Medical--> WOAH!!

Man oh man, I do not know how I am going to tell this story and do it justice. I know there are not words enough to fully capture all the action, emotion, and details of our journey to Solomon Wickey but I am going to tell it as best I can, and with God's help hopefully you will be as touched by it as I was! I'm just going to go through the whole adventure, start to finish. It's going to be a lot but it will be worth it. Trust me! I already know the ending :)

So my mom, dad, and I left Tuesday morning for the four and a half hour drive to northern Indiana to see Solomon Wickey, an amish herbalist and healer. It sounded like a kind of silly thing to be doing but at the same time we had no doubts that it was the exact thing we were supposed to be doing. Needless to say, we had an odd assortment of emotions swirling through each of us and a long drive to ponder each of them. Not always the best combination! ha. We eventually came down to the rationalization that if we got there and sensed something weird then we could just leave. It wasn't going to be anything official and we weren't going to be any worse off for it so there we went!

I wasn't all that nervous for most of the drive, in fact I slept for a good portion of it :) but once we turned off the interstate and were in the middle of no where in Indiana I started to get a bit jittery. We passed corn field after corn field as we looked for a house that looked amish. I had no idea what to be looking for but I think I had in my mind something pretty much like Little House On the Praire. A log cabin with chickens in the yard and clothes hanging on the line. That was my idea of amish. Very stereotypical, I know.

Finally we turned on to a small gravel road and all my jitters disappeared. I know it should probably be common sense that an amish person would live off a gravel road but I hadn't thought about it so when I heard the tires on the gravel I was immediately at ease. That may seem funny to you but you see, the sound tires on gravel is one of my favorite sounds in the world! It makes me feel like I'm almost to my grandparents house in Monticello and that of course is associated with so many wonderful memories. Anyway, it was simple but I knew that sound was a small gift that God had given to me and suddenly my spirit was at peace.

Soon after we turned onto the gravel road we arrived at the Wickey residence. It was a beautiful, white, wooden house complete with real flooring and electricity...not at all like Little House :) To the left of the house was another smaller building very quaint in structure. There were several cars parked outside, some with a Florida liscense plate! We walked into a small waiting room and were immediately met by a few others who appeared to be waiting as well. It smelled like Rainbow Blossom. ha. We had been sitting down for just a few minutes when a door opened and an amish family walked out. They were dressed in simple clothing, the boys in navy pants and shirts with suspenders, a hat, and beard, while the lady wore a plain navy dress and bonnett. After they walked out, another amish woman came out and stood in the doorway. I don't think she ever actually said anything but it was obvious that it was time for the next person to go back. The people who were there before us all said we could go ahead and go in so we picked up our stuff and walked into the little room.

Now at this point I am going to stop and explain some of the dynamics of the room when we first walked in. If you know me or my family I think it's safe to say that you would agree that we are a friendly family. We love people. Love to be with people, talk to people, hang out with people. We are not a socially awkward family, however, when we walked through that doorway we became the most awkward trio you have ever seen! Ok, maybe that's exaggerating a bit but it certainly felt terribly awkward. None of us knew exactly what to do. If there was some protocol we needed to follow or anything to be said we failed that test. So apparently our moto is when all else fails, huddle! And that's exactly what we did. We probably looked so funny to them. This typical 'English' family, wide-eyed and busy tailed and huddled together not saying a word. Now it seemed like this awkward silence lasted for a long time but it was probably only a few seconds. Eventually we did say hi and began to take in exactly what was going on around us.

Mr. Wickey is your typical old amish man. He was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room wearing the same navy pants, shirt, and suspenders as the others and had white, white hair in a bowl cut and a big ol' white beard. His glasses were sitting on the end of his nose and they were so dirty that I don't know how he could see, and he had no teeth on the bottom. ha. (Secretly, I was hoping he would be the kind of old man that made you feel all warm inside and had the 'everybodys grandpa' kind of look but that is not at all what I got from Mr. Wickey. I didn't realize it in the moment but later on I identified my feelings as the same as those of Peter, Susan, and Lucy in that infamous scene in the Chronicles of Narnia. (Pastor Tim, this is for you :) I didn't feel all warm looking at him and he certainly didn't feel like he could be my grandpa. Instead, he felt like the description that the beavers gave of Aslan. 'Of course he isn't safe, but he is good.' That's the best way I can think to accurately describe him.)

Beside him was a wall of shelves holding at least a thousand pill bottle looking things. They were all labeled and were full of all kinds of different herbs, minerals, rocks, metals, pills, and who knows what else. He was sitting in a chair and there was another chair directly in front of him and several others along the wall. He asked us who he was going to see so I silently stepped forward and sat in the chair while mom and dad sat in the others. We sat there for a second until he asked, "What can I help you with?" Yeah... I immediately thought 'Well, you want me to pull out my list?' I had no idea how to begin this so I looked at mom. She smiled. ha. She didn't help me or say one word and that was very odd for my mom. She always knows what to say and what to ask in these situations but apparently she was feeling the same fluster as I was. So I turned back to Mr. Wickey and said, "Ulcerative colitis." That was all I could think of.

First he got a magnifying glass without a handle and held it up to my eyes and looked into them with a flashlight. He looked at both eyes and then began shaking his head. He looked at me and said, "No, no. You don't have ulcerative colitis. You have crohns." ... I was completely taken aback. That was exactly what we didn't want to hear! Crohns, medically speaking, is worse than UC seeing as it includes both the large and small intestines where UC only includes the large intestine. So that was certainly not an uplifting word. I looked at mom again and still got nothing :) so I just nodded my head 'ok' as he started to reach for some of the pill bottles. He told me to hold up my right arm and to resist as he pushed down on it. He did this for a little bit all the while holding different bottles to my lower left thigh/knee. He changed out the bottles and sometimes just tapped with different fingers, the whole time still pumping my right arm up and down as I resisted. He would shake is head and sometimes nod almost like he was having a conversation with himself in his head. He did this for a while and then said, "Yes, it's definitely not ulcerative colitis. It's crohns. But it's over with." Over with?, I thought. Like it's gone? I had no idea what to say so I just said ok. I felt a peace in his words so I decided to believe it. If he was believing that God had just healed me then I was going to hold on to that too, and not let go!

He then went on to explain that I need to stay away from anything with aluminum in it (only he kept saying aluminun :). That means we are changing any pots and pans with aluminum, deodorant, toothpast, aluminum foil, medicines...everything. It triggers UC and crohns so that is certainly something to stay away from.

We then asked about May-Thurner Syndrome and blood clotting issues. Mr. Wickey picked out some more bottles and did more tests. He didn't say anything about the disease but he said to take a magnesium a day and that will take care of the blood.

Lastly we asked about anemia and me dealing with losing blood through the colon. He grabbed still more bottles and did a few more tests. He began to shake his head and then said, "No no, you're not anemic. Your hemoglobin is 16."... I was temporarily stunned. How did he know my hemoglobin?! You can only know that from a blood test and yet he just told me without one! Wow, God is cool. The only other way Mr. Wickey could've known was through a word from God. How awesome is that!

So there were many more questions I would've asked him but I just couldn't think of anything else at the time. All I knew was that he said 'it's over with' and I was taking it, believing it, confessing it, and praying for it to be. I knew God could do it but usually keeping my head and doubts from getting in the way is a different story.

At this point, I just stood up and said thank you and then Mr. Wickey asked if anyone else wanted to see him. Mom, of course, nominated dad :) haha. So dad went and sat down in the chair in front of Solomon which was quite funny because their knees were literally touching! Then Mr. Wickey did some of the same tests on dad and the long and short of it is dad had kidney stones but he said, "it's done." And just like that, any problems Dad was having because of kidney stones were gone! So dad very promptly stood up and then offered the chair to mom :) Now it was her turn, and here is where things got totally crazy...

As soon as mom stood up and took one step towards the chair Mr. Wickey said, "Thyroid. I can tell that by lookin at ya." uh..... Do you know we had just stopped at the pharmacy to pick up mom's thyroid medicine right before we left to drive up to see him!!! I think dad and I sat there, jaws on the floor, for the next few minutes! We were totally blown away! At this point, if there was any doubt whatsoever that Mr. Wickey was not for real, let me tell ya, it was GONE in an instant! How cool of God to make sure there was absolutely no way we could look back on the visit with any questions in our spirits. Man oh man. So he finished doing some tests on mom and pronounced some things about her to be 'done' and then we left. We stood up, said thank you thank you, and were out the door within 20 minutes of our arrival!

As soon as we got in the car we immediately prayed and thanked God for my healing. Dad said we didn't want to be like the lepers who ran away and didn't say thank you so we thanked and thanked. But then we were like the lepers in that we just wanted to run away and tell anyone and everyone what had just happened! ha. We were lost for words and yet I knew in my spirit that God had moved through Mr. Wickey and I was healed right then and there.

So we went to eat and I took my first big step of faith... I ate biscuits and gravy before the long drive back! Normally, that would mess with my stomach so much that I wouldn't even think about it but I did it. And do you know, I made it the entire rest of the trip home and felt not one thing :) and for the most part I felt great from then on.

If God wanted to heal me at Mayo or through a little old amish man in the middle of Indiana, I was ok with that. God moves but He doesn't always do things the same way. Jesus never healed a blind person the same way twice so who was I to expect God to heal me the way I thought was 'proper.' God is God. He is good. And I am healed :)