What the what?

When it got a little too crazy for me.

Photo 47773055 | Broken Neck © Leelaicnj | Dreamstime.com

In the year 2000, I became a secretary at our midsize church. I loved the job…loved meeting people who came through the doors each day and offered my help with whatever they needed. The job involved a lot of multitasking, which is the type of job I love most…even though it isn’t the most efficient way of doing anything…but who knew?

One day in May of that year the church held a Women’s Tea, and I offered to host one of the tables. It was a fun time as each host brought their dishes and centerpieces. Each table was beautifully decorated, the food was delicious, and with at least one hundred women in attendance, the social aspect was fun. We even had our governor as a guest speaker. My husband was out of state helping his mother as she had broken her hip, so I gathered up my dishes and went home, hoping to relax and watch a movie on television…no worrying about dinner tonight.

I popped some popcorn and went upstairs. After taking off my shoes and changing into sweats, I started back downstairs. The stairs were bare wood, and my husband had taken the railing off to remodel the stairs and the wall. But then the emergency call from his parents came through and he had to abandon the project and rush to California to help.

I had been up and down the stairs multiple times and even without the railing I had not had a problem…but this time I was in my stocking feet.

I took two steps down and went airborne. My foot slipped off the stairs and instead of tumbling down the stairs like in a TV whodunit, I went down three or four steps at a time, feet first, managing to stay upright all the way down. Twenty-three years later I still remember my thoughts… “I’m falling down the stairs!”

Four steps from the bottom I pitched forward and hit my head on the doorframe opposite the stairs. I crumbled to the floor and immediately stood up without thinking. I thought I had broken my arm. The entire right side of my body felt like a jolt of electricity was charging through me. At that moment the phone rang.

My sister was calling from California. I answered the phone and told her I had just fallen down the stairs. She convinced me to go next door for help.

Later, my neighbor said she was sitting in the front window when she saw me staggering up her walkway with my cordless phone up to my ear. Strangely, I could still talk to my sister at my neighbor’s home.

Once I hung up, I asked my neighbor to take me to the emergency room. After X-rays and then a CT scan, it was confirmed I broke my neck.

I decided not to call my husband until the next day. I knew he was on his way back from California, and I pictured him breaking every speed law out there to get home.

The next morning I called him at 6:00 AM and told him I was in the hospital. A little later, I was taken by ambulance to a city an hour north where there was a neurosurgeon. My husband walked in at noon. To this day I have no idea how he managed to get there so quickly. According to Google.com/maps, it should have taken 8 hours and 17 minutes. I haven’t asked how he did it.

My church friends were wonderful to me and I know they cared. I also knew my supervisor, the church administrator, wanted me back in the office as soon as I was able.

I didn’t need surgery, but the injury put me in terrible pain and I was put on Oxycontin (back in the days when even physicians didn’t know how addicting the stuff was).

The pills helped but it was still hard to go to work, use the computer, answer the desk phone, and compile notebooks and reports. On bad days I complained that the pain was now throughout my entire body getting worse by the month.

“Oh everyone feels more pain when the weather starts turning,” my administrator said.

Deep down, I knew this wasn’t why I was in constant pain. I knew she was worried I would quit my job and she relied on me.

In the meantime, many people were praying for me. People came up to me during services and asked me how I was doing,

“Not great,” I answered. “I’m still in terrible pain.”

The puzzled looks I got when I gave that answer made me feel like I had failed some kind of test…a “faith” test.

“Oh, really?” they would say. “Because we’re praying!”

One day I was in the doctor’s office (I had weekly appointments at this time). I began to tear up and tell him that trying to keep the job was killing me.

“I am writing you a prescription and I want you to take this back to work, hand it to your boss, and clean out your desk,” he said.

The relief I felt!

Later, a few days after I quit (per doctor’s orders), I found out that my boss had told people that I had “allowed Satan to steal my ministry.”

So this was my fault.

Eventually, I couldn’t attend services either. An hour and a half sitting in the pew caused extreme pain. I did retain many friends from my six years attending and working for the church. I retained my relationship with a much-loved pastor. But the rest of it I couldn’t handle.

And then something happened to my brain.

NEXT: Public shaming for my response to having brain surgery… Never miss a post…subscribe below:

Have you ever felt you must not have enough faith to be healed of a health issue? Leave a comment below and let’s get to know each other!