Battling A Myasthenic Crisis: My Journey with God Deepens (Part 3)

About a year after my college graduation, MG attacked my body with a vengeance. With my legs nearly collapsing, my dad practically carried me into Trinity hospital. The neurologist gave me a breathing treatment, but I could barely seal my lips on the tube. Because of my faint breath, the doctor knew that MG had aggressively targeted my lungs. He suggested that I do an EMG test, so he could measure just how weak my muscles were. He put needles in some of my nerves while I flexed the muscle. Electricity then surged through individual needles. The lights in the room flickered and my body flopped around.

Then the doctor chalked off my jugular vein and placed a metal-tipped device on my neck. He told me that any part of my body could jolt around except for my neck. If it moved, he would have to perform the test again. He pulled the trigger with five sequential clicks. My body jumped every direction, but somehow, I kept my neck still. By the end of the test, my face looked pale white. Then the nurse took several tubes of blood. (I've had an EMG since then: it isn't nearly as dramatic today with improvements in technology, although I did have to pee thirty minutes into the most recent test.)

The doctor recommended that I have my thymus gland surgically removed, a common treatment for Myasthenia Gravis patients. Fasting from all food the day of surgery, I thought all was well, but I wasn't supposed to drink anything either. Oops! The surgeon drugged me up and moved forward as planned anyway. The first operation I watched him cut into my skin through the reflection of his eyeglasses. There was a slight burning sensation, but nothing unbearable. Then he inserted a catheter into the left aorta of my heart.

When the drugs wore off, I noticed a tube with two ends sticking out of my chest. Each tube lunged forward with every heartbeat. My blood needed cleaned before the Thymectomy, so the nurses hooked me up to a machine to start a Plasmapheresis. This would give me additional strength both during and after the major surgery. Just a few days later, my thymus gland was removed. Since the gland sits between the lungs and near the heart, the surgical incision itself almost mirrors open-heart surgery. The surgeon cut through my sternum and then wired it back together for the healing process.

The next day the surgeon entered the room. I could tell something was amiss. He said, "Your thymus gland grew three times its normal size. Some of the nerves to your vocal cords were entangled with it; I had to sever some of those nerves. I aggressively cut the tumor out just in case the growth was cancerous. I didn't want it to come back." Then he warned me that I may never speak again. First, my eyes...how can I shoot a bow? Now my voice...how can I become a teacher? Over the next few nights in the hospital, God would play a reverse UNO card on me.

I drifted in and out of sleep a lot but sensed God's Presence and overwhelming love several times throughout the night. After the nurses woke me up to check my vitals, God posed a question for me, "Do you love the ministry more than me?" That moment was my Isaac. I had endured tremendous suffering and studied to overcome all odds, graduating college with honors. At one point, I loved archery more than God. Now God wanted to know if the ability to teach was more important to me than my relationship with Him. Immediately, I purposed in my heart that knowing God outweighed every other agenda in my life.

After a week in the hospital, the doctor sent me home. I stayed bedridden for eight weeks. Unable to get out of bed on my own and the inability to speak above a whisper created great frustration when I had to use the bathroom. Generally, I'd beat on the wall until someone helped. I thought I'd be a real man and not take pain pills, but I caught a cold. Every cough caused the bones in my chest to grind together and snag. Only with a harder forced cough would everything return to normal. Extreme pain! I drank NyQuil and popped cough drops for some relief.

The smell of healing flesh wafted continuously upward into my nose. This made me nauseous and sick to my stomach. This along with the repeated coughing finally got me to get the pain medication filled. The cold eventually waned, and the misery gradually ceased. Over the two-month recovery, my voice slowly transformed from a whisper to a soft voice but not enough to make my vocal cords vibrate. I weighed 145 lbs. instead of my normal weight of 165 lbs. But I put sweatpants on and started jogging down the road. I knew I could gain my muscle weight back. I didn't know if my voice would ever be normal again.

Part 4: My Voiceless Journey with God.