Linny at 15
Today is my wife Linny's birthday. She is 53 years old. This means that I have known her for 39 years.
We started dating when she was a 14 year old tiny school girl with long red hair. We are still madly in love today. I could say so many wonderful things about the love of my life, but at this time I would like to mention a recent miracle that has happened to her. Maybe it will inspire someone else.
Linny became disabled in 1995 with a neurological condition that caused her to have a Horner's Syndrome (ptosis, myosis & anhydrosis) and unbearable right sided head pain. This disease eventually led to other medical problems. From February until May of that year, she was undiagnosed until she saw Dr. John Kelly. Dr. Kelly, a neurologist from the Northern Kentucky area, pronounced her as having a disease called Raeder's Paratrigeminal Neuralgia. In his oppinion it would slowly dissapate and be gone within a few months. She continued to see Dr. Kelly over the next 9 and a half years with the same symptoms. She also developed "seizures" and spinal pain. All this was treated primarily with a seizure medication called Depokote and a narcotic called Oxycontin and a myriad of other drugs. Linny would spend more time asleep than awake. It was almost like she was in a comatose state. Even with the medication, the pain spread through her body.
During early 2004 her ability to walk was rapidly becoming more impaired even with the help of her rolling walker. During a visit to Dr. Kelly, he told her that she had gone toxic on Depokote and began to titer her off of that medicine. Her gait became more stable after that. She had developed numbness in her mouth and face. Dr. Caldwell,one of her primary doctors, noted that another drug that she was taking Levadopa caused that adverse side effect. By no longer taking that drug her feeling returned.
Withdrawing from the Depokote that she had taken for many years caused her to have terrible side effects. She slept nearly all the time now and she hallucinated. I hated to leave her alone, but I had to work. It took over a month before she was off of Depokote. She then started taking another anti-seizure medicine that was said to have less severe side effects. However by now, Linny became upset and angry that she had been put through this trauma of withdrawal. She felt victimized. She was determined to be free of dependency on any medication.
For at least eight years she had taken Oxycontin for the severe pain in her face. She had tried some other less potent drugs, but nothing relieved the pain. Because of the publicity of Oxycontin abuse, all medical providers, doctors and pharmacies, were under the scruntiny of the government. By 2004 Dr. Kelly cut Linny down to no more than 30 milagrams a day. When she asked him, "what about days when I am unable to bear the pain?", his reply was, "Linny, just tough it out."
In September 2004 she became fed up with Doctors, medicine and her life as an invalid. She went toxic on all the medications and slipped into what is known as a liver coma or hepatic coma. She remained in bed in our darkened bedroom for the next 10 weeks and slipped in and out of consciousness. She asked God to free her from the Oxycontin dependency and she told Him that she could not go through another episode similar to those experienced during the withdrawal from Depokote. In a clear voice God said, "Do you believe that I can free you?" She answered, "Yes Lord." So the Lord told her to dump her Oxycontin prescription down the sink and run hot water to make sure the pills were not stuck in the drain pipe. She obeyed. As always God honored her obedience. He healed her.
For three weeks Linny said nothing to me about this. I would ask if she had taken her medicine or needed a refill fro the pharmacy and she said that she did not. She then told me about this. The next week she called her primary doctor, Gigi Tcheng and asked her how long it would take to be certain a person was no longer addicted to Oxycontin. Dr. Tcheng said that the person should be hospitalized and it may take no less than a month, probably more to determine that they no longer had any desire for the drug. When she told Dr. Tcheng that God had immediately healed her, the doctor started to cry.
The Lord has done His miraculous work in my wife. She has never expressed a desire to take Oxycontin again. In fact this past winter, she developed Walking Pneumonia and refused to take any cough medication that had a narcotic base. I praise God for this and I praise Him for bringing this wonderful woman into my life.
Linny still experiences health problems, however she and I are trusting that God will take care of us as He always has in the past.
The above pictures reflect my wife at our grandson's recent Baptism. The last is a picture that I took of Linny when she was 15 years old and I was 16. We were spending a day at Campbell County park.
No comments:
Post a Comment