I believe I've described a bit about the rage, anger, frustration, hysterical crying, etc. that seems to accompany the treatment for the Babesia. I may have even described about how, during one of my hysterical crying fits, I cried out to God to just let me die. That's a hard thought to fathom. The good thing is that I know it's not really MY thought. I know that all of this behavior is coming from a combination of the illnesses, the IVs, the other medications, etc. However, if I wasn't putting my full faith in God right now, I might think otherwise. I might believe those thoughts, the ones full of rage, hate, anger and sadness, were my very own thoughts and that would be awful. Instead, I know that nothing can steal the joy that God places in my heart. That doesn't mean Christians can't have "bad days" because we definitely can. It just means that if we truly have faith and believe in God, then we know that even the bad days can turn out for His good.
Going through the first two weeks of the Babesia treatment was testing my brain and my heart. I felt like I wasn't even talking to God and I wasn't sure what to say or pray to Him if I did. I was overcome with every awful emotion and I thought, "I just have to get through this. Once I'm through with the treatment for Babesia, I'll feel more myself again." Well, the treatment for Babesia is a drug called Mepron along with two supplements that help the Mepron stay in your system. I talked to one of my sweet treatment friends, I'll just call her "C", and she was having these intese feelings of rage and anger too. I immediately realized it was the medication we were on for the Babesia because if any of you knew "C" you would know that she is a precious, bubbly, sweetheart of a person who you would not even think capable of "thoughts of rage" - I do mean that in the best possible way. She is just a wonderful person. Even though I realized that we were both reacting to this medication, or perhaps how this medication works when mixed with all the other medications we're on, I still thought I should just ride it out. The doctor already had me taking the Mepron every 3rd day instead of every day like some patients. I wasn't sure there was much more that could be done to help me.
However, after having my husband arrive and crying hysterically and pitching a royal fit over how 3 different ice packs still didn't work to fit around my elbow - and of course throwing said ice packs to make sure the point got across, well, I knew I had to let the doctor know something HAD to be done. On Thursday morning I wrote a note to the doctor and by that afternoon the nurse came in and told me I would only be getting fluids (along with my IV Heparin and Benadryl) that afternoon. She said that they were changing my schedule so that on the days I take Mepron I will only get IV fluids instead of IV antibiotics during treatments. She also said the next morning after my day of Mepron I would get IV fluids only during my a.m. treatment and then get IV antibiotics that afternoon. The doctor does not want me to see this as a setback because honestly, my body couldn't have been healing while I was crying hysterically every other day or so. But, it's still hard to realize that out of the 14 IV treatments I get (2 times a day, 7 days a week) only 8 of them will have antibiotics. The reason I will go in for just the fluids (outside of the fact that it helps to keep me on schedule with my Heparin and I need the Benadryl to help with my "herx" reactions) is that the doctor wants to help push the toxins out that will be in my blood from killing off the Babesia. Not to mention that I tend to stay dehydrated when I'm off IVs.
Friday I had IV fluids only and yesterday I had IV fluids in the morning and IV antibiotics in the afternoon. Sunday, today, I will have IV antibiotics in both my morning and afternoon treatment sessions. So far I think I can already feel a difference. I feel more "myself" and while I know that I can still get upset and angry, I don't feel like it's as severe as it was. I hope this schedule really helps me keep calm or at least keep me from acting like a raving lunatic!
I must say that even though I felt like God was so far away from me - especially when I was in a rage - He never left me. One of the wonderful patients here is a missionary and author who gave me a copy of her book on CD. It's called "Jesus Calling" and it's a wonderful book. At times when I could not focus my eyes to read or when I couldn't calm down enough to even think of opening a book, I pushed play on my CD player and listened to her book. I love how she used scripture to back up everything in her book, but how she was able to write it as if Jesus were talking just to you. It was the best thing I found to help calm me down and I'm not sure how I would have gotten through those 2 weeks without it. I must have listened to those 7 CDs 2 or 3 times each. So, God made sure that even when my brain was betraying me, He was there keeping me from going absolutely crazy, He was there letting me know that those were not my thoughts, those were not my ideas.
Now I'm beginning to realize what people mean when they speak about the devil taking advantage of any weakness you have. I think the devil took full advantage of how my brain was working and planted horrible thoughts in my head causing me to struggle to just make it through every single day. The devil is like the school bully who kicks you when you're down. He wants to steal every happiness from you, but he REALLY wants to keep you from praising God. I must admit for awhile he was doing a good job at that. The devil kept me off the computer, kept me from posting anything to you all, kept me feeling sorry for myself and made sure my thoughts were occupied by how I felt and not at all focused on how other people felt. In fact, I had to remind myself several times that the devil can only steal your joy if you allow him to do so and if you don't stop him. I called out to God many times asking that he keep the devil from me and protect my thoughts. So, it's fitting that the book I'm currently reading is "Reverse the Devil's Decision" by Mike Purkey who's been a pastor for 30 years. He writes a lot about how the devil's decision is to steal away your joy, happiness, friends, health, basically anything God would want to bless you with, the devil wants to take from you. I feel like he is writing about what my head and my heart have been through over the past 2 weeks - the utter chaos that the devil can cause in your life if you don't recognize his schemes and lies.
I think the past two weeks could have been so much worse if I didn't have so many wonderful people praying for me. I have gotten the sweetest cards and notes and little gifts and I am truly thankful to each one of you who keeps on praying for me, even though these treatments are lasting far longer than I wanted. I know God has placed me here for a purpose - to regain my health and to let everyone I can know that I will praise His name no matter what I am going through. In fact, praising Him is the only way to get through some of this - just by keeping my eyes focused on Him and taking it day by day. I cannot worry about the future because that is not what God wants me to do. He simply asks that I step out in faith every day and know that He has promised to provide me with what I need for that day. I am trying to do that every day and with some of these medications it's hard to do, but it's not impossible. I may fail miserably one day, but thankfully God keeps giving me another day to try again.
I'll close this long post with these verses:
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Galatians 5:22-23 (NRSV)
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1 (NRSV)
Thank you all for keeping up with me and for your steadfast prayers and love. I hope you all have a great week and I hope to write with more good news later on!!!
Much love-
K
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