My Testimony

My Testimony 

Many years ago, I found myself experiencing random, apparently unrelated symptoms that were a major cause for concern, for which I got no respite; and these went on with increasing intensity until, a few years ago, I was disabled. I did not know it at the time, but it was to be a season. A period of great trial, severe testing for my family and me, a season that was to herald strengthening of our faith on new levels. A time when we asked questions with no answers coming. A time of fear, and concern for my early demise. 

If I were to convert to cash how many well meaning suggestions and comments that I have received asking me to pray for healing or seek it in a particular place or manner, I would be very wealthy indeed. For, if it were my confessions over myself, my prayers for healing over the last 25years, the people who have been praying for me, pastors, friends, family, I should have never faced all that I had. I came to realise that God can glorify himself even in a failing physical body and sometimes the thing to pray for apart from healing is 'grace to endure'. I realise that whilst my challenges were extreme from my perspective, every single person has some issue or other that is overwhelming and beyond their capacity to handle without some 'extra' intervention of some sort. This is what God allows, to build our faith and character so as to make us strong, just like a workout to keep good fitness and muscle tone.

In the midst of enduring all manner of challenges from breathing problems that took me to the emergency room for resuscitation  many times, to double and blurred vision, red inflamed eyes that hurt as bad as several needles stabbing my eyes at once, coupled with excruciating pain from the smallest ray of light, not to talk of difficulties with swallowing, chewing, talking, sitting up and walking. As well as vertigo, I  sometimes could not lift my hands to brush my own teeth, and needed wheelchair assistance at the airport. The catalogue of challenges was long and has spanned virtually all my life.They started very mildly, and then flaring up at different times, and increased to proportions that severely affected my mobility.

Through all this, I ran the full course of a whole gamut of emotions from anger to indignation, frustration, sadness and depression, all intensified by getting no answers from the various doctors I visited in 5 different countries! Everywhere, tests returned nothing significant. Besides the asthma issues which have been known since I was a child, almost every doctor indicated their belief that it was all in my mind and alluded to mental health issues. After a time, I began to believe them. But as things got worse, the stress and fear of imminent death, coupled with rapidly declining capability in carrying out basic tasks, drove me to panic at times.

But yet God in his mercy left me with a glimmer of hope which I clung to for dear life. I decided to seek God's purpose in all my challenges and simply asked Him to glorify himself in them. I determined never to give up as long as there was still a glimmer of breath in my nostrils. I decided to focus on the Love of God in Christ Jesus. I made joy my choice and sought many, many ways to live it out, sometimes I had to 'act it out' and 'behave' in direct opposition to my physical condition. There was always this disconnect between my mental/spiritual status and my physical. My analogy was that I was a formula one racing car trapped in a beaten up old small car. This made for frustration on mega levels. Frustration that came about when sometimes the very strategies  employed to keep positive, to continue to pay attention to my grooming and appearance, lead to the general impression that all was fine. That I was just being strangely fussy when asking for help, or not participating fully in various life activities. Being misunderstood like this was difficult to manage, I was once scolded by a friend and asked to get out of the wheelchair I was in at the airport. They felt that I was just being too lazy to walk. In fact this was a prime example of 'things are not as they seem'. Just like one cannot look at a group of people and tell who is challenged with what; diabetes or hypertension, etc.. So you can see someone with my challenges and not know, but for the sometimes obvious mobility issues.

There were times when I could not sit up for long enough to read my bible and it was too heavy for me to lift; doing tasks like cutting an apple or pouring a jug of water into a glass, and things like turning taps was difficult, and if I tried too hard, I would have serious breathing issues coupled with weakness for which I would have to lie down! Wow! Drop attacks were common. My legs would just spontaneously perform their own coup d'etat of my lower extremities! Many times I would lie on the floor laughing after these drop attacks, and ask myself how I got there. It wasn't a laughing matter I know, but I got to thinking crying or panicking, or being sad were poor substitutes. I decided not to allow these situations to bully me into the obvious reactions, mainly because I knew that once I was given to any of these, there would be no end, and I would just continue in a downward, endless spiral. I simply 'changed my mind' and my attitude to my physical ordeals.

At one point, I employed what I called 'laughter therapy' and refused to set my eyes on anything distressing and watched comedy for hours on end as well as listened to uplifting music. The God we serve is that powerful, that creative, that he put in my head the ability to opposite-speak, to keep cheerful, and to just refuse absolutely to give up. I even started teaching myself to write with my left hand, with the thought that if my brain was somehow shutting down, I would create new neural pathways. Also, I built in very mild exercises into my daily routine, and used them as a trigger to do simple repetitions. These took a lot of effort, and I often did not succeed, but I kept striving as my concern for my muscle weakness heightened.

The main thing that kept me going was the  recollection of all the scriptures, hymns and choruses that I had already known prior to being 'struck down'. The Lord even sent me my own songs which I sang to myself repeatedly. This is the nature of the God we serve, that music; including lyrics are sent to minister to the mind of someone like me, who found themselves in their own company for a very large proportion of the time. These songs could not have come from anywhere else but God himself, as I don't play any musical instrument.Their words ministered to me like nothing I have ever known. In one of such songs, the Lord gave me the words:

'Eternity itself is not big enough to contain the love I have for you'.


This together with the laughter therapy staved off depression and kept me focused on my erstwhile purpose of seeking God's glory in my predicament. Things got so uncertain and deteriorated till I started to prepare for death by telling my family what my wishes were and wrote a will to reflect this. Death became demystified for me, and I was still fighting for life with every bit of my being, but I knew that if God wanted to call me to himself, he would. My job was to prepare as best I could, and to make sure my family was prepared. It was as though my yielded-ness in regard to the possibility of being called back to my maker unleashed new tactics to destabilise and traumatise my family. The oppression from the fear of early demise was removed, and replaced with resignation and putting things in order. I started a massive tidying spree, labelling important things and writing reference lists of where everything was located, with the help of family and my house staff. It was like being the director of a movie, and I gave very focussed specific instructions, I got such clarity of thought and mind at this time. My challenges stepped up several notches and included new symptoms, and we came to accept that I was now disabled. My husband went about changing the taps in the house to models that were easy for me to use, and we all made several other adjustments both physical and psychological to accommodate my needs.

But yet God in His mercy, took my tiny bits of determination - my mustard seed faith and grew it to the heights that kept me going till I was led to a doctor who gave a diagnosis and have since been receiving treatment. What transpired was that I was moving from crisis to crisis mainly because we did not have a correct diagnosis, and therefore no treatment or management of the condition. I have come to accept my challenges and health condition, and have worked tirelessly over the last five years to understand it and manage this Myasthenia Gravis (MG) thing. My family have been absolutely marvellous, and have been very attentive to all my needs and the many 'briefing sessions' that I have given them to assist them in understanding all that was happening. I count myself blessed by this.

Portrait of me -Artist: Ibifagha Cookey

My conclusion is this: my life is not about me and what is easy or comfortable for me. My life is about God's purpose in all things that I am and He created me to be. I am committed to constantly seeking out new strategies to keep my mind, body and spirit strong, so that this earthly physical vessel will last for as long as the Lord deems it, so that my spirit man has a home to do the job He has called me here on mission for.

Update April 2012

Today, I am back to normal mobility. I still have occasional challenges, but airport wheelchair support is a thing of the past. I am now able to walk up and down, as well as run up and down flights of stairs with ease. I rode a bicycle again, attended a family gathering at Christmas, where I danced till the wee hours of the morning! I can now cook again and can braid my own hair without getting tired. All my slippers are back in regular use and I can even now wear heels for reasonable lengths of time. I have now been at rehabilitative physiotherapy for two and a half years. I started with gait training- yes, as in, learning to walk a straight line, and training up all my muscle groups! Now my physiotherapist-trainer says I am no longer a patient, but an athlete. I am jogging on the treadmill, swimming, and doing all kinds of core strengthening exercises that I could not do 20 years ago! I am extremely grateful to all the people who have supported me through this season of trial, especially my hubby who has not run away, but stayed the course of his own trial through this.
We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary while I was still somewhat disabled with a trip to Beijing and Dubai, visiting places with wheelchair in tow! My doctor thought I was mad, and I refused to accept his pleas for me to consider a shorter trip with no layovers. We were determined to focus on the celebration of life. 
 

In Beijing on our 25th wedding anniversary

I am most grateful to my maker who allowed me the privilege of being 'spontaneously creative' and to 'shift my paradigms' as tools that equipped me to survive.