In the Valley of Decision

Meanwhile, I continued to get worse quickly. I could barely climb the stairs at home. Because I just sat on the couch morning, noon, and evening - and then slept in the same position (or nearly so) at night, I did start to develop a pressure (bed) sore. People, do not get them! They are horribly painful and take a long time to heal!

I kept pressuring my doctor in Kiev to do something while we waited for the biopsy results. And he continued wanting to wait for those results before we moved forward with plan B.

My swollen legs on September 14th

As I started getting almost no sleep because of the nearly constant pain and discomfort, I rarely, if ever saw a Ukrainian in person or talked to anyone. And people around me (American and Ukrainian) were starting to wonder if I was a little crazy for not heading to American soil for diagnosis and treatment. For whatever reason, I was not ready to make that decision.

On Monday evening, September 14, Denise and I had a major disagreement about my approach to my health. She was more than ready for me to go to the US, and I was still dragging my feet. She felt that this was wrong and could jeopardize my health (she was more right than she knew), so we needed to go soon. And I knew that I would know for sure when the time was right for ME.

One challenge is that I knew a lot of the things that had to happen before we could go "soon". And I was dreading them. Also, because I was so sick, thinking about a trip to Kiev and then a flight home sounded worse than Chinese water torture to me.

And then that same evening, my terrific step-mom gave me a loving tongue-thrashing in text form. She felt that I had been way beyond patient, but she was getting very concerned for my well-being. It had been over a month - and no answers. When was I going to wake up?

After all that, where I tried to defend my position to the best of my ability, we went to bed. And I did not sleep one bit. I prayed and it seemed that God was telling me, that it was time. Well, if you say so, Lord, we'll go. Our dear friend and Russian tutor, Olya, reassured Denise just days before that, "that Phil will know when it is time".

My dear friend and high school classmate Roberta (we were voted "most studious" in our class), who came to Christ because of our friendship, told me not long ago, that I may be slow, but I get there eventually. Basically sums me up - Mr. Cautious. A lot like Dad. But also a LOT less cautious than I used to be. Living in Ukraine for nearly seven years out of the last 11 years changes you.

I worked through the details of what needed to happen, contacted our travel agent in the US about buying one-way tickets for Denise and I to fly back to the US soon, and then told Denise when she got up Tuesday morning that we were going. She was nearly in shock, especially given our conversation from the evening before.

But our decision was final. It was time for me to go home to get a diagnosis and treatment for whatever was going on in my body.