There is a certain kind of silence that settles over our twenty-five acres in the middle of the night. Most nights, it’s peaceful. It’s the kind of silence that reminds me why we chose this little piece of Arkansas. The stars seem brighter, the air feels calmer, and for a moment, the worries of the world seem far away.

But last night, the silence felt different. It felt heavy.

For over a week, an invisible battle had been quietly unfolding inside my body. What began as a headache slowly became relentless pressure, settling deep into my left cheek until every heartbeat seemed to echo through my teeth. It wasn’t the typical congestion that tells you a sinus infection is coming; I could breathe just fine. From the outside, I didn’t even look sick. But hidden beneath the surface, everything had become blocked, and the pressure continued to build until it was almost unbearable.

By the seventh day of antibiotics, I knew something wasn’t right. I woke before dawn drenched in sweat, running a fever that refused to break despite taking ibuprofen around the clock. My body was exhausted, and my spirit wasn’t far behind.

As much as I wanted to convince myself that I could just push through one more day, I finally admitted something I’ve had to learn over and over during this cancer journey: Sometimes strength isn’t pushing harder. Sometimes strength is knowing when it’s time to ask for help.

So before sunrise, my husband and I packed a small bag and made the familiar drive to the hospital.

The View from the ER

There is something strangely comforting about walking into a place where your transplant team can see the full picture. I was grateful that my primary care had already recognized what looked like a sinus infection and started me on antibiotics, but when things weren’t improving, I wanted this ER visit documented there so my transplant team would have it for their records and any future transplant discussions.

The nurses moved quickly. IV medications began easing the swelling. Blood was drawn. A CT scan was ordered. Every step reminded me that I didn’t have to carry this alone.

Yet, as I waited for the results, I realized how different life feels after a cancer diagnosis. Blood work is never “just blood work.” Every notification on MyChart makes your heart beat a little faster. Every result feels like another piece of your future being revealed.

When my labs finally came back, I expected to find another reason to worry. Instead, God gave me something unexpected: Hope.

The manual blood smear showed that my body had recognized the infection days before I ever realized how serious it had become. My bone marrow had already begun sending out immature white blood cells, mobilizing everything it could to fight. I sat there staring at those results, and an unexpected thought crossed my mind: My body isn’t quitting.

After months of living with primary myelofibrosis, it’s easy to feel like your body has become the enemy. Every ache makes you wonder what cancer is doing. Every new symptom makes you question what’s failing next. But yesterday reminded me that even though my bone marrow isn’t perfect, it is still working. It is still trying. It is still fighting for me. That truth brought tears to my eyes.

The CT scan brought another answer I desperately needed. The infection hadn’t spread into the surrounding bone or tissue; it was simply trapped behind an incredibly stubborn blockage. Ironically, one possibility is that the medication helping me fight my myelofibrosis also thickened my mucus enough to seal off my sinus.

A tiny blockage. An enormous amount of pain. Isn’t that true in so many areas of life? Sometimes the smallest things become the biggest obstacles if they’re left unresolved.

Working Behind the Scenes

As I drove home later that day with a prescription for Toradol and a new treatment plan, I found myself thinking about how often God works this way. I wanted Him to simply remove the pain. Instead, He reminded me that He had already been at work long before I knew how serious the problem was.

 While I was sleeping… He was sustaining me.

 While I was worrying… My body was already responding.

 While I wondered if I was losing ground… He was quietly providing exactly what I needed.

How many times has God been working behind the scenes when I couldn’t yet see the evidence?

I’m home now, surrounded by pillows, resting in the quiet once again. The medications are slowly doing their job. Healing isn’t instant, and neither is this journey with myelofibrosis. Even this evening, as I sit here writing these words, I can feel the medications from the ER beginning to wear off. The pressure is slowly creeping back in. At first it’s just a dull ache, but little by little the inflammation begins reminding me that it hasn’t left yet.

And with the pain come the questions. Not just the medical questions, but the deeply personal ones: Am I really strong enough for this? Will I ever truly find relief again? What if this is just another reminder that life is going to hurt like this from now on?

Pain has a way of shrinking your entire world. It narrows your focus until all you can think about is the next dose of medicine, the next hot compress, or the next position that might hurt just a little less. It whispers the lie that because relief hasn’t come yet, maybe it never will.

What makes it even harder is trying to explain this kind of pain to someone who has never experienced it. There are no stitches. No cast. No visible wound. From the outside, I probably look tired, maybe even like I am simply uncomfortable. But for the past week, this pain has completely unraveled my world. It has kept me in bed, stolen my sleep, drained every ounce of energy I had, and left me wondering how something hidden inside a tiny sinus cavity could create such overwhelming, soul-crushing nerve pain.

How do you explain to someone that every heartbeat feels like it echoes through your face?

How do you describe pain so relentless that even your teeth seem to ache from the inside out?

How do you explain that you aren’t simply uncomfortable—you are exhausted from hurting?

Sometimes I worry that people hear the words “sinus infection” and imagine a stuffy nose and a box of tissues. They don’t see the nights spent sitting upright because lying down makes the pressure unbearable. They don’t see the tears. The fear. The prayers whispered through clenched teeth in the middle of the night.

But then I’m reminded that even if no one else fully understands this pain, God does. He has seen every sleepless night. Every tear. Every anxious thought. Every whispered prayer asking for just a little relief.

Psalm 56:8 says: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.“

What a beautiful reminder that not one moment of our suffering is wasted or unnoticed. The God who created every nerve in my body knows every pulse of pain running through them. He isn’t standing at a distance waiting for me to get through this. He is sitting with me in the middle of it.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I don’t know what future appointments, treatments, or setbacks may come. But I know this: The same God who knit this body together is still watching over it. The same God who saw those white blood cells mobilizing before I ever knew there was a problem is still sovereign over every diagnosis, every scan, every infection, and every unknown.

This week wasn’t a setback. It was another reminder that healing doesn’t always happen the way we expect. Sometimes God answers our prayers through physicians. Sometimes through medicine. Sometimes through the incredible way He designed our bodies to keep fighting, even when we feel like giving up. And sometimes He simply reminds us that while we are resting… He is still working.

So today, I’m choosing gratitude. Gratitude for antibiotics. Gratitude for modern medicine. Gratitude for a body that is still fighting. And most of all, gratitude for a faithful God who has never left my side—not on the mountaintops, not in the emergency room, and certainly not in the middle of a long, painful night.

One prayer at a time.

One breath at a time.

One step at a time.

One day at a time.

He has carried me this far, and I know He isn’t finished yet.