Good News

Rejoice!
Dear readers I have had very little pain today!!!!
God has shown His mercy!!!!

Call Me Crazy

Call me crazy but I started with a new chiropractor.

I like this one.

He does light therapy. He takes this wand that he holds in his hand and holds the light up against the side of my face all along the jaw line for 30 seconds at a time. It makes a difference. My pain isn't completely gone but I am eating again and talking again.
He also adjusts me the traditional way and today he did a new move that I never had done before. It is an osteopathic cranial stretch. His assistant holds down my left shoulder as he takes my neck and head and stretches it in the opposite direction for 30 to 60 seconds. Then they do the opposite side. While he was doing it all I could think about was the story I had heard when I was a young girl of the neighborhood chiropractor who broke a patient's neck. My chiropractor didn't break my neck of course. And actually I felt a great release of tension after he was done. I felt good in my head. Light and airy.

Chiropractor Part Two

Chiropractor 4 - Young, compassionate and quite sure he could cure anything! Except me. And that frustrated him and I knew it. Time to move on.

By now my disease is often quite painful. Painful enough to bring about screams of fright running to Bob when the electric shocks came on. He would come and help me crawl into bed and hold me until the worse was over and I could fall asleep. That was a pattern. I knew I watched the clock. 10pm and it came. Every night.

Chiropractor 5 - I read in the book The Strike that an upper cervical chiropractor had great success with TN patients. There were only a few in the US. Ironically enough there was one 1/2 hour away. I called and set up an appointment. After my first appointment my pain decreased at least by 50%. My travel began, three times a week for years: 1/2 hour down, 45 minutes there and 1/2 hour home. I went a year without pain and many, many days with light pain. Then it happened. I went for an adjustment and instead of helping the adjustment set off the pain. I sat for several hours curled up in a ball in the chiropractor's office afraid to move. My pain was back and fierce! The next thing I know the man closes down his practice. And I am on my own again.

I felt betrayed. Left. I trusted. I was left. I would not go through this again.

Scripture states:
James 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
Believing in God's Word I went to my pastor to ask if he would have the elders come together and pray for me. He was willing. One Sunday morning before the service started I met the elders and they prayed and anointed me with oil. My pain lessened but did not go away completely. I was willing to summit to this being God's will for me. Five months later reading about another church on the internet I saw they had a healing service. I felt like the Holy Spirit was leading me to attend. I did. The people prayed for me. My pain went away.

God blessed me with at least a year of no pain and a for a time after with mild pain.


But as it happens the pain comes back and grows and grows until it is unbearable. Now my pain was every day. Unable to cry for a tear running down my face would be excruciating. Horrible doesn't seem forceful enough to describe what was happening. There were the thin, string like electrical shocks that were set off by touch. They came in groups traveling from my mouth, up the side of my face to my temple. Then there were the continual electrical shocks, one right after another, nonstop, forever on and on. They were stronger. I couldn't determine what triggered them. "JUST MAKE THEM STOP!" Next came the king of it all, the lightening bolts. They were a hard, thick , strong, deep firing of my nerve. It was as if there was nothing but this nerve that wanted to say, "I am King! I will rule". They were the ones that left a bruised feeling in my face like someone beat me up. A reminder nastily left behind so I could not forget they had been there. Sometimes the pain would be in my mouth. Closing my lips, my tongue touching my gum line or swallowing would set it off. Some days I spent hours sitting, not moving waiting for it to stop. Some nights pain unbearable. I slept not moving. My whole body tense. When I slept there was no pain but when I would stir it would be there waiting for me. There were times when the intensity of the pain became so strong I could not contain myself. Bob would allow me to hit him as I cried and begged My God for His mercy. With the pain came fear of the pain. I spent my days and nights in fear that any moment it would come. I never knew when it would come or how long it would stay.

Chiropractor 6 - Dr. _______ is a cranial specialist. By now I have become brave enough to ask questions like, "Do you know what TN is? and "Have you ever had success with TN patients?" His response was a definite, "Yes!" My first visit was an evaluation. He said nothing through the whole exam. At the end he just looked at me and said, "I make no promises." Dr. ___ had absolutely no bedside manner. I mean none. But he tried. He was the first chiropractor to put his fingers in my mouth and apply pressure. He mushed my head! :) . But I was in pain and it just got worse. After many weeks one day he said, I am not doing any good am I?" No. I was done. I was frail and I was broken. I needed help. I could take it no more. Traditional medicine was to become my ally. (2010)

Chiropractors Part One

If anyone has a history with chiropractors I sure do! It just seems like the right way to go. Got a problem with your eyes you go to an eye doctor. Ear infections bothering you, and your off to the ear, nose and throat doctor. And of coarse the dermatologist takes care of any skin issues. So I have a nerve issue. The chiropractor seems like the right kind of doctor to go to. I have been to quite a few these past twenty five years.

Chiropractor 1 - He lived in Pennsylvania. I was having trouble with bad headaches at the time. They were the kind of headache that go up your neck and cover the one side of your head. Well, this doctor was the kind of doctor that jerked everything back into place. My girlfriend who took me to him the first time while she was going, let me sit in and watch him work on her. Bad idea. I was sure he was going to wring her neck off. When it was my turn I prayed to Jesus hard. And it worked! No more pain! Years later when I told him I had TN he had no words of encouragement. The best he could do was suggest a healthy diet.

Chiropractor 2 - I went to him when doctor 1 was on vacation and I fell down the steps and jarred my neck. He was legally blind and very old. The first time I went there we took my blood pressure together. He listened and I read the machine when he said now. I am not kidding you. But he made me feel so good. He started at my feet and worked all the way up to the top of my head. And he would whisper sweet nothings into my ear as he worked. Like "Eat a banana for breakfast" or "Nutella". I stopped going to him when I realized that he fell asleep in between patients and his receptionist had to wake him up constantly. He was good though.

Chiropractor 3 - Another Pennsylvania man. I remember when I told him him I had TN. He bulleted back to me, "No you don't! People kill themselves when they have that disease." So encouraging. He talked about shooting alcohol in my nerve. "No thank you sir, good bye!"

Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

I am a Social Creature

I can't eat or talk without pain! Yet I still try to do both. One is for survival but really both are for survival. I am a social creature and didn't realize how much until you told me I wouldn't be able to talk.

So I am practicing silence. It is interesting how others respond to my silence.

Car rides. Margaret and I do quite a number of car rides together. It is amazing how quiet it can get. Usually we are pretty verbal. Not lately. Though what has begun to happen is she anticipates what I am going to say or ask and responds.

People in public places. It is amazing how many people speak to me in public places. And how empty it feels when I answer back with only a smile. Do they notice? Or is it just me that notices.

At home. I can hear so much more now that I am silent. I never realized how loud the clock ticks. And how one can hear the washer in the basement. Or just notice the beauty of the silence.

I hate it when people say, "well I will leave you now so you don't have to talk" They think they are doing me a favor. I want to scream, "No, You don't understand. It isn't what I want. I want to talk. I want to communicate with you. It is important to me. But I can't."

I am a social being.