For a Little While, Part I

Around March 1, I began to have some pain in my shins. Since I was then running between 15 and 20 miles per week, it seemed obvious that what I was dealing with was shin splints. I administered treatment accordingly, using the RICE prescription (rest, ice, compress, elevate) that all runners know by heart.

To make a long story short, I was hospitalized on May 1 after these progressively worsening “shin splints” rendered me unable to walk. A trip to the emergency room led to hospitalization and the seemingly inevitable diagnosis of MS. The nurses brought me literature on “Coping with MS” and talked about brain lesions as I lay alone in my room. A gruff but kindly neurologist patted my hand and asked, “Did you plan to get married? Have kids? What were your plans before now?” The rest of the conversation was lost on me. All I heard was that this disease marked the turning point in my life; there was a before and an after, and everything that I wanted was trapped in the before.

Two weeks, two MRIs and a spinal tap later, the doctors ruled out MS. In the meantime, I have a team of doctors that no 28-year-old should have—including a neurologist, an orthopedist, and a rheumatologist. Each one has commended me to another’s care, but no one has come up with a treatment plan or even a way to manage pain. Rheumatoid arthritis? Some other type of autoimmune disease like lupus? A subtle neurological disorder? A slipped disc? I’ve left almost all of my doctor’s appointments in tears. Sometimes the uncertainty is even harder to bear than the pain.

From early April to mid-June, my pain was unrelenting, even in the face of the narcotics that the doctors prescribed. Still, about four weeks ago and after more than five months, my pain began to diminish. I have no clear medical explanation for this. It may be an indication that an autoimmune disease is going into remission; it may be an indication that several months of rest has relieved an orthopedic problem; it may be an indication that the Lord has healed me. The uncertainty may well outlast the pain. Yet in all of this I rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, I have been grieved by various trials.

"If necessary" means that much work has been done in my heart and mind through this pain. Suffering renders everything foreign—the most familiar comforts, the day-to-day tasks, the furniture of life. Three comforts have been heightened for me in place of the hard work, independence, and various types of self-gratification that were my sustenance before. I had never known the comfort of Scripture, the efficacy of the body, or the clean and enduring fear of the Lord as they have been revealed to me in these past few months. I wish that I could say that the fleshly comforts were no longer appealing to me, but I can say that the severe mercy of God is breaking the stranglehold of sin in my life by all means necessary.