After 7 months of healing, my left knee was like a new lease in life! I no longer was in pain and I was walking with out a limp.

Continuing in this long journey, it wasn’t more than 3 weeks later after finally getting back to work, that threw out my left shoulder. Back to the orthopedic doctor, more X-rays and the results? My left shoulder had to be replaced. The pain was horrible, I could not lift my arm higher then my chest without being in extreme pain. Surgery to replace the left shoulder was done 1 week later. The recovery time took almost a year with many hours of therapy. What the surgeon told me after looking at X-rays, (they took X-rays of both shoulders) This is a quote from the surgeon, “I’m not telling you what you should do, but what I can tell you is, that if you continue in the same profession, you will be back in my office, I’ll give it, maybe 18 months, and you will be having your right shoulder replaced also”. 

I was planning on 3 more years to retire. But with this news, I decided the time to retire would be after my left shoulder was replaced. Over the years of not calling off work, I had built up over 7 months of sick time. So when I used the 7 months up, I called my employer and said it’s time to retire. My age, and the amount of years I had worked, I qualified for full pension.

So that has taken us through to yhe years from 2019 to 2022. The year 2023 was another year of health trials.

It all started when I was having pain in both sides of my groin. Tests were done and I had 2 ingina hernias. 3 cm long on one side 4 cm long on the other. Surgery was done and they were fixed with mesh. Little did I know, some of the pain I had on my left side was coming from 4 kidney stones. Just after 8 days after hernia surgery, the 4 stones decided they wanted out. I passed 3, the 4th was 6.4 mm in size and got stuck just before the bladder. I remember that day still. It is by far the worst day I ever experienced. The pain from a kidney stone was simply unbearable. I called my wife from home, I was screaming and yelling in pain, I asked her to come home and get me to the hospital. When she pulled into the garage, she said she could her me screaming from inside the car. She came running in the door, found me in a fetal position laying on the floor and out of my mind in pain. She got to the ER, and while we were waiting to get back to an exam room, I had passed out 2 times from the intensity of the pain. They took out the stone the next afternoon, but I had to spend another night in the hospital because of all the inflammation that had occurred. I wish I could say this nightmare of surgeries was over, but not yet.

A week later, I went in for the normal checkup after surgery appointment. They did another CT scan to make sure there were not anymore kidney stones, and what did the surgeon find? 3 more hernias!

What had happen, because of the extreme pain the kidney stones gave me, all the wrenching it caused and because the hernia surgery was only 8 days before, the mesh did not have proper time to adhere to the muscles. So, when I was wencing in pain from the kidney stones, I had tore the same hernias that were just repaired, only I made them bigger. I had also tore some of the muscles around where the meshes were placed. To make it more interesting, I had also created an umbilical hernia in the process as well. Back to surgery I went, not only to fix the hernias that were repaired now just 10 days ago, but also to repair an umbilical hernia. I can tell you, the first hernia surgery wasn’t bad, the second hernia surgery was very painful even with pain medication.

So that’s 3 surgeries in 3 weeks. I’m not done yet. 3 months later, I was back in surgery for my gall bladder. Then a surgery for an ulnar nerve that got wrapped in scare tissue from an injury that happen in my early 20’s. Then surgery on both hands for carpal tunnel. Now I thought I was through. Stil not done.

This one was more my fault, then anything else. I was avoiding it for a few years, not saying anything to anybody. More embarrassed about it then anything else. I was having problems urinating. It was gradually getting slower and slower. Finally I had to see the urologist. Another test, and I had BPH. My prostate had grown big enough that it was making it difficult to urinate. You guessed it, back to surgery for my prostate. Finally, the last of surgeries.

2024, this past year. This was the year of just healing. Most of my physical healing has already done. But during all of the surgeries, the pain in the year before, had stressed me out mentally. I felt defeated, was always waiting for another shoe to drop. I became mean, uncompromising and hard to live with. I hated was I was becoming, but I didn’t know how to stop it.

I don’t want to admit it, but I felt I was miles away from God. I didn’t blame him for what I been through, but I did start asking questions why me. I question whether or not I was actually a Christian. Questioned myself if I was really saved. I had endured so much physical and mental pain in the last 3 years, I forgot to look up at Christ, I forgot to give my pain to Christ. I didn’t pray, stopped reading God’s word and began a nose dive. I was heading for a disaster and out of control.

So what changed my course. How did I level out, and how did I start growing again?

My wife, she has always been my angel sent from God. She heard God’s call and went to work. She gathered up our closest friends, brought them all together in our living room. For 2 hours on a Saturday night, somehow she got me to open up in front of our friends and let me spew out all my fears, frustrations, my insecurities. We all cried, I wepped, we all bowed in prayer. Hands were laid on me. Prayers were offered up for me, and then a wonderful thing happened. The first time in 2 1/2 years, I felt peace, I felt relief. It had felt like my soul had finally been released form the chains I had so tightly bounded it too.

God had heard the cries, he saw the tears, he already knew what I had been through. I just had to come to the point where I would finally let all go. I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. I had to be willing to return my eyes to God. When I finally did that, God began his wonderful healing.

The message that I want to leave with you through all the physical and mental pain I endured.

God puts friends and families in our lives for a reason. God has never expected us to handle trials by ourselves. He sends helpers to give us support, to help keep our eyes focused on what matters most. What matters most, is keeping our eyes focused on our creator, our Father and our One True King.

So to end this very long blog, I needed time away to physically, mentally and spiritually heal. Now that healing has begun, I can once again continue writing.

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