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It’s weird you know...many people think that life should be a cakewalk and there should be no suffering, however anyone who has lived past birth realizes that this is just not the case, regardless of what we think or want. The reality is, life can be very cruel and is definitely full of trials and tribulations. The awesome part about that though, is the fact that God talks to us about suffering in the Bible.
Not
only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that
suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his
love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Romans 5:3-5
Often times many of us face similar challenges in life…like making ends meet, paying the bills, raising children, running out of toilet paper and no one’s home! Although each one of us has our own unique list of daily struggles that frustrate us, most of us never expect or plan for some huge trial or tribulation to come our way. I was like in the fall of 2001. I was healthy (maybe a tad overweight!!!), had a decent job, good friends…a good life overall. Sure, I had day to day challenges but soon they would minor issues compared to what was on the horizon. I really had no clue...none!
Over a relatively short amount of time things began to change in significant ways. Looking back there were some obvious tell tale signs that something was wrong but because of certain circumstances and primarily the fact that I am pretty thick headed I guess I didn’t see them! The most obvious I suppose was the fact that I lost a significant amount of weight over 6 months or so. You have to understand, before this all began I weighed approximately 290lbs…I was a big guy. Within that 6 month period, I lost about 60 – 65lbs but at the time I really didn’t think much about it and quite frankly was happy to be losing some weight. There were other changes that began to occur as well. One of these being the fact that my appetite also changed…actually it pretty much disappeared, but again, I wasn’t complaining…just happy to drop the pounds! I remember sometime in January 2002 my brother and I made a friendly bet about who could lose 30 pounds first. The loser had to by dinner later on. Well, needless to say I won, although I’m not sure if I ever got the dinner. I sort of won by cheating…I got big time sick!
One day early in March of 2002 I woke up and found that the whites of my eyes were completely yellow. To give you an idea of the colour, just picture a school bus and you got it. I thought that was kind of odd and figured that I would wait for a day to see if it would go away…duh!!! At the time I had no clue what jaundice meant. Well the next day came and guess what, my eyes were still yellow. I decided to call my doctor about it and when I talked to him he asked me how quickly I could get to his office. Hmmm...must be serious I thought to myself! Once I arrived at his office, he knew there was a serious problem. There was obviously something wrong with my liver so he arranged for me to see a specialist very quickly. An appointment that would normally take 3 – 6 months took about 2 weeks or so. The specialist also knew that there was something drastically wrong when he saw me. Once everyone figured out that something was wrong, it was time to figure out what was REALLY wrong. Now if you have ever had an illness or disease that required more than a doctor sticking a popsicle stick down your throat, a light in your ear or a tap on your knee you might appreciate some or all of this part of the story.
The only way they were able to figure out what was wrong was by doing tests…lots and lots of tests (click on the coloured links to read about the tests...from a patients perspective). Of course it starts off with blood work but I’m not just talking one vile, I lost count after 14 or so, and the fact that they needed to use both arms made it interesting too! But wait…there’s more! The fun didn’t stop there…it got even more exciting. The blood work told them that there was something wrong with my liver, the problem was, they didn’t know what. So…on to more tests…woohoo! I’m not going to explain each test here, but if you click on the individual test a window will open and give you an explanation of what is really happening. Sure you can read medical books and visit websites to find out the science and medical explanations of these tests but I am going to tell you about them from a patient’s perspective. So what kind of tests did I have? Well I can tell you that in some way, shape or form…every single orifice I have was somehow poked, prodded, examined or plugged…everyone one of ‘em! I had ultrasounds, MRI’s, ERCP’s (nasty), a colonoscopy and finally a biopsy. Anyway, eventually my skin turned yellow to match my eyes, which was good because I wanted to make sure I was colour coordinated. After about 2 months or so of tests, they finally figured out what the disease was.