Salut!
This week was an interesting one for sure, not much missionary work, but a lot of lessons learned.
Tuesday was a great. Elder Taylor and I went and taught a reactivated member about the Aaronic Priesthood. He already knew everything though, but just wanted to be prepared as he was made a Priest and given the opportunity to baptize his wife on Saturday. He is a total homie, we taught him how to baptize someone and then we just chatted. He wants us to run 8km with him every morning... appreciate the offer, but! Who knows maybe we will.
We had district meeting later that day which was nice, had fried rice for lunch. We went home that night and everything was great. Elder Taylor and I had planned to teach all of our amis during the week and we were going to extend a baptismal invitation to an ami. This is where the fun begins.
I woke up numerous times that night to use the bathroom and felt progressively worse after each "visit." I decided I would sleep in a little when the alarm went off, but that was not to be the case. I got up instantly at 6:30 and went and took some pills, then walked downstairs grabbed my consecrated oil from my bag, walked upstairs and handed it to Elder Taylor. I think I told him I felt awful, so he just kind of stared at the wall and did nothing for a little, all the while I am now sitting in a chair and my vision is vanishing. I start to get very hot and I remember him asking me my full name, then I passed out. I came to after he had finished the blessing and he later told me that my entire body had been shaking during the blessing. My vision was completely gone at this point and I could barely hear anything he was saying. There was the worst pain in my head and an extremely loud, high pitched ringing in my ears. I was drenched in sweat at this point and had no idea what to do, I asked for my water bottle, which was promptly set in my hand. I took a few swigs, but nothing changed. I was getting a little worried at this point, my comp is just kind of watching it all happen - he also said my lips were completely white! At this dire moment I felt the impression to lean forward in the chair, and when I did, my vision started to return. I could only see my left arm, but I could see that there were literal drops of sweat coming from my ARMS! I didn't even know that was possible, I was drenched in sweat. I grabbed the phone and called the mission nurse and she told me what to do. After that I just climbed into bed and passed out for a few hours. I slept that entire day, and was feeling a lot better by the end of this exciting day. Went to bed.
Well we can guess what happened again - a repeat of the night before. So I called the nurse again in the morning and she told me to take some pills and take it easy that day. So Elder Taylor and I went out, it's now Thursday I think, and so we took it easy. Trying to remember what we did. Right, one of our investigators did not show up for our lesson, we brought bottles of water to a widow, and then we met with our Ward Mission Leader. Not the most exciting day, but I was feeling a lot better...until we got home. It suffices me to say, I used the bathroom more times than a normal person would in a short amount of time. So I called the mission nurse again and she said she would try to make a doctors appointment for me the next day.
We all know what happened that night - again.
Called the nurse the next morning to report how I was feeling, I now had a lot of pain in my intestines region. She told me to go to the emergency room!
Before Elder Taylor and I left for the hospital, he gave me another priesthood blessing. The blessing said I would recover and continue my mission - that was all I needed to hear.
We went to the hospital and spoke with the receptionist, then a nurse took me into a room to get all of my information. I accidently told her I was 5 foot 5 and weighed 121 pounds, but what's 24 pounds and 4 inches!? The nurse brought me into this little operating room and continued to ask me about my symptoms. After I would answer the questions, or rather my companion, the nurse would disappear for 10-15 minutes. I was mildly nervous because I honestly didn't have that much confidence in a hospital in France - just from stories I had heard.
A nurse finally came back in and told me she was going to take some blood samples - took a lot of blood samples. She put an IV in me, which is the most uncomfortable thing in the world, and then vanished for a few minutes. When she came back she shot me full of pain meds and then hooked me up to a bottle which pumped water into me. Oh lala that felt awful. I could feel the fluid pumping up my arm and I couldn't move or anything because there was a massive needle in my arm. So I sat through the whole procedure and naturally the nurse had vanished again. When she came back she disconnected my from the tube and took the needle out, but left the plastic tube in my arm. I told Elder Taylor at this point I needed to stop smiling so much because the nurses would think I was taking everything as a joke! Just staying optimistic.
So at this point I am sitting there with a plastic tube shoved up my arm, and then a nurse tells me they need some "samples," ya know from the lower regions. Well I hadn't eaten anything for 24 hours or so now and was empty. I tried using the bathroom for 30 minutes, nothing. So I exit the bathroom, cause I have no idea what to do and another nurse appears and puts me in a wheelchair and rolls me to another room where they take sonogram (I think) of my stomach. It was like I was being checked for a baby, surprise I'm pregnant!
Now another doctor is rubbing my stomach with a magic wand and tells me I do not have appendicitis, which is good, but my colon is inflamed. He says goodbye and then I get wheeled back to the other room where I need to continue to try to get my sample. I flat out told the nurse it was not possible, so she gives me this little cup of applesauce, like that will do anything. After another 40 minutes or so the doctor just comes and tells me to get a sample at home and gives me a prescription for antibiotics and pain meds. Then a nurse comes and takes the plastic tube out of my arm, which was the most uncomfortable thing in my life, yeesh that was a weird feeling. Then we walked out and left.
This email is super long, so I will summarize the rest of the week.
Woke up that night with intense pain in my colon and stayed awake from 2 am to 6 am. We then went back to the hospital that day and waited five hours to talk with a doctor, who told us that the antibiotic wouldn't take effect for two days, would have been great to know that the day before. The pain is getting way better and hopefully I will be back to normal in a few days! Voila.
I will put one tiny lesson I learned through all of this. During the night that I woke up at 2 am and was up until 6 am, because of the pain caused by my colon, I sat on the toilet for the entire night and at one point, around 4 am, the pain became so intense that it took all the power within me to not cry out. I thought about waking my companion, calling soeur Christensen, or even calling an ambulance. Finally I turned to the only one who could help me in this moment, The Lord. I said a very sincere prayer asking for the pain to pass, almost crying from the pain I prayed again and again, until finally the title of a book came into my mind, "Faith Precedes the Miracle." At that moment the most intense pain I have ever felt all but passed away. Simply put, that was a miracle. After many prayers, a lot of patience, and a large amount of faith, I was relieved of the pain for a period of time.
What a blessing that was to learn an important lesson on faith. When we center our hope in Christ and the promise of relief, it will come, but it will come in his time and when we need it the most. This theme of receiving relief is what I think allows for the most growth. Now this is a permanent, humbling experience I will not soon forget.
Au revoir,
Elder Molinari
