HealthMattersBlog.com

Feeling rather inspired to write a little fiction this morning, to try to illustrate what I feel about our subject line title today.  People really don’t understand what it is like to be ill, really ill.

In my case, back in 2004 and 2005 I could digest only a few select foods.  Everything had to be organic.  And again, only a few foods would work for me.  If I varied from my narrow course, all havoc broke loose in my gut.

Those awful times required a trip to emergency.

But when I was with a friend or other people, they would see what I ate, or rather what I didn’t eat, and they would volunteer that I just needed a beef steak.  You know, to “Get some meat on my bones.”

Right.

If only it had been so easy.  Little do they know that eating something like that could literally have killed me.  Little did they know how hard it was emotionally to deal with such a suggestion.

I’d sure like to try to communicate with some dimension, the difficulty of going through such a protracted, severe chronic illness interspersed with acute moments requiring emergency services.  I can’t do it in a ‘full’ manner, but perhaps I can give some sense of the travail…

What was it like for me?

Imagine you are an atheist in a fox hole.

You are fighting the Germans in WWII.  It’s January 3rd, three days from your 21st birthday.  You haven’t slept for more than a few minutes at a time for two days straight and it wasn’t a lot better than that the previous several days.  You are out of food.  Have a few precious drops of dusty water in your canteen.  Everything reeks of the odor of death.  You are utterly depleted.

Your comrades are dead.  In fact, your Lieutenant just lost his mind, literally, via a German bullet.  You are devastated by the image stuck in your mind.

You’ve lost communication with the remaining American forces in other fox holes.  You assume they are in the same condition as you and your squad.

It’s hopeless.

The Germans are advancing and you know it.

It’s just a very short matter of time before a bullet or grenade snuffs out your last nub of life.

Things seem to go in slow motion.  Perhaps because you are wiped out, perhaps because you’ve lost virtually all hope.

Your mind does an instant replay of your life and you see before you all your hopes, dreams, past pains and disillusionment…where was God when you needed him?  You didn’t ask for that last thought.  It was involuntary.

Your mind even replays all your atheistic walls that went up since the childhood tragedy you recall all too well.

And now, against your will, your thoughts turn precipitously to God, your last possible hope.

“IF you exist… please save me”.  It feels like your last breath.

The air is thick with deep tragedy as though night will immediately fall on your fox hole, even though it is only 7:37 in the morning.

Then your perception sharpens, as something in the air is changing.

The German guns suddenly seem halting as though either jammed, confused or melting in fear.

Indeed a new sound is coming to you.  What is it?

Is it a tank or…plane?

New sounds begin to explode in the field in front of you, which you can not see, for the thick fog.  You hear Germans yelling ’something about moving fast’.

Indeed, it appears you DO have a chance.  You don’t dare poke your head up, but you hope against hope.

You don’t know which allied forces have come to the aid of you and your surviving comrades, but come they most assuredly have and the Germans have turned tail to escape the tanks firing upon them mercilessly.

You will indeed see yourself to your birthday, just three days forward.

“Thank you God, you did it.  I was wrong about you.  I’m sorry.”  The tears are there, but they can’t come.

You’d welcome them, but your body is so run down and depleted, tears are a physical impossibility.

Friend, this is something of what it felt like to be so critically ill, for such a long time.

If you find one friend, one family member that can stick with you and take care of you, you are indeed rich beyond measure.  If you happen to be so ill and you have read this short post, please don’t worry about the others, your friends who can’t or don’t understand your situation.

Be grateful for the one that sticks with you.  In my case my wife stuck with me, like a hand in a glove.

Indeed, there is another that sticks closer than a brother.  I have found Him.  His name is Jesus.

He stuck with me, indeed at my worst points, He was there with me, encouraging me, giving me peace, when all looked dim as darkest night.

He can and will be with you too.