Four Point Inspections Completed Certified Papers Included With Purchase

Everyone, well, at least everyone that owns a car or has at least seen a car commercial, knows that every vehicle is put through a rigorous inspection and testing process before it is then mass produced for every driving-challenged person out there on the road to consider buying. We know that there are safety ratings for front, back, and side impact; ratings for the vehicle’s likelihood to rollover; brake inspections; seatbelt standards; air bag safety; and some cars, mostly just the high end, frou-frou cars that us common folk cannot afford, have sensors and/or cameras to aid in parallel parking, backing up, and detecting whether there is a vehicle in our blind spot. I guess the one God gave us for free—it’s called your HEAD and NECK—just aren’t good enough. It might get our Swarovski crystal earrings stuck in our cashmere sweaters, and we just CANNOT have that happen!

At present, I feel like one of those vehicles that are going through all of those scrupulous tests; except I have yet to come out at the end nicely polished with papers of certification that I have passed all of the aforementioned tests and am now ready for purchase. Yes, it’s true, so far, all of my tests have come back in my favor—and in the medical field positive can mean bad and negative can mean good—but I have yet to achieve that one “paper” that says that I am worthy of being bought, that I am a healthy and functional person and can go back to the life that I once was living.

I have turned into that patient that causes my doctor to go home thinking about me, out of all of her other patients, because I am such a conundrum. I have had the equivalent, or near equivalent, of a “four-point” inspection as a car. I have had enough blood drawn to satiate the thirst of every member of the Cullen family—though they are “vegetarian” vampires—for years, enough injections of pain and nausea medication to last a person a lifetime, popped more pills than my 90 year old grandmother; and, now, thanks to my expertise at vomiting, even AFTER taking my anti-nausea medication, they have decided that orally is not the way to go anymore with that medication and have thus decided to give me the medication in another form—to which I will leave up to my readers to figure out how I am now taking it. This is the first time that I have used this “mystery” method and I have to say, I don’t like it one bit!

Sadly, my “inspections” are not yet finished. I am still waiting to have the ENG test, but, in the mean time, I have been referred to whatever department to have an ultrasound done on my heart, just to rule out a VERY rare disease where the chambers of some part of the heart don’t fully close, thus causing symptoms much like the ones that I am experiencing. I am also facing the possibility of having a lumber puncture to see if that sheds any light on to what might be going on with me as well. If everything comes back all right, I have NO idea what their next plan of attack will be.

I spoke with one friend who said, “When I go to the doctor I know what’s wrong with me, I have cancer, and so it’s just a matter of deciding what medication to give me. But it’s worse when you’re at the doctor and you don’t know what’s wrong with you and the DOCTOR doesn’t even know what’s wrong! That’s the most frustrating part!” And, you know, she’s totally right. At least by having a diagnosis and a course of action for treating it, you know what’s going on, but, at this point, we’re grasping at straws trying to come up with an answer. Hopefully this illness will just disappear one morning and I will never experience it again, that’s the optimum choice; or I hope that one of these tests will come up showing the doctor something, anything that will be helpful in treating me. I am in no way HOPING for a bad diagnosis, I just want to have a more concrete diagnosis accompanied with a more concrete treatment plan.

Like I’ve said before, at the end of the day, it all comes down to God and what He has planned, not only for me, but my family, friends, and the doctors that are treating me. I am not the driver of my yet-to-be-four-point-inspected certified vehicle, God is. I am merely a passenger along for the ride and doing the work that He has put me on this earth to do along the way.

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of you faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”—1Peter 1:6-7