't feel like a week off because it took three to four time longer for me to do daily chores with one hand than with two, so I actually got little time to actually rest! I am so thankful for my roomies who were always eager to jump to my aid should I need help, especially with my hair! Thank you ladies! 

Once the stitches were taken out recovery became easier than I had expected. I started hand therapy to gain the mobility of my hand back, after a few days we were noticing significant improvement. I know I say this every time but God really does have perfect timing. There was a morning that I was getting very discouraged with my hand and when I went to do my morning stretches, no joke, it moved an inch  farther back than it had since surgery! I was ecstatic! The Lord delights in small beginnings therefore I delight in small improvements! 

I have some pictures for you, if you have a queasy stomach you may want to skip this part :) 

This was my hand five days after surgery, the first time I saw it after removing the bandages. 

This next picture is my hand a day or two after the stitches were removed. 

(Sorry its shiny, it's the lotion) 

Lastly, this is my hand today April 29, and my how it has improved! 

One thing I have loved about having hand surgery is the opportunity to witness drastic healing up close and personal. I have lyme disease which is an extended over the course of years I will heal. But this cut in my hand has healed over the course of weeks. It is beautiful to see how the Lord has designed our bodies so perfectly, He even gave us the ability to heal. What a blessing! 

The week after surgery my lyme was very quiet, looking back I call it the calm before the storm. God was gracious to give me a week to focus on my hand before lyme took over again. After that week I have been on a ten day medicine for my co-infection babisa, this is the med you take ten days of every month to help with my breathing co-infection. This month it made me much sicker than it has in the past. There were many days I had to cancel plans to stay home and rest. My last day on that medication was friday and I have been pretty sick since, I stayed home all day saturday and sunday. 

If you were unaware, lyme patients heal when they sleep, its how your body kicks the lyme. Im not sure why but that the way it is and every time I am sick or don't feel good I know I need more sleep! The last three nights in a row I have had over twelve hours of sleep each night! I guess I really needed the extra time to heal! As the day progresses I am feeling better than I have in a couple days which is a huge blessing. Weeks like the two I just had remind me I need to take it slow and make my health a priority of my daily living, especially when I am on extra medications that make me sicker! 

If you keep up with my blogs you will notice that I commonly write about the blessings I have been given by God. I read a beautiful verse about it.

For it is You who blesses the righteous man O Lord, You surround him with favor as with a shield. ~Psalm 5:12 

I began thinking about why God blesses us, what have we done to deserve the blessing that He pours about us, what have we done to deserve His favor? Well we haven't done anything! 

Return, O Lord, rescue my soul: save me because of Your lovingkindness. ~Psalm 6:4 

God favors us and blesses us because He loves us. This is something that I have known for a long time but looking at it again it blows my mind! Its like it just choose to travel from mind knowledge to heart knowledge. No matter what you are going through you can look at the Lord and see how richly blessed you are if you are a child of God. You are blessed because He loves you, its nothing about what we can or can not do, what a gift! 

Some small knowledge: 

I have successfully finished spring semester 2012 and I am on summer break! I get a week off then begin my summer classes, so I am going to live up no homework! I successfully passed all three of my classes and am excited to see the Lord work through the four I have this summer. 

My hand is still doing marvelous, I am even typing with it! I am still going to hand therapy and doing stretches and massaging it to reduce scar tissue and insure that the surgery was successful. During surgery they did find a trigger finger, they did some extra cuts during surgery and it seems to be functioning properly so far! 

Prayer Requests:
*Wisdom how to balance time this summer: classes, work, ministry, and health.
*That I will be able to keep up in summer classes and do well
*That I will never again have to have hand surgery (there's nothing you can do to prevent ganglion cysts) And if I get one that I will lean on God and let Him handle it from day one.
*That I will be feeling well for a full week of work and the ten day medicine will get out of my system soon, along with the co-infection!

My First Anniversary

March 28th is a special day for my history book, it is the day I was diagnosed with lyme disease. Most people when they hear the news that they have lyme it is a time of sadness, lyme is a very hard disease to live with and even harder to have victory over. But for me, it was a day to rejoice! I had spent years chasing symptoms and getting the same response from every doctor, nothing is wrong and I should get on medicine for depression. Praise the Lord for my family and their faith in the Lord and trusting  me that I was telling the truth. 

After six years that unexplainable pain was only getting worse, it was slowly killing me and doctors still had no clue what was wrong. Until one day in March my mother almost had to force my doctor in St. Louis to test me for lyme and the news came back on March 28th the day before my birthday that the test was positive! For the first time I actually knew what my body was fighting and that is a reason to rejoice! 

The last year has flown so quickly and with it there have been ups and downs with my symptoms and emotionally but the rock in my life has been constant, because God never changes. These are two of the verses have I have claimed throughout this last year.  

Now we have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure, this makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.    ~2 Corinthians 4:7 

"Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold I am doing something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert."    ~Isaiah 43:18-19 

I have found that it does not matter where I am, what pain I have or anything else but it simply matters who God is. For much of my life I was focused on myself and it was only through my pain that my world was taken away from me in my eyes and I realized that even if I got it back it was temporary and I wanted eternal therefore I put my hope and faith in Christ and my life has radically changed since. 

"There are blessings we will never obtain if we are unwilling to accept and endure suffering. There are certain joys that come to us only through sorrow. There are revelations of Gods divine truth that we will recive only when the lights of earth have been estinguished. And there are harvests that will grow only once the plow has done its work." Streams in The Desert Devotional (Oct 4) 

There is a beauty that comes in the understanding that this is temporary, and searching for the one thing that is eternal. That is Christ Himself. 

I have been doing fairly well on my new medications, I am struggeling with my memory once again but it is more-so minor for now. I have also been getting nasous after meals so I have been drinking pop but not near as much as I used to! I went almost two months without a single pop! One day I will be able to do that again, but for now its needed. My hand is starting to give out on me, the surgery is this thursday and it, like everything, has come in perfect timing! 

My tendons are getting pretty sore they think it is simply from the cyst being a disturbance and hope the problem will be revealed during surgery or will go away when the cyst is gone. My left hand middle finger tendon is also hurting, I am hoping it may simply be due to overuse. I am right handed and have been favoring my left hand so it's not use to the exercise! The Lord has been teaching me through the lack of my right hand the same as He teaches me lessons through lyme and one thing I know is that He is a God that I can trust. 

Prayer Requests: 

*That surgery would go smoothly and successfully

*That I can finish my eight page paper before surgery thursday morning

*Healing for the next year of lyme

*That the Lord will continue to teach me great things through my lyme disease