Trusting God

I have never found it hard to trust people. If anything, I am on the more gullible side as my husband would be so willing to tell you. Here at the retirement community I take people literally and always listen to their stories. At our last building there was a woman who was in the 80's. She sat at the dining room table closest to us and we could hear her every conversation. She spoke a lot about her parents who lived in Italy and were still alive. She spoke in the present tense and she stated they missed her and wanted her to live over in Italy with them.

The first time my husband and I heard her tell it we realized that they would have to be over 100 years old for the stories to be true. My husband immediately attributed the stories to dementia but I had to look at her file to check her age before realizing that her parents could not be alive (she turned out to be late 80s).

If someone cuts me off in traffic I always think that maybe they are running late to an important event or their is someone in labor in their car. I always give the other person the benefit of the doubt and I am slow to anger. I always try to smile, even if someone is screaming at me or blames me for something I did not do.

As you read this story, keep that in mind.

For the last three days I have been in the hospital. This past Saturday and Sunday I was in a lot of pain in my lower abdominal area. Since I am a self professed hypochondriac, I did not go to the hospital. It was Labor Day weekend and I figured it would just go away.

Monday morning I woke up and could hardly walk due to the intense pain. My husband stated I had to go to the emergency room and I agreed. Due to our job being a couple's job and us managing the building, there was no one to ask to babysit the building so my husband had to let me go alone. I knew I wouldn't black out from the pain from past experiences (three years ago I had pain so intense that I did black out a few times).

I went to the ER and thankfully got a room in just a few minutes. The room was private with a TV and a comfortable bed. I was able to watch a few episodes of "Picker Sisters" which I had never seen. The ER did a CT scan and ruled out appendicitis. I was there about five hours.

If you don't have time to read my entire hospital story (which I know is ridiculously long), skip down to under the line and you can hear the ending).

Then they admitted me later that day to one of the beautiful hospital rooms I have ever seen. It was on the fifth floor which is also known as the "maternity floor". I was not having a child but since my pain was in the general "girl part" area, that is where they put me.

The walls were decorated in traditional brocade wall papers and there were decorations you would see in a higher end hotel. Even my hospital bed had a dark wood foot and headboard.

I had not kept anything down in a few days and was starving. The nurses on the fifth floor knew I would be getting an ultrasound and asked if I would rather have it the next morning so I could eat a bit of something. It was around 6pm and this sounded perfect. They brought me a tray of chicken, noodles, vegetables, apple sauce, a chocolate chip cookie sundae with whipped cream, coffee and tea, my favorite soda and two dinner rolls. It looked like something out of a finer restaurant. I ate only the dinner roll, a few noodles and a cookie since I knew that even that would make me sick.

Everyone was introduced and was so nice to me that I got emotional and was able to keep a smile on my face even when the pain level was at a "9".

On Tuesday morning I was not allowed to eat and they took me for an Ultrasound. After coming back I had to wait a few hours for the results and the doctor came in with the news that I had a ruptured Ovarian cyst and another growing on my left ovary.

I had already lost an ovary three years back which is another story in itself. The doctor answered all my questions and there was a shift change.

Up until this point in my hospital experience, every single person was wonderful. Every single part was exceptional. When I accidentally pulled my IV out, the staff took care of putting it back in with the least amount of pain. I was given two types of paint medicine, antibiotics and saline.

Later in the day Tuesday I had new nurses. They introduced themselves to me and then I didn't see them for a few hours. If you have ever been to a hospital, you know this is an odd occurrence. Someone is always coming in to do something: check vitals, take more blood or just ask if you need anything.

It was about three hours since I had seen anyone and my toilet needed emptied. I was over due by about an hour for my pain medicine and the pain was increasing. I could not get up due to the pain. I went to push the nurse call and when I did, my IV slipped out from my vein. When the nurse came on the speaker and asked what I needed, I told them I needed to see them immediately. My IV had pulled out and I was bleeding.

Ten minutes went by without anyone coming in. The blood was running down my arm and wasn't clotting when I pressed against it. I also had to go to the bathroom (I will spare you the gross details but know that I was also bleeding "down there") and my pain was at an all-time high.

I got out of bed and stumbled down the hall to the nurses' desk. I saw both nurses on duty on the computers. I knocked on their desk and they finally looked up. When they saw me I had tears coming down my face, I was bent over in pain and my arm was bleeding. They knew right away something was wrong. One stood up and asked what was wrong. I barely got out the words "I need someone" before I walked away. I knew I had to sit back down or I would black out. The nurse came after me and realized what was happening. I was crying pretty bad. All my emotions from the last few days came out. I told her I had called the nurses' desk literally over 10 minutes ago and someone said they would come immediately. I was ticked.

The nurse got three other nurses and they started taking care of my needs. I got two pain medicines, someone got me to the bathroom and someone else started an IV. Not a single one apologized. If this was me, I would have been saying I was sorry about a million times.

Once I got settled I apologized for the emotions (yes, I apologized. My sister would ask why but that is who I am) and was able to state why I was crying. The nurse that was assigned to my room said I didn't need to be sorry. But she didn't apologize. Is it against nurses' code maybe?

Anyway, I settled in for the night and was given something to sleep. The night went fast and in the morning I was woken up by a doctor I had never seen. He stated I was going home and asked if I had any questions. I was too groggy to respond properly and just said "no" and fell back to sleep. An hour later a new nurse woke me up and said she had my discharge paperwork.

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Now the night before I had two different pain medicines, a muscle relaxer, an anti-biotic, saline and a sleep medicine. Why was I going home? I asked the nurse to have the doctor come back in and called my husband. My husband came down in time to hear what the doctor said.

(At this point it may be good to add that just over three years ago I was in a similar situation. I had been bleeding internally for free days and no one had noticed. I was at a hospital out of state for three days at the time and was discharged and flew back home. When getting back home, I went to the closest hospital and they told me something almost word-for-word that the doctor at this hospital told me.)

The doctor came in and stated that I had a 5 cm blood clot that would be absorbed by my body over the next few weeks. It was nothing to worry about and I had no active bleeding. I told him that TWO doctors told me almost exactly the same thing and were wrong 3 years ago. I came within an hour of bleeding to death.

I asked him if he could be 100% sure that I was not actively bleeding since I still was bleeding "down there" every time I went to the bathroom. He said he was as sure as he could be. After asking many questions, I was discharged.

Double checking is very unlike me. If this would have been almost any other situation, I would have thanked the doctor and left it alone. But three years ago I was in the hospital for 10 days and that has scared me badly.

Even now I sit here with a fever over 100 degrees and a bit of pain despite the prescription pain medicine and am scared. I still know there is a slight chance that the doctors missed something.

Here is where my title comes in. I don't have to put my trust in the doctors. They are human and do make mistakes. I have to trust God. I have never had a hard time trusting God. I lead the most incredibly blessed life. I thank God every day for the amazing blessings in my life, both material and spiritual. My life is content and happy.

So I at my computer desk wondering why this is so hard. God has plans for all of our lives. He has a reason for everything and I believe this with my whole heart. But I cannot get the "scared" feeling to go away.

I have been looking up scripture and came across a few verses:

"For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” - Isaiah 41:13


“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." -Matthew 6:25-7:29


and one that made me chuckle and start to feel a bit better:

"No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments." - 1 Timothy 5:23

Although I will not be drinking wine along with my pain medicine tonight, please keep me in your prayers. Pray that I will not be anxious and that always I can trust God.



Views of my hospital room: