People love to celebrate anniversaries. There are so many different types: first date, first kiss, marriage, first day of work; those are good anniversaries. There are also those anniversaries people do not want to celebrate and wish didn’t even exist: the passing of loved one, the day an accident occurred, the day of a cancer diagnosis.
We have one of those anniversaries. One we wish we never had and one we do not celebrate. It is a yearly reminder of the day everything changed for our family. The day my husband’s chronic daily migraine started. That was 6 years ago today. September 17, 2011. There will be no cake, no party, no “happy anniversary” being said. It’s an anniversary that we pray fervently will go away never to come around again.
Most people remember the day whatever event or thing occurred. Whether it was good or bad, they remember; where they were standing, maybe what they were wearing, a smell in the air or a song that was playing. We remember too. Eric, my husband, was walking from our living room and just as he came into the entry way he went down with the pain. It was like a thunderclap in his head. You can read more in Our Story.
Time has not distorted our memory of that evening. We have come a long way since then with doctors, tests, medications, etc. Unfortunately, the pain has not changed. It’s still there 24/7. There have been a lot of suggestions of treatments, we tried many things but not much has helped. Prayers are being said by more people than we can count. In fact, there are more and more people, people we don’t know and will likely never meet, saying prayers of healing for him.
Life has its ups and downs when living with chronic pain. He makes choices on how he will spend his energy. Some days the pain level is lower and we can go and do more. Other days when the pain is high we stick around the house or Eric stays home if we need to run errands. We’ve made adjustments and will continue to adjust on a daily basis.
I’ve said this before but I will say it again, there is a purpose for the pain. We do not know what it is and we may never know. However, we are confident though that God has a specific purpose for this experience. Both of us trust that this is in God’s hands and he will use it and us for his good. For now we will have this anniversary, we won’t celebrate it but we will acknowledge it.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact it’s been six years! Praying this is the very last anniversary of headaches in the mighty name of Jesus!