prayers please...

R

rev_jch

Joined
Jul 29, 2002
Messages
3,226
Some of you know, some do not. My wife was diagnosed with lupus a 1 1/2 ago. Since then she has been on prednisone, which has not helped. prednisone can cause cancer and now they want to try to use a new experimental type of drug that has a high chance of causing lymphomic cancer. Its bad when your specialist is getting frustrated with you, and this is what is happening now. He sent paper work on this new drug home with her last week (it seemed like to absolve them of any liability). My wife of course is depressed and upset. She already has a bad heart problem with the lupus. She was taking viox and we just found out of course that it has increased her risk for a stroke.

Please pray for her and ask anyone you can to pray for her also. Also for me as it is hard on me also. She needs the Lord's healing touch in this, without a doubt. For those who are not familar with lupus it is a disease where your bodies immnue system is attacking its own organs with the intent of destroying them like an infection. The survival rate is better than it use to be (use to be 6-9 years) for most, but my wife is fallling into the "not so good" category. Doctors cannot heal anything, only treat symptoms. In this case they cannot even do this. Only the Lord can heal her. She is only 28, 6 1/2 years younger than myself. This has really been hard on the both of us.

i appreciate any prayers.

The Lord bless you guys!!!!


Sincerely in Christ's love,
John
 
John..seek a second opinion..Medical Practice is half art half science..You need a second opinion..dont assume this Dr. knows it all..

Prayers Sent..

Ren
 
My thoughts and prayers are with you. Hang in there and remember that YOUR attitude will have a tremendous effect on your wife. Smile and be up for her.
 
you are completely correct, my attitude does. It is hard at times. without the Lord I would just go ahead and "bury my head in the dirt", but I know that God is God and He is more than capable of healing her.

I remember last year she looked at me and said, "why doesnt God love me?" That is an easy and very understandable reaction. Being a minister it made me feel much worse. She looked at me for the answer. I could go through and theologicaly explain some of this to her 9suffering int he world, etc.), but that is not what she needed. She needed encouragement and assurance that the Lord had not "left her behind" (that He still loved her).

I remember as a young minister how I would at first try to explain things to them (people), the "fall of man", "sin condition of the world", "sickness, disease in this world", etc. That was many years ago, but I remember it as someone came to me this morning, and bless their heart they meant well, but they tried to theologicaly explain to me "why we have these things in this world", etc. I know they meant well, but when people go through these things its best to explain, only if asked, dont offer it! Not to get much deeper, but even though many things are explainable it is dangerous to "attach" a particular tag to someones individual situation. there are general reasons we know, why things may happen, but you have to be careful when trying to attach to one's situation.

Job's friends in the Old testament tried to and for anyone who knows the story, it did not go well for them when the lord confronted them with it! It was only after Job's prayers that the Lord relented from his friends.

Now of course after becoming a "little wiser" with the Lord's help, I do handle these things much differently these days.


Thank you so much for the prayers they mean allot!!!!
:)
 
Read, and learn, and see other doctors. Lupus erythematosus is a variable disease, hitting some worse than others. My mother suffered from it for years, and then the effects tapered off. Medicine in those days barely knew what it was looking at in lupus. She's 80 now.
 
Please take Ren's and Esav's advice to consult with other doctors. The possibility always exists that another doctort has seen similar lupus cases -- and may know some other form of treatment--that was not published. In these cases, more opinions are good. Be strong, pray, and don't give up!!!!
With best wishes--
s
 
Rev, I quit asking God "why" along time ago mainly because there's a reason why we all go through our own valleys. Being a minister you know that. If this doctor is at his wits end then I'd see another doctor too. Prayers sent you and your wifes way and just remind her that God loves her and he loves you too. Without my faith I wouldn't make it either. Remember Timothy 1 verse 7. For God hath not given the spirit of fear;but of power, and of love, and a sound mind.
 
Rev,

I am so sorry about your situation with your wife's poor health. I think it's interesting how differently I see your wife's situation. She asked you why God doesn't love her. If God didn't love her than she surely wouldn't be blessed with such a loving and devoted husband. She is most certainly loved by God. You just keep reminding her of that everyday through your actions.

I'll be happy to include you and your wife in my prayers. Please take care of yourself too. You really need to find an outlet so that you can better deal with your emotions. Remember to laugh and enjoy yourself, there should be no guilt in it. God bless you.
 
rev_jch,

I'm not religious and try to stay away from theological questions.
But I can tell you that new drugs are coming out all the time, and some of them are vastly better than what was available before. When I started getting symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in 1989 (age 18) there was no such thing as Enbrel or Remicade, and many doctors were still treating mostly with aspirin. (Don't laugh--it helps if you take enough.) I always had less severe disease than most, but with the TNF alpha antagonists even people with very severe disease are getting amazing results! :D :D

I have a friend with MS who is also doing a whole lot better thanks to Avonex. He has to take some antidepressants in order to keep the side effects away--but after finding the right "cocktail" he's been doing great in his work and enjoying his life for a few years now. Go, buddy, go! :D :D

I don't know where things stand with treatment for lupus, but Enbrel and Avonex are from a category of things that modulate the immune system.
Whatever the real answer is for lupus, it will probably be similar and I suspect it will be found before too many years. The important thing is to take as good care of your wife as possible in the meantime--the long-term picture is excellent, as long as you can contain the immediate damage. This means getting advice from more than one doctor--for all I know, her present doctor could be a real dick--and taking her health very seriously over the next several years. A lot of things will suck in that time.

Send me email if you want to talk details. All the weasel literature is pretty annoying, but it may not mean that much.
 
Everyone,
thank you so much for all your prayers and concern, it does mean allot!! God is good! She was able to get some sleep last night, 1st time in days!!! Also, a while back I had enocuraged her to join a support group, she seemed uneasy about it. Well the Lord took care of that! "Out of the blue", someone I knew from doing minsitry with in the past e-mailed me this morning to tell me that he and some others were forming a "chronic illness" support group and wanted to know if my wife would be interested in joing them. This was definitely good news!!! She tends to be a very "personal person" and prefers to keep to herself most of what goes on with her illness. This would be good for her. I did forward the e-mail to her, she seems intersted. I really appreciate all the prayers and support of all of you, it really means allot to me!! This is a great group of people here!!!

The Lord bless allof you guys abundantly for all your concern, kindness and prayers (I cant thank you enough!!)!!!!

Sincerely in Christ's love,

John
 
rev_jch said:
Everyone,
thank you so much for all your prayers and concern, it does mean allot!! God is good! She was able to get some sleep last night, 1st time in days!!!
Click to expand...

Rev--send me email. Most doctors don't know this, but all the autoimmune disorders have some complications for sleep also. Maybe what you're seeing is due to stress, but it's something to look into.
I have years of experience in this area. :eek:
 
Just some thoughts and the fact that I'll be holding you and your wife in the Light.

I find myself in the rare position of agreeing with Esav on this and the even rarer position of agreeing with Ren. For the love of God, see another or even more than one other doctor. As they said, medicine is still more art than science and, even more important, it is a healing art, not a science. I have met and dealt with doctors who are eminently qualified technically but who are not healers. Get away from them, as they do more damage in the long run. Find a healer who is equally technically qualified. They are out there.

I would also echo Johnniet when he says that things are changing all of the time. When my son was little, his best friend had cystic fibrosis. Even well into the 1970s, this was a death sentence for a child suffering from it, as exemplified by an article about 1980 in the Readers' Digest that i saw at my in-laws house. I grabbed it before my son, who read any- and everything that he could lay hands on, because I did not think that he needed to read that about his best friend when he was at a very young age. FOOL ME! The friend is now 32 years old and without ever having had a transplant. The new medicines have done wonders for him, although the CF is, finally, catching up to him.

On the Vioxx, let me dump a tiny bit. I have osteoarthritis and have had it for some years. I have been on Vioxx for 5 years with no side-effects and have problems with the other two Cox 2 Inhibitors, Celebrex and Bextra, as they have sulfa derivatives in them and I MIGHT have had a bad reaction to sulfa once. The night of Thursday, 9/30/04, I heard some pompous jackass on the NBC Nightly News, a Naderite author of the "Good Pills - Bad Pills " book pontificating about how the Cox 2 Inhibitors are no better than Ibuprofen for dealing with arthritis pain. A Hell of a lot that idiot knows! It takes me at least 600mg. of Ibuprofen in the morning and 600mg more at 3-4 times more during the day to equal 12.5 mg of Vioxx taken in the AM and again in the PM. My doctor's observation about him was that that the guy must spend his life reading charts and studies, not talking with real patients, or he's know better. He also said that the connection between heart problems and Vioxx is purely statistical, that nobody has shown how the medical interaction works.

In any case, know that I am holding you and your wife in the Light.
 
FullerH said:
My doctor's observation about him was that that the guy must spend his life reading charts and studies, not talking with real patients, or he'd know better.
Click to expand...
It happens all the time. The government took Rezulin off the market because it could cause problems, but problems that my doctor was aware of and monitored regularly through simple blood tests. He wanted to switch me to another, newer medication, Avandia, but was waiting until there was a sufficient supply of it that the pharmacies wouldn't run out, so what did the government's ban do? It created a run on a drug just becoming available.

Don't believe the experts. Believe the healers. When you find the one who really knows what to do, it will be so obvious.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top