I slept a lot those first couple of days. I took a lot of medicine too. I did everything I could to make sure that I got better soon. I didn't want to miss out on anything; the work that I do as a missionary is too important to be sidelined for any amount of time. But my fever wouldn't break and I wasn't getting any better nor any worse really. I was just.... sick. I didn't get it.
Then sometime during the evening/night of Monday, April 18th, I started getting worse. Much worse. My fever steadily began to climb and sometime around midnight it peaked at 104.8. My chills got worse. I was sweating like mad. My body was aching and the slightest bump or movement was like dragging hooks across my body. My chest was radiating pain from the epicenter of the infection and outward into the rest of my body. That was probably the worst part: the waves of pain that started in my chest and spread into every inch of my body. I also developed a scarlet fever rash along with all of this, making my hands and feet swell up and my skin turn this bright reddish splotchy color and it itched like poison ivy, poison oak, and itching powder all rolled into one. If I itched, it hurt. If I didn't itch, it hurt. If I moved, it hurt. If I didn't move, it still hurt. I was throwing up and I couldn't walk to the bathroom on my own. It was frightening and maddening and it didn't seem to end.
As my pain increased and my fever hovered at the 105 threshold, I started to get really scared. I was taking my meds, but things were only getting worse! And as they did, my mind started wondering what was really wrong with me. But pretty soon, it didn't matter what I was thinking because my pain became so bad that I began to float in and out of cognizance. Starting sometime early Tuesday morning, I lost track of time, place, and anything else you might think of. I honestly don't remember anything but the pain and the fear; pain that obliterated just about any thought or understanding of the world around me, and fear that I was worse off than I had any clue of. The pain in my chest was like a knife, and all I wanted was for it all to stop. I was walking the edge of something between sanity and an endless drop. I don't say that to be all dramatic. I'm not a dramatic person. I can say that because in those 48 hours or so of not knowing anything but pain and fear and absolutely nothing else and seeing no end to it all, I actually wanted to die. That has been and will be the only time in my entire life that I have ever wanted to die and thought of how nice it would be for it all to go away and be found somewhere on the other side as long as it wasn't where I was at the time. I wasn't suicidal, but I remember praying that God would just let me slip away into darkness so that the pain would be gone. I remember asking for it all to be over. I remember that, and it scares the heck out of me... even now.
Yes, the pain was that bad. I was jumping back and forth between wanting death and wanting life, seeking healing and seeking closure, crying for peace and crying for oblivion. I was praying to God for all of these things, but the pain wouldn't stop. I started to question God's existence. How could He let me suffer so? How could He, in good conscience and in true love for me, let something like that happen? Why wouldn't he answer my prayers? When was it going to stop? Why wouldn't He heal me or at the very least just end it all? I was scared, then angry, then lost in my pain and not feeling anything but the pain, and repeat the process all over again. I didn't know what to do. I was praying and screaming my guts out on the inside, and there was no reply.
Finally, I just got so tired of trying that I quit praying for help and let the pain wash over me and float me off into a fitful, pain ridden sleep. And while I slept, I dreamed. In that dream, I could hear a voice. A voice of perfect mildness. A voice of peace and hope and comfort.
It said, "Look unto Me in every thought; doubt not, fear not."
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