Ugh, it’s been quite the week. Besides the decisions that weigh heavy on me as a mom, and the energy expended as a school nurse, I’ve been fighting a virus all week. And now the heavy production of mucous has caused me to develop an infected lymph node in my neck.
I finally gave up trying to cure myself with ibuprofen and hot liquids and went to the urgent care this evening. I regret it now.
I remember when I was pregnant with Connor and working in Labor and Delivery my preceptor, a nurse midwife from England, told me, “When you feel like you just can’t stand it anymore, you know it’s almost over.” But I (and many other pregnant women) still came in late at night thinking maybe these contractions meant it was time. We were wrong. Our late night tired-of-being-pregnant-and-contracting-with-no-results visit to the hospital only meant we were getting closer to delivery day. All I could do as a nurse was reassure.
The same thing happens with me when I get sick. I always do my best to wait it out and do all the at home care needed to get over a virus, but inevitably I end up with a seemingly endless sinus infection and can’t stand it anymore and head to the urgent care with hopes of getting some antibiotics. And unlike labor triage, I usually walk out with the “baby” (antibiotics) I came in hoping for. But I always wonder maybe if I had waited a little longer the symptoms would have gone away on their own.
Well tonight I couldn’t stand it. After a day out in the desert with the boys, on the way home I had such piercing pain in my left ear and a really tender lymph node underneath it. I decided to go to the urgent care. It was packed with sad, hacking coughs and sniffles. After an hour and fifteen minutes and fifty bucks I saw the practitioner, was diagnosed with a lymph node and sinus infection and left with my script. I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up my called in order and paused in the parking lot to thank my Lord for providing me with the means to so easily get seen by a doctor and medicine to help an infection.
I confessed as I prayed that I feel almost scared that everything comes so easy for me- food, clothing, medicine, medical care, transportation, work, housing, etc. I fear that I’ll forget from Whom all these blessings come. I fear that I’ll be dependent upon the gifts and not the Giver. I stopped to give that sacrifice of thanks because its the only way to not forget. When I filled the script it was almost as though I got a direct answer of, “You’re welcome. I’m glad you want to be dependent upon me and not just the gifts I give. I won’t let you forget.” The cashier told me my antibiotic was $67. “Sixty seven dollars!? For an antibiotic?” I gasped back. Then I heard my prayer in my own head, “I don’t want to forget You. I don’t want to be dependent upon the gifts and not the Giver.”
I elected to not fill the script until tomorrow after I try to get the doc to order a less expensive antibiotic. I put off the complaint I so easily wanted to pitch about the cost of my cure and turned instead a smiling face upward and thanked the One who is good… even if the healing doesn’t come.
Sheila Dougal 