Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.

• Exodus 40:36-38

On December 9 of this year, I wrote about a miraculous trip, link HERE.  But at the time, I had no idea how miraculous.  I was sick the weekend prior to a scheduled depart date of the next Thursday.  I felt that I had made a mistake in reading the label of something the night before.  I thought that 24 hours of trying to purge my body of the toxins would work.  But 36 hours later, I was still sick.  I asked the Sunday School class to go on without me, but they did not get the message.

That Sunday morning, I went to urgent care.  They thought IBS might be the problem.  They said that I had blood in my urine, and I should go to the ER if the pain persisted.  But I had no sensation that was common with all my previous kidney stones.  They gave me a shot and within a few minutes I felt fine.

I regained my strength within a day or so, but only at a low level.  I prayed and prayed that entire time.  The traffic parted, yes.  But the twinges of abdominal pain disappeared within an hour’s drive leaving the house.

I did not know what a miracle that was until a month later, nearly a month.  The quiz this morning took five days to write.  Not really.  I wrote practically the entire quiz after writing several other posts, but on a Friday morning about two weeks ago, I thought I was having another IBS attack.  Sure, there was blood in the urine, but I had no kidney stone pain; I was simply deathly ill.

I drove myself to the emergency room, thinking it was an IBS attack.  After the CT Scan, they said that my bowels were not inflamed, but I had the largest kidney stone they had ever seen on the left kidney.  Odd, none of the pain had been from that area where the kidney was.  I went from needing a little medicine to a CT Scan to emergency surgery to install a stent in my left kidney.  The stone was too complicated to remove in emergency conditions.  They were buying time.  The stone blocked the upper quadrant of the kidney.  The usual kidney stone pain is like pressurizing a garden hose until it expands into football (rugby) shape.  The stone was attached to the kidney itself.  The pain in my right side may be scar tissue from the lithotripsy in the same general area, twinges – never persistent, but pain occasionally over the last four and a half years.

I had no one to stay with me at home, so they put me in the hospital overnight for observation.  They had needed to use a catheter, and the catheter would remain in place for three days.  I had never experienced that kind of pain – the trouble was easy to adapt, but the pain!  The catheter came out the day that I wrote this.

Catheters can cause spasms, and mine was every time I stood up (the act of getting up) and all the time I was in a seated position, which made driving back to the doctor to have the catheter taken out very “interesting.”

Other than the residual irritation, I am now fine, but as I sat in that hospital bed, I realized this was what had been wrong the month before.  If I had gone to the ER, I would have never taken the trip.  If I had gotten sick somewhere along the way, I would have had strangers taking care of me.  But being fairly well for another month, I had a wonderful visit with my son’s family and with my sister.  The photo above is from a couple of years ago when my wife was still with us.  Oddly, I made no photos this time.

No, I made it home.  I got caught up on my blog writing, trying to stay a bit ahead in case something “goes wrong.”  And then something went wrong.

But my miracle is “How did I get better for that month?”  That stone was there.  It had done its best to stop my trip, but God gave me one more month, time to be with my son at a time he needed someone there, and a visit to my sister who is eleven years older than I am.

I have no idea why God granted that prayer.  I do not wish to ask.

I will only praise Him.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.