Spiritual Sunday #2: Tender Mercies

I've been thinking a lot about tender mercies lately. If you're not familiar with this term, it's when something just falls into place and feels like a small blessing from heaven. I've gone through times where I feel like I'm not seeing any tender mercies and times when I see an abundance of them. I'd like to share something that started out feeling definitely NOT like a tender mercy and changed into one.

It's no secret that things at my job have been stressful this year. I've been open about that. I've struggled with a lot of physical and mental health issues in the past few years, and it seems like they've been worse this year. Add in the increasingly hostile attitudes towards teachers and public education, and it's been a very tough time. It's hard to be classified as the greatest evil in the country, when all you're trying to do is help kids reach beyond their potential and discover a love of learning. It's hard to see your profession being targeted in so many different ways. It's hard to see states passing laws that literally single out teachers and teacher unions, when other unions are left untouched. It is infuriating when a teacher who is shot by a six-year old is told that she can qualify for workman's comp because being shot is PART OF HER JOB. That's just ludicrous. (The teacher in question is suing her district for $40,000,000 and I hope she wins. Send a message that being shot and/or killed is NOT part of our job. Our job is to teach. End of story.) I don't understand why people who live out their lives in service to their communities are suddenly the devil. I am tired of being collectively called a groomer, an indoctrinator, a threat to society. It's ridiculous and blatantly untrue. I guess people need a boogeyman to blame so that they don't have to take responsibility for their own actions.

Last November, things really came to a head. I was feeling so discouraged about the constant pain I feel and the way education is going, and my mental health tanked. I've been seeing doctors constantly since my hysterectomy in November 2021. I've had so many issues since then, and the pain has increased significantly. It's not excruciating all the time, but it's ALWAYS there. It's like a level 3 every minute of the day. It's so wearing.

I was getting so discouraged by the responses I was getting. Literally every single doctor told me that I was experiencing the effects of menopause. I knew I was having *some* effects from menopause, but all of it? I kept seeking answers, only to be told the same thing over and over. I decided that it wasn't worth my continued frustration to keep seeing doctors. I pretty much gave up on ever feeling better again.

Then in November 2023, two years after my surgery, my mental health tanked. I felt like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel. It was so bad. I was contemplating harming myself, even going so far as to consider perhaps dying by suicide. I had a plan. I HAD A PLAN. Looking back, it's terrifying how close I came. As soon as I realized that I had the means to carry out my plan, I freaked out. I got rid of the medications I was planning to mix, and sought help. The counselors in my area have had a massive wait list since Covid, so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get in. I knew I didn't have time to wait for the eighteen months it could take. Add in the eating disorder I have been struggling with, and it was a recipe for disaster. (I have atypical anorexia - I don't look anorexic by any stretch, so it's been very hard to get any help or anyone to actually believe me. I just don't eat when I'm alone. I have gotten very good at looking like I'm eating when I'm around people, but it's usually very little and I move food around on my plate a lot to make it look like I've eaten a decent amount. At home alone, I rarely eat. I have gotten extremely good at shutting down hunger signals. My body has gone into peasant mode, and hoards calories because I am literally starving it. Atypical anorexia is extremely dangerous because it doesn't look like anorexia. People struggling with this are statistically less likely to get help because no one believe them. It's deadly.)

I decided I was going to try and see a different doctor. I was going to beg for a referral to a therapist so that I could get the help I desperately needed. When I got an appointment with Dr. Rammell, I was honestly expecting the same thing I'd been dealing with for years. Instead, I got a doctor who spent almost two hours with me, going over literally everything I was experiencing. He listened. He took time to think about what could possibly be the cause. He never once said it was menopause. He said that whatever it was wasn't helped at all by menopause, but menopause definitely didn't cause what I had been going through. At that point, I began to cry. I couldn't help it. I was believed. I was listened to. I was going to get help. 

Dr. Rammell took a ton of blood for test after test after test. He poked and prodded. He listened to my organs and poked some more. He validated my fears about the eating disorder and said it was very brave of me to insist on getting help. He referred me to my current therapist. When my blood tests came back, he called me personally to tell me that I'd tested positive for autoimmune antibodies. I'd heard of autoimmune diseases, but I certainly didn't think I'd possibly have one. I knew basically nothing about them.

He went on to refer me to a rheumatologist who could drill down and accurately diagnose me. It took almost 6 months to get in, but I did. I'm now under the care of Dr. Scoville in Idaho Falls. My first appointment with him took two hours. TWO HOURS with a highly regarded rheumatologist. I couldn't believe it. It took him almost an hour just to question me about what I was experiencing. Then he did more tests. Blood work, flexibility, ability to walk, range of motion, etc. In the end, he said that I am a textbook case of the autoimmune disease Axial Spondyloarthritis (ASA). I'd never heard of that. Basically what it means is that my body is trying to fuse my joints. It starts in the SI joint, hips, mid to lower back, and chest. These are the areas I've had the most pain in. I've been experiencing chest pain for the last 2 years, and I've been to the ER twice in fear of a heart attack. Both times I was sent home with an anxiety diagnosis. I mean, I DO have anxiety, but it wasn't the only cause of my chest pain. To be fair, ER doctors don't have the time to get to an accurate diagnosis. They're there to treat the current issue, and then get you to someone else. In my case, I wasn't referred to anyone else because they really did think I was just having a panic attack.

Photo Credit: My photo of a painting by Yongsung Kim

My disease is incurable. I will have some level of pain for the rest of my life. I will have flare ups when it gets worse. The tender mercy comes in because I CAN be treated. I CAN have a better quality of life. I DO have hope for a better future. I am now on medication that helps control the amount of inflammation, which causes the fusing, which leads to the pain. I haven't noticed a difference in the amount of pain I have during the day, BUT, I have noticed a significant difference in the amount of pain I experience during the night. I've been waking up in pain multiple times a night for YEARS, and I have to get up and walk laps to calm it down. I haven't had to do that after the first week of being on the medication. It's been such a blessing to wake up feeling more rested.

Something that seemed so dire in the beginning actually ended up being a tender mercy because it led me to getting the mental and physical help I needed to push through and work towards getting well. I am in treatment for my ASA, the eating disorder, and some past trauma that hasn't ever been fully resolved. I am making progress! I am working on a better relationship with food and trying to eat small meals at regular intervals. I have started doing yoga because it's one of the exercises I can do (I can no longer do any jumping, twisting, vigorous exercise like Zumba because of the ASA). I am walking more because it's also something that I can do and that is helpful.

Tender mercies come in strange ways sometimes, and they're not always easy to recognize in the moment. In the end though, it becomes clear that what started as a disaster with the potential to turn into a catastrophe was actually a means to get help. God works in mysterious ways.