Welcome to Joni and Friends! Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada.
And I also want to welcome my young friend Brittany Volpei to the studio today. Good to have you, Brittany.
BRITTANY: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
JONI: Absolutely! Brittany, a lot of people with different sorts of disabilities come and visit our International Disability Center, and most of them, I must say, usually have visible disabilities — they might be in a wheelchair, showing crutches, something that shows their limitations. But you have a very invisible disability; want to tell us about that?
BRITTANY: Yes. I have been struggling with complex regional pain syndrome — invisible pain, as all pain is. On one hand I’m thankful that I don’t have some other disability that I’m struggling with, but pain is hard. It is really hard. I have a little wheelchair that I use to get around and I can still walk and so sometimes I just like to stand up — I’ve been healed!!!
JONI: Wouldn’t that be nice! Well here you are sitting at the microphone and your feet are up on your wheelchair and you say that helps your pain. Complex regional pain syndrome is a fancy euphemism for a whole group of pain disorders that doctors sometimes cannot accurately diagnose and from a 1 to 10 where are you right now?
BRITTANY: Eight!
JONI: Eight! Oh, my goodness.
BRITTANY: Maybe a 7-1/2.
JONI: That smile on your voice says you are doing pretty well at 7-1/2. Brittany, how old are you?
BRITTANY: I’m 28.
JONI: You are so young to be dealing with such pain. You have so many challenges at such a young age, all I can say is, you are one “can do kid” you are. What sort of questions did you first ask though? I mean, there had to be a time you went through depression or anger.
BRITTANY: Yes, pain first appeared when I was 15 after a sports injury and I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and made it through high school, but I wasn’t a person that went to all the dances or all the football games and so high school was a little bit of a different experience for me. And then was able to go away to college, but pain appeared in a new way while I was in college and I think that one of the most difficult things for me was dropping out of school as a sophomore.
JONI: Now, did all this drive you away from God or to Him?
BRITTANY: Well, I started my battle with my Bible verses in one hand and the Spirit with me and just kind of plowed forward. And at that point, you just assume that science or doctors or whoever are going to know what is wrong or know how to treat it, and so for me that wasn’t the case. It took several years and I went through treatment for Lyme Disease; and as you know, lots of misdiagnoses and so I was just confident — confident in the Lord; confident in science. Probably putting my confidence in knowing healing would come. It was very much a “kingdom of self” and we don’t realize until we get sick or we get taken down that our lives are not about us. We just assume we are just going to go through life and when we are older our bodies are going to start falling apart and Jesus will take us home.
JONI: But to have a body fall apart at such a young age. That’s the hard part, isn’t it?
BRITTANY: Yes, it was ugly and I got really angry.
JONI: You said you begin the battle with the Spirit and also in one hand the Word of God.
BRITTANY: There is a verse I’ve been meditating on in Isaiah where it says: "Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He. I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” And that’s kind of been my prayer. The “why” really isn’t a question that I ask any more, but it’s one of God’s presence who having the Lord just be near I believe that the Lord can take my pain away in an instant, but He hasn’t, that hasn’t happened so He’s carrying me.
JONI: Thank you Brittany for joining us today and I hope you’ll come back.
BRITTANY: Thank you and I hope you’ll have me.
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