Joy in Pain

How is it possible that almost two months have flown by? I’ve started a blog post several times, but haven’t finished one. Between the end of the school year and summer break beginning, it’s been a busy few weeks. Ben and I have been taking some road trips and enjoying the time together. I’ll share my other blog posts sometime soon, but this post is mostly going to be about Ben this time.

Ben’s Health Update:

If you’ve followed our blog for very long, you may already know Ben has idiopathic peripheral neuropathy. Today, we had an appointment with Ben’s new neurologist at the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor. He’s met with neurologists at the U of M hospital for many years now, but had a new doctor on his team that wanted to meet him.

A few take-aways from Ben’s appointment:

• Ben has both small and large idiopathic peripheral neuropathy. We do not know the cause and may never know.
• The neuropathy will continue to spread. It is in his feet, up to his knees and has entered his hands. This causes pain and numbness. It will most likely spread up his arms as well.
• There is no cure. Medication can relieve some of the pain, but it will never entirely go away.
• Ben will likely begin to lose his balance more and more.
• The brain “hiccups” he’s been having, both verbal and physical, (tics), as well as the brain fog, are likely related to whatever is going on neurology.

The doctor made a couple of referrals to other specialists and ordered some bloodwork. We don’t really have answers any more than what we already did, but at least we have a little more of a plan. Typically, with something this aggressive, doctors are able to figure out what kind of autoimmune disorder or other disease is causing the symptoms. In Ben’s case, even with all of the testing through many different doctors including U of M and Mayo clinic, they still have not found answers.

Joy in Pain

Sometimes, life doesn’t seem fair, and we wonder why things have to happen. Ben and I have been through a lot, and Ben spends most of his days in pain now. But as I’ve shared before, it’s not always about us. Do we have bad days when things seem really dark and hard? Absolutely! We’re human. But we also try to look for the good in each day, to try to make the lives of others around us just a little bit better if we can. Striving to make the most of every day isn’t easy, especially when times are hard, but in the grand scheme of things, the time we have here is so very short. None of us know how much time we have on the earth, but we can make the most of whatever time we are given, even on the difficult days, even when it’s really hard. In the end, what matters more than now is eternity. Now is just the blink of an eye.

We may not have all the answers, but for now we wait to see if maybe one day we will get the answers we’ve sought for over a decade now. In the meantime, we trust that God has a plan, and we choose to make the most of every moment. We choose to find joy even in the pain.

Until next time,

Cindy