Seek and ye shall find...

I haven’t written in awhile, but for the first time it hasn’t been because I’ve been too busy having seizures. My sweet husband came up 2 weeks ago so that mom could go home for a week. Bless my mom’s heart but her week home that was supposed to be a “break from the stress” was stress in itself. My grandmother had a “mild heart attack” but at the age of 91 I just don’t think there is a “mild heart attack”. She was in the hospital almost the entire week. The night she was admitted one of my aunts passed out and had to be put in the bed next to my grandmother and be given IV fluids for 5 hours or so before being released. My other aunt came into town to help out and stayed with mom when she started not feeling so well and they checked her blood pressure and it was too high. So my mom took her to the ER and they administered some medication and she had to go back home to get a stress test & heart work up done with her doctor.

So, my sweet husband realized my sweet mother needed more time at home. He rearranged some things so that she could have until today (instead of last Monday) to come back. She was able to make sure my grandmother got back to her “assisted living facility” although for the next week or so they’ll have her in the real nursing home area to keep watch over her and make sure she gets the medication she needs. She’ll also be doing some therapy and hopefully will be back in her regular room very soon. I ask all of you to pray for my family as they have gone through so much in the past two weeks. I hate to have to depend on mom to come here and take care of me, but unfortunately I can’t take care of myself so it’s a necessity.

Now, good news for me so far is that the new antibiotic, Clindamycin, seems to be working well without giving me seizures. We had hoped that by killing off infections and changing antibiotics that my seizures wouldn’t be near as frequent and definitely not as severe. I can still expect a few as we continue to try and kill off the Babesia, but as long as they are every few weeks instead of a few every week then I think I’ll be able to handle that much better. Now, each antibiotic has its’ own side effects and none of them are great, but the Clindamycin is only causing frequent trips to the bathroom (trying to not give “too much info”) and it leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth. That’s one of the weird things about PICC lines I think, that whatever goes into your line you can taste in your mouth. Weird, I know, but true and it isn’t a horrible taste so I’m good if I have a cough drop to cover it up.

Outside of being worried for my extended family, I personally have had a couple of good weeks relatively speaking. I am able to get on the computer and not get an instant headache which allows me to feel so much more connected to friends and family. My noise and light sensitivity are definitely still with me, but they are nowhere near as severe as they had been. I still have to wear my headphones and I have trouble if more than 1 person is trying to speak to me, but before even with earplugs and headphones I felt like an ice pick was being driven through my head. The pain was excrutiating whether it was from light or the slightest sounds. I hated it for me but even more so for those around me who tried so hard to keep their voices low, their motions quiet, etc. When you are so very sensitive it is hard to understand yourself and even harder to explain to others how throwing something in a trash can sounds like a bomb going off in your head. So, while I’m still sensitive to all that, it isn’t driving me insane anymore, or at least not any more insane than I was before.

I’ve been talking with God. I’ve been thanking Him everyday for keeping me seizure free and for granting me this respite, even if for a short while. This antibiotic will build up in my system and it will be killing off things like the Doxy was so there’s no question that I will “herx” on it (Herxheimer reaction – just means symptoms get a lot worse or you have symptoms that you didn’t have before due to toxin build up in your blood). The question is, just how bad will this “herx” be? So far I have noticed the joint pain being worse and feeling more exhausted but I feel those are things I can handle because, for right now, and this is a “moment to moment” type thing during this process, I feel better than I did when I got here in June. I can take pain, in fact I even passed a kidney stone last week and still went to treatment, and I can handle upset stomach and body aches and pain. It’s just how much of those and in what combination can I handle them? Only time will tell.

I said I’ve been talking to God, and I have. However for now, He seems to be keeping quiet and I don’t hear Him as clearly. Maybe I don’t need to hear Him as clearly as I did when I was in such bad shape. Maybe He moves away at times just to have us go in search of Him – to continually seek Him. I always seem to feel distant from Him right before I go through a state of spiritual growth. He may be waiting for me to come to Him when that herx finally hits. He may be letting me enjoy just a couple of weeks of semi-normal life. He may just be smiling down on me, knowing that I give Him all the praise and glory for ANY and ALL improvements where my health is concerned and definitely where my state of mind is concerned. I will say that He used my oldest niece to communicate with me this week. I guess I had been in the “poor pitiful me” state for awhile (before the antibiotic change) and I had been wondering why God led me to start this blog, if anyone was reading it, if it was really helping anyone. Then my niece made me a video. When she sent it to me I really expected a video of her or her sister dancing or singing. I expected something funny to lift my spirits, but I got so much more. I got to see why God led me to write this blog. I got to see that if the only person that my words touch is my niece who started high school this fall, who is about to go through those difficult teen years, if all of this was only to touch her heart and lead her closer to God, well, I would not consider my pain and suffering to be for nothing. In fact, I would consider them to be a price well worth paying for the reward of seeing this beautiful, smart and talented young lady learn to cling to God in both the good and bad times.

I asked her if it would be okay if I shared this video with you all and she said yes. In fact, she refused to take credit for her when I told her how much it touched me. She told me “something” pulled at her when she read my last entry and that she “knew that something was God”. She said she couldn’t take credit for the words she wrote in the beginning or how it came to be because God lead her to make it. Now, my friends, that is when my heart truly overflowed with love for Him and love for her and the love of knowing she “hears Him” in her life already. Thank you God for always working in our lives , for doing what we need instead of what we always want. Thank you for this 2 week break from seizures and horrible headaches. Thank you for all you have done so far and all I know you will continue to do in my life I if I continue to pray for YOUR will to be done. Thank you, Lord, for every good thing on this earth and thank you for using my beautiful niece to make me feel like what I am doing here is important on levels that I cannot and will probably never comprehend. In fact, maybe He has allowed me to “find” something after all of the “seeking” I’ve been doing the past 7-8 months. He just gave it to me in a different format than I expected, but aren’t His ways always so much better than ours? Seek and ye shall find. I have found so much through this, a much closer relationship with God, a better understanding for what “real love” is about, a daily reminder of all the sacrifices my husband and family are willing to make in order to get me healthy. I’ve found more than I ever dreamed I would, and I feel there will always be more to find if I continue to seek Him.
Here’s the video. Oh, and my name isn’t Kate. There’s a long story to how I got to be called “Aunt Kate” since it isn’t even a shortened version of my real name, but I’ll spare you the long story & just say that’s what they call me and I love to hear them say it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gS3HyF30mI

Much love to you all and here's a few good scripture verses before I go:

“God has given us these times of joy.” Psalm 81:4 TLB

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV

“What a wonderful God we have – he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 TLB