Not to be Missed
Feb 14, 2021 | by The Fellowship
Just when we were thinking about an easy transition into a new year, 2020 reared its ugly head one last time -- a health concern with our teen-aged daughter. It all started on December 29th ... our 15-year-old daughter started complaining about abdominal pain. She has been plagued with constipation and basic digestive issues over the last many years, so we thought, “Here we go again!”
Her physician ordered blood work as well as an X-ray. When the results arrived the next day, everything was normal with her blood – but the X-ray showed major constipation. The doctor recommended several treatments we could try, including having our daughter drink an entire bottle of magnesium citrate. Unfortunately, this did not help. Despite our efforts, the pain still persisted. Thus, we were referred to a pediatric gastro doctor, who came back with a more aggressive treatment ... drink TWO bottles to clean out her system.
But the pain persisted; one a scale of 1-10, she was usually about a 6. But other times, the pain was edging up to 7, 8, and sometimes 9! Finally, on January 9th, the pain got extremely intense, so we took her to the emergency room. The staff did more testing, including an ultrasound, which showed an ovarian cyst 3.2 mm in size. Their conclusion was that the pain was coming from this cyst. The recommendation was pain medication and rest. We were told if the cyst ruptured, her pain level would get extremely intense. Otherwise, it should go away gradually.
A few days later, she tried to go back to school – thinking if this should go on for a while, then she needed to figure out how to work through the pain. That afternoon, I got another text from her; the pain was over a 9! I decided to take her back to the ER for another ultrasound. To our dismay, in just a few days, the cyst had grown to 4.8 mm! They gave her pain medication intravenously and sent us home with an oral prescription.
She struggled through that week. I prayed fervently – engaging many prayer warriors to pray, pray, pray! I cried out continually to Jehovah Rapha, the God Who Heals (one of the Lord’s many names) to just have the cyst completely disappear.
Our church’s Student Ministry Winter Retreat was scheduled for the next weekend. Every year that she has attended, this annual retreat has made a life-changing impact on her personal relationship with Jesus Christ. After many months of no travel due to the pandemic, she really wanted to go ... but how could we send her? What if the cyst ruptured while at camp with no hospital close? Could we go up and stay at the retreat ... just in case?
The next week, we were referred to a gynecologist who had an appointment available the day before camp. He explained that one of two things would happen: the cyst would rupture and she would be in much pain … or it would go away gradually – possibly taking up to 6 to 8 weeks. When we mentioned the Winter Retreat opportunity, he thought it was a bad idea; she needed to stay home and rest. Of course, our daughter sobbed all the way home. Once there, she simply wanted to sit on the porch and cry for a while.
A short time later, more like a few minutes, she came in with a huge smile on her face – saying the pain was GONE! I was extremely skeptical, assuming that she was saying this just to be able to attend camp. But her entire demeanor changed, and I could tell ... the pain was gone from our girl!
God had plans and He was not going to let her miss this inspirational weekend retreat! We were allowed to ALL go to the retreat center ... just in case. My husband, my mom (who lives with us) and I packed up the car and headed to camp in East Texas.
My husband and I received a much-needed, long-awaited weekend escape with minimal stress. Our daughter had an impactful, totally pain-free weekend and came home wanting to dive deeper into her faith! We had a few opportunities to eavesdrop on some of the retreat sessions – wow! As adults, we, too, left the weekend rejuvenated in our faith!
We are so thankful for the prayers lifted up to our Father for the healing of our precious daughter. God is so good ... He really does answer prayers.
H.R.
… you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
Psalm 25:5