To be honest, I've avoided writing this post for several months.

Why?

Because while I was rejoicing over my son staying in remission, he was building up to another flare - which began a couple of days before Christmas.

Stress & More Stress

Looking back it's hardly surprising. In fact, I'm amazed it didn't happen sooner. He was under enormous stress, despite not eating any 'forbidden' foods, and as any UC sufferer knows, stress is a huge cause of flaring.

As an aside, I'd like to add that a new study suggests that our gut flora changes in winter and we have less of the good bacteria in our intestines then. This would account for many people flaring in winter, whereas they can keep their UC under control the rest of the year. (Of course, I can't find the Tweet that included the link to this study, but when I do, I'll share it!)

My son had just accepted a new job in Chicago, then driven fourteen hours straight to look for apartments in the Windy City. After a bitterly cold and busy week (the cold is no friend of UC, is it?) he found a place and signed a lease. He was now under obligation to pay a large amount of rent per month.

Next he had to buy a new Jeep. His old one needed a new catalytic converter but wasn't worth putting the money into.

More debt.

On top of that, the new vehicle developed problems that weren't being fixed properly by the selling garage. He now owed money for an SUV which might be a lemon.

He also knew that he wouldn't be able to take his dog, Fly (pictured above) with him for the first three months, as he'd be working 16 hour days plus Saturdays. That gave him no down time to spend with his beloved animal.

Thus, as I said, it is hardly surprising that he flared two days before the celebration of Our Lord's birth.

I was devastated. I had so hoped for a flare-free Christmas!!!

​But he had to start his new job, flare or no flare. I felt so sorry for him. Piling my truck high with his belongings, I drove to Chicago along the same route he'd set out on a few hours earlier. He would need to make many more stops than me along the way and needed the head start ....



















A Miserable Trip

It was snowing, sleeting and slamming down freezing rain all the way there - over fourteen hours. I still don't know how he managed to make it, as I was having a horrible trip!

But make it we did. Once in Chicago, between his bathroom trips, we unpacked our vehicles and got him settled into his 24th floor apartment.

Then I cooked him foods we knew he could tolerate and hunkered down to let him rest for the next few days before he had to go to work.

While he tried to sleep, I was on a big research gig and found studies on how Chinese medicine has been found to help with ulcerative colitis. Further investigation pulled up a Chinese practitioner not far from us. My son agreed to work with him.

In the meantime, he was also using the BEMER lent to us by a friend. He didn't feel it helped with the flare itself, but last year he went into a flare with what turned out to be a torn rotator cuff and the inflammation spread across his shoulders and down his arms.

He couldn't lift anything or write.

It eventually caused bursitis in both knees and he could only walk with the assistance of two canes if he kept his legs straight. It was HORRIBLE!

Once again, this time around he started his flare with a stiff shoulder. Yet it disappeared with the help of the BEMER. If not for that, my son would have gone through the same muscle misery as last time.

We visited the Chinese practitioner in Chicago. He performed acupuncture and gave my son a tincture called Irritease. (Use this link as other sites will only let you buy it if you are a practitioner.) 

The Chinese Factor


​If you pull up studies, you'll find that anything used to help UC sufferers takes around eight weeks to work. My son's flares are usually for two months anyway, so it's hard to say whether the Irritease was helpful.

Yet now that my son has come out of his flare (more about that later) he's not taking it anymore because he doesn't want the opposite problem - constipation. To me that suggests that the tincture does help!

And here's another reason I think Chinese medicine is worth trying. 

After the first two weeks of diarrhea in January, the practitioner told my son to get a saline IV as he was severely dehydrated. He was so weak that I had to take a 45 minute Uber to his office and drive him home from work that evening. Thank Goodness I was in Chicago and able to do this!

Back at his apartment, I gave him some food then drove to the local hospital ER where they could see he needed help. As he lay on the bed being prepared for his IV, the nurse took a nose swab in a routine precaution to make sure he didn't have flu.

'We were horrified when the results came back: he had a temperature of over 102 F degrees and did indeed have flu!

But how were we going to get that temperature down? He can't take NSAIDs and Tylenol just rips up his intestines.

They wanted to keep him in hospital overnight 'for observation' but what good was that going to do? The doctor had already looked inside his mouth and declared him 'not to be dehydrated' - so we had zero confidence in her!

I drove my son home, and emailed the Chinese practitioner.

Watching my son writhe in agony that night, I prayed the Rosary over and over again, begging God not to let my son die. It was so awful!

The next morning his temperature was still high. I'd received an answer from Dr. Tim and rushed over to get another tincture, this time one against fever.

The concoction is called Quell Fire and I immediately started administering it to my son.

You'll remember he started at over 102 F degrees. Shortly after he took this tincture, his temperature began to drop and two days later it was 96 F degrees - below normal! What a result! He didn't need to take that anymore!

Throughout this period his new employer was very understanding. He had sick leave for two days, then was allowed to work remotely on day three. Mercifully the weekend came after this, giving him a better chance of resting and recuperating.

He was still flaring badly, and had a bad cough from the flu, but we were grateful that the fever had broken at least.

My son is a fighter. Sunday came and he had to drive himself and a colleague four hours to the location of a client in Michigan, where they would stay the week, come home o Friday, then return on Sunday.

One big mercy is that Depend underwear for men look like normal underpants and you can get them in three different colors. My son took a ton of those with him, and if asked why he wore them, would simply say "Why do laundry, if I don't have to?"

(When he was first diagnosed with UC he refused to wear these briefs, but understands the virtue of them now!)

During those weeks on the road he would have very little control over what he ate as he couldn't take food with him.

Miserable and worried, I flew back home to Maryland: there was nothing I could do for him anymore except pray and pray and pray. He is not a believer at present, so I'm very careful to keep my talks with God private.

The other thing I did was buy one dark chocolate bar after the other,  consuming large chunks of them whenever he was out of the room! I've read that chocolate increases one's level of serotonin and boy, did I need that!

Inching Forward

The first indication he was improving significantly came when he texted me that he was planning to go on a one-day ski trip with others in his apartment building. He explained that he now had more control over his bathroom trips.

Imagine my joy when, at the end of the day, he sent a group photo of the skiers - with him in it! And this, despite not being able to eat strictly in order to get over a flare.

This is why I believe the Irritease and acupuncture did help him. Previously he has gone back into an even worse flare if he wasn't completely disciplined about his food intake and we'd become used to two or three flares in a row, each worse than the one before.

Earlier I mentioned that it was hard on my son not having his beloved dog with him. Every night I sent a short 'good night' video of her.

Then came the day, six weeks after his flare began, when he asked if his dad and I could bring Fly to meet him somewhere on the route to Chicago. I knew he must be feeling a lot better if he judged himself able to take care of his dog.

That was two weeks ago. We took Fly with us and met our son in Toledo. Their reunion was so touching! Fly jumped up and down for joy at seeing her owner again.

​We went out to dinner at a restaurant our son had picked out. Imagine how happy I was when he rode with us, ate dinner and rode back with us - all without needing the bathroom!!!!!

The next morning we parted ways and that evening were sent the photo of Fly looking out of the window in her new abode.

A week later, on St. Patrick's Day I texted to ask if the river really is dyed green?

I was sent this photo:

This showed me that, yes, the Chicago River is dyed green, but more importantly that my son is out and about with his dog - and that Fly is helping him enjoy life again.

Thank you, God, for this Easter gift!

I leave you with a link to this inspiring article:
Scaling New Heights with Ulcerative Colitis


Subscribe to Hilary Walker Books, and get a free copy of Riding Out the Wager, the first book of The Father Michael Trilogy.
​







​Related Articles:

- St. Jude & Ulcerative Colitis

- Ulcerative Colitis: Stabat Mater Dolorosa

- Ulcerative Colitis: A Natural Approach

- One Man's Ulcerative Colitis Diet

- A Different Kind of Milk

Our previous parish priest exhorted us to look up, not at the ground. 

If we persist in staring down, that’s where we’re going to end up. Elevating our thoughts towards Heaven prevents us from becoming despondent and downhearted.

He's so right! When things go horribly wrong in my own life, I shuffle along feeling sorry for myself, with hunched shoulders and bowed head. Everything is doom and gloom.

What a different story when I lift up my head, straighten my shoulders and meet life head on! The physical act of standing upright brings with it a sense of determination and purpose.

Then we pray to God for help and He gives us the strength to deal with the difficulties life throws at us.

On One’s High Horse

It’s the same when you’re on a horse. No matter whether you’re riding dressage or jumping, you need to sit up straight and look ahead.

With dressage this means looking at the letter you're aiming for in a particular movement. For jumping, it means looking over the fence, not at it. You don’t want to land on the obstacle, you want to clear it. 

In both scenarios we mustn't look down, or that's where we’ll end up!

What Happens When We Fall?

When we first learn to ride, we think that not falling off makes us good riders and we're proud of ourselves.

But then comes the day when we take a tumble. The longer it has taken that day to come, the harder it is to shake off the experience and get back on the horse.

Some people never do. I often hear stories from friends about how the day they fell off a horse was the time they rode. They never got back in the saddle – they didn’t want to take the chance of falling off again.

How sad! They've missed out on so much fun.

I’ve fallen off more times than I can remember. Some of those incidents were physically painful, others just bruised my ego. Even though I never want to, I get back on the horse straight away, if I'm physically able.

If not, I would have to brand myself a coward for life. That would be way more painful.

I’m not naturally courageous. If you follow my horse blog posts, you’ll see plenty of occasions when I’m nervous and it takes a lot to get me going again. My horse, Cruz Bay and I have taken some dreadful tumbles, and it isn’t easy to get over them.

I have to work at avoiding the errors which led to those falls and not give up when I mess up. 

The Christian life requires the same attitude. 

Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect

That is one tough challenge, isn’t it? Who can live up to that?

Riding has taught me that I will never be the perfect horsewoman, but I still strive to become that person. How much more vital is reaching for perfection in the Christian life!

Sadly for many, the seeming impossibility of attaining this goal is so discouraging that they don’t even try to reach it. Or maybe they work hard for a while, feel they’re making progress, then become despondent when they fall into sin again. 

Having sinned once more, they've proved they’re not perfect. So they may as well commit another, and another, until they are much further from the goal than when they started.

Christ talks about this when he mentions the man whose house is swept clean when the demons are removed. But when the man is not truly committed and doesn’t replace those demons with good living, many more come back into him than were there in the first place (Luke 11:24-46).

A Reason to Give Up?

Does that mean that it's hopeless trying to be good?

Of course not!  Christ died on the cross to make up for our deficiencies and grant us mercy when we fail: He walks with us in the good times and the bad.

If we fall into sin, we must sincerely repent and ask Him for forgiveness then pick ourselves up and walk again in the paths of righteousness.

We will fall into sin, time and time again. Way more often than the average rider falls off a horse!

Follow Your Passion

But if Christ is our passion, we get up, dust ourselves off with a healthy visit to the confessional, and resume our spiritual course. If we love Christ, we’ll be quick to apologize to the One Whose mercy is endless and Whose compassion inexhaustible.

Christ reaches out His hands to us every time we fail. 

We then mustn't sin further by refusing to trust in His mercy and forgiveness, or equate Christ’s limitless reservoir of forgiveness with the pitiful puddle that is our own version of it.  

Falling Must Lead to Getting Up

Being human, we expect to fall. Being a Christian means getting up from a fall - again and again and again.

That is where Catholics are fortunate: we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation and hear the words of the priest in persona Christi absolving us of our sins. We can receive a fresh start as often as we need it.

And for those of us who feel that we might as well take a tape recording of our sins and press ‘play’ for the priest at every confession, because the sins are always the same: would you rather have more to confess than you already have?

We must keep battling with our sins, and get up again and again and again for the rest of our lives.

Then we can truly call ourselves Christians.

When life is going badly and there seems no way out, it's easy to fall into despair.

Yet Christ's Easter message is: "Don't despair!" 

Repeat After Me..

We proclaim that message every time we recite the Apostles' Creed: Jesus "rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father....I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting."
 
There's no despair here.

But perhaps constant repetition has dulled our attentiveness to the reality of what we're saying: that Jesus suffered horribly for our sakes so that we might rise up from death and  have eternal life.

We are made in God's image and destined to be with Him in heaven. Christ asks us not to let earthly setbacks throw us into misery and distract us from that goal.

God loves us. If he puts suffering our lives, it's to turn our thoughts away from the world and back to Him and His infinite mercy.

But  fighting off despair and trusting in God's mercy is tough.

Judas Versus Peter

Despair is Satan’s most powerful weapon against God. He rejoices whenever he succeeds in separating us from our hope in Christ (see 'Hope versus Hope' in my last post). He thus sabotages our salvation and adds our souls to the ranks of those destined for hell.

Judas of Iscariot committed the ultimate sin when he despaired of forgiveness for betraying Jesus, thus cutting himself off from future happiness with God.

Peter denied knowing Christ three times, after having just said that he loved Him and would do anything for Him. But in contrast to Judas, he wept bitterly and repented over his betrayal. 

This humble admission of guilt and belief in Christ’s forgiveness wiped his slate clean. Peter's faith and hope restored his good standing with God and ensured his redemption.

Judas allowed Satan to deceive him into despairing of Christ's love: Peter believed in Our Lord’s mercy and was granted it.

Who would you rather be?

But What Use Is God's Mercy When I'm Suffering? 

Blessed Sopocko, confessor and spiritual director of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska has this to say about despair in his book God is Mercy (Marian Press, 1965, p. 81):

“Despair is passion arising in us because of the impossibility of escaping evil. The name covers not only the feeling of despair itself, but also the inclination to it. ... It is opposed to hope and trust, so much so that while hope enlightens, despair kills. ... (my italics)

“The causes of despair can vary. Temporal or spiritual misfortunes, incurable illness, loss of respect and honor, financial ruin, threat of inevitable danger, etc. Under the influence of such disasters there follows a terrible depression which takes away all energy, paralyzes the nerves, renders clear thinking impossible, and even impedes breathing and the normal circulation of the blood, so that the brain is not supplied sufficiently with oxygen and ceases to function sufficiently. ...

“If we search for the very first, deepest cause of despair, we always find a lack of trust in the Mercy of God. ...”  (My italics)

(Taken from What Is Divine Mercy? By Dr. Robert Stackpole)

But why is it that when things are going badly, we find it the hardest to trust in God?

Because we want control over our lives. We want to know exactly what lies ahead, we demand concrete proof that our bad situation will end and quickly.

‘Show, don’t tell!’ is the usual advice to story writers and we feel the same way about God. Don't tell us that all will be well, through the Scriptures, don't tell us that we must trust in You: show us a reason to trust you by performing a miracle!

For some reason, God's amazing miracle of resurrection on Easter Sunday often isn't good enough for us. We're doubting Thomases who want to see it for ourselves, not have to believe writings from 2000 years ago.

Unfortunately faith means believing without seeing, and we must have blind faith if we’re to attain the goal for which we were made, namely to be with God in eternity.

Dispelling Despair Through Divine Mercy
 
Since despair comes from believing things will never get better and that we are alone in our misery, the antidote is complete trust in God’s love for us. (See 'Christ's Strategy' in my last post.)

Dr. Stackpole says, regarding the benefits of trusting in God:

"It opens the door to all the graces and blessings He wants to give us.” (My italics.)

We mustn’t hang ourselves with despair, like Judas. Instead we must trust in God’s mercy and be raised from misery to happiness.

....Which Leads Us to Divine Mercy Sunday

This weekend, Catholics will celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday (Feast of Mercy).

God’s mercy is not confined to this one day of the year – it is available every single day of every year! – but there are certain graces to be obtained on that day.

Here is entry 699 of St. Faustina Kowalska’s diary, in which Christ makes clear his desires for Divine Mercy Sunday. This entry is very long, but if you read it, you'll feel overwhelmed by Christ's love for you.

My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy.

(Even if you've not been to Confession for 60 years or more, you may feel that it's worth going now, before next Sunday. :) I promise you, priests are kind in the confessional: they are there to help us make a good confession, not beat us up over our sins!)

Christ also revealed to St. Faustina the extraordinary graces available to those who devoutly receive Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday:

I want to grant a complete pardon to the souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on the Feast of My mercy (1109).  

Whoever approaches the Fount of Life on this day will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment (300).  

The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion will obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment (699).

Click here for further information on how to prepare for Divine Mercy Sunday 

Are God’s Graces Confined to Catholics?

No!

I know that we Catholics are considered arrogant because we believe that Catholicism is ‘the one, true faith.’
 
We make no apologies for this belief.
 
Christ instituted the Catholic (i.e. universal) Church 2013 years ago. All other Christian faiths are man-made spin-offs. (I now cheerfully await an onslaught of angry comments!) The Sacraments of our faith make the Christian life easier for Catholics.  We certainly don't believe that non-Catholics are doomed to the eternal fire of hell.



The important thing is to trust in God’s mercy and humbly ask Him to forgive our sins. Christ longs for us all to come to Him – Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

We will stop feeling despair when we realize that Christ is always walking with us.


Postscript: Whenever I find myself teetering on the edge of despair, I quickly recite this prayer, over and over again:

‘Eternal God, in Whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence, submit ourselves to your Holy Will, which is Love and Mercy itself.’ Diary 950

I hope it helps you, too.