Hello friends and family! We just wanted to give you a little update on how we have been doing lately. We apologize terribly for not updating you sooner but we have been thrown into such a roller coaster of schedule adjustments, emotional extremes and just many new experiences for us.
As most of you know, its been almost two months since I was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. If you’ve had any contact with it, you know that it is a one-sided facial paralysis caused by damage to the facial nerve and its branches. Basically, what is going on is (see picture below, I know, super nerdy, but I remember I’m in med school) two muscles aren’t working, orbicularis oculi (eye muscle) and orbibularis oris (mouth muscle) because they aren’t getting stimulation from the nerve that is affected. Although much is unknown about Bell’s palsy, there is a general-consensus that it is caused by a herpes virus (same virus family that gives you cold sores and chicken pox) that attacks the nerve in a time of immunodeficiency (immune system is “down”). At the end of the day, what it looks like is: I can’t close my eye, I can’t wrinkle my forehead or lift up my eyebrow, and I cannot move the right side of my lips; I also can’t breathe well from my right nostril, produce tears, or taste on the right side of my tongue.
When this set in, I was in the middle of class – first, I couldn’t see my professor very well (but I just attributed this to tiredness), then a friend offered me chapstick, I took it but when I applied it, I couldn’t feel it -this is when I started to think something was wrong. As I left class and walked to my car I simply thought, I’m tired and need to go rest; but then, I pulled the mirror down and saw that I couldn’t smile very well and that I couldn’t close my eye. As I pulled out of school, I took out my phone and called my parents (an unadvisable choice if you are driving during rush hour in Guatemala City and your windows aren’t tinted) to ask them meet me at the ER. Unfortunately, at that moment I had a man approach my car on his motorcycle and hit my window asking me for my phone, then two other gentlemen on another motorcycle approached the copilot window and started hitting it as well demanding the phone. I looked to the first man and then saw that the two guys on the copilot’s side opened my car door. At that moment I panicked and decided to make a run for it (don’t ask me why) so I hit the pedal. I don’t know if the men were carrying guns, I couldn’t see their faces, and I don’t know if they were opening the car door to force the phone out of my hand or to get in and take my car -all I know is I had swerved to the right and hit three parked cars. This “traumatic” experience or whatever you want to call it, made the Bell’s palsy that was setting in worse than it would’ve been.
When I first went to the doctor, he said it would probably be a quick recovery considering I am young, healthy (generally speaking), and don’t have any type of antecedents. So I think in everybody’s mind, I would be one of the cases that would take 3 weeks to a month to heal. Around week five, there wasn’t any improvement, something that my doctor found strange. Even so, he was very realistic and simply said that since we didn’t see improvement, it would be a good idea to rule out other causes of facial paralysis (basically, see if it wasn’t Bell’s palsy). At this point, we decided to get a second opinion and went to a neurologist -this was a terrible idea. According to him it was very alarming that I wasn’t improving, he also came to diagnose that I was dehydrated, had malnutrition, was anemic, was underweight and that my eye was probably going to get infected. Have you ever been to a doctor’s appointment where you feel like he’s worried and wants to tell you something but doesn’t? Well, I basically left that appointment believing I probably only had a few months to live and that they were surely going to find a tumor or something else on the MRI. Needless to say, I did not go back for a second appointment.
We ran tests that very week and the original doctor ruled out 95% of the “really bad” causes (stroke, tumor, etc) and we were able to see that the damage starts at the back of my neck, as the nerve leaves the spinal cord per say, and not around my ear, or somewhere near, so there is a significant amount of nerve that needed to heal and that is why it will take months to heal. Unfortunately, the virus caused much more damage to my nerve than most cases, but we praise God that it really is the best case scenario.
I know I sound ridiculous when I say this, when so many other deal with much more challenging and degenerative diseases, but having Bell’s palsy has been hard. Since I can’t produce tears, I can’t see, and thus I can’t read -so all my grades have dropped significantly. I also can’t drive, so Steven and my mom have been gracious enough to take turns picking me up and dropping me off at school which is located on the other side of town (this is challenging for an independent personality). It’s also frustrating knowing that every meal will probably mean food/drink will fall out of my mouth -that’s just not pretty. I’ve also learned a lot about vanity from looking the way I do not only because I simply look weird since I cannot move half of my face but because my body has been bombarded with vitamin B (a very greasy vitamin), and thus I have acne for the first time in my life. It has also been frustrating to speak and have people not understand you; the paralysis doesn’t really let me make certain sounds (like a “p”) and many times I have to repeat myself until I just say, “Nevermind.” It’s also been difficult to see how other people have perceived my sickness, both from people who call themselves believers and those that do not; in some eyes my illness is a lack of faith in God to heal me (this was a very interesting conversation) and in others’ eyes it must be some type of karma for something I’ve done. I’ve been stretched to my limits and have struggled to find joy in this trial.
Yet I firmly believe that the Lord has been good. I am so grateful for our church that helped us pay the deductible on the car after the accident so we could get it fixed. So thankful for my classmates who have completely spoiled me, not letting me work on projects, forcing me to go home and rest, leading me to classes, helping me with homework, etc. I have been blessed by so many people’s encouraging messages, thoughts, and prayers for me. I am blessed by my family, by my sister who flew down from the states just to check up on me, by my other sister who has been paying for my physical therapy, my parents that have insisted on buying medicines, for Steven being my personal nurse and just for so many other acts of kindness and love towards me -I even kind of bonded with some of my professors (who up until this event seemed terrifying and unapproachable)!
I’ve also been asked a lot, “Why were you so stressed?” I certainly didn’t feel stressed. For those of you that know me well, I kind of live with stress all the time just because I enjoy being having a lot on my plate. However, added on to the stress of med school, I think I was anxious about us having a hard time raising support and about finding a new place to live. In other words, I simply wasn’t trusting God with what came next for us. And yet, just this afternoon, we began to move into a missionary’s house we get to house sit for the next year -free rent! That is a huge provision from the Lord and we feel so blessed by it. We have learned so much about the Lord’s provision, about God’s unfailing mercies and his love for his children.
Just a few days ago, my eye produced tears for the first time in seven weeks. This was INCREDIBLY exciting, and though its only 4-6 tears a day, not enough to keep the eye lubricated, it means something is finally working in there! This too is a blessing from the Lord! So please, continue to pray for me, for my health, both spiritual and physical and for Steven who has had to be very patient with me these days and has been willing to wake up at 5am in the mornings to drive me to school.
As for Steven, he began teaching at CAG and taking seminary classes online at SBTS last week! I am excited for this new step as he continue to bless the missionary kids and as he continues his training to better serve on the mission field.
We continue to ask prayer for our people, that they will be willing to listen and will respond to the gospel, and that the Lord will use us to minister to them. Specifically, that they will recognize the difference between false gospels and the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray that the Lord will continue to guide us in how to better communicate this, in personal relationships, on Steven’s website, at medical school and at CAG.
We also ask for prayer for our church, IBG, that we will be able to serve during our time there and that we will see the church grow.
And finally that the Lord will continue to provide, although our insurance covers most of it (Praise God!), doctor appointments, medicines, new glasses, etc., have had a cost. Pray that the Lord will give us wisdom as we manage our finances while we still have medical expenses.
We know many of you have been asking for updates, but we didn’t want to say too much until we had test results back so as to not unnecessarily worry anyone, so again, we apologize for the late newsletter.
We love you all and thank our Lord that we have Jesus Christ in common,
Gaby (on behalf of Steven as well!)
