Anger, Envy and Fear

Those are some hard feelings to have – anger, envy and fear. As Christians we are supposed to strive to push these thoughts and feelings from our hearts and minds. That’s such a difficult task isn’t it? It is much easier to point to others and see these things in other people. It hurts too much to see these feelings manifested in our own day to day lives. However, I believe that is one of the reasons it has taken me so long to tackle this entry. I believe God wanted me meditating on these thoughts deeply before I wrote something that might otherwise come out as merely hollow words. I believe God wants me to share my recent experiences and emotions openly and honestly and He wants me to do so in order for His lessons for me to hit home. I may write things that touch other people, but God really uses my writing to make me aware of what He wants me to learn. He always seems to reach me and teach me when I write.

Anger is something we must give over to God. It is such an ugly emotion and it will easily consume you, your thoughts and your life if you allow it. I’ve been angry about a lot of things. First thing is one that is easy to point to – a medical mix-up. Doctors, nurses, etc. are only human and therefore mistakes happen all the time. Unfortunately, this mistake was that he Heparin (my blood thinner medication) sent to me with my home health care supplies was only about 1/1,000th of the amount that I should have been getting. Another bad thing is that I was the one who had to catch the error. In my doctor’s and nurse’s defense my case is extremely difficult and I am on so many medications (IVs and orals) that it would have been a miracle had something not fallen through the cracks. I wish I had checked earlier but I ended up going for almost a month without any therapeutic levels of Heparin. I was having trouble thinking, was exhausted, felt faint, had a few seizures, couldn’t get on the computer, etc. Basically I was feeling close to how I felt before I even went to Kansas City. I knew I was feeling worse but did not know why and figured it was just the stress of handling all of the changes in handling my own IV care. When God led me to really look at the amount of Heparin I was getting versus the amount I had been getting, well, I was REALLY angry. I had basically been pushing IV antibiotics into my heart while my blood was getting thicker from the lack of Heparin. This was a big “ball to drop” and I was so very angry about it. It took days for me to calm down and I still have to ask God to take the anger from me daily. I wondered how I was supposed to keep an eye on every single thing when I’m the sick person and when I’m on so many drugs that alter the brain. I have been on the therapeutic levels of Heparin now for 4 days and can see a huge improvement in my symptoms and I thank God for making me double check the dosage amounts. But I’m also angry about the situation I am in because I have no idea of how long this will take or even what my own version of “healthy” will be. I am angry about how much I endure and how it seems to be never ending. I stop myself often and think about the countless others who have it so much worse than me and I wonder how on earth they handle their continuing battles. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “It is not so much the suffering as the senselessness of it that is unendurable.” That says a bit about how I feel, although I know deep down that the suffering I’m enduring is the fire that God is using to melt me into the person He plans for me to become. But, at times I do think the suffering would be durable if I knew when it would come to an end. God doesn’t give me a time table though.

Anger has been with me but so has envy. I’ve found myself so very envious of other people’s lives. Ah, yes, the old familiar pity party. Honestly though, I had to get off of facebook because I was so jealous reading about everyone else’s lives. Even the things they would post and/or complain about like having to be at the ballpark for 6 hours on a Saturday because they have 2 kids playing ball would make me mad. Reading complaints about having to go to the grocery store or having to clean house would cause me to get upset. I wasn’t upset because these people didn’t have the right to “complain” about their busy schedules or their chores or errands. I was upset because I would think, “I would give anything to have the strength to clean my house right now!” and of course that nagging feeling of, “I wish I had children and had to spend a Saturday at the ballpark watching them and feeling proud.” Envy does not suit me. It is an emotion I am supposed to push out of my mind yet I found it resurfacing time and time again. I know that being a mother is the most exhausting job in the world. I know that working mothers have it really hard because I cannot fathom having the energy to work or have children so I really cannot imagine how so many of my friends do both! I love the fact that my friends are busy with their families and their lives, but the envy I was feeling made being stuck in this bed that much harder. God has been working in me and convincing me to give up those feelings along with the anger. Envy and anger go hand in hand. When you’re envious you end up being angry about everything you don’t have that others do have. I was envying other people’s lives and questioning why I was stuck in this one. I know everyone has their own burdens but I was in a selfish mode and wondered why it seemed some things came so easily for others while I couldn’t even start a family. I was angry about the IV pole sitting by my bed and the oxygen mask around my face. I was getting impatient with all of this and I was angry with God about it. I told Him how I felt and He started to work on me then wrenching away all those unwanted emotions from my mind. He’s still working and I’m still praying that those negative feelings of anger and envy find no place to live in me.

Finally there’s the fear that goes with all of this. Fear is honestly the root cause of most all other emotions. Anger is just simply fear with an attitude. It’s a way to cover up the weakness you feel when fear resides in your mind. No one wants to feel weak and people tend to see fear as a weakness so they turn it into anger. Envy is simply the fear that you don’t measure up, or that you are scared you’ll never get the true desires of your heart – in my case that would be being healthy and having children. Fear is always at the heart of anger and envy. So, in order to get rid of those two you have to figure out what your real fear is and face it head on. My fears seem to range from something as simple as fear of having another seizure to bigger fears like will I ever have a healthy life and if so, WHEN? Fear is like a cancerous tumor that can grow so fast if you don’t actively remove it from your mind and heart. Fear is the devil’s most used tool I believe. How much does he love to make us question, doubt and become fearful? Those fears often lead to our doubting God, or at least that’s where they lead me. I get angry and I start to doubt that God is going to do great things in my life or I doubt God’s will for my life. I sometimes just wonder what God’s plan for life is and get worried that it’s far from the life I had pictured for myself.

I’m working on all of these things and I pray that God continues to shine a light on what I should be focusing and turns my mind to those things when my mind really wants to throw a pity party. Jurgen Moltmann wrote, “God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with Him.” I know God counts my every tear and disappointment. He knows what I’m feeling and thinking long before I myself am consciously aware of those things. He is not taking me through this journey without a reason. He is working on me and I have to force myself everyday to become more like clay in His hands than a stone that refuses to bend.

Finally, I think a lot of these unwanted negative feelings have come from being home and missing out of being able to socialize at all. In Kansas City I did have my sweet treatment friends and my sweet nurses who were my social outlet. For now I am stuck in this house and due to the seizures I can’t have visitors. So there’s that solitude again. I know God’s plan for my life is far better than the one I had planned out for myself – it’s just a different journey with an emphasis on different things. Mine is not the “normal life” I wanted. For now it is the difficult life I currently live. But I know one day I will look back on this time and see it as what ultimately defined my life. I have no assurances that I will have an easy life on this earth. God does not promise us an easy life here but He does promise to be with us every step of the way. L. B. Cowman wrote, “Do not be afraid to enter the cloud that is settling down on your life. God is in it. The other side is radiant with His glory.” Again, no fear…with God I need not fear anything because He is always with me.

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10 (KJV)

I thought I would share the following because it spoke so much to me when I read it in one of my devotional books:

“Trust Him when dark doubts assail thee
Trust Him when they strength is so small,
Trust Him when to simply trust Him
Seems the hardest thing of all.

Trust Him, He is ever faithful;
Trust Him, for His will is best;
Trust Him, for the heart of Jesus,
Is the only place of rest.”

Finally, I’ll end with this wonderful verse:

“And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.” Isaiah 25:8 (KJV)

He’s already wiping some of mine. Much love to all of you!
K

Just a medical update

God's been working in my brain to write a new blog entry but it just isn't ready yet. I'm still listening to Him for whatever message He wants me to convey. However, for those who have been wondering how I've been doing I thought I'd just give a medical update. I have also taken a "computer break" from facebook, the blog, etc. hoping it would help keep the seizures at bay. So, I know I have quite a few friends and family who are wondering how I've been. So, here's an update for you.

First, the IV treatments at home are better as far as having more control over my environment so it's quieter. However, they are still IV treatments and therefore, they are still so hard on me physically and mentally. I'm still running fever everyday starting out with a temperature of around 97 when I first wake up and after 2 hours of cold fluid being pumped through my veins it still goes up to 99 degrees by 11:00 a.m. It continues to go up even during my afternoon treatments. I'm usually about 101 degrees by 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. and it's not going below 100 degrees until after 11:00 p.m. or so.

The fevers make my sound sensitivity much worse and so I have had a few seizures since I've been home. The last was yesterday when a guy from the company who handles my oxygen machine came by. Right now I'm having to use a machine that basically takes the surrounding air in and somehow makes that air more oxygen concentrated. It's a help, but it doesn't hold a candle to the liquid oxygen machine I had in Kansas City. We have a prescription for liquid oxygen but my oxygen levels haven't been able to be monitored during a seizure. I have levels showing I go into the low 90s during sleep when my brain tells me to quit breathing, but no one seems to understand that the seizures I have are due to a lack of oxygen to my brain. The company is trying their best to get the liquid oxygen machine to me, but the FDA regulates those like they were some type of weapon! Anyway, they guy was there to deliver a monitor that would record my oxygen levels while I sleep. We explained the situation and he was intrested to know that we weren't trying to get liquid oxygen for my sleep, but for seizures. He said he would look into everything and try to see what he could do to help.

Bad thing was that when he arrived M & I were not expecting anyone and the doorbell rang at 3:30 (during my afternoon treatment which is my worst time of day). Of course my little toy poodle had to sound off his barking alarm and it was hard for me to handle. After the initial shock I thought I could still talk to the guy to explain all of the issues. As I was telling him how it was impossible for me to predict when a seizure was coming and that even if I could there was no way I could keep a pulse oxymeter on during a seizure since they are little gadgets that go on your fingertip and measure oxygen levels. When you are having a grand mal seizure it's impossible to keep something on your fingertip.

What happened next is what my husband thinks may have been "a God thing" because while the guy was telling us that he would do all he could to help us get the liquid oxygen, I ended up looking at M and stuttering, "Aaattttivan" because I knew I was about to seize. I fell off the couch and M came running with the Ativan that melts in my mouth. All of this, the whole grand mal seizure, took place right in front of this poor guy from the oxygen company. M figures maybe God allowed me to seize right then because when someone sees it happen they are much more likely to advocate me getting the liquid oxygen. We'll see what happens. For now I am wearing a figertip pulse oxymeter (taped to my finger) while I sleep for 2 nights to see what happens with my oxygen. The two night study requires me to sleep without the concentrated oxygen machine which means little to no sleep for me. That isn't good since I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 12:30 and don't want to have a seizure from going out in public and lack of sleep can definitely increase the chance of me seizing. M and I decided I would skip treatment this afternoon and that tomorrow morning just do a bag of fluids with no antibiotics to try and help me handle the whole ordeal of going to the doctor's office.

All in all I am very glad to be home but it does hurt my heart not to be able to see anyone. I just cannot risk the chance of seizing. Today my body is killing me from all the jerking, falling on the floor, hitting my hand on the hardwood floors, etc. Please pray that we will somehow get that liquid oxygen machine soon because I need it desperately. There is such a huge difference in how I feel on liquid oxygen compared to this machine. Also pray that I do not end up having a seizure from all the stress of getting to and seeing the doctor tomorrow. I know God never gives me more than I can handle and I've been able to handle all of this with His help. I know God will always go before me and make a way for me to follow the path He guides me down. But, I also know that God wants us to pray for one another and that He hears all of our prayers. So, I ask that you pray about my situation. I ask that you pray for M too as he has been through so much already and needs to be able to work from home without having to come upstairs and check on me (or call me on my cell phone from downstairs to check - haha). We do need prayers. We are out of K.C. and that is an answer to prayer, but we are far from being "out of the woods" so to speak.

I appreciate and love each and every one of you who take the time to read this and who are always praying for me as I continue down this difficult road to wellness.

Oh - again my daily calendar seems to give me passages that fit for each day! When we were praying about what to do about getting the liquid oxygen last week I read that day's verse:

"O Lord, there is no difference for you between helping the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you." 2 Chronicles 14:11 (NRSV)

Then yesterday when I had the seizure the verse was:

"He knows the ways that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come out like gold." Job 23:10 (NRSV) - I find the book of Job, the whole story of Job, to be quite comforting as I go through all of this.

And tomorrow's verse as I try my best to handle making it to the doctor's office is:

"Without God it is utterly impossible. But with God everything is possible." Mark 10:27 (TLB)

Much love -
K

Solitude and Serenity

In my last post I groaned and complained a lot. I guess I wanted to come home and see that being away from the stress of the clinic, being in my own house, would allow me to stop seizing. I wanted to be able to see people and visit with friends and family. But the truth is that I simply cannot do that. It's hard to explain this to people and for them to understand. If I wasn't living it I wouldn't understand it either.

I was complaining a lot about feeling so isolated and alone. I still miss my treatment friends and my nurses. That was where I could socialize a little at least. However, I can't do it here. The stress of treatments and the treatments themselves make everything difficult. I get frustrated with things and my brain gets overwhelmed so easily. Tuesday was extremely stressful as the nurse came to attend to my PICC line dressing and to draw my blood. For some reason my body goes through a lot of stress on blood draw days. Also, this was a different nurse so I was worried about meeting another new person. By that night I had a meltdown and was about to go into a seizure. M got me an Ativan to melt in my mouth and the tremors subsided. But it made me feel so very alone. The idea that I cannot handle the stress of seemingly easy things upsets me. Then yesterday I got excited about a delivery - it was a ring that my parents and my sister and her family got me for my birthday. I got it while I was in Kansas City, but it was the wrong size so I had to send it back and wait on the new size to come. I was so happy to get it yesterday. Then there were a couple of deliveries pertaining to M's business and my little poodle had to bark to let us know someone was coming to the door. When I don't expect his bark it really startles me. By the time treatment started my temp was 100.8 and I was a wreck. Then M knocked over a picture frame and the noise of it hitting the hardwoods was like the straw on the camel's back. Again, with the help of Ativan I only had a "partial seizure". I told M through my tears that this was "no life" - it's living in total isolation while wanting so badly to see people. Just being happy and excited makes me seize and I questioned what kind of life that was. It upset me to realize that I can't even get happy or excited anymore because I can seize. Even happy things or happy times can be stressors and trigger the seizures.

I was mad. I was upset. I was thankful to be home, but wondered why God would give me in the instruction to go home when I couldn't do anything I wanted to do. I knew I needed to focus on something spiritual to get rid of that anger. I got my book "100 Days In The Secret Place" and randomly opened it to a page. I've quoted from that book before, but God laid it on my heart to just open it and He led me to read about how this isolation can be so very positive. I will share a large part of what I read that touched my heart so much:

"There are two ways for the soul to be cleansed. The first is through affliction, anguish, distress and inward torment. The second is through the fire of a burning love, a love impatient and hungry. It is true that sometimes the Lord uses both of these ways to deal with our souls. All revelation and insight into God, all true experiential knowledge of God, arises from suffering, which is the truest proof of love.

Oh, how I hope and wish for you that you can understand the great good that comes from tribulation. Tribulation cleanses the soul. The cleansing of the soul through tribulation is what produces patience.

Within tribulation can come inflamed prayer. In the midst of tribulation we can exercise the most sublime acts of love and charity. To rejoice in the midst of tribulation brings us near to God. It is tribulation that annihilates and refines. It is that which takes the earthen and transforms it to the heavenly. Out of the human it brings for the divine...transforming one and bringing it to the other, uniting them with the Lord.....

(Cont.) There are two kinds of solitude. There is an outward solitude when one simply does not speak, or speaks little. There is also an inner solitude. Inner solitude means forgetting about everything around you, being detached from it, surrendering all purpose and desire and thought and will, and then coming before the Lord. This is true solitude. You will find it to be a sweet rest and an inward serenity...found in the arms of your Lord. For that believer who is able to stay in such a place before his Lord there will be a great number of discoveries.

For the believer who comes this far there is the discovery that the Lord converses and communicates with the believer in his inward parts. It is in that place the Lord fills the believer with Himself...but fills him only because that person is empty; He clothes him with light and with love because he is naked, lifts him up because he is lowly, and unites him with God and transforms him, because he is alone.

I see this solitude with God as a figure of eternal bliss - a picture of that further time when the eternal Father will be forever beheld." - Michael Molinos written in the 1600s.

So I thought about this isolation and realized that it is a time of solitude and that God planned it that way. When I try to do what I WANT TO DO, He has a way of literally shaking me right out of it and putting me back to solitude. He is working on me so much - and I have a lot to work on, believe me. However, reading that and realizing that most people never get this kind of solitude made me realize how much God is trying to reach me. I trust He has plans for my life that include wonderful things but I'm in a temporary fire. I am being melted down and reformed into what He wants me to be before He sends me to the next part of my life. I read so much more from that book and at times would read and then lay the book on my chest and just rest in God's presence. I would close my eyes and thank God for the prayers He has answered for me. I realized how "human" I've become with my pity party about not being able to see people. That is a temporary thing. I will get back to a normal life later but even then I will have to continue to turn towards God every day and instead of being the "old me", I will be whatever God has in mind for me to become. So, yes, I'm wearing an oxygen mask all the time, and yes I am still dealing with hard IV treatments, and yes I get frustrated with how slow my progress is. Those are natural human emotions. However, they are not what God wants me to feel. He wants me to see the many improvements He has given me and the many, many prayers He has answered. He wants me to focus on my daily life - not worry about tomorrow - just focus on Him every day so that I give my burdens over to Him daily. He has let me know this is temporary, but He also lets me know that temporary doesn't mean my understanding of that word - it means HIS understanding of that word - HIS understanding of time - and I know that HIS timing is always perfect.

I know this was a long one. But, I felt that others might read those same passages I read and feel a peace resting in their soul. I know it changed my outlook a lot. God is always present. He is always near. We only have to turn inward, seek Him in the Holy Spirit He granted us with, and be silent. Solitude and serenity actually go hand in hand. I will be very happy when I get to visit with friends and family, but for now I will seek the serenity of solitude and see how I can learn in this time how to be more loving and more patient and seek God's will for me. Instead of complaining about what I can't do, I will turn to God and see all that He CAN do. He can do so much if we only give control of our lives to Him. It's a hard thing to do, I'm still working on it and will probably continue to work on it daily until my last days because it is so different from what our human brains want to do. I pray that God teaches me many things through this solitude and that I accept the serenity that comes from merely being alone with God, soaking in His divine love.

Yesterday and today my daily calendar once again has good verses that go along with what God is telling me. Yesterday's verse:

"God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26 (NIV)

Today's verse:

"Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

Much love-
K

New routines

I haven't forgotten to write in this blog. I've simply been too overwhelmed with all of the changes going on in my day to day life. I've been waiting to hear God tell me when I need to write something else about what I'm going through. However, since it has been so long, I wanted to give you all an update.

I am home and the two day drive took its' toll. My husband rented a minivan that the middle seats could fold down into the floorboard and the big back seat was where I made my "nest". I had two twin memory foam pads, blankets, my eye mask, and most importantly we drugged me to the hilt to keep my central nervous system from going haywire. We broke it into 6 hours of driving one day and 6 hours the next day. I was exhausted and believe me, not one single suitcase or box has been completely unpacked.

We saw the doctor here and I came very close to having a seizure in his office. The noise of people walking down the halls of the hospital, the ding of the elevators, the flourescent lighting added to the stress of my first meeting with this doctor - well, by the time he came in I was a wreck! Thank the good Lord above that I took my Ativan with me so while I had a lot of shaking and tremors I did take the Ativan in time to stop a full on seizure. He has me on the same regimen as my Kansas City doctor - IVs twice daily, prescriptions, etc. He said I was a "very difficult case" and that we would need to come back this Friday for a real exam. I was shaking too much for him to be able to do anything but check my blood pressure and listen to my heart.

IV home care is good for me because I'm not dealing with the noises of the clinic, but I'm having to get used to the new equipment, bags, etc. that this company has. I have a nurse come once a week to take my blood and do a dressing change for my PICC line. The stress is still there though because running your own bag, wrapping up your PICC line, remembering everything I have to do while on IV Benadryl is all overwhelming. M and I are trying so very hard to adjust but neither of us deal well with change. He's used to being here and working in his downstairs office all the time. Now he has to check on my, feed me, sometimes help me with IVs, etc. I feel like screaming when I think of all he has to do for me! I'm still battling seizures in the afternoon as my temperature will go up to 101 and that makes everything worse.

Good news is that I am HOME - I am FINALLY HOME! Even though no one can come see me because when I get excited I may be fine in the moment but will often seize a few hours later. That's the hardest part of being home - I want to see my family and friends, but I just can't do it right now. God is still working on me and my control issues, my handing over my fears and stress to Him, and He tries to get me to focus on Him - but I sometimes forget. When I look away from God I get angry about this life. I"m writing this with my oxygen mask on and staring at an empty IV bag from this morning. It's hard - it's not something I can just jump into, but I know God will provide for me and never give me more that I can handle!

Now I'm off to nap - here's my daily verse. One of my favorites that I know I've used before but it seems quite fitting for the day I'm having:

"Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to his people." 1 Kings 8:56 (NRSV)

Much love to you all-
K

Changing plans is God's specialty

So, I’m writing this as my last blog entry from Kansas City. I haven’t been “magically cured” but I always said that God was the one who led us here and He would be the one to lead us home. In a quick turn of events I will be home soon. Before we came out to Kansas City we knew of a doctor in our hometown who treated Lyme Disease, Bartonella, etc. with IV antibiotics but instead of a clinic setting the patient did IV antibiotics at home. At that time I was much too ill to attempt something as scary as treating myself with IVs when I knew nothing about them. After feeling a push from God my husband met with the doctor in our hometown last week. They discussed my case and he looked over my current treatment protocol. My doctor in Kansas City had even recommended I should try and get into see this doctor once I was home. They have worked together with several Lyme patients who have come from Alabama to my Lyme doctor’s clinic here in Kansas City. When the new physician reviewed everything he said he would be happy to take me on as a patient. We all thought this meant in a few months when I was more “stable” health wise. My blood work from last week showed that I’m still far from “stable”. My hemoglobin is low again, my red blood cell count is low, my hematocrit level is low, my platelet count is low, etc. All of this is due to the Babesia and it shows why I’ve seen an increase in my seizures.

However, after praying to God to please make His will crystal clear to both me and my husband several things occurred which all led to us feeling God was now leading us home. The financial burden of living away from home and receiving treatment at the clinic was a big factor, but an even bigger one was that I know how to run IV antibiotics now, as well as inject Heparin, IV Benadryl, etc. The past 10+ months have really been a crash course in how to treat myself with IV antibiotics, take care of a PICC line, how to time the IV bags so as not to cause pressure on my heart, and the list goes on. I was far too sick to even consider this option a year ago, but now it is very much what we feel God is leading us to do and it is definitely what we want to do. It will cut down on expenses to not have an apartment in Kansas City as well as the clinic fees which of course include paying for the nursing staff. The real key is that I would be able to do IVs at home and away from the constant noise at the clinic. I had 4 seizures in less than 3 weeks due to the above referenced blood work showing how the Babesia is tearing my red blood cells and coming out even more. But the seizures also come from the stress and noise of the clinic. At home I would be able to control my environment so that I would not be under such stress. Also, I miss living with my husband terribly, not to mention my family and friends who I haven’t seen in almost a year.

I did get put on oxygen and it has worked well for me. I have a large liquid oxygen machine that I sleep with at night and use during the day here at the apartment as well as a portable machine that I use when I would go to the clinic. The company we use here has a location in our hometown and they met my father at our house today to bring a large machine and a portable machine that will be waiting on me when I get there. The company will be picking up the machine and portable here on Monday so it seems to have worked out well – which is what happens when God has made plans for you. Things just have a way of working out because God is leading you down the path He has made for you. He goes before you always clearing the way for you to follow.
Today was my last treatment at the clinic. It was hard to say goodbye to the wonderful friends I have made during my time here. I don’t mean just my fellow patients, which is hard enough, but the hard working and wonderful nurses who I have been blessed to have. Everything happened so suddenly that no one knew until yesterday that I was leaving. Many of them didn’t find out until today. I think that is also very much a “God thing” because the stress of stretching out long goodbyes would have been too much for me to handle.

Now, while I may be home, I will of course still be on treatment. My sound sensitivity is at an all time high and my central nervous system is shot. I have wonderful family and friends who will want to come and see me, but unfortunately that won’t be a possibility at least for the first week or two. The sad thing about these seizures is they can be set off by any stress and stress doesn’t just come from bad things, it comes from excitement as well. I had a very difficult morning balancing between saying goodbye to friends and being excited over the prospect of finally coming home.

I ask that you continue to pray for us as we go through this transition. God has made His will for us so clear we couldn’t help but see the writing on the wall and as stressful as this all is, we know He will be with us during the best and the worst of it. My doctor here says I can expect the seizures to last for the next year or two although hopefully they won’t be nearly as severe or frequent. We met for awhile this morning and we are on very good terms. They all understand that you can only stay away from home for so long and I made it clear how thankful we were for all of their help. We know that without getting to this clinic I would not be here today and for that I will be forever grateful. As I said, God led us here in His timing. As always, He knew exactly what was going to happen while I was here and He knew when He would lead us home and we just had to make sure and pray that we could see it as well.

Pray as we drive the 12 hours back home. We will be breaking it up into 2 days and my husband rented a minivan so we could have room for everything, but also in order for me to be able to create a makeshift bed and try and not see the road due to the fact that treatment causes me to have motion sickness. Also, the sensory overload of all the cars and trucks on the highways and interstates are definite triggers for seizures so we are going to try and keep me lying down with something over my eyes. My sweet mom will be following us in my car which will also be filled to the brim with all sorts of things. I never realized how much I had acquired over these past 10 months. Of course, there were clothes and shoes I needed for the horrible winter weather we had, but I’ve also gotten so many wonderful and precious gifts from so many people that I have much more than I thought to take home.

So, there you have it. The last entry from Kansas City, a city I won’t miss, but a place full of people that I will! I will continue to write this blog as long as God leads me to do so and I hope you will all continue to read it and keep us in your prayers. We had hoped to have me in better physical shape before coming home so your prayers are still greatly needed and as always very much appreciated. I’ll write again next week from the comfort of my own bed – YAY!

I know I’ve used this verse before in one of my entries, but found it so very comforting to see it on my calendar for today:

“You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” Psalm 139:5-6 (NIV)

He has definitely hemmed me in and I look forward to where He leads us next.
Much love-
K

Spring, change, and breathing in fresh air...

As much as I get frustrated over all the trivial day to day stuff here, I also see all the results I am getting. Sometimes it's hard to see improvements in yourself, but the improvements are so dramatic that I DO notice them. M notices them every time he comes into town. So M and I thought we had OUR own "when K will be coming home game plan" for our meeting with the doctor. WE had been going to say that we wanted to know the risks/rewards of me coming home in a month or so. Then God reminded us that HE is the one who has the plans. He will tell our stubborn selves when it’s time for me to leave. We were trying to make things happen because we both want me to come home so badly. Before we could meet with the doctor on that Saturday, I had a seizure on Wednesday. As far as seizures go it was pretty much the same as the others I had been having regularly 2 months ago. It was after the seizure subsided that things changed. I tried to take a sip of water and could not get it down. My throat felt like it was closing up and the water came right back out. My sweet M was there to grab the nearest trash can for me. I can’t explain what happened next except to say I seemed to be having the worst case of “dry heaves” I’d ever dealt with and it was hard to take a breath. I told M it was muscle spasms. It felt like someone had grabbed me by the neck and was choking me. Further down my esophagus it felt like there was a vise grip being tightened and the pain was pretty bad. The nurses got the doctor to come in who agreed I was dealing with “intense internal muscle spasms”. Basically it was like having a seizure on the inside. The doctor had M sit with his back to my back for me to lean back on and stretch my chest muscles out, basically to open my chest up to breathe. The nurses administered more Benadryl into my IV line while my doctor forcibly held my chin up since the muscles in my neck were drawing my chin down to my chest. They put me on oxygen to help me take really deep breaths to calm the spasms. My doctor massaged the muscles down the sides of my throat to try and calm it down. It was a scary incident in some ways but God allowed me to know what was going on in my body. Fear can make incidents like this one so much worse. Anytime your body is not working properly it is normal to be scared. But, if you understand what is really happening, if you know that you are really going to be okay, it helps tremendously. Also, God has always allowed the worst seizures and incidents to happen while I’m at the clinic where help and medication is at our disposal.

We hoped the seizure was due to the medication I started back to fight the Babesia. We still felt WE could talk to the doctor about OUR plans. We have gotten in with a doctor at home who works with my doctor here and is less than 10 minutes from our house. WE had plans. WE had things covered. WE thought WE knew best. Then on Friday I was done with treatment and M was waiting by my cot and chair while I went and signed out. While I stood up there I knew all I wanted to do was get to the Ativan I had in my backpack, shove them in my mouth and get to the car – to get to the “quiet”. I barely made it around the counter before I started to stutter and M ran to catch the front of me while a nurse was trying to pull me up from the back. M carried me back to my cot where I had to get an Ativan shot and wait the seizure out. Again, after the seizure, I had the internal spasms. More Benadryl was administered as was oxygen and I knew how to counteract this time. It was still almost an hour before I could leave to go home. My wonderful nurses who were supposed to be able to leave at 6:00 on Good Friday took such wonderful care of me and repeatedly told me they were not concerned with when they got home, they were concerned with ME. So many of them pray silently over me and they are all so very caring. I believe that’s one thing that makes this treatment so different. You are with a rotating group of about 8-10 nurses. You have one for 2-3 days straight and then another and basically after you’ve been in treatment for awhile, you form bonds and friendships with these wonderful caretakers and they do the same.

Saturday morning, before our meeting with the doctor that afternoon, I had early signs of those internal muscle spasms and knew to take Benadryl and to take a couple of puffs of my Albuterol inhaler to open the airway, and to massage my neck muscles. By this time we knew God was telling us to leave my health is HIS hands. The doctor knows how much we want me home, but that was when we thought we were through with the seizures. The good news we were able to discuss is that my weekly blood tests are finally getting into normal ranges. That means my red and white blood cells are in normal ranges as is my overall blood level. My metabolic panel is even normal – potassium, chloride, sodium, etc. It’s the first time since I’ve been here that my weekly blood work has been normal. The doctor had some other tests run last week and everything came back normal with the exception of the Babesia which we already knew about. The doctor is still working on tests to see why I’m having fevers every day and my sugar has been high in the morning so the nurses will be doing finger prick blood sugar tests for a week to see if that is a problem or if it’s just that I eat too much sugar – I’m betting it’s because I’m eating too much sugar. But it’s a battle just to eat anything. It’s even harder to find something I want to eat and I have to eat to endure the treatments.

The Saturday night of the doctor’s appointment, I had another incident of internal muscle spasms around 11:30. It was much more intense than the others. I took several puffs of my inhaler, took 75 mgs of Benadryl, some Ativan and I simply tried to mentally relax my muscles. I’ve done this when I’m passing kidney stones – just focus on my breathing and not on the pain. The pain was bad but I held my chin up with one hand and rubbed my throat and chest with the other. M got my fingertip pulse and oxygen monitor and then put the electric blood pressure machine on my other arm. My heart rate didn’t get above 130 (I’m normally around 60-70) so that was good. My oxygen saturation didn’t drop below 96% either which is good. It helps to see those numbers and know that I am breathing and I am getting oxygen. I also have a tendency to rock back and forth when I try and focus on my breathing. I sit with my legs crossed in a yoga type pose with the back of my palms resting on my knees. I push my chest out to draw deep breaths. I rocked back and forth as I did this and before I realized it I was humming. Well, not like a steady humming since I couldn’t breathe well, but I guess like a hum/grunt noise. I was humming, “Jesus Loves Me”. I don’t know how long it’s been since I sang that song but I started humming it almost subconsciously. They say the devil cannot stay where God is present and I believe that the devil uses a lot of my illnesses, especially the “scary incidents” to incite more fear in my heart instead of the peace God gives me. As I hummed my rates came into normal ranges and the stranglehold I felt around my neck and chest eased. I know that’s a “God thing” as a friend of mine says.

God is definitely there in the midst of all of these incidents. His presence is almost palpable during my seizures. In fact, that’s the only good thing about seizures is that I feel Him there around me and I talk to Him in stuttered prayers and thank Him for His love and protection. I don’t want to have seizures, but I do know that God will never give me more than I can bear. I may wish things to be easier, but that doesn’t mean I cannot handle them. We all know the verse of “I can do all things through God who strengthens me” and I believe I’m living proof of that. So many people will tell me how strong I am, how well I handle things and it baffles me because it’s so evident to me that I’m NOT the one handling things. Any strength you see in me, any good you see in me, and any inspiration you might get from my story or my life is not FROM ME – all those wonderful things are from GOD. He is always behind every good thing anyone sees in me. I am only human and I have to admit how much of this I absolutely hate. I don’t want to have seizures, I don’t want to be in treatment, and I don’t want to feel like I’m turning 85 this month instead of 35. I don’t want the portable oxygen concentrator the doctor is ordering for me. I want to be strong, I want to be able to just go to a store without feeling like a seizure will strike, I want to have that “normal life” that others seem to have. But guess what? This is the life I was given – this is the path my Father had in mind for me all along. I have fought so hard for so long to be able to do what others seem to do with ease. I wanted to be able to go, to do, and to experience everything like other people. But, I’m having an experience of a different kind. I’m learning through the fire and sometimes that’s the only way God can get your attention. He got my attention a few years ago but as I’ve said a million times, He had to strip everything away from me before I could really know what it’s like to lean solely on Him. I wish I weren’t so stubborn because it honestly took ALL of this to reach inside my heart and change it for the better.

He led me to start this blog last May and while I do use it as a tool to let family and friends how I’m doing, God made me realize that I could do so much more than that through this venue. I was hesitant to allow all of this be “public”. Anyone can run across this site when they’re browsing around on the internet. That’s why I try hard to pray about what I write on here because I have no idea who might be reading it. I pray that I do justice for the job God set before me. I was raised in the church but didn’t go much during my 20s, but that didn’t keep me from praying. I always thought, “You don’t have to go to church to have a relationship with God” and that’s true in a sense. However, after M and I found a church we realized how much it adds to your relationship with God to have “spiritual mentors” to learn from, to get advice from, and to see how they handle hardships in their own lives. What I learned from some of my “mentors” was not just HOW to pray but how to LISTEN. God seems to always tell me to pray for His will to be done – probably because He knows that I really want to control everything in my life! I have had to practice this new idea of giving all control over to Him over and over again and I still fall short many times. I know I can pray to be healed, or to go home, or for this experience to be easier. I do pray for those things, but mainly I pray that His will be done in my body, my heart, and my life. I have no idea where things go from here but I know He does and I put my trust in Him. This verse speaks to me as I put my future in God’s hands:

“You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” Psalm 139:5-6 (NIV)

Finally, my last original “roommate” has been released from treatment. Please pray for my sweet and wonderful friend, Stef, who will face the challenges of oral treatments now. I miss having her terribly, but God blessed me with her for almost 10 whole months and I know His plan included me having her as a lifelong friend. On that note I will say they are placing a new patient in my room on Saturday. I don’t know anything other than the new patient is a female and she is supposed to be extremely sound sensitive like me. Pray that the stress from meeting a new person does not cause me any problems. Pray that I am someone who this new person will like. Pray I can talk to her if it is God will for me to do so. Right now it’s almost impossible for me to talk to “new” people due to my own internal stress and the fact that my brain is constantly going 90 miles an hour, hence the seizures. It may be that God is sending someone to me that could help me or maybe that I could somehow help. I just have to trust that God will see me through this new transition because change is an extremely stressful thing for me right now.

I pray you are all doing well and rejoicing in the fact that spring is upon us. I love to see all the new leaves and flowers bloom. They are constant reminders to me that God renews the earth as well as our hearts and minds.

“Praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you.” Joel 2:26 (NIV)

“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deuteronomy 33:27

Oh, and for those who think I just sit around thinking all the time, well, I don't. I believe that you have choices in life when unwanted or unexpected things happen. You can laugh or you can cry. I've cried some, but I've laughed more. Below I decided to share just one of the things I do in treatment to make myself laugh (and yes, I laugh at myself ALL the time). I'm in the "West Side Treatment Room" here at the clinic and the other room is of course the "East Side Treatment Room" but everyone refers to them as "East Side" or "West Side". Hearing the names I thought of the rap songs about gangsters who claim their turfs by throwing gang signs, wearing certain colors associated with their gang, etc. I was by myself thinking these things when I came up with an idea for an IV patient gang side. This picture is my idea of what the "West Side" gang sign should look like. So, yes, I find my own brand of humor in this situation. I just think you have to do that to get through life.

That's an upside down "W" with my IV line going through my fingers.

Confusion and Contentment

My abdominal pain has subsided, not sure if it will stay away but it’s nice to have it ease off some. My fevers are still with me though. My normal body temperature is about 97 degrees. But I start out after morning treatment around 99 degrees, by early afternoon I am at 100, and after my afternoon treatment session it’s around 101 degrees. Advil and Aleve don’t bring the fevers down. In fact, they don’t even keep them from going up. My body seems to be getting used to them, but they make me much more tired and I don’t feel like doing anything other than lying in the bed. The doctor plans on running several blood tests on Tuesday to see what might be behind this. I was hoping nothing would show up and then God let me see that this is the best time for things to show up - while I am HERE and getting treatment! It would be much worse for things to show up once I'm home. So, I pray that the doctor finds a cause that can be fixed by tweaking my treatment regimen.

On a brighter note, my sweet M came in town on Thursday and I love having him here. We have an appointment with my doctor on April 3rd to discuss what's going on with me, how treatment is progressing, to review my most recent lab work, etc. I love having him here for these meetings and he tries hard to make it for all of them. He's going to be here for this meeting and will be back in early May, just in time for our wedding anniversary, but that means he has to miss my 35th birthday which falls right in the middle of April. Mom will be here of course, but it will be the first time in 8 years that I haven't spent my birthday with M.

I think I want to just forget my birthday this year, I mean, this definitely isn't where I thought I would be when I turned 35! It just hit me that I’m so stupid for thinking that way when I should just be thanking God that I get to have another birthday! It's amazing how the human brain works! It can be so unproductive so much of the time. I believe we all have these "life goals" in our minds, or ideas about where we will be or what we'll be doing at certain ages. I always thought that I would get married at 28, and oddly enough I did. But after that I had all these other plans - like working until I was about 32 and then trying to start a family. I definitely thought that I would have at least one child by age 35. However, God has other plans for me. I have often gotten upset over the fact that I want to have children so badly but can't even try to do that for now. In fact, I will be on oral treatment for about a year after I leave here and the doctor says I will need to take a year to allow my body to simply rest from the years of being sick as well as the years of treatment. My body will be tired and the doctor says trying to get pregnant before then would put too much strain and stress on my body. I sometimes do the math and think, "I won't even be able to start trying to get pregnant until I'm 37!!!" However, I have to lay all those worries in God's hands.

I have to trust that God is in control of my life and that He has good things planned for me. My Aunt Martha sent me a devotional book a few months back. It's just for women and it is divided into subjects. I got to the page titled "Children" and read the first part about the challenges of motherhood. I know being a mom is a difficult job, but at the same time, it's hard for me to think about people complaining about their children when I long for a child so much. Then I read the next segment under that topic and it really hit home for me - I know God put it in front of me because it has helped me a lot! It reads, "Some women live with a strong, unrelenting longing for children that seems to go unanswered. If you are dealing with this heartache, you can know that God has placed the desire to be a mother in your heart - and not just to frustrate you." It went on to say that we ourselves are adopted into God's family and mentions different options that God might have in mind for you. It's the last sentence though that really spoke to my heart. It reads, "Ask God to help you find the children He has ordained for you." That is an amazing thought. God might bless me with children one day, but even if I don’t have children, I trust that He has plans that include children being in my life. That could mean adoption or it could me working with children - I did graduate college to teach preschool! I just wasn't able to do so because my immune system was already so compromised and I stayed sick the entire time I taught preschool.

I didn't start this entry thinking I would go into this particular topic, but I guess it is weighing on my mind and my heart. I believe I’ve been frustrated with God about “being behind” where I thought I should be by this point in my life. I think that’s exactly why He had me write all of this. Again, I have to hand over the "where I thought my life would be by age 35" plans to God. I never thought I would be going through this treatment process. I never thought I would be writing about such personal issues in an open blog for the world to see. I never thought I would grow so much in my personal relationship with God in such a short amount of time. I never thought I would find peace in the midst of what sometimes feels like pure hell. I never thought I would have seizures and be able to say prayers of thanksgiving during the worst of them. There are so many things "I never thought about" that when I step back and try to see my life in a big picture sense, I see so clearly that God had a very specific plan for my life. He knew all of these things would happen. He has clearly given me His strength to handle things that would have crushed my mind, body, and spirit just a few years ago. He has already given me in so much, but I could only see that once He opened my eyes to all of His blessings. So, I am not where I thought I would be by age 35. I'm not anywhere close to the life I had envisioned for myself. The good news is that I am working on becoming the person God wants me to be! Even though treatment is hard, being away from home is hard, being sick is hard, I can trust in the fact that God is with me. He has blessed me with wonderful treatment friends and given me new friends at home that have reached out to me in so many ways. He has given me a husband and family that support me through all of this. He is in control of my life and I am finding myself more and more content with that fact. I have always been a "control freak" but now I'm working on being content in the fact that God is in control. I now see how horribly I mess things up when I try to control them!

So, writing this has given me clarity and peace. Sometimes I write entries and I know God is using me to speak to other people, but this time I think I started writing and He pushed me down a different path and is speaking to me about my life. This entry may touch someone else's life and I hope that it will, but I think God needed me to step back and stop trying to compare my life to other people's lives. Isn't that such a difficult task? It's so hard not to try and see how we "measure up" compared to others. I know that I am often jealous of people who don’t have health problems, who have children, or who even just have jobs that they love. I think the devil LOVES when we become preoccupied with how our lives look in comparison to others. Everyone knows the feeling of wishing they had someone else’s marriage, someone else’s home, someone else’s career or even just someone else's car! However, God never wants us to "envy others" so I think He has given me the desire to tackle this subject of having children, a subject that is so close to my heart, because I have been envious of other people's lives that look so carefree or easy from the outside. He is reminding me that everyone has their own burdens and it's not up to me to judge how "easy" someone's life might be or how "blessed" they are. My job is to live my life the way God wants me to live. I may never have the life I thought I would have - but I pray to live my life the way God wants me to. I often fall so short of that goal. I don't always say the things I should, I often say the things I shouldn't, but I thank God for giving me a new start every day!

I pray that everyone who read this takes a "step back" from their lives and is able to see the many blessings that God has granted them instead of constantly finding different ways to see how their lives measure up against other people’s. I pray that we all stand in awe of what He is doing in our lives. He is in control of all things. When we think we are in control we mess things up and things would go so much smoother if we just asked God for His help and allowed Him to control our lives. I pray that we all hand our worries, our burdens, our "where we think we should be" ideas over to God. I know that's the only way I will get through any of this. I have to keep on handing things to God – but isn’t it a wonderful thing to know that His hands never get full and He always has room for ALL of our worries and troubles!

My daily calendar is once again bringing me messages that are no coincidence! I was feeling upset about my current situation and felt very far from God just yesterday. The calendar verse yesterday was:

“When you draw close to God, God will draw close to you.” James 4:8 (TLB)

Now today’s verse is:

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts.” Psalm 28:7 (NRSV)

So I’m trying to draw closer to God, to know that He is my strength, and to put the desires of my heart in His hands, trusting that His “life plan” for me is much better than the one I thought up on my own. It's about finding contentment in God no matter what. When life seems to be surrounding you with confusing circumstances, step back and put your life in God's hands. You will see that His plan may not be the same one you have for your life, but it's the best plan for your life. Allowing God to be in control of your life doesn't mean you won't have hardships, but it does mean you will have God to carry you through them.

Much love –
K

Just a simple prayer request

Update: The sonogram went well and all was normal. However, since I'm still having fevers every day and some major abdominal pain the doctor wants to run a lot of blood tests to rule out hard to diagnose infections, parasites, etc. The nursing staff will draw my blood on Tuesday - which is when all IV patients get our weekly blood draws done. Some of the results may come in quickly but others may take a few weeks. The doctor doesn't think I should be having such severe pain if this was only Cat Scratch Fever. I'll update more as I find out more information. Thank you all for you sweet prayers! I'm glad there were no problems with my internal organs that would have required surgery. I just hate to have these fevers and hope we soon find out what is behind them so we can jump on getting rid of whatever it is! I am trying hard not to view all of this as a "setback" because I want to get all these hidden infections to surface while I'm here with the doctor and on IV antibiotics. The more I can kill while I am here, well, the less I'll have to kill on oral meds at home! God is in control over this situation and I know He will lead me down the right path for my continuing health problems. He's already gotten me to a much healthier place than when I got here last June!!! Praise be to God for all of the healing I've already received and all the future healing He has in store for me!


ORIGINAL POST:
The doctor wants to rule out any major problem before saying that I truly have "Cat Scratch Fever". My fevers have been constant. I've kept an "elevated temperature" of at least 99 degrees for three weeks. For someone whose body temperature is normally 97 degrees that's like having a fever. The fact that it goes up when I am having room temperature IV antibiotics pushed through my body for 2 hours is very weird. However, it goes up to 101 every day in afternoon treatment.

I say this to ask for a specific prayer request. Due to the fevers and the severe abdominal pain I've had, and the bloating of my stomach - basically my belly sticks out from where my esophagus meets my stomach all the way down to my lower intestines/lower abdomen. We've known my spleen was swollen because 1) I have active mono for the 6th or 7th time and
2) the spleen will swell when it's processing a lot of toxins - or the die off of bacteria. It's tender, swollen and somewhat painful, but I did not think that was much of a problem.

However, my specific prayer request is for tomorrow morning. The doctor has scheduled me for an abdominal sonogram to make sure that everything "looks normal" and it's set for 8:00 a.m. Due to the migrating pain I've had they want to make sure my appendix and other organs are not inflamed/swollen too much or there's nothing else causing the problem. I would hate to have to go through having my appendix removed! Not because of the pain, but because it would be another set back to getting my immune system back in working order! That's why I ask that you pray that the results are favorable. I always pray for God's will to be done - and I'll pray that tonight as well. However, we are to present our specific requests to God with thanksgiving and prayer so tonight I'll be speaking to Him specifically about this!

Thanks to all of you who continue to pray and send me loving thoughts - I do feel every one of them believe me! Without all of your prayers I would never have been able to last 9 months out here! I love you all!!!

OH - my daily calendar verse for today is quite fitting I think:

"To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace." Romans 8:6 (NRSV)

Much love to you all-
K

Battles and Wars

Editor's note (March 17th): I found out this morning that the symptoms I describe below are not completely due to toxin build up from the Clindamycin. The doctor believes I have "Cat Scratch Fever" (yes, that's a real disease) which is caused by Bartonella bacteria. Just wanted to be clear on what's happening.

Update on the health situation…hmmm, where to start? Well, the IV Clindamycin is killing off a lot of stuff which is very good, but my body seems to have overloaded on toxins that are the waste of killing off the bacteria and stuff. Toxin buildup is hard on your body. I’ve been running a fever every day for close to 3 weeks now. At first the doc thought there was a bladder or kidney infection since I had been passing a stone a few weeks ago. Turned up negative and that is good. However, Sunday night I had some of the worst abdominal pain I’ve ever experienced. For those of you who know me, well, that’s saying a lot. I was up until 4:30 a.m. with the pain and felt so awful that I did not go to treatment Monday morning. I went that afternoon and just got IV fluids. I went this morning and got fluids again. I don’t go on Tuesday afternoons anymore just to give my body a break, but I will have IV fluids again tomorrow. In fact, I will have IV fluids until I feel like my body can handle the antibiotics again. M and I talked and we are asking the doctor if I can take a week off at the end of March/beginning of April. We have a meeting with the doctor on Saturday, April 3rd and wanted to have me off IVs for the 5 days before that. We’re hoping to see where I might be off the meds. Basically, the IVs make you feel worse whether it’s from killing off bacteria and leaving toxins or with just the side effects that come along with such strong doses of antibiotics. We think that by having a week off we might be able to better judge where I am physically. We are ready to try and bring me back home to start the oral antibiotics.

The oral antibiotics have their own side effects and also leave toxins in the blood after they kill off bacteria. However, I’d much rather be in my own home, my own bed, feeling horrible than to be away from my husband and my family and still feeling horrible. When we first got here we knew we would have to do IV treatments because I couldn’t absorb anything orally. We hope to see that I am better able to do that now that I have killed off a couple of infections that were in my intestinal tract. Right now I have yet to gain any weight, but that can be due to the IV treatments themselves. Clindamycin takes away my appetite, not that I had much of one to begin with, but at least I’m not losing any more weight.

So, today marks exactly 9 months since I started IV treatment. Every day is a battle. Getting up and going to treatment is a battle, as is treatment itself. The side effects of treatment are a battle. The being away from home for so long is a battle. But these are small battles in the grand scheme of the war that has been taking place in my body. We knew there would be more bad days than good (and there have been). We knew that none of this would be “easy” – physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. However, we knew we had to wage a war against all of this because it was literally killing me. When it comes to your life, your health, you’ll find there’s not much you won’t do in order to “feel better”. We didn’t know how long this would take or how hard it would get or how much of a toll it would take on my body.

One might say we didn’t know anything about this war, but we did. We knew one thing that would get us through these continual battles. We knew one thing that would keep us fighting the good fight in this war. That one thing was our faith in God. We knew He led us to this place, to this doctor, and we trusted His plan. We’ve had to learn so much more about faith since we’ve started this war. This is what I think we have learned: Faith is not something you talk about or discuss in Sunday school. I’ve come to believe that faith is not a noun…it’s a verb. It’s an ACTION verb. Faith is stepping out into the unknown armed with only your belief that God is never going to lead you astray. Faith is stepping out of the boat and onto the water without doubting. Faith is knowing, even during the worst times, that God is there with you always. It’s knowing that while you may be having one of the worst days of your life, God is not torturing you nor has He forgotten you. I think my faith has been honed during my battles in this war. I have cried out to God and I know He has answered me by either giving me peace, or relief in my pain, or just the strength to get through that pain (or a seizure for that matter). I know that He has used all of these battle days to build my faith and to allow me to see that He is in control of everything. I know some might read this and wonder how I could say that God is in control of everything and yet He allowed me to get this sick and why would He do that? But I feel I’ve truly learned what it means when people say, “Ours is not to question why”. It took all of these “bad things” to get me where I needed to be to finally hear His voice. I’m battle weary, this much is true, but I’m still fighting and I think in the end I will win this war. Not because I will have my health, but because I now know that there is nothing more important than giving my life, my health situation, my everything over to God. I have learned what having faith in Him means. I will always have more to learn about faith but I know much more now than I did nine months ago. I know there is no way I could have endured the past nine months, there’s no way I would have even stayed here that long, had it not been for God Himself carrying me through all of this. I hope that I get to come home soon, but I’m leaving that up to God too. We trusted Him when He led us here and we trust He is letting us know when it’s time to leave and head back home.

I appreciate every single prayer people have said for me. It’s been so very humbling at times to find out just how many people have been praying for me. I don’t even know exactly how many, but at one time I think I was on church prayer lists in 15 different states. That’s amazing to me. I cannot even begin to explain how in awe I am that so many people have taken the time to read my rambling blog. I pray that I have used this venue to glorify His name, His grace and moreover His unfailing love. I want people to be aware of Lyme Disease and its’ many co-infections. I want people to understand how misdiagnosed this disease is and how it can destroy your health. I want people to be more aware so that their family members and friends don’t have to struggle through what I have gone through. However, I will say that God never intended the purpose of this blog to be about “Lyme Awareness”…it’s always been meant to spread “God Awareness”. I pray I have done that job justice. I will try and update you all again after my April 3rd meeting. As for now I’m just doing what I can to make it through my daily battles, knowing that God is carrying me through the battles and He is the one who is fighting my war. I cannot be grateful enough for all He has taught me through this nor can I explain how it took me feeling so bad to be able to truly feel His amazing love. I pray you all see some of the hard parts of your life as “faith-stretching opportunities” because that’s what they are. When you ask God to give you more faith just be prepared. He might point out that you have lots of problems that you could hand over to Him while you step out in faith and grasp onto the simple truth that He is the only one who can handle them.

“It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.” Jeremiah 32:17 (NRSV)

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.” Ephesians 6:10 (NRSV)

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:35-37 (NIV)

Much love-
K

Why is it so hard to be JOYFUL?

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” He’s right. We are all supposed to long for the day we will be with God in heaven and be surrounded by and full of JOY! So I started thinking about what we do every day while we are here on this earth. I realized that, at least in my case, I don’t feel joyful. I don’t wake up feeling joy. I wake up and think, “I don’t want to get out of bed.” We all probably wake up thinking of all the “bad stuff” we HAVE to do that day. All the errands, the day to day grind, all the "to do lists" - those are what we think about when we wake up. Or at least I assume that’s what most of us do. I thought about how we focus on the negatives of the day instead of the positives. We don’t wake up thanking God for giving us yet another day to spread His love and to feel JOYFUL! In fact, I think joy is the furthest emotion from my heart upon waking up each day.

These thoughts hit me hard. Why is it so very hard for us to be joyful? Why do we fail to see all the positives of a new day? Why do we not thank God for another chance to work on becoming more like the person He planned for us to be? Personally I have found myself in a “poor pitiful me” state as of late. Treatments are hard. Getting to the treatment center every morning at 6:40 a.m. and every afternoon at 3:20 p.m. is so hard. There are no breaks except for all the cancelled sessions we’ve had due to snow and ice. That’s another thing – the weather is horrid and has me in a down mood. I go to treatment most mornings and the temperature ranges anywhere from 10 below zero to a balmy 20 something degrees (note the sarcasm when I say “balmy”). As I write this it is 12 degrees outside and it’s already 11:00 a.m.! All of this is hard but the drugs are especially hard on my body and my mind, or at least my mental state! I haven’t gained any weight and I stay exhausted. I have to take so many anti-seizure drugs that are mood altering drugs and “downers”. Add to that the 200 mgs of IV Benadryl I take every day, the muscle relaxer, the MANY supplements, the anti-malarial drug for the Babesia, and the antibiotics (IV and oral) and it adds up to a body that is overwhelmed with medication and overwhelmed with such a strict schedule. Yesterday I woke up mad at the world because I HATE all of this. I hate it with a passion and I know that is a natural reaction after 8 months of treatment, 8 months of being away from my family and friends, 8 months of being in an “unreal situation” – one I never thought would one day be my daily life!

So yesterday I started to write this entry. It was yesterday morning during treatment that I began to wonder how I could come to hate something I prayed for so diligently. I prayed God would get me to this clinic and they would treat me. My prayer was answered. Here I am being treated and yet now my prayer changes yet again and I want to “GO HOME”. I cannot fathom how God deals with us humans! Here He has answered my prayer of desperation and I feel like I have become ungrateful for His answer. I feel like a spoiled child who cried for a new toy just to be done with it the next day. I feel guilty for not appreciating being here. I feel so unworthy of His love and grace – but He knows that. He knows it all. He understands my “lack of joy” over my current situation. Even though I rant and cry out, He knows that I do understand I am where I must be for now, no matter how hard it is. This is not forever, it is only a temporary situation, and He reminds me of that. He reminds me of His love. I have to stop and focus on Him and within minutes I feel humbled and undeserving of His continual presence in my life. When I focus on Him my problems seem to evaporate. I just have to remind myself to focus on Him when everything else seems to be falling apart. When I myself seem to be falling apart I must get on my knees and cry out to Him. He is always there, always with me, always watching over me and if I can get over own issues, if I can just stop focusing on the negatives, I can feel Him there with me. I cannot explain the sense of peace, calm and love that surrounds me when I feel His presence. Yet I must SEEK HIM in order to feel that peace. It’s so easy to look around me and find a million things to complain about, but what we all need to do is to refocus our vision so that our eyes are on HIM! I struggle with that every single day. I fail miserably so many times, but He graciously grants me another day to try again. He understands all of this and He carries me through in these times of trouble, but only if I put my full faith and trust in Him. That’s hard to do isn’t it? To give everything over to God every single day is not an easy task for us mere mortals.

After treatment I came home and ran across that quote from C. S. Lewis and I thought, “K, there is JOY in your heart because you are one of God’s children. He GIVES you JOY if you will stop long enough to receive it!” It was no accident that I flipped through a book and found myself staring at that quote about joy. It was God sending me yet another reminder that I must SEEK HIM. I must seek Him in order to receive the JOY He provides me with. From that JOY comes strength, peace, and contentment. Paul wrote about being content no matter the circumstances he found himself in. He was content when he was in plenty or in want and wrote he was content in sickness or in health because he found his contentment in GOD!

So I started to figure out a way to seek God, to force myself to find JOY in the midst of all of this. There is joy in treatment. There is the joy of friends who understand what you are going through. There is the joy of nurses who care so much for you and work so hard to do whatever they can to make you feel better. There is joy in the fact that God led me to this doctor who knows what is wrong with my body and is working on fixing it. I have to realize that there is no “cure” for Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, etc. These “bugs” will live in my body forever but this treatment is knocking them down enough for me to feel better, to have a healthier life. I will probably never know “healthy” as defined by normal people’s standards. However, I will know I am healthier than I was by far. God can do anything and I never doubt that. He could kill all these infections in my body and He may very well do just that. However, if He does not that is not indicative of Him not loving me. It is just the path He has chosen for my life on this earth. I say treatment is a temporary situation and it is, but our earthly lives are also “temporary”. God said we would have troubles in this world but we can face those troubles with JOY if we focus on the fact that God is ever present by our side. With God anything and everything is possible. Sunday I came home from treatment and cried out to God that I could not handle this anymore. Within just a few days He reminded me that I might not be able to handle this, but He can handle it for me. That is a joyful fact. That is a fact that makes my heart full of joy.

Now my goal is to wake up every day and not get out of my bed until I thank God for giving me another day on this earth and to thank Him for the JOY He has placed in my heart. I know there will be many days that I fail to do that, but I am going to lean on God to help me to find the joy of His love in my everyday life. I can be joyful in this situation because God is with me and therefore who (or moreover “what” in this situation) can be against me? The devil loves to rob us of our joy. The devil feeds on our negative thoughts and bad attitudes and we have to put our feet down and tell the devil that he CANNOT steal our joy because God granted it to us and all we have to do is claim it!

“Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 124:8 (NRSV)

“God rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)

“Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? You already have all you need.” 1 Corinthians 4:7, 8 (MSG)

Find joy in all you do my friends. It may be hard some days but that is when we have to remember that our help IS in the name of the Lord, that God rewards those who earnestly SEEK him, and that we do have all that we need if we have a close relationship with God! I pray we all find JOY!!! God wants us to be joyful – so claim joy every day! If you do I can guarantee that your outlook on life will change because God will change it. We just have to ask that He give us all new eyes to see that we can have joy in the midst of all of our “earthly troubles”. BE JOYFUL IN EVERYTHING YOU DO!!! Let people see love and joy overflowing from you! I pray for strength, for perseverance, for patience, and now I pray for JOY!

Oh, and this is a webcam shot I took of myself yesterday. No makeup, no shower, but thanks be to God - there is some JOY in there :)

Much love to you all!
K

Feeling His love on Valentine's Day

I hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day. It was my first one away from my sweet, M, but we're experiencing a lot of "firsts" throughout all of this. He did send pretty flowers and nice chocolates and that was unexpected and very appreciated. Mom and I have enjoyed having the pretty flowers around since looking out the window just means seeing more snow! It snowed here again today and I've decided that M could never talk me into living somewhere that snow is a "regular occurrence"! I feel like I live in a snow globe and just when it looks like it's about to melt away, someone shakes it up and the snow comes down again!

As for the medical side of things I have been seizure free for a month, as of last Wednesday! YAY and THANK YOU DEAR LORD!!! I still have to be very careful and one of the anti-seizure meds has been doubled but I'm not scared that I am going to have one every afternoon like I had been before! The new antibiotic is working on killing off more "bugs" and it has made me more tired than the Doxy did. Of course, the anti-seizure medication can do that as well but definitely the combination is making me exhausted. Bad thing is that even when I sleep I'm not able to go into "deep sleep" but I'm napping more and falling asleep earlier at night and I know my body needs that!

I saw the doctor Thursday for a "check & see how I'm doing" visit. We were supposed to have a full meeting, but she came into the treatment room and I was in some pain and running a fever. I have a kidney stone, I know - big shock, huh? haha. But that afternoon I had shown mom where my rib cage was sticking out further on the left side than the right and I was having pain there. I knew my spleen was swollen and when I showed the doctor the decision was made for me to skip taking Mepron on Saturday (that's the anti-malarial liquid medication I take once every 5 days to help kill the Babesia). The swelling in my spleen is from toxin build up which is good because it means we're killing stuff off! It hurts, but at least I know the pain is actually progress. I'm supposed to keep my feet elevated to help alleviate the pressure but then it's just a waiting game for the toxins to be flushed out of my body. I try to see the fever as a good sign as well. I pray that it's proof of my immune system trying to fight some of this stuff. The fever makes me feel pretty rotten, but I can take feeling rotten if I know there's progress being made and I do feel that! Praise the Lord, I do feel like I can finally see and even feel progress in my body! Now, the kidney stone pain is just icing on the cake - ha! Actually, that is a pain I'm used to having and as much as I hate pain medication, the doctor wanted me on some in order to not wear my body out from pain or weaken myself trying to pass a stone without medication. I'm taking some pain medication and along with all the other meds I do feel a little overwhelmed. My mom says the amount of medication I take would put her out of commission for weeks, but I'm so very thankful to God that my body can handle this much medication!

I do hate taking pain medication though because it can make me feel down and depressed. Of course, so many of my prescription medications (like the anti-seizure medications, the muscle relaxer, the IV Benadryl, etc.) are "downers". Add another one to the list and it's easy to see why I might feel low! It's hard to feel that way but I know for now I'm doing what I can to help my body. I also know God understands everything I am going through and how my system reacts to all these medications. He is still with me through the low times and it is always then that He seems to point out things to lift my spirits. When I realized I had another stone my first thought was, "When it rains, it pours!" and then I realized what a stupid saying that is. I had the idea of changing it to "When it rains, learn how to dance in it and be thankful you aren't in a drought!"

I know that I am "allowed" to have bad days when I feel depressed and I don't expect, nor am I capable, of handling this all without having a day where I want to cry, or scream, or just pull my hair out. I am only human and those are human emotions and reactions. However, I am very grateful that God allows me to see my "lows" as normal but also that He immediately allows me to recognize feeling depressed as a side effect of all the medications. That is important because He is allowing me to view this all as "temporary" instead of feeling like there will be no end to my misery or suffering. I know He gives me the eyes to see things, both good and bad, as part of His master plan for my life. I cling to that plan, to His love and promises more than anything else when things get to be a bit too overwhelming for me. I envision what plans He has for my life when I am at home and regaining my health. I try to keep my focus on what He is teaching me through all of this and every time I think on it, I get the same answer - FAITH. He's teaching me to put all of my trust in Him because to place it elsewhere is where I was going wrong for years. I loved God, I knew He had a plan for me, but I felt like I was the one in control of my life. I was so hard headed about this that it has taken me being stripped of so many things to see what God intended for me to learn - that without Him I cannot do anything. It's been such a hard lesson, but one I wouldn't trade for the world. I pray that I never go back to thinking I can do things "on my own", but I'm human. We humans just have a hard time with clinging to God and praying for His will consistently. It's easy for me to cling to God now when I need Him so badly. But as a human, I know that when things are going well in my life, maybe when I am finally healthy, I will likely fail in clinging to Him every single day. I pray often that He will keep my eyes focused on Him at all times, instead of only when life gets to be "too much"! I also pray that if I am able to become a "healthy person" that I do not take a single day of that for granted, but I suspect I will. God is training me for many things right now and I think one of the big lessons I am to learn is that I must cling to Him not just every day, but every moment of every day. I pray that I learn how to do that consistently.

I pray that we all learn to not just thank God for the good things, or run to God when the bad things appear, but that we continually seek God's presence in our lives every moment. I pray that even when we fail, as all humans do, that we pick ourselves back up and remember it is by His grace that we are saved, not by our own works! How very thankful I am for that because if I had to count on my "works" for my salvation I'm afraid I would come up quite short!!! So, thank you God for being with me and showing me how to view a swollen spleen and fevers as progress. Thank you for allowing me to see my own faults and flaws and to know that you love me in spite of all of them (and there are quite a lot I must say)! I want to praise You in every thing I do and I know that I will fall short, but I pray You will show me where and when I fail. That with every failure You will teach me even more how to shine Your light and love on every one I encounter. I pray that You will guide me and show me the way to live my life following the path You have set before me. I am weak right now, and I may have a long road ahead of me before I "get well", but I am so thankful for the strength You give me that allows me to keep on going. Without You, without Your love, without Your guidance, without Your continual forgiveness of my many sins, I would be nothing. I want to be well, I long to be healthy, but You are teaching me to long even more for YOUR will and not my own and I am thankful for that as well.

I pray you all have had a blessed Valentine's Day. I know many people who get depressed around this "holiday" because they don't have a "special someone". I remember feeling the same way if I did not have a boyfriend to celebrate this day with. However, with my precious M having to be away from me this Valentine's Day, I feel God has shown me that I spent my day with a very "special someone" - I spent it with HIM! His love is never ending and all consuming and I have come to learn how to love Him with a passion in my heart that I never had before. I guess we should all realize that everyone's true Valentine is God Himself.

"May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else."
1 Thessalonians 3:12 (NIV)

Happy Valentine's Day to you all! Much love!
K

His "good" can be found in every "bad"...

It's a long one, but when have I ever posted a "short one"!!! The past few days have been difficult. The reprieve I had from the noise sensitivity has gone and so I find myself, once again, having to wear headphones and ear plugs. In morning treatment it isn’t so bad because everyone else sleeps. In fact, most everyone should sleep when they’ve been given 50-100 mgs of IV Benadryl. However, I’ve never been like everyone else when it comes to medication. I have yet to sleep in treatment after almost 8 months here. So, the mornings are quiet and I can take my headphones off and that is a blessing. No matter how expensive or “comfortable” headphones may be, they were not meant to be worn for 6 hours a day. They give me headaches from the pressure they put on my head and face. It seems to be a situation of either having headaches from the headphones or headaches from the noise and neither is good. I have been blessed that the light sensitivity is not as bad as it once was. However, it too is coming back slowly.

This is what I referred to in my last post. This is a “herx” and I do hate it. The Babesia that we are targeting with the new IV antibiotic as well as with an oral “anti-malarial” drug is what causes most of these symptoms. It’s the one I talked about that tears my red blood cells causing me to not get enough oxygen to my brain. It’s the one that leads to seizures due to that lack of oxygen. The past few afternoon treatments I felt that scary “pre-seizure” feeling. I came home with migraine headaches and cried when I would have to go lay in my bedroom in the dark with a fan on loud enough to drown out even the smallest noises. I have not had a seizure, thank you GOD, but the precursors seem to be coming back. This is when the headphones, earplugs, etc. just cannot do enough. I had also been having a fever of around 100 each night by the time I left treatment. Having a 100 degree fever is not even considered a fever by most doctors’ standards, but when your normal body temp is right below 97 degrees, a 100 degrees feels like a fever of 101 or 102. I have found that by afternoon treatment my body has started hurting again. The bone and joint pain are bad but this time my spine hurts and that comes from the Bartonella I believe. I have “doctored” my treatment chairs with so much memory foam and yet I cannot get anywhere near comfortable.

The biggest issue for me is that by the afternoon session my brain is low on oxygen yet again. I have realized by now that I cannot talk during afternoon treatment or the headaches get worse. For those who know me, well, the idea of me not talking for 2+ hours is laughable. I started talking at an early age and if you ask my parents they might tell you I haven’t shut up since…haha. It’s true to an extent though. Even through this blog one can tell that if I type this much, well who knows how much I might actually say if I had someone sitting in front of me! So, again I have to find a “new normal” in this fight. This new normal would include me trying new things to keep my extremely talkative self from talking at all for those 2+ hours which will be so hard on me. My plan for now is to take my portable DVD player and plug in the “ear buds” and cover those with the headphones and just focus on some light and easy movie since my light sensitivity is not as bad as it once was. I don’t know if this plan will work but I’ve tried reading and on the medication I just lose focus and can’t comprehend as well. Plus, reading sometimes gives normal people headaches. I’ve been knitting some to try and focus on something else, but no one was surprised to find I could easily knit and talk at the same time haha. So, today I go with my “plan B” of watching a movie. We’ll see how it works out.

The good news is that I have had a 3 week rest from the seizures. This has allowed my body’s levels of carbon dioxide to come back to more normal levels. When I had 4 seizures in 8 days my levels were dropping and now they are back to a more normal level. My red blood cell count is low again but this is due to the Babesia tearing the red blood cells. It causes my over all blood levels to drop a bit, but thankfully not too low. God gave me time to allow my body to heal some from the horrible seizures that lasted for so long and were coming so frequently. Now I feel He is telling me to literally BE QUIET. Sometimes I think I talk so much, think so much, that I have a hard time hearing Him. I hear Him now though and He is telling me to hush, to rest my body, to try and conserve my oxygen so that I don’t have a seizure. I’m listening and trying my best to follow His instructions.

I did find that the fevers I have been having are due to an infection in my nose and throat. The doctor has prescribed a nasal spray that actually puts the antibiotic into your nostrils and sinus cavities. We hope that by starting this after treatment today I will fight off this infection and not have to deal with the aches and headaches that often accompany fevers. But guess what? I am thankful to actually have a fever. I know that sounds ridiculous, but fevers mean my immune system is actually trying to work WITH me. For 20+ years I have had all sorts of viral and bacterial infections and never run a fever. When I was in grade school my mom would have to force the pediatrician to run a strep test because she knew that’s what I had, but the doctor never thought I could have strep without a fever. Every time they ran the test he would have to see that I did have strep with absolutely NO fever. Fevers mean your white blood cells are trying to fight something. It’s like the alarm sounding in a firehouse and once those white blood cells hear the “alarm” of an infection they swarm out and it results in a fever. This is one of the many things I am referring to when I say His good can be found in every bad. God is good. God is slowly healing my overworked immune system and my lab results are showing improvement. It may take 6 months or so to rid myself of the Babesia but God’s plan for me is perfect, no matter if it includes fevers and seizures. He is with me in all ways, on all days and I am forever grateful to feel Him even when I might not think I’m “hearing” Him.

Some people may read this and say that it’s the medication working, that this is simply science, but that is just not true. My doctor even seems to me to be a bit stumped as to how much my labs have improved and I often feel it’s because the reason for why they are improving is not clear, scientifically speaking. I know why they are improving though. It’s because of God pure & simple. I know after much prayer He divinely led me to this doctor, to this clinic, and after much questioning and debate, my husband and I realized we had to follow where God seemed to be leading us. It has been a long and sometimes extremely hard road, but we knew and we still know that God led us here. It is HIM who will receive all the glory for my healing and improvement. I’m not saying medicine is not at all why I’m getting better, I am saying that God is using my doctor as His tool, that my doctor is not the healer but is His instrument for my healing. I know so much about medicine after the years of bad health I have endured that sometimes I think I should have an “honorary M.D.” so I know what kills infections, what blood tests show, what can be expected from each infection I encounter. However, I know without God I would never have made it through the past 7 and a half months, mentally or physically. God has chosen to put me “in the fire” so He can mold me into the person He has planned for me to become. I have no idea where all of this, these illnesses, this time away from my family and friends, this difficult road is leading me. I only know that I am praying that I am following HIS will and that the pathways I walk are ones He has ordained for me to walk on this earth. I have no doubt that He is my Great Physician, my true Healer, and definitely my Comforter. I want to get well, I want to be healthy, but more than any of that, I truly want to become the person God wants me to be.

So there you have it. I had been scared the last couple of days about “what ifs”. As in, “what if the seizures come back?” or, “what if I cannot get rid of the Babesia and have to endure months of seizures?” and those are understandable questions. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t worry or question these things at times. Yet again, God made something clear to me yesterday. Before I met with the doctor He made me realize that stress is a big trigger for my seizures. Guess what asking all of those “what if’s” does? It stresses me out. I could stress myself into a seizure if I focused on all of the “what if’s” and I would only have myself to blame for that. Again, He made me see that He brought me through all of the seizures that came before and that He would be with me if they start again. There is nothing to be gained by worrying. I had to focus hard on the fact that God did NOT give us a spirit of fear! But oh how Satan can get in your head and make you doubt and question and scare yourself to death! I refuse to allow that to happen and I can do that only by relying solely on God and His love and protection. He has gotten me this far and if I put my full faith and trust in Him, He will continue to carry me through the rest of this journey.

This has been a long one. Sorry for always writing so much, but now you can truly see how I might just talk myself into an oxygen deprived state, huh? Haha. Just a bit more and I will be done! I pray that all of you are doing well. I pray that you all refuse to go out into the world every day with a “spirit of fear” – no matter what your fear is, God is greater than that fear. He only wants you to “cast all of your cares on Him”, follow where He leads you and He will work the rest out for you. Faith is not just believing in God – faith is “stepping out of the boat” just like Peter did when he asked Jesus if he could walk out onto the water. The moment Peter started to focus on the fear, the moment he took his eyes off of Jesus, that’s when he started to sink. That is still true with us in this day and age every single day. I have to constantly remind myself that I am not in control of any of this. I am simply meant to pray, and to pray hard, for God to make His will for that day, or sometimes just that moment, clear to me. I pray to Him to keep my eyes focused on Him, on His ways, on what He has already done in me and for me. I bet if you look around, no matter how bad your current situation is, you could find things to be thankful for. We all take so much for granted. I know I did and most days I still do. But I keep praying to see my blessings instead of focusing on what I perceive to be “the bad stuff” because He uses all those bad things, those bad times, for our good if we allow Him to. It’s about trust and faith. Those are hard things because we can only see with our “human eyes” and have no idea what God sees for us. Just pray every day that God will show you what to be thankful for, what blessings you do have in spite of what troubles may be in your life. It’s a choice and I have to choose every day to believe that God’s plan for me is a good plan, even if it includes some seizures. He is in control of all of it. I just have to thank Him for always being with me and oh, how thankful I am for that!

How odd is it that I just flipped my daily calendar to February 4th and found the following verse:
"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Psalm 27:1 (NRSV)

No coincidences there, none at all! Much love to you all!
K