I've made a clear decision. Healing for me is not based on what tomorrow will be like. Nor is it based on how I was yesterday. It's about today and now. Today I feel amazing! My body feels a bazillion times more "healed" than yesterday or the day before. But I don't want to compare it. I just want to celebrate TODAY, because today is a gift.
I'm at a crossroads. I'm in the middle of this journey which is quite arguably the HARDEST part. My dear friend Anne reminded me that the Israelites were at this very spot in the Jordan River (are you as thankful as I am for friends who are inspired to say the right thing at the right time?!) The Israelites started to collect stones when they reached the middle of the river. At this point in their grueling journey, they wondered how they could ever cross and make it to the promised land God had commanded to them.
Joshua gathered a representative from each of the twelve tribes to collect twelve stones (one each.) God made a way for His people to cross raging waters. He opened it up for them to walk on dry ground. And then after they crossed, He set it flowing again. They could look back both literally and figuratively on what God had done! He made the impossible possible.
Joshua 4:21-24
Then Joshua said to the Israelites, "In the future your children will ask, 'What do these stones mean?' Then you can tell them, 'This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.' For the LORD your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and He kept it dry until you were all across, just as He did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over. He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the LORDS hand is powerful, and so you might fear the LORD your God forever."
God makes a way. I'm asking Him to show me my stones because I want to collect them to have the most honoring and worthy sacrifice ready to give Him for His incredible goodness and faithfulness. What a story I will have to share when my children and my children's children ask what these "stones" mean!
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Living
Im living. I'm still having my fair share of "am I really living this Lyme disease nightmare?" moments. But I'm also choosing to live. Sometimes it's a success and sometimes it's a failure and I have a breakdown.
I've been meditating on the song "Rewrite This Tragedy" by Sara Groves. I can't find a video link for it, but its worth a listen.
I'm continuing to lose about 2 lbs a week which I'm very frustrated about. It's not healthy weight loss. Meal planning stresses me out because I'm limited on what I can eat. I'm just doing what I can and trying so hard to stay positive! I'm showing improvement on my anti malarial med that's treating my babesia. My balance has significantly improved just after 4 weeks on that. I hate taking drugs but its working. I'm sticking with it. By month six (I'm just past the two month treatment mark) I'll be off ALL antibiotics and on a strict herbal and supplement protocol. I'm already excited for that 6 month mark!!
Parenting is really wonderful AND really hard. It's extra hard with a chronic illness.. But as my friend reminds me (young mother of 2) who is fighting a brain tumor: "I have not lost my praaaaaise!!" I seriously had to make a Brooklyn tabernacle choir pandora station. Sometimes you just need the gospel music. It takes me to a place of praise.
Casey is turning into such a little boy (no longer baby!!) He's saying a lot of words...beesh (beach), doggie, up, MOM!!!, night-night, and counts 1,2,3. He can make so many animal sounds and loves to read. He loves this book we read in Hawaiian. Cracks me up. Our little island boy. :-) And in case you wondered, I'm absolutely positive I butcher the Hawaiian language when I attempt to speak it.
He's into EVERYTHING. Notice the emphasis. Not an exaggeration. Promise. He also eats none stop. I can hardly keep up!
We just got back from a week on Kauai with the Meredith family. My favorite
island by far! But I hated the wild roosters. Obnoxious. Even still, it's the most exotic and beautiful place. I just stood amazed at Gods creation.
Here are some pictures from our adventure!
I've been meditating on the song "Rewrite This Tragedy" by Sara Groves. I can't find a video link for it, but its worth a listen.
I'm continuing to lose about 2 lbs a week which I'm very frustrated about. It's not healthy weight loss. Meal planning stresses me out because I'm limited on what I can eat. I'm just doing what I can and trying so hard to stay positive! I'm showing improvement on my anti malarial med that's treating my babesia. My balance has significantly improved just after 4 weeks on that. I hate taking drugs but its working. I'm sticking with it. By month six (I'm just past the two month treatment mark) I'll be off ALL antibiotics and on a strict herbal and supplement protocol. I'm already excited for that 6 month mark!!
Parenting is really wonderful AND really hard. It's extra hard with a chronic illness.. But as my friend reminds me (young mother of 2) who is fighting a brain tumor: "I have not lost my praaaaaise!!" I seriously had to make a Brooklyn tabernacle choir pandora station. Sometimes you just need the gospel music. It takes me to a place of praise.
Casey is turning into such a little boy (no longer baby!!) He's saying a lot of words...beesh (beach), doggie, up, MOM!!!, night-night, and counts 1,2,3. He can make so many animal sounds and loves to read. He loves this book we read in Hawaiian. Cracks me up. Our little island boy. :-) And in case you wondered, I'm absolutely positive I butcher the Hawaiian language when I attempt to speak it.
He's into EVERYTHING. Notice the emphasis. Not an exaggeration. Promise. He also eats none stop. I can hardly keep up!
We just got back from a week on Kauai with the Meredith family. My favorite
island by far! But I hated the wild roosters. Obnoxious. Even still, it's the most exotic and beautiful place. I just stood amazed at Gods creation.
Here are some pictures from our adventure!
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
I wish I had something interesting to say
.....but I don't have much! I just felt the need to blog. I've been journaling a lot lately which is something I haven't ever done until recently. For me, it's important to document my feelings, experiences and thoughts as I move through this new way of life being my "new normal." It's been amazing to pour my heart out to God privately. I know I'll treasure these writings years down the road.
I had an interesting thing happen to me this week. I know this might sound weird (considering that I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in February) but I JUST - like....JUST let it sink in. I actually wrote in my journal that I'm allowing the presence of Jesus to wash over me as I accept that I have Lyme Disease - and something I'll have to manage for the rest of my life. I had more testing done, which my doctor initially found thorough and helpful, but - bless him - now he's thinking we really didn't even need to do it because guess what (?!) it all came back positive again. Duh. In fact, my western blot test started showing more Lyme specific positive bands thanks to treatment drawing out those awful antibodies. Gosh, I know so many people (you know, my millions of blog readers because I'm a super interesting writer, ha ha ha) probably have no idea what this even means, but I'm blogging about it anyway. It just makes me feel better, ok? For pete's sake, I tested positive on an ELISA screening. I was told by one of the leading researchers in Lyme Disease that this is so incredibly rare because typically people get a negative on that screening (with a high likelihood of it being a false negative.) So if you see me, just smack me on the head, alright? Wait, don't do that. Hug me instead. Or tell me that you love me and that I'm gonna be OK.
I'm SCARED. Eeek. I put that in all caps. It's true. I'm scared about the future even though I know who holds it. I need patience. I think God gave me Aaron because (as I've said a million times in this blog before) he has the patience of a saint. Seriously. It astounds me. But even he's been struggling. This is hard. We want a quick fix. We want a cure. We want to know how I'll be one month, 2 years, 10 years from now. But we don't know. I will say this though, I had three really good days in a row this week. YAY! And my cardiologist (yep, got a new one of those thanks to my sick, skippy/palpitating heart) has told me I must exercise to block the over-production of this stress hormone my brain is telling my body to produce because of chronic Lyme. Apparently that's what's messing up my heart. Good to know! So, I actually went on a run yesterday with Aaron. It was pretty short, and slow....aaaaand rough, but I did it. My cool marathon-running cardiologist told me that exercise does the same thing beta blockers do to regulate a person's heart. Who knew? And he told me I need to be signed up for a triathlon by next year. Ohhhhh, my very optimistic cardiologist, you are one funny man! But hey, anything can happen.
We want more children. Really, we desperately want more children (and Aaron would appreciate a little more, um, practicing - as would I.) Thank you very much, FATIGUE! It's not that we can't physically have more children, but who knows? Maybe we can or maybe we can't? We have no reason to think that would be true but only God knows. We got pregnant with Casey like BAM fast. We thought for a second about having a baby and I was pregnant. My Lyme doctor said that when the time is right, he encourages us to grow our family. I'll have to take medicine to keep the bacteria from crossing the placenta. And speaking of, if you're wondering about Casey being at risk, I need to save that for another blog post. But in short, it's not something we're losing sleep over at this moment. And hopefully never will.
I've never shared this before, but I had a miscarriage in September of last year. It was super early. So early that we only got excited for two days. But it still sucked. Gosh, it feels good just sharing that here. I know so many women have had miscarriages. And I've wondered from time to time how different things would be right now if I were pregnant (and due in May.) Would I have found out about the Lyme? Would I be worse? I certainly couldn't have started treatment since all the stuff I'm currently on would be absolutely incompatible with pregnancy.
Life is hard and messy sometimes. But God uses messy people so I'm excited. Is that strange? What can I DO for YOU, God? Use messy 'ol me. I'm still here for a reason, walkin' around all Lyme-infested (ew.)
Please use this to your glory.
I had an interesting thing happen to me this week. I know this might sound weird (considering that I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in February) but I JUST - like....JUST let it sink in. I actually wrote in my journal that I'm allowing the presence of Jesus to wash over me as I accept that I have Lyme Disease - and something I'll have to manage for the rest of my life. I had more testing done, which my doctor initially found thorough and helpful, but - bless him - now he's thinking we really didn't even need to do it because guess what (?!) it all came back positive again. Duh. In fact, my western blot test started showing more Lyme specific positive bands thanks to treatment drawing out those awful antibodies. Gosh, I know so many people (you know, my millions of blog readers because I'm a super interesting writer, ha ha ha) probably have no idea what this even means, but I'm blogging about it anyway. It just makes me feel better, ok? For pete's sake, I tested positive on an ELISA screening. I was told by one of the leading researchers in Lyme Disease that this is so incredibly rare because typically people get a negative on that screening (with a high likelihood of it being a false negative.) So if you see me, just smack me on the head, alright? Wait, don't do that. Hug me instead. Or tell me that you love me and that I'm gonna be OK.
I'm SCARED. Eeek. I put that in all caps. It's true. I'm scared about the future even though I know who holds it. I need patience. I think God gave me Aaron because (as I've said a million times in this blog before) he has the patience of a saint. Seriously. It astounds me. But even he's been struggling. This is hard. We want a quick fix. We want a cure. We want to know how I'll be one month, 2 years, 10 years from now. But we don't know. I will say this though, I had three really good days in a row this week. YAY! And my cardiologist (yep, got a new one of those thanks to my sick, skippy/palpitating heart) has told me I must exercise to block the over-production of this stress hormone my brain is telling my body to produce because of chronic Lyme. Apparently that's what's messing up my heart. Good to know! So, I actually went on a run yesterday with Aaron. It was pretty short, and slow....aaaaand rough, but I did it. My cool marathon-running cardiologist told me that exercise does the same thing beta blockers do to regulate a person's heart. Who knew? And he told me I need to be signed up for a triathlon by next year. Ohhhhh, my very optimistic cardiologist, you are one funny man! But hey, anything can happen.
We want more children. Really, we desperately want more children (and Aaron would appreciate a little more, um, practicing - as would I.) Thank you very much, FATIGUE! It's not that we can't physically have more children, but who knows? Maybe we can or maybe we can't? We have no reason to think that would be true but only God knows. We got pregnant with Casey like BAM fast. We thought for a second about having a baby and I was pregnant. My Lyme doctor said that when the time is right, he encourages us to grow our family. I'll have to take medicine to keep the bacteria from crossing the placenta. And speaking of, if you're wondering about Casey being at risk, I need to save that for another blog post. But in short, it's not something we're losing sleep over at this moment. And hopefully never will.
I've never shared this before, but I had a miscarriage in September of last year. It was super early. So early that we only got excited for two days. But it still sucked. Gosh, it feels good just sharing that here. I know so many women have had miscarriages. And I've wondered from time to time how different things would be right now if I were pregnant (and due in May.) Would I have found out about the Lyme? Would I be worse? I certainly couldn't have started treatment since all the stuff I'm currently on would be absolutely incompatible with pregnancy.
Life is hard and messy sometimes. But God uses messy people so I'm excited. Is that strange? What can I DO for YOU, God? Use messy 'ol me. I'm still here for a reason, walkin' around all Lyme-infested (ew.)
Please use this to your glory.
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