At first, I thought the pain behind my eye was temporary, but after a few hours I knew something wasn’t right. Looking back, that moment was the first step in a journey that would test my faith, strength, and understanding in God’s plan.
I had experienced migraines before, but the pain I felt that day was pain with eye movement. I recall moving my eye and a stabbing pain radiated through my eye and part of my vision became blurry. I remember I took a nap, assuming I was just tired and needed to rest. However, when I woke up the pain was worse. I decided to go to the hospital and told my husband I would be back soon.
I remember the Physician Assistant coming into the room to examine me and ask me questions. He immediately decided to do some imaging to rule out any tumors or blood clots. The Physician Assistant returned hours later stating the CT scans came back normal. However, he didn’t want to send me home. He was worried about “optic neuritis” that often is a symptom of Multiple Sclerosis. Our hospital didn’t have MRI imaging readily available, so his plan was to send me to a hospital two hours away from where we live. The Physician Assistant kept coming back in to take more tests and was adamant on wanting to get me to a hospital that had both an ophthalmologist and neurologist available. Unfortunately, that would mean I would have to spend the night at the hospital until the following morning.
I found myself waiting in the hospital room with a steroids via IV in my arm and simply thanking God for the staff on duty that night. Despite the fact that the hospital visit turned out to be the beginning of a new diagnosis, I still had my faith and I knew God was with me in that room. I saw him in the genuine concern, warmth, and kindness of the staff that night and into the following morning.
Although, this marked the beginning of a new rare diagnosis and a season I never expected, I choose to see it as an opportunity to share how even in the most uncertain moments and places, God is present, He is faithful, and He walks beside us every step of the way.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalms 46:1
Leave a Reply