Faith and Healing: A Personal Journey

In this deeply personal episode of The Music of Life, I'm opening up about some profound experiences that have strengthened my faith and connection with God. From unexpected medical turnarounds to moments where divine guidance was undeniable, I'm sharing the ways I’ve seen God’s hand in my life. If you’ve ever questioned whether miracles exist or wondered about the power of faith, this episode is for you.

I'll take you through my journey—from my vision unexpectedly improving to my liver recovering against all odds, and even navigating health scares with a deep sense of trust. This episode is all about recognizing the ways the universe conspires in our favor when we surrender, trust, and stay connected to God.

Episode Highlights:

[00:02] – Introducing the episode and reflecting on the powerful words of Tay Lynch: There’s power with God.
[02:45] – The surprising turn in my vision diagnosis—how I went from needing cataract surgery to perfect eyesight.
[06:12] – My intense fertility journey—10 rounds of IVF, miscarriages, and the unexpected liver complications that followed.
[12:30] – The shocking liver biopsy results and how I found the right doctor who truly cared.
[17:10] – Against all odds: My liver’s recovery from stage four cirrhosis to stage one, proving that faith and divine intervention are real.
[20:40] – Navigating ongoing female health concerns and how prayer has given me peace through it all.
[24:55] – The role of faith in every part of my life—health, relationships, and decision-making.

Links & Resources: 

Be sure to follow, share, and leave a comment if this show resonates with you! Send me a message at podpage.com/themusicoflife to share your experiences, or to leave a comment. I'd love to feature it in a future episode.

Transcript

Caryn Portnoy: 0:02

Hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. You I wanted to start off this episode by first reading something that I found online. It's called power with God, and it's by Tay Lynch. This spoke to me so deeply, and this was exactly my story. So as I start talking about my healing journey and my connection to God and the universe, I thought this was so powerful to to talk about. Here goes. Do you guys realize something? Do you guys realize that an entire community came up against you in one of the weakest, most vulnerable times of your entire life, and they made sure that you were completely broke, completely isolated, completely humiliated, they made sure that you had absolutely nobody in your corner. They made sure that you had absolutely no way to get out of this, that nobody supported you, that you felt nothing but hatred from every single person around you, just you at the weakest, most vulnerable stage of your life, and yet they still couldn't take you these weak ass motherfuckers thought there was power in numbers, but No, baby, there's power with God. That was so powerful when I read that and wow, it was so true. It really, it got to my core. I wanted to talk about a few examples where it was very apparent to me that God was in play here, that there were no coincidences here, and it showed up in my health, of all things. So the first example I want to talk about is my vision. A couple of years ago, my eye doctor had told me that I would likely need cataract surgery. I thought she meant in both eyes, but it turns out it was really one over the other. And I had always had 2020, Vision past age 50. You know, I wore very weak reader glasses. But other than that, I had no other issues. And I believe it was last year or the year before she told me that I would need cataract surgery, because think it was like 2070 in my left eye and 2020 in my right eye. And I was clearly concerned about that, but I really didn't want to have cataract surgery. I'm I'm almost 56, years old, and I thought that was kind of young for that kind of procedure. But, you know, in my regular prayers, I always include in there about, you know, having perfect health and no issues. And sometimes I focus on specific areas of my body that I just want to make double sure that God knows that I'm I'm asking for perfect health in certain areas. So my eyes were one of those things. And my last eye doctor visit, which was several months ago, my eye doctor told me that I didn't need cataract surgery now. And I was very surprised, and asked her what changed. And she said, Well, we only go by what the number is with readers on or with corrective lenses on. So the 2070 was without glasses and with glasses, it was 2040 and that wasn't severe enough to require cataract surgery. So I was elated, of course, and so relieved. And I was kind of like, huh, so that was the first thing i Okay. The second thing was, and this is going to be a little bit longer, because it was a very extensive issue, but way back when my daughter is 15 now, and when my husband and I were trying to have a baby, it took us six years and massive fertility treatments to have her. We ended with 10 rounds of IVF. And, you know, along the way, I had, I think I did four or five IUI cycles, which is the turkey baster thing, and with that, I had an ectopic Press. Pregnancy, I had four or five miscarriages. I had endless tests and procedures along the way. It was just a lot, a lot and and the stress and everything. So at some point, I think it was four years into the six years of the whole experience where we had done a bunch of IVF cycles, and my my husband had asked my fertility doctor, okay, what are you going to do differently this time? You know, it was kind of like He did everything that he knew to do. And we, we really tried everything, even within the IVF, it was just different ways of culturing the embryos and figuring different ways of having success. And sometimes we were successful, sometimes we weren't. It was just, it was a lot. So basically, my fertility doctor said that there really wasn't anything new for him to try, and he would go and consult with the research and see what else he could do. And my husband said, Well, screw that, you know, let's go to the doctor who's doing the research. So we ended up leaving the fertility place that we started at, and we went to Cornell in New York City, and went to the very famous fertility doctor who did all the research. And my first visit with him, I was told, don't speak until spoken to. And that was a three hour visit of him just transcribing my old file and chart into his own handwriting and notes and all of that. And after three hours, he examined me and basically said, I think I can do it. So at some point early on, once we were with him, I ran into some liver issues, and my sedimentation rate was elevated, which is an indicator of inflammation in the body, and they weren't able to start another IVF cycle until we got to the bottom of that, it turned out that my liver numbers were highly elevated, and so now I had to go down the rabbit hole of figuring out what was causing my liver issues? Turned out that my internist had put me on a blood pressure medicine at the start of all the fertility stuff, all the stress was elevating my blood pressure, and he put me on a an old blood pressure medicine that was textbook to be safe with pregnancy, and somewhere along the line, my liver enzyme started to climb rapidly. And so now I was on this wild goose chase, going from GI doctor to GI doctor, trying to figure out what was going on. I ended up with the chief of hepatology at a local hospital near me, and within seconds, he looked at my chart, and he identified that the blood pressure medicine that my internist had me on was the cause of my liver numbers going up so high. And he said it's textbook to trigger autoimmune hepatitis, which is when your immune system attacks your liver. So now I went back to the fertility doctor and told him what was discovered, and he said to me that he wanted me to go to his personal GI doctor who was also at Cornell at the time, and he really wanted that doctor to do a whole workup and be on board, so that once we started another IVF cycle, if I ran into some kind of problems or challenges that needed intervention, this doctor would be able to jump in at a moment's notice and and do what needed to be done. So we started with this GI doctor, and out of the gate he he asked me to put together a drug diary of every drug I've ever taken for as far back as I can go who prescribed it, what the dates were, what the dosages were, what the medications were. I mean, it was like, Who has that information I do. So I set up this incredible Excel document, and I called CVS, and I had all the receipts, and I had everything going back years and years, and I was able to put this drug diary together. And I think that solidified my relationship with this doctor from from the get go, he was very impressed, but, you know, it was very important for him to be able to see the. What my history was. So he prescribed some additional blood work. He wanted to see what my immunity was like and things like that, and and we were definitely off to a great start. We were partners in my care. You know, I did anything that he asked me to do and keep track of or whatever. We followed my my blood work numbers very closely to make sure that my numbers were coming down. And it was kind of scary at one point because they were very high. And he said, Look, if they go any higher, I'm going to have to put you on prednisone. And I really don't want to do that if you're trying to get pregnant. You so I got very lucky in that this doctor was not rushing to put me on prednisone, and we waited it out until my number started to come down, and then once it was in a safe area for us to start another IVF cycle. Then we started, and thank God I didn't have to go on prednisone at all, even at the worst. And the height of my numbers, however, I did have to go for, I think it was three or four liver biopsies over time, which was like horrendous. I don't know if anybody out there has ever had a liver biopsy, but I don't wish it on my worst enemy, the first one that I had, I you know, they did it under guided sonograms. So I'm watching the screen, and it looked like olive loaf, you know, the deli meat. And I just couldn't believe that that's what my liver looked like but there were so many lesions and so many I didn't even know what I was looking at, but it just it didn't look good at all. And so when you have a liver biopsy, I think there are four needles. The first three are anesthetic, and they go, each one goes a little bit deeper to numb the area, and then the fourth needle goes all the way into your liver, and it sounds like a stapler, and they had to take samples of the lesions that they saw and biopsy them. So it was a really horrific experience. I was never good with needles. I mean, the fact that I did 10 rounds of IVF, ultimately, was just mind blowing to me. I never did one shot myself. My husband did most of them. I had friends do some. I had family do some, and in strange and funny places, but I never did one shot out of 10 rounds anyway, so my liver biopsies came back with stage four cirrhosis, which meant that there were so much scarring on my liver from this blood pressure medicine that you know it was, it was bad enough that I could have needed a liver transplant. And thankfully, I didn't, but that's how badly scarred it was. And at that point, this is where I truly fell in love with my liver doctor, because I remember after that liver biopsy, and I was waiting for the results, and he texted me from his Blackberry. That's how long ago. This was on a Saturday from Germany. In great detail. He explained everything, the results, what it meant, what the implications were. I mean, he explained everything to me from every which way, and I was crying at the end, not because of what he was saying, but because he completely restored my faith in doctors. After that, I just the amount of attention and thought and care and I just I was blown away by what rate doctor this was, and I hadn't experienced that in so many years anyway. So this doctor had said to me, even though I followed up with other liver biopsies along the way, to make sure that things were calming down and resolving somewhat, you know, and to make sure that it was safe to continue with IVF, but at some point, he said to me that I'll never be stage one again. There was too much scarring on my liver, and I would likely be stage three. But in the best case scenario, maybe I would be stage two, and that was the best I'd be able to hope for. And this is a world renowned liver doctor. He actually ended up finding the cure for, I think, hepatitis C. Very brilliant doctor, very accomplished. I mean, I was with the best of the best, so I trusted everything he said. So knowing that I could never expect stage one again. You know, I was relieved when I was stage three. I was thrilled when. I would be stage two, but sometimes I would vacillate between stage two and stage three, but I knew I would never be one, and I likely, hopefully, would never be stage four again. So somewhere between two and three was where I resigned myself to be. Very. Long story short, I went to see this doctor for a checkup several months ago, and I got the news of a lifetime. Apparently I am now officially in stage one. And you know, I had prayed ahead of time. I had had a long talk with God about it and and how nervous I was. And you know that I just, I kept praying for a good report, and I got it, and it was, I cried in the office, for sure, this has been my daughter's 15. So, you know, this has been going on for 1617, years, and to get this news was just that, it's just, there's no way this could have happened without God's intervention. And then the last example I want to share, I've been having issues with my female reproductive sister. You know, I've had surgery to remove eight uterine fibroids before we started IVF. I know that fibroids tend to grow back, but for the sake of doing IVF, I had the surgery, and I have them all removed, not because it would interfere with IVF, but I think just the space they took up in my uterus we needed to remove it, it kind of decreased the chances from 45% success rate to like 20% so I mean, it was kind of like a no brainer that I would have the surgery and have it removed and increase my chances the best that I could. I was also prone to ovarian cysts. So I was always watching fibroids coming back and ovarian cysts. And you know, at one point I thought I might have to have surgery to take out my ovaries. But, you know, I was not rushing to do that. And lo and behold, the cysts would dissolve on their own, and then they would come back again. And then, you know, like that was just the cycle of what they did. So I was always going for sonograms to measure them when they came back and make sure they didn't get too big. And you know, it was always something to watch and monitor. But I, you know, ever since starting that, I it's always been fine, and I didn't go for surgery and I didn't need to, and it's always been okay, I would say, in the last couple of years though, my OB, GYN, found that the uterine lining was getting a little bit thicker, and he took a couple of biopsies of that, just to make sure that it wasn't anything to worry about. Those aren't fun, either, in case anyone's wondering, very painful. But as it turned out, all of those biopsies came back fine anyway. So you know it was all good. My last exam, though, I alerted my OB GYN that I, you know, I'm almost 56 and I feel like I'm having PMS symptoms. So I alerted him to that, and he sent me immediately for another ultrasound, and wanted to measure the thickness of my uterine lining to make sure that it wasn't, you know, pre cancerous, or anything like that. And again, you know, I prayed to God and and had another conversation about this and and praying that everything would be okay, and all of that. And I read that that the doctors don't get nervous until the uterine lining is about 1010, centimeters thick, centimeters or millimeters, I forget, but anyway, so this time it was only three, and so there was nothing to worry about. He told me that it's normal that I would experience PMS symptoms at my age, but it's not very common. So that's just to say that he has some patients who experience that, and it's normal. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just not very common. So I accepted that, and that was fine, you know. So my whole long winded explanation of all of these things are really just to say that there is no way that there was a coincidence in my mind that between my not needing cataract surgery my liver status going from stage four through to stage one and then. And my uterine lining being normal and okay and not anything to worry about. There was no coincidence there for me. I mean, for me, it was, it was proven to me. It was just beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was involved in this. And I'm so grateful. I've always been grateful. I've always been humbled. I've just I just feel like he's looking out for me and and my connection to him is so strong and so loyal that I truly believe that when you seek God and when you have a relationship and a direct connection to him, these are some of the blessings that you get from that. And my faith is so strong, my trust in Him is so strong, and I don't take it for granted, not one bit. But I just wanted to share it's not just, you know, it's not just after going through a horrific divorce and and needing help and guidance, and, you know, saving it's more than just that. It's your whole life, it's relationships, it's health, it's it's success and and abundance in your career and friendships and family and in every aspect of your life. I mean, I don't do anything without consulting with God first, and these types of experiences have led me to this relationship with him. I even remember when I got the COVID shot and I was vehemently against taking it. I was and this is such a long story, which I've discussed in a previous episode, I did not want to take the shot, and I did not want to give it to my daughter, but due to legal issues in my divorce, I was forced to. But I remember when I was getting the shot for both doses of it, and as it was going into my arm, and I felt the liquid, you know, going into my body. I felt it traveling sort of like behind my shoulder and up towards my neck, and it was a weird, uncomfortable, freaky kind of feeling, and I was terrified that there would be some kind of brain implication or something. I just, I didn't want it in my body, but now that I had to take it, it was just I was terrified that there would be some major reaction from it. And for both doses, before I went to go get them, I spent, I don't know, a half hour, 45 minutes, praying to God and really talking about my fear about this and how I surrendered all of it to him, and I laid all of my burdens about it to him, and I just let it go. So after each dose of feeling this sensation. I waited, I waited patiently to see if I would have any, like, real reactions, you know, in the short term and the long term. And I had none. I mean, that's, that's gotta, you know, count for something. I just it was not an accident. It was not a coincidence. And I was convinced every time that he intervened on my behalf, there's something about accepting God into your heart, into your life, into your soul and and just connecting on an intimate, intimate level, and I just keep seeing the fruits of that relationship evolving. I know I've said in previous episodes I've spent two and a half years well now it's probably closer to three years in all this time that I embarked on a very intense spiritual healing journey since my divorce started, and it's all connected. It's all related. And, you know, I've cut out so many toxic people out of my life, and I've spent so much time in solitude, really just focusing on healing and self love and self care and rediscovering myself and doing all of my inner work and and connecting with my inner child and healing traumas and wounds and childhood and all this stuff. I mean, it's been so intense and so needed. And who I am now is just I'm at the precipice of of something amazing coming, and I owe it all to him, whatever it is and and I will receive and accept and embrace everything he's got coming to me because he saw how loyal and faithful I was to him, and I go to him before I make any decisions. And it just worked. Works. It just works. And I don't fear anything anymore. It's just life has become free and easy and happy and peaceful, and I just I don't fret if there's something that I feel I'm getting nervous about or anxious about, or fearful about, I immediately turn it over to him. I surrender it all, and it always works out somehow, some way, he makes a way for me, and I'm so grateful. So anyway, I wanted to share all this with you guys and just let you know that you know God is there for everyone. We just have to seek him. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you in the next episode. Please join me every Thursday for a new episode. You can reach my website@podpage.com slash the music of life. Feel free to leave your email address. You can also leave a voicemail and share any kinds of stories or experiences or anything that you'd like to talk about. I promise I will keep you anonymous, but I assure you that whatever experiences or stories you leave for me, you are not alone, and I would love to share that with other people who are also going through similar things. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you in the next episode. You