2011 - A YEAR OF EXTREME PAIN BUT ANOTHER YEAR OF LIFE AND A YEAR OF VICTORY

2011 has been a very difficult year for me because of the extreme levels of pain I have experienced in coming off morphine, but somehow I have managed to have more victory in my life this year than in any of the past 10 years.

Coming off morphine in February was a wonderful accomplishment after withdrawing from it since October 2008. It has been a hard road coming off it and I felt such a great sense of victory on the one hand. However, on the other hand it has meant an extreme rise in my pain levels.

In September, after 10 months of desperately hoping I was going to be able to have one of the two types of surgery to potentially relieve my pain I was told that it was just too risky and wasn’t going to happen. Both of the surgeries had the potential to seriously set me back both physically and cognitively and my doctors weren’t prepared to take that risk. Following the final appointment when I found that out I wouldn’t Ibe having any operation I was utterly devastated, but I came to a turning point with a realisation which I wrote down.

“Every time I go to an oncology appointment

There is a waiting room full

Full of people who would do anything

To have what I have had

Seventeen years

Seventeen years of life after diagnosis of a brain tumour

No life expectancy was given to me

For that I am extremely glad

As there is no way the doctors could have foreseen

Just how long this would all go on:

Brain injury

Side-effects from drugs

Long term effects of neurosurgery

10 years with a fogged brain

But life

17 years of LIFE

Is what I have been given

A gift that every one of those patients

In the oncology waiting room

Would do anything to have."

So even though I have been left with the daily physical struggle of pain, I have also been left with a deep sense of gratitude.  

In reaccepting that the pain was here for good I made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to let it hold me back from living anymore. Obviously there are certain things I cannot do, but there were also too many things in my brain that had “I can’t” sign posted before them. In September I decided to challenge those statements.

In late September, while on holiday in Northland, I went tramping for the first time in 15 years. Then in November I travelled independently for the first time in 10 years. These may sound like very small accomplishments to a person who has a body that functions normally but my pain and levels of weakness have been so extreme over the past 10 years that neither tramping nor travelling independently have been a remote option for me.

For many years the verse Philippians 4 : 13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” has played a large role in my life, especially in working out each day and losing 53kg between 2006 and 2009. But this year I have had to speak this scripture to myself as an affirmation to keep me going and to give me the strength to persevere and get through each day. It has become my mantra and when the pain has intensified, I have sung this to myself with a passion and feel as though I truly have gained strength in doing so and have overcome the mental block of this pain. This doesn’t mean that it makes the reality of pain any less, but rather that I now know that I can do all that I need to do in life through locking into God’s strength. There is now nothing that I will not try as I step into this new year of life.

THE POWER OF THE TONGUE - TO ENCOURAGE OR DESTROY

Proverbs 18:21 “The tongue has the power of life and death”(NIV)

Proverbs 16:24 “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”(NIV)

Proverbs 15:4 “Kind words heal and help; cutting words wound and maim.” (The Message)

In my life time I have witnessed and experienced the extremely negative power of the tongue through discouragement, but I am blessed to have also experienced the wonderful power of the tongue through encouragement. The power that the tongue holds amazes me in that what we say can bring either life or death to a person’s spirit.

We all have beliefs about ourselves stored in our minds but how did they get there? I believe that those beliefs are established mostly through what we have heard repeatedly throughout our childhood.

I grew up repeatedly hearing from an elderly relative that I was “big”, which is entirely accurate – I’m 184cm tall and not of a small build - but the way in which this was said to me was never a matter of fact kind of way. It was said as a put down, in comparison to my cousins who were smaller than me.

I think that one of the first ways that the tongue can be destructive is through comparing one person to another. God has made us all uniquely different, but I don’t believe that that difference is something that should be seen, or spoken of, as being a negative thing. God created me as I am!

One thing that I decided many years ago was that I wasn’t ever going to say negative things to people about their appearance but was going to instead try and build people up - finding the beauty in people and telling them what I saw. So many of our beliefs about ourselves are based on what others say, so why not speak out about the positive things we see and help make the messages that other people are hearing uplifting, and positive?

I truly believe that if we see something we like, or something beautiful in someone we should tell them. If we don’t they might never see it in themselves.