Welcome my friend! This week has been one that hopefully I won’t have to ever repeat again. It all started Friday night when I sat down to eat dinner with my husband…

But before we continue let’s grab our cuppa’s & get comfy. Today is a beautiful sunny Winter’s day here on the east coast of Australia I’m sitting in the sun that’s streaming through our dining room’s double glass sliding door that leads out to our pergola.

I can see the different hues of green in our garden at the moment which are awe inspiring, everything looks lush & the red tips of the Cherry Lillipillis are glowing in the sunshine a wonderful contrast against the green.

Now we’re comfy let’s begin…

Out of the Blue

Those of you who join me here often will be aware that I live with Fibromyalgia (FM). Over the past two decades I have learnt to see this season in my life as a blessing rather then a curse. For God’s love, grace, strength & comfort has shone to new depths within my soul during this time. Keeping His promise;

“…He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you [My loving kindness and My mercy are more than enough—always available—regardless of the situation]; for [My] power is being perfected [and is completed and shows itself most effectively] in [your] weakness (vulnerability).” 2 Corinthians 12: 9 AMP

If you’re not familiar with what FM is, it impacts the whole body, the main impact is chronic pain that can jump throughout the body or be localised in specific areas of the body at different times.

FM also has cycles but unfortunately there is no pattern nor timing to these cycles. Those of us who have FM are always in pain with one cycle or the other, one cycle may have less intensity to the pain & symptoms where the other cycle will amp up their intensity massively known as a flare.

With FM we often experience jaw & tooth pain that can be there for as long as whatever cycle we’re in (but isn’t from tooth decay or any reason needing Dental care) then disappears as fast at it came! So over the past fortnight my jaw has been experiencing this…having no decayed teeth I put it down to FM again.

Extreme Pain is the Body’s Alarm we need to heed

However, this all changed on Friday night. Suddenly an excruciating pain shot through my jaw & up into my skull as I was eating dinner. I couldn’t understand this as the meal we were eating wasn’t hard in fact it was quite soft, it was home made Irish Stew that I had slowed cooked accompanied by gf bread.

My first go to is always to go to my Heavenly Father in prayer, I asked Him to please open up an emergency dental appointment the next day. As before I had gone to bed that night I had researched where the emergency dental surgeries were in our area to hopefully get in the next day which was a Saturday.

Unfortunately there was only one clinic that was open the next morning being the weekend! Thus at 11pm Friday night I sent an email through their website explaining the situation & prayed that God would please open a spot for me.

The pain persisted through that night which seemed to be a very long night, even though I had taken analgesics to try & alleviate the pain. And I couldn’t lower my top jaw to my bottom jaw without that unbelievable pain shooting through my jaw & head.

And unfortunately each time I managed to doze off my top jaw would rest upon my bottom jaw causing that excruciating pain instantly waking me.

Praise God my phone rang first thing the next morning & the Dental Clinic I had messaged were able to put me in to see their dental surgeon immediately. The diagnosis, a very large Abscess that had already penetrated the jaw bone under a large molar with no evidence of decay that had caused the problem!

The only solution over the coming days was to have strong Antibiotics & schedule either Root Canal Therapy or an extraction in the when things had settled a little…as they couldn’t even examine my mouth, it was that excruciating to open having to diagnose it with an Xray.

I asked the Ladies Prayer Groups which I’m a part of that I mentioned in the:

Ups & Downs of Life!

& my family if they would pray for my situation as it is a huge ordeal to go through excruciating pain & surgery when you already have chronic pain. As it not only affects where the tooth is but impacts the whole body.

The Outcome

Well I’m sitting here in my little sanctuary called home with the greatest Sanctuary of all, in God’s care, as I recover from surgery minus that molar. The Dental Clinic I normally go to were able to schedule this surgery during the week.

They found that the molar had a crack in it which had caused the Abscess & the only solution was extraction. We have no idea what cracked it but the Dental Surgeon commented that it did have an amalgam filling in it & the way it had grown made it an already weaken molar.

Unfortunately post surgery isn’t pain free but hopefully should settle over the coming weeks as my body heals. I’m praising God for His answer to prayer through modern medications & surgical procedures!

The Take Away

• Listen to Your Body; Don’t ignore pain! God created us with an inbuilt warning system to tell us when things are not right! Our bodies should not have sharp or continuous pain that has not been diagnosed & either treated or under treatment.
• Corporate Prayer is so very important in all circumstances.
• Is God your first go to? He loves to hear from us & stand with us in challenging circumstances as well as happier times. As;

The LORD your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3: 17 BSB

Until next time,

Jennifer

You’re most welcome to join me in The Reading Nook

or in Prayer

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