Surgery may be in our future, but God uses all things for good...

So in a previous post I wrote about our experience at Nathan's pain doctor and how we were surprisingly kicked out of the office because they didn't want to deal with a mistake they made.  Well that entire situation turned out to be a huge blessing!!  I told you all, God always uses everything for good.

To give you a little background on Nathan's back condition; He has a condition called spondylolisthesis.  After a car accident in college where a woman hit him from behind while he was at a complete stop his spine was shifted forward at his L5 S1.  Overtime it has become more and more severe.  At this point his spine is not fused together and it is shifted forward at a grade 4, which is a 75% slippage.  When we first got married he was always in pain, yet, he only had to take a pain pill on occasion.  The last two years for him have been really challenging.  We drive to Charlottesville to UVA, to see our orthopedic-neurosurgeon first it was once a year...then it was once every 6 months...then once every 3 months.  He originally told us that until he can not hardly even stand up anymore...wait to have the surgery.  And that is what we've been trying to do.  After a series of physical therapy, a round of cortisone shots, and upping his medication...he was getting worse.  In August 2011, was our last visit to UVA.  At that point it was getting hard for him to get out of bed in the mornings.  There were mornings his legs would go numb and he would lose feeling in them and he would fall over when he go up.  They did an MRI of his spine and could see where it was putting pressure on his nerves.  The doctor gave us 2 choices.  (1) schedule surgery today for November, or (2) wait a month, try strengthening his muscles a bit, pray for a miracle and come back in a month and schedule surgery.  At that point surgery was really bad timing for us.  I was due to have our 5th child in less than a month and having a newborn, recovering from giving birth, taking care of 5 children and helping Nathan through recovery was just not looking too great right then.  So we went home and prayed about things and we both didn't feel peaceful about it.

In January he spoke with his surgeons nurse practitioner.  She gave him the 411 about the surgery.  There is two different surgeries  that they could preform.  (1) would be a titanium disk replacement, which would give him more mobility and would be the best option, but the problem is that since it's such a new thing, insurance will not cover it at all!  or (2) Double spinal fusion.  This would be where they open him up from the back fuse his spine at L5, S1, and also L5, L4 (i believe) and it would be secured with rods and screws.  This surgery would limit his flexibility.  She said it would be best to put it off as long as he can because over time his spine will start to wear out at the next disk up, and that would would need fused, and on, and on...all the way up his spine.  It is possible he would have to have surgery every 10 years.  They also warned him that any twisting, bending and movement could cause the screws to pop out and he would have to have it done again.  So naturally we began praying for our miracle.  (we have actually been praying for that for years!)

We did receive a small miracle though.  At one of his appointments they took his x-ray and the doctor said, "wow, looks like there are little tiny bones that has grown up around your spine to hold it in place so it doesn't slip anymore!"

So back to now....

After our incident with the pain specialist, we were in search for a new one.  My mom works in a doctors office and sent me a link to another one.  We called and made an appointment for this past Tuesday.  They told us that they would send us paperwork in the mail to confirm our appointment, and when we didn't receive it we were a little hesitant for him to go that morning after what happened at the last doctor.  But he did.  When he was finished there he called me on my cell and said, "I am so glad what happened happened!!  This doctor is amazing!"  So basically he checked the strength in Nathan's feet and he had weakness in his toes.  He wasn't able to push up on the doctors hands with his toes when he pushed them down.  Right away he got on the phone with Nathans surgeon at UVA.  He told him he wanted to work with him in order to treat Nathan the best possible way, and that he had found weakness in his toes and needed to figure out if it was new weakness or if it's always been there.  He then scheduled him an appointment at UVA for this coming Monday morning in order to get it checked out!!  He assured Nathan that if it is new weakness that it would be in his best interest to get the surgery now because it will save his strength and prevent him from having to be in a wheel chair later in life.  He gave him a back brace to help him with stability when he is walking a lot and he has a cain now to help him take the pressure off his back while walking.

So, Monday will start the long process of events.  We will head to Charlottesville Sunday night and spend the night for him to be at his 8am appointment in the morning.  Then we will load everyone up and head back home to make it to his pain specialist by 3pm for his first injection.  Wednesday he will have to go back to the pain specialist for physical therapy, 2 more shots 1 each week for the next 2 weeks.  I"m sure once we get to Charlottesville we will more than likely end up scheduling his surgery.

I can't help but feel petrified at all of this.  I think my biggest fear isn't the surgery itself but the anesthesia.  Nathan has never had anesthesia, so we have no idea how he will respond to it, and he is very sensitive to medications so that worries me!  The thought of sitting in the waiting room for 6-8 hours while he is opened up and being operated on makes my stomach churn.  I know that God will see us through this.  He has everything else!  I know he will allow everything to fall in place the way it is suppose to but I'm human and it's a scary thing!

I wasn't able to hear the sermon at church Sunday since I had to stay in the nursery with the girls.  So I listened to it online last night.  The Pastor talked about Jonah and the whale.  He said that Jonah didn't want to do what God told him and ran, and because God loved him God pursued him.  He gave him trial, after trial after trial until FINALLY he got him alone in the belly of the whale where he had no choice but to listen to God.  He talked about how God used everyone of those trials to refine Jonah and open his eyes.  It really hit home for me.  I feel like after we were hurt so bad in the church, after Nathan was finally ordained.  We decided we had enough and didn't want to pursue ministry anymore.  Since then we've had trial, after trial after trial.  We've gone through losing everyone around us from family to friends until finally God has us all to himself.   Now I'm excited to see what kind of things he has in store for us!

Surprised by Grace: The Gospel According to Jonah: Kingsway Community Church