Reminiscing

Why I cling to my Jesus . . .

Hello Dear Readers,

Today I engaged in some reminiscing on my personal Facebook page back to 2017 when I wrote the first My Jesus declaration. Here it is in all its simplistic glory:

My Jesus is a worker of miracles of deliverance. He is Lord.

I remember writing those words as a statement of gratefulness for what the Lord had done in a specific situation, as well as what I knew He would continue to do.

In my search for “My Jesus” on my page, I also came across a piece I wrote in February 2018 wherein I reflected on the first year of declarations. As I read it today, I realized that it is all still true, and maybe even more true if that is possible. But it also struck me how much has happened in my life in the eight years since. But before I share that reflection from 2018, I want to give you a rundown of some of the events that have happened since then that God has used to challenge me, grow me, refine me, and strengthen me—and cause me to desperately cling to Him.

Some of the following story may sound familiar to those who have followed me for a while. I apologize for any repeats, but hope it all points to Jesus.

To paint an accurate picture for you, I need to include events pertaining to my mom’s health, so I will back up to late 2016 when she realized she was struggling cognitively and asked me to help her straighten out her bank accounts. At the time, she and her husband were running a farm, and he was finishing up his career as a building contractor. Mom loved office work and was a stickler for details, so it really bothered her that she could not keep it up any longer. I was happy to help her, but sad to see her cognitive decline.

In the summer of 2017, she did not feel well. I took her to the ER, but the doctors brushed it off as stress or depression or some nonsense like that. Then in August, after a long dental appointment, she suffered a sudden decline and near collapse from what was likely sepsis due to either the dental work, a UTI, or both. After an ER visit, a long hospital stay, and three-week rehab stay, she returned home mid-September. She was better, but not herself. In the few years that followed, we saw glimpses of the real LuAnn, but she never fully returned to us.

In January of 2018, her husband died from complications of hip surgery. In March, we moved my grieving mom to my house where she had two rooms we redecorated especially for her and that held some of her treasured possessions. However, one month after she moved in with us, she became very sick with pancreatitis, had her gall bladder removed, and suffered more UTIs. After a month in the hospital, she was finally discharged to my house. We tried keeping her home with home health aids visiting, but they barely got the intake evaluations completed when I sadly realized she needed to be in a memory care facility.

In September that year, I moved her to a different facility the same day I had to file for emergency guardianship to protect her from one of my brothers who thought her money was his money. During the three weeks he was not allowed to see her, she calmed and stopped worrying about money. Then the judge ruled that she should see all of her kids. After he was allowed to visit, she immediately began worrying about money again.

That fall, things began happening with my health, starting with a pulsating, whooshing sound in my head. In December, I experienced double vision that worsened over a few days’ time. An ER visit, a scan, and a referral to a specialist led to a probable diagnosis of meningiomas on the right side of my head, although the doctors did not attribute the double vision to those. On January 2, 2019, I had a craniotomy to remove one of the masses to confirm the tissue type. Meningiomas are slow-growing space takers, so the doctors left the others, and they are being monitored. The double vision faded during the following month. No cause was discovered.

After the brain surgery, I began to hear a pulsating screeching sound along with the whooshing. The surgeon attributed it to the steroids I was on, but it did not go away. In fact, it is still there five years later.

During all this, I handled Mom’s affairs, received infuriating emails and documents from my brother’s attorney, and made court appearances in the guardianship case. I kept my medical issues from my brother because he would have used them against me.

That summer I noticed my left eye felt scratchy and was red and puffy. After a misdiagnosis by an optometrist, a specialist suspected a carotid cavernous fistula in my brain. He referred me to another specialist whom I saw in Oklahoma City in February of 2020, and he agreed with the diagnosis. (That doctor asked if his student could listen to my eye because it was probably the only time he would ever hear a pulsing sound in an eye, known as a bruit.) The doctor referred me to interventional radiology, a specialty I had not previously encountered and that led me down yet another research path. In March, that IR doctor confirmed the diagnosis via angiogram.

One week later, I learned that I needed surgical repair of my aneurysmal ascending aorta because it had enlarged to 5 cm. That very week is when the covid hysteria hit our area. Masks were donned, my mom’s facility went on lockdown, and my fistula repair and heart surgery were delayed until May.

On April 18, 2020, Mom fell and broke her hip. Her caregiver had left early that day, and because of the lockdown, I could not go sit with her. About 20 minutes after her caregiver left, she fell, alone in her room. She had surgery the next day, and returned to the rehab building on her facility campus after about a week in the hospital. I made sure I was there when the ambulance brought her back so that I could at least see her for a few moments.

By the time my May appointments came around, my eye had cleared up, the fistula apparently having rerouted so that the blood flowed away from my eye. The heart surgery took place on May 15. The hospital required that my husband drop me off at the door and go home to wait for the doctor to call. It still exasperates me to remember all that insanity.

While I was in the hospital clutching my heart pillow and enduring painful drain pumps and all else that accompanies having one’s chest cut open, I received an email from my attorney stating that my brother accused me of keeping him from contacting Mom by phone while she was in rehab. Guilty as charged. But guardians are supposed to guard, and Mom’s mental state was such that she could not process normal conversations and events, let alone whatever nonsense my brother would tell her on the phone. I am so grateful that back in early 2018, God had led me to get Mom’s estate paperwork completed wherein she named me her Trustee and POA.

I recovered fairly quickly from the heart surgery—praise the Lord—since three weeks later we brought Mom to my house on hospice. I allowed the problem brother to visit that very evening. Later that week he complained to his lawyer that I would not allow him to visit. All I had asked of him was that he contact my husband to arrange visit times. I dare you to try telling a narcissist what to do. They do not accept instruction well.

Mom faded over the next 11 days and went home to Jesus on June 18. We had her memorial service in her home town in Missouri on June 27. She is buried next to our dad just as she desired, not far from where I grew up.

Meanwhile, I had hired a new attorney because I knew that the narcissist would stir up more trouble after Mom passed. I did not want to be right about that, but I was. He demanded to see the paperwork and an accounting and was generally a pain in the neck, so much so that I asked my attorney if we could settle with him rather than wait until the estate could be finalized. I knew that if I dangled a check in front of him, he would take it. My goal was two-fold: To protect Mom’s sentimental belongings like her wedding rings and to get him out of my hair. It worked.

And my medical issues continued . . .

In early October 2020, I was referred to an interventional radiologist in St. Louis, MO for evaluation of the CCF. He placed three coils and a stent in the troublesome vessel, and while it may have helped prevent a traumatic event, it did not make the pulsatile tinnitus go away.

On the way from Tulsa to St. Louis, we stopped in Springfield, MO to visit my mom’s sister, Aunt Merle. It was the last time I saw her, for she had a stroke and passed away a few weeks later while on a trip to Florida. I am so thankful the Lord compelled me to visit her, giving me a chance to hug her and enjoy her sparkly smile before she left us. The beach was definitely her paradise on earth, so it was fitting that from there she went home to Paradise.

In early 2021, I began the process of being seen at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville to have all of my issues evaluated. That whole experience was dreadful because of the mask nazis and covid swabs. One of the Mayo encounters was a phone appointment with a geneticist who pushed the jab like he had a stake in Pfizer. I told him I was a lot more scared of that shot than I was of covid. Of course he disagreed, but I did not care. He told me to talk to my doctor about it, so I agreed I would, knowing what my doctor’s response would be. That conversation went something like this:

Me: Mayo geneticist thinks I should get the shot.

Doctor: I’m not getting it.

Me: Me neither.

However, the Mayo interventional radiologist did help me by adding 13 more coils to completely occlude the fistula that was causing blood to pool in the back of my brain. I made three trips to Jacksonville that year, and spent a total of six weeks there, including two or three ER visits for contrast dye reactions and treatment for a pseudo-aneurysm. Thankfully, the beach was lovely and the weather was perfect.

Sometime during those years, I developed a chronic low white blood cell count which continues to this day. I have also had h.pylori, colon AVMs, and iron deficiency. Now the next big thing is coil embolization of the bronchial artery to pulmonary artery fistula, definitively diagnosed a few weeks ago by an IR in Oklahoma City. That procedure is scheduled for February 12. I am hoping that afterward, my inability to take deep breaths all the time will have resolved. I am also hoping that the hospital claim of $135,000 for my January 22 procedure and overnight stay the insurance company has denied is just a mistake in coding. An insurance representative is supposed to be sorting it out. Prayers appreciated.

That was a very long story to explain to you why I mention my medical adventures in my book and why I cling to Jesus. Even typing it all out overwhelms me a bit, but I know that I am still here at this moment, this day, because He holds me together for His purposes. As I told a friend today, if He heals me, I win. If He doesn’t, and one of these weird things kills me, I win. Hallelujah!

Finally, here is the post I wrote in 2018 as I looked back on a year’s worth of posts about my Jesus, slightly edited today for clarity:

_________

On February 17, 2017, I posted a one-line declaration of faith and victory that began with “My Jesus.” Over the next few days, I felt the Lord lead me to write and post one a day for a month. Then I felt strongly that it should be for a year. At the time I couldn’t imagine what the year would hold, how quickly the year would pass by, or what life would look like the next February.

As I reflected on the previous year, I saw discouragement and growth, trials and wonder, defeat and victory.

I saw tears and laughter, anger and calm, strife and peace.

I saw grave illness, a near tragedy, a tombstone, and hearts broken by loss.

I saw redemption, rescue, and fortified resolve to trust, to believe, to take the next breath and the next step.

I saw faith that grew deeper and wider and higher than it was the year before.

I saw a Savior who was present, powerful, and purposeful in His efforts to draw me, grow me, and refine me.

I saw the Jesus of scripture who says taste and see that He is good.

I saw Jesus. My Jesus.

What a year. What a Savior.

May the rocks cry out, may the mute speak His name, and may the lost rise up and worship Him forever.

Hallelujah.

_________

During the nine years since that first declaration, He has held me, drawn me, and kept me going. He has proven Himself to me over and over. He has used what I have been through for His purposes, most of which I may not understand until eternity. But I do know that He does not waste any of it and will use me if I am willing.

Please pray for me to be bold in sharing my faith with everyone I encounter. Please pray for the doctor and all the medical staff because they need His guidance and because I like to tell them that people are praying for them.

Thank you for reading all the way to here. You should get a medal or something.

In Christ,

Janice