The last six months… wow! They’ve gone so fast. I feel as if some days I just left yesterday and other days, it seems like years ago I was boarding the first flight to South Africa from Atlanta.
The last six months… they’ve been FULL. Full of adventure. Full of excitement. Full of new. Full of introductions. Full of joy. Full of hurt. Full of sweat. Full of confusion. Full of blessings. Full of laughter. Full of family. Full of teaching. Full of learning. Full of LOVE. Full of good.
The last six months… I’ve been pretty vocal. I’ve been showing off the love. I’ve been showing the introductions. I’ve been showing the joy… the sweet…. the blessings! What I haven’t been showing is the confusion. The sweat. The tears. The homesick. The physically sick. The hard.
To be honest… there have been some challenging parts of the race – like putting 6 girls and all of our things into a room that is supposed to fit 3 people.
Or… driving 54 hours on a bus from Mozambique to Malawi – nonstop – with 32 seats for 35 people and book-bags.
Challenges such as being in 115 degree weather in and out each day with no way to escape the heat except your little bucket shower at the end of the hot and sweaty day.
Yes, these and MANY other interesting and difficult situations arise on the Race, but hey… that’s what I signed up for, right? I’ve done difficult before and I can handle it… at least that’s what I told myself.
Until Cambodia.
Until I got into a situation where I didn’t think I was going to be able to handle it.
Until I found out that it’s not what I can handle… but what HE, the source of my strength… the ONE who gives me the ability to “handle” things steps in.
To be honest, entering Cambodia I was wary. I was tired at the beginning of the month already because the last five had been long… they had been hot… they had been FULL! And by this point, I was tired… tired but determined to keep going.
I wasn’t completely comfortable with our living situation, but with a little prayer and encouragement from my teammates… and building new relationships with the people around me – our ministry host, his family, and the kids we were teaching in class each day – I quickly got over my “discomfort” and realized… this was my home for the next month… this is where God had placed me and I was going to be okay! I began seeing the beauty in Cambodia, in the people, in the way of life there. I began to really like it.
A little over a week had gone by of living with ducks, cows, dogs, people, flies (oh the flies!), mud, dirt, unimaginable heat, and buckets of sweat.
A little over a week had gone by of living with the most gracious and precious Cambodian host I could have ever imagined.
A little over a week had gone by of teaching some of the most incredible Cambodian kids English in the afternoons.
A little over a week in Kampong Speu
… and I was loving it.
A little over a week…
…and then suddenly I wasn’t okay.
I started feeling bad… headache, slight dizziness, nausea… maybe it was just the heat? We were doing our morning physical labor and the girls noticed I was a bit off and told me to make sure I wasn’t working myself too hard considering the heat. “I’m fine!”
I’ve always been determined to get jobs done.
That afternoon I taught my class as normal and disregarded my “off” feeling. That was typical for the race sometimes.
The next day I wasn’t feeling well again… I did my morning physical labor but then the nausea was so bad the girls suggested I just lay down during afternoon classes. I hated missing out on teaching. I always love hanging out with the kids! But, I rested…
The next day was better – Friday. Physical labor went well… classes were great! The last day of work before we had a day off! We had planned to go to the beach about 4 hours away and check out the coast line of Cambodia. Sihanoukville. I couldn’t wait! The beach has always been my “go-to” spot whenever I feel a little homesick and it’d been a while since I’d been to a beach.
Saturday morning came… we got in our van and drove the four hours to the coast…. I WAS SO EXCITED! It was gorgeous – palm trees on the beach. White sand, just like home. Blue waters…
We sat for lunch and I got a salad – first salad in a while. MAN it was good. Crispy lettuce, strawberries, walnuts, cheese! So fresh!
Afterwards, we decided to go lay on the beach and relax. I started to feel a little woozy again. The nausea was back… but hey, I was on a beach! It was beautiful and we only had that day to enjoy it, so I was just going to lie there and disregard the feelings I was having.
That was the first day I threw up.
Where did that come from? Oh well… it made the nausea go away. So I laid in the air conditioning for a minute recovering and then decided to go back out by the pool with the girls. I couldn’t pass up my only day to enjoy this place away from the village!
That night was hard. I was sick… Emily started getting sick… and so was Jess. What was going on?! Food poisoning we thought. But… no? I had been nauseous for a few days by this point. So, we decided the next morning, when we were leaving the beach and going back to the village, to stop by the local hospital and get some easy tests done to make sure it wasn’t a parasite.
No parasite, but I was admitted because my electrolytes were really low and so was my hemoglobin. Jess was admitted also… we figured, easy – we will stay here over night, get some fluids and then go back to the village TOMORROW!
Go back. Get back to work; see our kids; make a difference! Do what we were here to do. Do what we knew God has put us here for. Helping Ra. Teaching English. Building relationships with the villagers!
Four of the girls did go back the next day. But, not me. Not me and not Erin because she was gracious enough to stay with me there in Sihanoukville.
The vomiting continued. The diarrhea continued. They wanted to keep me on fluids until I was a little more stable.
One more day, I could handle that. But then, THEN I’d be back with my kids, right?!
One more day turned into two more days in the Sihanoukville Clinic. Sunday, Monday. They said I could go home tomorrow. Tuesday. I was ready to go.
I was getting antsy.
Erin and I finally were told I was able to go back. We were so excited that she even went and bought me a “congratulations” tiny crown (joke amongst our team) to wear! She got us bus tickets while I was doing all of the paper work to be discharged and then we were on the road… on our way home to Maha Sarakham.
My spirits were high! I was excited to be going back… I felt … okay… but not great. But hey, they discharged me so I figured I should be better!
Until I had to make the bus pull over.
Until I embarrassed myself in front of an entire bus load of people because I was getting sick… again.
Side of the road… the nausea was back – and bad. The gagging was back. And thank goodness I had Erin at my back… comforting me while I hunched over a mound of grass as an entire bus load of people watched from the windows.
No vomit though.
GOOD SIGN!!
Maybe my stomach just wasn’t used to riding in cars yet.
Went back to the site, sat at dinner with the girls – wasn’t really feeling up to eating a lot just yet… had some crackers on the bus ride home – and then went to bed shortly after my adorable ministry host made me a pallet on the porch. At that point I was sleeping in a hammock in the middle of the loft and I didn’t have the strength to hoist myself up into the hammock. Porch with a bug net it was.
I woke up around 2:30am and slowly sat up. The nausea was so bad it had woken me… I felt what was coming next and I got anxious because I was on a porch, in a loft, with not enough time or way to get down to the bathroom very easily. Before I even had time to finish thinking this I vomited all over the porch, right next to my pallet. All over Ra’s bug net… all over everything. Ugh.
To make the situation even more embarrassing, Ra heard it all! However, his being awake lightened the mood a little bit…. He was on the ground below the porch and called up to me, “Are you okay?” “Haha, no…. I just began throwing up again. I’m sorry but it got on your porch. Why are you awake?” “Oh, well that’s okay. My piglets were just born!” haha… Ra. Humble Christian man / teacher / pig farmer up at 2:30 delivering piglets into the world.
I called out for one of the girls to help me and Rachel was awake. She wasn’t feeling so hot either… she and I both woke up Erin and we decided that we should go back to the hospital. Obviously, whatever “it” was, wasn’t better… and Rachel decided to go get checked out, too.
Ra had a van come pick us up – time now, about 3:00am. Then he went upstairs with buckets of water to clean up my mess. Embarrassment. Thanks, Ra.
We got to Phnom Penh Royal Hospital around 4:00am and were admitted to the ER to have our vitals checked and blood tests run. I was then admitted again to the hospital because my electrolytes were low… I had been vomiting for days and no one knew why… and they wanted to run a few tests – CT scans on my abdomen to see what was going on.
Rachel didn’t have to be admitted and was told she was clear to go after a few hours… but she and Erin decided to stay with me because it was so far and she couldn’t go home alone.
To make a long(er) story short, I was in this hospital until I was discharged on the 7th day. 3 days in the first, 7 days in the second. Overall I had 17 IV inserts (not all at once of course), two CT scans, one endoscopy and a colonoscopy. My results – you have an inflamed colon, enlarged lymph nodes on your aorta and erosion where your esophagus meets your stomach. Awesome. So, what’s wrong with me?
My doctors were awesome, my nurses were incredibly sweet and Rachel and Erin were great hospital mates. I couldn’t have asked for better care from the people around me. I was just so confused. So upset. So FRUSTRATED.
Why was I there?
Why was I sick?
WHY COULDN’T ANYONE FIGURE IT OUT?!
Then Rachel reminded me of the sermon I preached literally the day before I got sick. Two days before entering the hospital for the first time. She said, “Bittersweet, right? Remember… God is good. What can He do for you here? What good can come from this? Why are you here?” She would sit next to my bed and read me psalms when things were really bad. She and Erin would hold my hands and let me squeeze the life out of them whenever I’d get a new needle stabbed into me somewhere.
We started to see the bright side of things. We started to make light of the situation… to use our current location as our new ministry location and to make sure we left that hospital lighter than it had been before.
We would joke around with the nurses. I even got to share my thoughts and beliefs about the Bible and God and how he created all of humanity with one of them. I smiled and laughed… God had given me my happiness back. Through His word, through the encouragement of these two girls with me, through prayer… He made that situation okay for me.
We wanted the nurses there to see that we were different and to ask questions. We wanted to use that situation to demonstrate how awesome God is and how, even in bitter situations, things can be okay. You can be happy. You can find the good.
I was discharged on a Monday. Spent the night in a hotel there in Phnom Penh and then Rachel and I left to go back to the ministry site on Tuesday (Erin had gone home with the rest of the team when they came to visit the Saturday before). Discharged but not well. Discharged but with no new answers. Discharged but still feeling awful.
With much prayer and consideration amongst myself, my family and the organization leadership, I decided to go home. I decided to fly with the squad on their journey to Colombia, South America but leave them in L.A. and go back to South Carolina to be seen further by American doctors.
I spent nearly three weeks at home. As great as it was, it killed me to have to miss my time in Colombia. I was seen by doctors in the states… I was given advice… I was allowed well accommodated rest. I started to get better… slowly.
The plane ride home from China to Los Angeles was the last time I threw up.
What was wrong with me?
That question has yet to be completely answered. There are guesses… there are assumptions… there are some signs of some things… some signs of other things but even now, no one knows for sure what it conclusively is.
A mix of things? Bad gastrointestinal infection along with taking my malaria pills at the wrong time (causing the erosion) and colitis is the final conclusion after 10 days in Cambodian hospitals and being home to see doctors in the states as well.
So what have I learned from all of this?
I’ve learned that my diet has to change. I am unable to process a lot of foods with the erosion and inflammation that is still active inside of me… Eating only basic vegetables (no starch veggies), fruits, and plain chicken is going to be hard, but will hopefully lead to healing.
I’ve learned that staying positive can really make an impression on people. The nurses bid me goodbye from Phnom Penh saying for a girl in as much pain as I was, they were surprised at how happy I was and how much I smiled. I said… Only the Lord can provide happiness like that in such an awful time.
I learned that my teammates are amazing (more amazing than I had even thought before!) They showed me so much love and support while I was sick. They were by my side or sending me messages constantly to cheer me up, keep me in the Word, and keep me encouraged. They prayed for me constantly.
I learned that I’m not invincible. I can’t do everything. I can’t “handle” everything on my own. There’s one that can help me though and when I turned it all over to him… even though the sickness didn’t subside, my negative feelings and frustrations significantly did.
I learned that God is able. God is good. God didn’t cause this infection… didn’t cause the erosion… didn’t cause my inflammation and pain. He didn’t cause any of that but He was able to use my situation to bring people to me with questions about why we Christians believed what we believed.
So now… Now I am back on the field. I am in Colombia with the cutest kids I could have ever asked for. I am back with my team.
Am I better? No. Not yet but every day I feel is a step forward.
Am I still frustrated? At times, yes. I have to keep reminding myself and getting reminded from those around me that this too shall produce good some day.
There’s something in this that God is teaching me…. To rest? To take it easy? To understand that I can’t handle everything myself?
Whatever it is… I’m still learning. I’m still healing… but I’m still here! 🙂
