Well, I’m sitting in the hospital’s surgical waiting room; my sister, Rebecca, just went in for another surgery -- her seventh in the last two years (we‘re looking into frequent flyer miles for her). She’s had a lot of health problems over the last couple of years. This surgery was supposed to take place a couple of weeks ago, but it was postponed.

Bless her heart, everything keeps falling on her -- she’s developed psoriasis and had to have a biopsy sent off. Because she’s had so many complications from previous surgeries and infections, the surgeon wanted to rule out anything more than psoriasis. All of her health problems have stemmed from reproductive organ problems since she was about 15-years-old when she had an ovarian cyst, the size of a grapefruit, burst. It was so bad they had to operate to clean-up and repair things. She continued to have problems over the years and had to have a partial hysterectomy about 10 years ago. Again, things continued to worsen, which led us to two years ago.

Unable to bare the massive amounts of pain she constantly experienced and realizing that she was always going to have problems and the likelihood of her having children biologically with all problems, she decided to have the other half of the hysterectomy done. It was a good thing and even better timing. The doctor discovered her uterus was filled with cancer, but luckily it was still confined to just her uterus. She had major complications from the surgery and had to be reopened a couple of time to find out where and why she continued to bleed internally. Those were times when it was very scary! Several surgeries and blood transfusions later she was finally on the upswing. Or so we thought.

A few months later she experienced horrible abdominal pain and after a doctor’s visit, it was discovered she had nerve damage from the several times they had to cut her open, and on top of that she had developed an incisional hernia. Another surgery was scheduled. The surgery happened. Her body rejected the mesh used to repair the hernia, which turned into a bad infection, which could only be repaired with another surgery. Once in the hospital, it was found the her gallbladder was enlarged and infected, so she had to have another surgery to have the gallbladder removed. Another week in the hospital, then back home to recover.

Six months later, another hernia around the same area. The surgeon said that because she’s had one, she would now be susceptible to them -- she’s proving to be the rule and not the exception. This sugery went a lot smother, but was tough recovery, which meant another week or so in the hospital. That was this past November. About a month ago, again the pain began. Yep. Another hernia. Or so we thought.

Close to her pre-op date (just got evacuated for a Code Red -- hospital kitchen had a fire) is when the psoriasis appeared, so they decided to do a biopsy just to make certain it wasn’t something else -- it wasn‘t. During this time and due to the size of this surgery, they decided to do another cat scan. The cat scan results revealed not just a hernia but her abdominal muscle had completely twisted and flipped to the opposite side of her body. No wonder this pain has been worse than all the times before!

The surgery is supposed to take four to five hours; she’ll have an even longer hospital stay this time and her overall recovery will take a lot longer. Hopefully, this will be the surgery to end all surgeries, and we won’t have to do this all over again. Luckily, I’m still jobless, so I can stay with her while she’s in the hospital since my brother-in-law has to work. And luckily, the hospital has free wireless, so I can keep myself a entertained while she dozes in and out of her doped-up state.

If it really is true that God does not put more on us than we can bear, Rebecca is exceptionally strong. My heart breaks for her. Naturally, this has taken a huge emotional toll on her -- being ill for so long, still grieving over not being able to have children, feeling dependant on everyone (not that we mind at all), not being able to work, etc. So keep Rebecca in your thoughts and prayers over the next few days, weeks, and months. I’ll be sure to keep you updated .