It was good for me to be afflicted. –Psalm 119:71.
A few nights ago, as I laid my head on my pillow, the room started spinning out of control and it felt like the bed was tipping me over and dumping me on the floor.
Fortunately, it was a brief attack of vertigo, and I was able to sleep through the night with no further interruption.
However, the next morning when I started to get out of bed, I felt woozy, and once on my feet, I staggered into the bathroom. It took a little over an hour before it all passed hopefully into oblivion.
This episode took me back several years ago. The Sunday before the onslaught, I had been walking down the sloping aisle of the church towards the pew. I began to stagger and had to grope each pew to steady myself. I was okay afterwards, but I felt a bit light-headed the rest of the day.
The next morning, I tried for an hour-and-a-half to get out of bed only to be slammed back down with the room spinning. I was very sick and finally had to be taken by ambulance to the local hospital.
They got me stabilized and when a bed became available, I was transported to the VA hospital. I was there for five days where they ran every test imaginable.
The only irregularity was a spot at the intersection of my brain and the top of my spine. The doctor said it appeared to be old, probably there from birth and nothing to be concerned about.
However, just to be on the safe side, he wanted to re-examine it three months later. No change. Come back in three months. No change. Come back in six months. No change, and on and on it went for a couple or three years.
It was September of 2016, time for that six-month visit. When the doctor entered the room the concerned look on his face told me this visit was different.
He showed me the result of the CAT scan, and an invasive protein had eaten out parts of two vertebrae in my upper spine. He told me that surgery was not an option—it was a necessity. The alternative would be either paralysis from the neck down or death. I chose surgery.
This was an eight-hour surgery, inserting rods and pins to hold my head in place and the biopsy. Original diagnosis: Multiple myeloma.
Tough stuff to be sure. But a month’s rehab landed me in the new veteran’s home here in town. And I made so many new friends, and since it was approaching Thanksgiving and Christmas, I played piano and keyboard for numerous activities including my regularly scheduled concert.
A month’s radiation therapy in the dead of winter afforded me further opportunity to meet so many new people, many who were struggling with much greater issues than mine.
My neck and upper body were in a brace that held me together during the healing process.
I am now almost 2 ½ years out from radiation and there has been no recurrence of cancer.
Had it not been for that severe attack of vertigo, it is likely that I would not be sharing this story. As this Blogspiration began so it ends:
It was good for me to be afflicted. –Psalm 119:71.
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