Hello,
Please, please pray for Christian! If you don't know who he is, please visit his website:
http://www.shepherdscall.com/ for more info! He means a lot to a lot of people. Thanks so very much!
Alyssa
Greetings dear friends,
I am asking for your prayers. I personally need them! Please add me to what ever pray lists you can. As some of you know I have had major problems with my right ear. For more than three years I have had a hole in my ear drum and a large decrease in my hearing. The pain, dizziness, and infection has continued and last week it got very painful. I made an appointment to see an ENT (ear, nose and throat specialist). He tried to examine my ear but there was so much gunk in it and a scab that had formed on my ear drum that he couldn't remove it. He sent me home with a prescription for antibiotic drops and said he wanted to see me in four weeks. The pain within two days tripled! The drops had dissolved the gunk and were going straight in my inner ear causing major pain and pressure.
I rescheduled my appointment for yesterday (Thursday 2-1-07). He was surprised to see me and asked why I was back already? I told him that I think the scab was already gone and that the pain was great. He looked and vacuumed around for but a moment when he found the hole and began to suck out vast amounts of nastiness. He worked on me until I could no longer handle the pain. Literally as the tears streamed down my face I asked him stop. He sat down and said, "Yes you are correct that you have a hole in your ear drum. But we have a problem. You have a cholesteatoma. A tumor that needs to be removed. It can have serious side effects, facial paralysis, tick disorder, loose the sense of taste, permanent dizziness, brain abscess and in extreme cases even death."
What we know is that it is serious and has been a problem for many years. This does not make any of us happy. The doctor said, "Christian...you don't want to mess around with this! You are going to need third party help to pay for this (we are uninsured, that's what prompted his statement). It's going to be very expensive! You need to start with a CAT scan and we'll go form there. You need to try and get on MediCal or something."
Previous to getting a hold of Coby (Who was away running errands) I had spent a number of hours on the internet researching the disorder. And by the time I was able to talk to her a lot of info had been gathered up in my mind. When I heard her voice I broke down. I told her the news through my tears. She of course felt a sick feeling coming over her and changed her plans and came straight home. She got home and embraced me with a hug of love that said, "I love you and I am here." We prayed together garnering strength from the Lord.
We decided, for the time being, to not look on the internet anymore. Yes there have been great successes with this disease and great failures too. The devil sure loves to tempt us to magnify the negative and forget that God is our strength and refuge. God will see us through! We don't know how all of this is going to work out but we know that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.
While we have faith in the Lord I must admit that Coby and I go back and forth between being totally surrendered and totally scared at what the future might bring. Please pray for us, asking God to guide us through this amazing valley of emotion and uncertainty. We are resolved in our hearts that with God we can make it through. It just doesn't take away the pain sometimes.
Your brother and sister in the blessed hope!
In HIS Glorious Service,
Christian & Coby Berdahl
Director, Shepherd's Call Ministry
209-296-7700
18781 Toyon Ct. Sutter Creek, CA 95685
Visit us online at:
www.shepherdscall.com
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Sun Feb 04, 2007 6:07 pm
