Lately I've been feeling all the stinky Graves' Disease symptoms coming back. I've been on a conservative treatment in hopes to avoid having to destroy my working (over working, at the time) thyroid but I've now been on that treatment for too long so we are testing to see if I am in remission or not. The medication I was on corrected they hyperthyroid symptoms, but I had to go off that medication to test if I'm in remission. Over the last two weeks I've felt the symptoms worsening, and it's so disappointing. It wouldn't be so bad if I could just find out without actually having these awful symptoms again. They aren't so bad if you don't have to do anything but trying to work and be "normal" through them is difficult. Chronic, severe, neck aches, jitters, high resting heart rate, insomnia, loss of focus… Basically my dern thyroid is poisoning my whole body… In case you don't know your thyroid hormones play a part in nearly every function in your body. So the we ext after next I have to have some lab work done to answer the big question. If i'm not in remission, as both my doctor and I suspect, then I will have to have my throat cut and have my thyroid removed (groooooosssssss). I have been given the option of radioactive iodine therapy but have decided surgery is the way to go. But anyway, the point of this blog is not to whine about my present situation, because I've done that… a-stinking-lot!! And that's more of my point… I've struggled with this Graves' debacle for about 6 years now and have the hardest time with it. I tell everyone that I would take the diabetes over it any day (yes, I have type 1 diabetes too, don't be jeal of all my autoimmune diseases!) and I've definitely complained, cried and pleaded more over it than the betes too and why, you ask? It's the simple fact that I already had diabetes, a life long, time consuming, hands on, disease and I don't want another! Basically it's like this, "wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh why should I have to have TWO annoying diseases?? Some people don't even have ONE!" (you have to imagine it in a supper annoying whiney voice though, or else it loses it's gusto) So, over the past week, as I've felt the symptoms worsen and the date of decision looms in the coming days I've been trying to look at this differently and have been praying for perspective and for God to lead me out of the "why me" wuss-fest that i've been in for so long, and man, He is good t answering prayer… A friend of mine (I've made friends! Yay me!!! and… if they read that… i've probably just lost them) recommended a recent podcast from David Platt and I listened to it about a week ago. He spoke mostly about the tragic earthquake in Nepal but something he said really convicted me in my thought process. He said (paraphrasing, I left my notes at work) the question of "why did this happen?" is the wrong question. The question we should be asking is, "why hasn't this happened to me?" It plunged me back into some old philosophy and theology classes when we studied the problem of evil, we looked at moral and natural evil. Moral evil is easy to look at and say, "this is a result of the fall of Adam, and the sin seed within humanity." Natural destructions are harder, these are the things people struggle with, but their origin is found in the same place. God did not create the world to produce death, it was not His design. Natural disasters are a result of the fall and the curse upon the world. Romans 8:19-22 is an incredible reminder of this, "For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Even creation knows this isn't the way it's supposed be.
So, here I am whining like a child over a manageable, and sort of curable disease(with medication for the rest of my days) asking "why me?" when I already know that answer. Disease is considered a natural evil, and thus is caused by sin. PLEASE take this moment to realize I'm NOT saying that I sinned and thus was diagnosed with a chronic illness, it's much less complicated than that. I don't know why I have these diseases and others don't but what I do know is the question can no longer be "why me?" but rather "how can this be used to bring glory to Christ the King?" I guess, for some, the connection I just made may seem dumb but that's how this brain o mine works. So, my plan is to complain and question this a whole lot less and be grateful that I'm not getting what I deserve (a little bit of death, a lot a bit of hell). I think of the great missionaries of the past like Amy Carmichael, and Hudson Taylor and many, many, many I'm not mentioning, who faced disease and still carried on using every ounce of their human vessel to honor Christ. They are definitely an inspiration to handle this in a more Christ-like manner!
With that, I leave you with a tune… A beautiful tune… that doesn't really have much to do with this post, per say, but enjoy it anyway…
Peace out!
~Jennanana
PS, I had trouble focusing so sorry if i seem distra… SQUIRREL!!
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