First, thank you for your prayers and healing thoughts. I have felt them in so many ways.

My alien removal surgery went supremely well, it was NOT a cancerous alien, but rather only an old fibroid grown from some left-behind uterine tissue after my hysterectomy. I also have the sense that the surgeon did a little repair and readjustment to the old abdominal scar tissue from my catastrophic childhood surgery. I don’t really know how to describe it, other than to say that everything inside feels more balanced now and less tied up in knots. It’s rather nice after living with that for 42 years.

I’m experiencing very minimal pain, and only occasionally need to take acetaminophen – mostly when I overdo things.

Some things I did (or my doctors did) that I think have really helped :

• Therapeutic fasting. I water fasted several days before my surgery. I’ve read that this can have anti-inflammatory effects on the body. I’ll let you do your own research on it, if you like.
• IV vitamin C (along with other nutrients) before and after surgery. There is a great deal of scientific evidence that this boosts the immune system, has anti-inflammatory effects, and promotes more rapid healing. Best wishes for finding a doctor who will research it and do it for you…
• My surgeons had me take 2 extra-strength Tylenol and one Gabapentin before the surgery. They said they find it helps with nerve pain in the first 24 hours post surgery.
• My anesthesiologist gave me intrathecal morphine (kind of like an epidural in the spine, but not the same). This was also to help with pain the first 24 hours post-op. Note: it can cause suppressed respiration and you will be put on supplemental oxygen until you make your lungs do their job again. It can take a LOT OF WORK, but do it.
• I’ve been sleeping in a double hammock at home since the surgery, because it seems to alleviate the gravity induced pain that comes with lying flat in a bed. Mr. Hot Stuff long ago installed eye bolts in our bedroom wall studs for the purpose of hanging a hammock and I’m so glad.

My surgery was essentially like having another hysterectomy (only better technique used this time), so if anyone you know is facing something like this, maybe something from my experience will help.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the trials we get faced with in life, and the role of miracles in those trials. More and more, I find myself wondering if, at least some of the time, the trial is actually God’s miracle and we simply lack perspective on it.

I think about the story of Corrie Ten Boom and how much she hated the fleas in the concentration camp bunkhouse, and then later they find out that the fleas kept the guards from coming in and searching, thus allowing them to keep pages from the Bible that they read to give them hope.

And so, I’m finding myself looking at my experience with the discovery and removal of this alien mass, and rather than being filled with fear (ok, sometimes fear), I’ve been more able to trust that God is present in my life and that this has been an important part of him working a greater miracle for me.

That level of trust is in itself a miracle for me. The irony of it is that in the past, I’ve sometimes thought that “trusting God” was just another way of rolling belly up and doing nothing. But my experience lately has been that I find more doors of opportunity, and people walking into my life with real help and answers than I ever have when I insist on fighting (against God?) on my own terms.

2020 has been so stinking hard for so many people. It looks so discouraging in so many ways, but I have seen miracles happen because of COVID; blessings that could have come no other way. Yes, I see and feel the sorrow as well, but I am learning to trust that, somewhere, in a way I may still be blind to, this is a miracle we are living in. There is something greater happening here that will prove to be an important part of God’s grace-filled plan for each of us.

“… if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son (or daughter), that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. 8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all…”

Doctrine and Covenants 122:7–8

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/122?id=p7-p8&lang=eng#p7

I used to kind of hate that verse of scripture, but maybe I’ve finally lived long enough to be able to look back and see the times when the fleas were my miracle, and it makes it easier for me believe that the thing I may be struggling with now is a miracle, too.

I pray that God will bless you in your own messy struggles and that one day you will be able to see his gracious miracles, be they the ones you are praying for or the ones that are currently hidden from your sight.