For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20
I had quite an interesting experience a few days ago. As you should know, in August 2019 I was struck down with a very serious illness called Guillain Barrè Syndrome(GBS). This illness struck me down and turned me from a relatively healthy person to one confined to a bed in hospital. What I thought would end quickly stretched out into a seven month stay in hospital.
Today I continue to struggle with the residual effects of a really nasty illness. I suffer from fatigue very quickly, I am weaker than I used to be, I have balance issues causing me to walk with a cane and I have nerve tingling, especially in my feet. I’m hopeful that at some point I will not have all these residuals, but I accept life as it is.
The illness did cause me to have to give up my second career as a long distance truck driver as I cannot pass the required physical examination to maintain my professional drivers license. I loved the road, but have to accept that is no longer part of my life. Instead I am now employed in a work from home position.
So I currently work from home for the largest telecommunications company in Canada as a customer service specialist. This means I speak to customers on the phone about their accounts and help them to make changes where necessary. These calls are usually over very quickly, but sometimes a call will happen that ends up being more than just helping a customer. That recently happened and the call hit really close to home.
If you’d like to send a little money to support my blog being published you can always support via PayPal: Donate to Shiny Side Up
A customer called in to talk to me about his discount offer ending on his internet causing his internet price to increase. This is a call that I deal with all the time. Sometimes it’s easy to fix and add another offer for the next year, and sometimes it’s a little more difficult. As I looked at this account I initially thought that his offer was already extended for the next year, but what I actually saw was that his current offer was ending that same day and caused me to be a little confused.
I apologized to my customer for the time it was taking and he told me not to worry, he had all the time in the world because he had nothing else to do. He also told me he couldn’t go anywhere because he was in a wheelchair. I told him I had spent a few months in a wheelchair and he said he’d been in one for over 18 years! He asked me what I had done to end up in a wheelchair and I told him that I’d had an illness. He then asked me if it was GBS?
I was surprised by this, as most people have not heard of GBS, and told him it was. He then told me that he’d had GBS 18 years ago and that’s how he ended up in a wheelchair. He been in hospital over three years and on a ventilator for nine months! He also told me the onset of his illness was really quick as he went from healthy to paralyzed in about two hours!
I was completely shocked by all of this. The severity of his case was amazing and the speed of onset is the fastest onset of the illness that I have ever heard. We talked about the illness a little while longer and then I shared that I was a long distance truck driver before I became ill and he revealed that he was also. But there was one more coincidence that was about to be revealed.
I stated to him that the thing that got me through my illness was my strong faith in God. He then revealed to me that he also had a strong faith and that got him through his illness and through each day.
We have no idea what is going to come to us each day. I spend my work days taking calls from people who have problems with their phones, televisions or internet, but occasionally a call hits close to the heart. At the end of this call I had to take a deep breath and wipe the tears from my eyes. And then it was off to the next one.
God bless
Shiny Side Up 