Update and God's Purpose for my Life
Do you ever sit back and ask God why you are here?
Like what is HIS infinite purpose for you?
I tend to do that a lot and if I had to guess, I would think most Christian women do, at times, wonder about the purpose of their lives. Firstly, before launching into this question, I want to emphasize that NOTHING I write is because of a desire for pity on me. This is my life and God has given it to me to live!
I have for years and yet He showed me again this month, after having already saved my life two other times! If that's NOT God, then I am not sure what it is.
On 9/28, I went in for a tummy tuck and breast reduction. Pain I’m having is temporary, but the former pulmonary embolism could have easily been at the finale of my life (I am 40 years old with a beautiful 12-year-old daughter an amazing husband).
Our beautiful family, in 2011, in February when we took our last trip to Russia to bring Katie home.
I only pray to God that he watches over myself and my family. God watches over Katie because she misses me so much and between me being gone and the virtual school stuff, she is a resilient child but there comes a point in everyone’s life or even the best of resiliency does not work. You see, that's how God works. He did not intervene and let my anxiety take hold but He in HIS infinite wisdom wanted the inactive clot to be found. It does mean a lifetime of blood thinners (but as opposed to my first clotting episode back in 2003), the medications are better and you DO NOT have to give up Kale, Broccoli, dark greens, spinach.... Thank you, Jesus, because those are staples in my life!
Also, about a week after my procedure I was readmitted for sepsis for an abdominal wall infection (but again, I am infection prone). It is serious enough that I am now home on IV antibiotics because I have a port and knew how to use it. So, home health works for me and would for most on long term antibiotics. They pulled out the "big guns" as it were: Vancomycin and Cefipime BOTH. I am finally encouraged just short of a month.
Thankful/sad doesn’t even describe the lows and highs I have. Even though this is incredibly painful, I wouldn’t change a thing because I’m ALIVE (with smaller breasts and my spare tire gone). I can’t wait get back in the gym and workout, but I’ll only go to a gym if it’s safe because since I’m a scuba diver and hope to rehabilitate to dive a conservative profile. It is the BEST thing my husband and I have that we do together.
Despite the challenges, I am SO happy because my former self could not button shirts due to having such large breasts and NOW, I can!!!!
Here's the rest of my story and how I KNOW WITHOUT A DOUBT that God saved me so I could me a wife and a mama to Katie. When I was just 23, I was athletic (preparing for my first ever half marathon. I LIVED in the gym. I even TAUGHT step, kickboxing, etc. and the HIGHLIGHT of my workday at as a public relations writer and radio host WAS exercise. It could come at 5:30am, and I did not mind. (There are some photos back then too....20 years ago).
I was out running one day in Alabama and later that evening, I did not feel well. I had a migraine (or so I thought) and I laid down but then the nausea started and finally unrelenting back pain. I called my grandpa (this was 2003, so I didn't get married until 2006). He drove the forty minutes and took me to the emergency room where it was discovered I had three obstructive kidney stones. So, I was admitted and underwent stent surgery by a urologist. I was released a few days later to go home and let the stones pass.
Three days later my sweet grandmother knew something was wrong because I could not eat and could not keep ANYTHING down. Turns out, I had a 106 degree temperature and was in sepsis. I owe the late Dr. Wallace of Mobile, Alabama and his colleague, Dr. Alsip... my life! My friend Melinda remembers this time because I still have that angel necklace you brought me all those years ago. I ended up with sepsis through that stent and my body created a psoas muscle abscess (which my reading informed me that there was at that time (a greater than 85% mortality rate). With this, I was in the hospital several weeks and this was before blood clotting and DVT precautions were ever taken for bed-bound patients. Those first few weeks, I do not even remember being alive but my mom and grandparents took watch and stayed with their baby girl. Eventually, I got better and Jesus saved my life. I did not value MY SAVIOR back then as much as I do now because I have seen HIM work three times which could have been deadly in my life, this being the first.
Secondly, I had resumed training at our YMCA in Mobile and was due for a CT Scan (so that VERY day), I had been running. The radiology tech just happened to go down far enough from the Psoas muscle and there it was, a monstrosity of a blood clot in my left iliac vein. So, I was readmitted to treat this blood clot---this being time TWO JESUS outright saved me from death. Then the hematologist found I have a hypercoaguable state known at MTHFR, for which I am heterozygous.
AND if there is ANY advice I can give you after living through these harrowing experiences, that is: QUESTION EVERYTHING, question doctors, nurses and ADVOCATE for yourself. That's why they call it PRACTICING MEDICINE.
If you want to amuse yourself with what I sounded like in radio, then here are some samples:
Southern XTC Commercial: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpwk9yn6fkb5h2p/Lite%20Mix%2099.9.mp3?dl=0
WABB work sample: https://www.dropbox.com/s/at3q5y24s9mobrp/AprilWABB2003.mp3?dl=0
Age 20, Clear Channel Radio Announcer
These last three photos, age 22/23 taken as I joined the now closed WABB as a radio announcer in Mobile, Alabama.
Now that I had had my tummy tuck and my breast reduction, when the time arrives and I am released to workout, I do hope I can get this bod back! This was 2015 and I trained and ran 2 5K's and a 10K Across the Bay (Chesapeake Bay Bridge).
On I.V. antibiotics this time from home and praying to be healed again. I am so thankful for my amazing husband, daughter and doctors.
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