The Burning Tongue

It's probably a deficiency in my personality, but sometimes, especially in a public forum, I hesitate to share a lot of the joys or sustaining things that I experience in life-particularly in hard times.  I think I hesitate because I know that there are things much harder than I am experiencing, and I'm afraid of talking about my good things and making someone else wonder why they have to hurt so much while I am comforted.  In my own quiet life, I have gotten better over the years with expressing gratitude to God, and honestly it's been a life line to look for and find the beauty in these last few months, but have always felt awkward about doing it publicly.

However, I was reading some Psalms a few weeks ago that talked about declaring to the world the things that God has done, and I thought that in the end it comes down to trust.  That even if our situations look different, and yours looks (and is) way harder than mine, I trust that God is sustaining you, too.  Even in the harder. And I felt like I should share the honor due His name for how He has sustained and provided for me. So here's a peak into some of His work.

A year and a half ago I started having a burning tongue/mouth.  A very uncomfortable condition that I researched to death to be rid of.  Nothing really helped.  After a couple of months, I went for a physical to rule out any 'big' potential causes, during which, my thyroid was found enlarged.  I wasn't too worried because my thyroid has been enlarged since I was young. But that started me down the path of ultrasounds, which became a bit scarier when there were nodules. There were several, which meant it was more likely to be nothing than if there was just one and the second ultrasound showed that the nodules had slightly decreased in size, and the issue was kind of dropped. 

The burning tongue persisted, though, as did my search for answers to be rid of it. Last summer I was accidentally referred to a doctor that I wasn't thrilled about, at a time when I felt God clearly direct me away from a doctor I had really wanted to see. The new doctor felt the thyroid ultrasounds should be done again, and sent me to an ENT who eventually found the thyroid cancer, and also mentioned zinc mouthwashes as being helpful at times for burning mouth.  I looked up what zinc did and found that it addressed several issues I was having, and started supplementing.  The issues and burning tongue cleared up. 

That burning tongue was so hard to live with, but it was the driving force behind my persistence with doctoring.  The doctor who finally found the cancer was the same doctor who had the solution for the burning tongue. 

The time when I felt like God was clearly telling me 'no' about going to the doctor that I wanted to try (but would have cost $1000's out of pocket) and was instead accidentally referred to a doctor that I had steered clear of was hard and confusing.  I didn't even know if I should really go to the appointment.  But that doctor pursued the thyroid issues again, and the cancer was discovered early enough that I could skip radiation without being stupid. 

Not everything I've gone through has had a neat little explanation of why, but it has been comforting to see bad and hard things work together for good in these instances, just like God promises they will.  

Now I think I need to be more consistent with the zinc again because my tongue feels a little weird.  :)