My Appointment

I so badly wanted to write this yesterday, but each time I tried or thought about it my mind literally froze. I have so much to be thankful for. Since Sunday morning worship God has especially been showing me His faithfulness and that He cares. God first reminded that He cares by fulfilling my desire to sing a certain song during worship. During worship Sunday I all of sudden wanted to sing "Great is Thy Faithfulness". I was wishing I had a way to communicate with the worship leader and tell him my song request. What blows me away is that God had already planned for the worship leader to pick that song for worship way before I even had the desire for the song. Two songs after I got the desire to sing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness " the worship leader announced that it would be the next song we sing.


I’ll just give a brief background before I tell about God’s faithfulness during my appointment on Monday. During the 4 weeks leading up to my appointment God was doing a work on my heart preparing me for my appointment. I didn't fully see what he was doing because I was quite frankly hurting and I couldn’t see anything good coming out of what God was allowing in my life. I wrestled with God quite a bit during those four weeks asking Him time and time again to "take this cup from me". Bible School was the best, but hardest bible school. I wrestled with God all week long not wanting to surrender what He was asking of me. I’m a slow learner so it took me till the end of Bible School to listen to what God was telling me. The week between Bible School and my appointment had it’s own challenges, but I didn’t struggle with my appointment again till Thursday or Friday. Even though God reminded me that He cares Sunday morning I still wrestled with God over my appointment. That night as I was getting ready for bed and I finally broke. I told God "take all of me. Take my health problems, take my appointment, take everything. I can’t hold on anymore." God met me in the that moment and started flooding me with peace that surpasses all understanding. I still struggled a little with anxiety leading up to the time of the appointment on Monday, but it was mainly physical anxiety.

God was faithful and gave me complete peace throughout my entire appointment on Monday. He also showed me that He cares even about the little things. One of the reasons why I dreaded my appointment is because the neuroimmunoligist has something that’s at least like Cerebral Palsy so he’s hard to understand when he talks. God in His goodness had already planned for a Rheumatologist Fellow to do the majority of my appointment. Being able to understand a doctor takes a huge load off of a hard situation. Towards the end of my appointment as we were making the final decision to change my medications I got emotional inside, but I was still at peace and I trusted my doctors wisdom.

As for going forward with my treatment for my autoimmune disease I will be getting an infusion medication called Rituximab. I will be getting Rituximab infusions every 6 months. The first round of infusions, which will be within a few weeks hopefully will be 1 infusion and then two weeks later I will have to get another infusion. After that the infusions will be every 6 months. Before I get the infusion I will have to get lab work done to check some things. I also have to get IV steroids or something before they give me the actual infusion to help prevent my body from rejecting the medication. There are of course side effects to Rituximab. The most common one, which I’m already used to ,because of the medications I’m on, is having a suppressed immune system. There are some good things about changing Rituximab. The one thing I’m most excited about is the fact that I will be able to go completely off of prednisone. I also will be able to go completely off of the immunosuppressant drug I’m currently on. It was kinda funny how after they told me I will be able to go completely off those medications they kept reminding me not to make any changes yet. I know why they kept reminding me, but I was thinking “will I be that stupid to just go off my medications after I know what it does to me.”

Change is hard and I don’t really know what all will change with changing my medications. I won’t say that I’m excited about changing my medications, but I am at peace with changing my medications. I know God is faithful. I do have some fears, but I’m trusting God and I trust my doctors. I’m trying to look forward with an expectancy to see what God will do through this new season.

I know there is a lot more I could say, but for now I think I’ll close.