I will not forget!

On October 9, 2009 the lymph nodes in my neck began to swell.  Not uncommon when someone is coming down with a sickness.  A response to our body fighting off what shouldn't be there ... our lymph nodes doing their job.  I didn't think anything of them and awaited a soar throat or other symptoms to follow.  A week later I found myself in an urgent care and watching the doctor prescribe an antibiotic.  I remember thinking her response was odd when she said "if they don't go down, please see your doctor as they could be other things; Mono or lymphoma".  Passing it off as bad bedside manners, I went on my way without fear.

10 days later, those lymph nodes hadn't changed.  I was beginning to have little energy and feeling as though I was really coming down with something.  This time, I scheduled an appointment with my own physician who ironically enough had done a physical on me the morning of October 9th.  Re-checking the nodes, he agreed they were abnormally swollen and thought that we should try a different antibiotic.
We did.  Nothing changed.  My condition worsened.  6 days later I returned to my doctors office, feeling little energy and really with the inability to do all the things I needed to do each day.  I wondered if it was mono.  I'd done that before.  It felt familiar.  My doctor agreed the chain of nodes spanning my neck were not normal and he ordered more intensive blood work.  This is a post I wrote of what followed and what was to come.  Click here.

I will never forget leaving the doctors office after he called me in for the results of that blood work and the results of a chest x-ray that he ordered.  I will never forget hearing words like "Lymphoma" and "Sarcoidosis" come from his lips.  I remember being partly numb and then each time I would have a moment where the reality would hit and I'd simply cry.  I'll admit, I was terrified.  The thought of what stood in front of me was daunting.  The weekend was long after that appointment as we awaited Monday, the day I'd do a CT scan and find out what was really going on.  Read about that here.
I also will not forget the day that Dr. Stigall called and said that my nodes were within a normal range and the spots on my chest were GONE - they didn't even show up in the CT! Praise be to GOD!  I wanted to shout from the roof tops but couldn't muster the energy ... I still felt like crap!   I returned and they re-tested that ACE enzyme and it too was in the "Normal" range.  To Glory be God alone!  You see, the doctors couldn't explain the normal results so they explained it away with all sorts of medical jargon and all sorts of things like "the x-ray must have had shadows on it" or "some use a different level comparison for the "ACE" levels and really ... you were always somewhat within a normal level (as described by an infectious disease doctor I'd later see).  You see, no one could explain those results just like no one could explain the pain that began to move through my body for the next 9 months.

I have waited almost a year and have been itching to yell from the roof tops "HE HEALED ME"!  I have moved throughout the summer and slowly with each passing day, the pain began to subside and I have begun to feel better than ever!  But through all of this, there has been one thing left that has left me with a seed of doubt, one thing I believe the enemy is holding over me to say "He hasn't really healed you ... ".  Today, I have an appointment with an ENT about yes, a suspicious knot in my jawline. That one seed of doubt.  It's the same knot that has been there all along.  The same knot that my physician looked at just a month ago and felt sure it was a salivary gland pushing on a node.  The same knot that was there recently when my blood work was taken and it all turned out normal.  BUT, also the same knot that left me in a weeks worth of pain last week as pain radiated down my jaw line and into my teeth.  The same knot that led me into a random dentists office to beg for them to take a look at what could be causing the pain while my kids climbed like arangatang's in and out of my sweet friends car in the parking lot.  The same knot that the dentist said indeed, was suspicious and perhaps was a salivary gland OR ... maybe a lymph node.  The same knot, the seed and the root of the enemy's doubts and fears!

As soon as I heard the dentist murmur that from her lips, the fear I felt on that day when he said that word "lymphoma" before came flooding back.  In that moment in the dentists chair as she casually grinned and said she'd like to refer me to a Oral surgeon or an ENT for a greater look, my heart began to race and the enemy immediately arrested my thoughts.  He knows that I haven't shouted "I am healed"because he continues to hold me prisoner to that joy with one small suspicious and unexplained bump.  Today, I am asking the Lord to reveal all things hidden and to give me clarity so that nothing will be in the dark.  I am asking him to give me the permission of all permissions to shout I AM HEALED!

Today, the pain that led me to make this appointment has once again subsided and the knot has also shrunk back down in size.  It's still there but not yet gone.
I am sitting here, it's 1:23 and my appointment is at 3:00.  My heart is racing and my stomach feels anxious.  I can't choke down my lunch.
What if the enemy is right, what if he hasn't really healed me?  What if this thing has been hidden from us and all along it was there waiting to be discovered?  What if?  What does that do to us, in the process of adopting Levi?  What does that mean as we have just finished our home study and medical reports?    What does that mean about my faith and what I truly believe was a year worth of the Lord showing me how he is the same today as yesterday ... and he still HEALS!?

I stood in the kitchen about an hour ago and shouted from the top of my voice "I REBUKE YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS".  I cried out to God that I believed he healed me and I wanted with everything that I have to tell the world of his great works.  I told him I was angry that this seed still sits in me ... unexplained ... leaving me doubts!  I rebuked the enemy who I know has been working to arrest my thoughts today.  I proclaimed that Jesus was the only authority over this body and anything foreign and not of him was not welcome here!  I yelled as loud as I could "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE IN THE NAME OF JESUS"!

Boy, I'll admit, it felt good to scream as loud as I could at the enemy who is raging a mind war today.  It also felt good to cry out to the Lord!

Now, I await this exam and I will admit, I am scared to death but trusting that in any circumstance that comes, my God is sovereign and he has known ALL along what this seed is!

UPDATE:
So the ENT appointment went well today ... if you like camera's being put down your nose and all the way down your throat.  WOW, that was not fun and neither was the darn spray that they sprayed down my nostrils to supposably numb me.  Too bad, it left me feeling like I was choking and like I wanted to puke.  UGH!  Like I told the Dr. "I'm a baby and my hubby wasn't there to hold my hand".  He laughed!  


The news is good news as far as I see it and the way Dr. Desai sees it.  The Dr. said that with clarity, it is indeed a lymph node - as he looked through his lens and down my nose.  WEIRD!  He said it is a lymph node that sits on the submandible gland (he calls it the spit gland).  (By the way, on a side note, did you know he said we have like 250 lymph nodes in our neck! WOWIE!) He said that the lymph node has some calcification to it.  He said that when I have drainage from say allergies or a virus, my lymph node collects but then has a hard time draining because of the calcification.  He said that in time, it may totally calcify and if it does, it would need to be removed surgically.
As he told me all of this ... while the camera was down my nose and I could hardly talk, I asked "so, is this something I need to worry over.  I just want to know ... is this a concern".  He said that he didn't think that right now we needed to do a thing.  He said the bummer of it all is the pain and that at some point it may need to be removed but for now, he'd rather not mess with it.  He said where it is, is near nerves and where he'd cut also messes with the area of the mouth where you smile, those nerves etc.  
So, the end of the conversations was him saying to come back in 3 months unless it begins to get hard or hurt too bad and then come on in.  He'll just monitor it.  
By the way, does that mean he'll stick that darn camera down my nose again.  UGH!  What joy to look forward to.


I am praising the Lord tonight for real answers.  I am going to sleep well knowing that someone knows FINALLY what in the world they are taking about.  It's been a long long year.  To have answers ... any answers ... and especially ones we can walk into, is a PRAISE indeed!