After much prayer and talking it over with Bob, I have decided to not make another trip back to Fresno after all. There are many reasons for this decision, but the main one being that the distance is making it very difficult to progress at the level I would like. After a few discussions on the phone with the doctor, it was becoming clear that it would be really hard for him to treat me out of state because of how he treats. He uses a form of muscle testing that helps him figure out which supplements/medicine would be best for where my body is at during that time. So, right now it is a lot of guessing...which hasn't worked for me in the past very well!
I do have an appointment with a new doctor in Issaquah on June 15th. He is an MD as well as a naturopathic doctor and I had a very good conversation with him on the phone. He may not have everything that I need, but he may have a piece of the puzzle. We'll see. I'll let you know how it goes.
In general I'm having more difficult days again. It is so hard not to lose hope and get discouraged because this has gone on for so long. I am really starting to lean a bit harder on the people I feel God has brought into our life who are supporting us through prayer and encouragement. We have some amazing neighbors who come over and pray with us, talk to me, let me share my struggles and I feel like they have been a life line for me. I don't know where I would be with out them. And, of course Bob...he just never waivers an inch in his belief that I'm going to get well. I can't imagine being in these circumstances with a husband who wasn't like him. He has gone through this hell with me and never once stopped encouraging me to keep holding on.
Its summer now and I see the mom's out with their kids and I can't help but get a huge lump in my throat as I see my own two amazing little people head off to the park with someone other than me. I feel frustrated, robbed of an amazing time in their life, and wonder how much longer I can do this. Whitney needs a new dress for graduation and I desperately want to be the one to take her shopping. These are the moments we mom's live for with our daugters...right now I don't know if I can. But, I keep being brought back to the same place over and over again...Romans 12:12 sums it up for me..."Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." That's all I can do right now. I'm back to that place of being out on our fishing boat when I was a teenager, hanging on to the side of the rail as we try to pull in our gear with the wind whipping in our face. Jelly fish are stinging my eyes, my hands are swollen from grasping a heavy lead line and stacking it, my shoulders ache and I'm weary from the brain-numbing cold and only three hours of sleep from the night before. But, at the end of it all is a big boat load of fish that will bring the reward we were working so hard for. I know that something good can come of all this...I just don't know what. I just keep my eyes on the horizon believing that some day it will be my turn again.
May 30, 2007
May 14, 2007
Next Doctor's Apppointment June 7th!
It's already that time again to make another trip down to see the great Doctor Rob in Fresno. We have opted to fly this time because Bob can't keep missing that much work and physically it was more difficult that I thought it would be. And, my best friend also accused me of not wanting to use the highway bathrooms again...I think that's reason enough for sure :-).
I do have some anxiety about flying because I never know for sure how I'm going to feel and it will be difficult if I need to lay down at any point on the trip. We will rent a wheelchair at the airport so that I can conserve as much energy as possible so hopefully that will help. It will feel a bit strange to have to get around by wheelchair but at this point I'll do whatever it takes to get me from point A to point B with as little problems as possible.
We will leave on Wed, June 6th, my appointment will be the 7th, and the Friday will be a recovery day before we fly home on Saturday. So, again I would appreciate all your prayers for a safe journey. That I'm able to tolerate the two hour flight and then the two hour drive to Fresno. Even though I have made some great improvement it doesn't take much to set me back. In fact, today is one of those days. I'm back in bed again for whatever reason but I don't feel like it will last. I'm hoping that my body is just needing some recovery days from the recent outings I have been on.
I'm not sure if I'll be taking my lap top this trip but if I do I will try to update it again like the last time. It was really encouraging to read the input on my blog while I was down there. I really needed that to help me get through those two days of appointments. Thank you so much for all of your encouragement and prayers. We are very grateful.
I do have some anxiety about flying because I never know for sure how I'm going to feel and it will be difficult if I need to lay down at any point on the trip. We will rent a wheelchair at the airport so that I can conserve as much energy as possible so hopefully that will help. It will feel a bit strange to have to get around by wheelchair but at this point I'll do whatever it takes to get me from point A to point B with as little problems as possible.
We will leave on Wed, June 6th, my appointment will be the 7th, and the Friday will be a recovery day before we fly home on Saturday. So, again I would appreciate all your prayers for a safe journey. That I'm able to tolerate the two hour flight and then the two hour drive to Fresno. Even though I have made some great improvement it doesn't take much to set me back. In fact, today is one of those days. I'm back in bed again for whatever reason but I don't feel like it will last. I'm hoping that my body is just needing some recovery days from the recent outings I have been on.
I'm not sure if I'll be taking my lap top this trip but if I do I will try to update it again like the last time. It was really encouraging to read the input on my blog while I was down there. I really needed that to help me get through those two days of appointments. Thank you so much for all of your encouragement and prayers. We are very grateful.
May 12, 2007
One of my favorite quotes:
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."
E.E.Cummings
Overall, its been a pretty good week. It seems like I am still making some progress for which I'm grateful for, but have to be careful not to push the limits. I seem to be processing more internally as my body starts to come to life again and have had a more difficult time articulating it all. I guess its to be expected that after a person goes through a huge adjustment of being sick in bed for a long time that there will be another huge adjustment as I am able to be out in the world more. I certainly am continuing to be very thankful and grateful but many emotions seem to be bubbling to the surface that I wasn't quite prepared for.
I have known many people who have become sick and have gone on to healing. But, I never considered much what the overall emotional process would be. My thoughts are more about the physical struggle and of course I would assume there to be fear, sadness, confusion, etc. I think for me I was so sick for so long that I was living minute to minute. I knew in theory that the world was still turning while I lay there, but was to consumed with surviving to be completely affected by it. As I get better and make these small outings, I begin to realize how much has been going on around me. There has been almost this sense of panic and urgency to hurry up and "finish healing" so that I can resume my place in the world. As my best friend put it to me today however, was that there are as many lessons for me still to learn on this side of the process as there were on the other. Part of me is like....arrrgggg...no more lessons...school is officially out!!! The other part of me is excited to see what this will cultivate in a very stubborn heart.
The good news is that I do have a place in this world...we all do. Its definitely here with my family. And, I am still the same whether I can get up, do my hair and put on those trendy clothes and hit Costco with the other ambitious moms...or I have to stay in bed for awhile in my very fashionable Christmas pj's in May. There's a lot of freedom in just "being" rather than always having to be "doing". I realized too that I'm a pretty simple girl. I grew up in a simple small town in Alaska and I know the difference between my needs and my wants. Before going through this illness I think I started to make things too complicated trying to cram in activities and things that I saw everyone else doing. That's not who I am and I love that what has happened to me has helped me find myself again. When you strip away the minivan, make-up and committees life is actually much richer. Listen, I still need my minivan...don't get me wrong. But I certainly don't need to put as many miles on it as I used to and definitely enjoy the space I live in...both my skin and my home. Brennan Manning shares my heart in "Abba's Child" where he shares...The energy that I have been exhausting in my own past, and at times my present (my words), in pursuit of illusory happiness is now available to be focused on the things that really matter--love, friendship, and intimacy with God.
E.E.Cummings
Overall, its been a pretty good week. It seems like I am still making some progress for which I'm grateful for, but have to be careful not to push the limits. I seem to be processing more internally as my body starts to come to life again and have had a more difficult time articulating it all. I guess its to be expected that after a person goes through a huge adjustment of being sick in bed for a long time that there will be another huge adjustment as I am able to be out in the world more. I certainly am continuing to be very thankful and grateful but many emotions seem to be bubbling to the surface that I wasn't quite prepared for.
I have known many people who have become sick and have gone on to healing. But, I never considered much what the overall emotional process would be. My thoughts are more about the physical struggle and of course I would assume there to be fear, sadness, confusion, etc. I think for me I was so sick for so long that I was living minute to minute. I knew in theory that the world was still turning while I lay there, but was to consumed with surviving to be completely affected by it. As I get better and make these small outings, I begin to realize how much has been going on around me. There has been almost this sense of panic and urgency to hurry up and "finish healing" so that I can resume my place in the world. As my best friend put it to me today however, was that there are as many lessons for me still to learn on this side of the process as there were on the other. Part of me is like....arrrgggg...no more lessons...school is officially out!!! The other part of me is excited to see what this will cultivate in a very stubborn heart.
The good news is that I do have a place in this world...we all do. Its definitely here with my family. And, I am still the same whether I can get up, do my hair and put on those trendy clothes and hit Costco with the other ambitious moms...or I have to stay in bed for awhile in my very fashionable Christmas pj's in May. There's a lot of freedom in just "being" rather than always having to be "doing". I realized too that I'm a pretty simple girl. I grew up in a simple small town in Alaska and I know the difference between my needs and my wants. Before going through this illness I think I started to make things too complicated trying to cram in activities and things that I saw everyone else doing. That's not who I am and I love that what has happened to me has helped me find myself again. When you strip away the minivan, make-up and committees life is actually much richer. Listen, I still need my minivan...don't get me wrong. But I certainly don't need to put as many miles on it as I used to and definitely enjoy the space I live in...both my skin and my home. Brennan Manning shares my heart in "Abba's Child" where he shares...The energy that I have been exhausting in my own past, and at times my present (my words), in pursuit of illusory happiness is now available to be focused on the things that really matter--love, friendship, and intimacy with God.
May 7, 2007
Romans 4:18
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed...Rom 4:18
When God is going to do something wonderful, He begins with a difficulty. If it is going to be something very wonderful, He begins with an impossibility.
Charles Inwood
When God is going to do something wonderful, He begins with a difficulty. If it is going to be something very wonderful, He begins with an impossibility.
Charles Inwood
May 6, 2007
Moving Through Life
I've had an amazing week and its taken me awhile to be willing to share that. I am excited, don't get me wrong but since being in California a lot has changed for me. It wasn't easy for me to see at first but now that I'm physically doing more I feel like I can see more. One of my biggest fears was that when I started to get well that I would push myself to do too much. That I would go back to how I used to be, and I feel like I have come too far and learned too much to do that. On my lyme boards where I communicate with others who have this disease I constantly hear the same complaints..."I just want to have my life back." And, I have thought those same thoughts. But, I see now that it was that old life that contributed to my illness...pushing myself all the time, always wanting to do more, keeping up with everyone else, and doing those things I thought I was "supposed to do." I don't want my life back, I want to truly live. No more surviving, no more barely making it from one to-do list to another.
It wasn't until Bob and I were running some errands together for the first time that I felt myself moving differently "out in the world." Stopping in at Starbucks to get the kids something I realized how much I enjoyed the fact that I could move slowly through the store. It didn't bother me that I knew I didn't look well, or that I've gained some weight. I was able to take in so much more because I can't just whip in and out of places. I was saying under my breath, "Thank you, Lord, for letting me be in this store today and smell the wonderful coffee." I guess its our version here in Seattle of "Stopping to smell the roses." Rather than complaining and feeling sad about what I can't do, I have moved to a place of gratefulness for the things that I can do. In the past when I've had good days and felt like maybe this was it, maybe I was going to start getting well again I would start planning, thinking, analyzing. Only to have everything yanked out from under me again a week later.
It has seemed as if for me that the past two years have been like the movie Ground Hog Day. Everything was the same. I kept waking up to the same debilitating dizziness, fatigue and weakness. And, that's all I could dwell on. I knew in my heart that God wanted to heal me from the inside out...meaning starting with my heart and then moving to my body, but it felt like nothing was happening. Not until I walked into Starbucks. It felt like God was saying from Isaiah 43:18 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I AM doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" I knew from that very moment I would never move through this world again without remembering there was a time that I couldn't move at all. That God was giving me "a garment of praise instead of a spirit of dispair." Isa 61:3
But, there's just a little bit more to the story. This journey that I'm on, which is far from over, has taken me to a new place. A place where my life is no longer defined by what I do, who's mom I am, who's wife I am or even where I live and what my house looks like. My life is defined by who's Daughter I am. Ignatius Loyola, a Basque priest from Northern Spain sums it up with this prayer:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will--all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To You , Lord, I return it.
Everything is Yours; do with it what You will. Give me only Your love and Your grace. That is enough for me.
It wasn't until Bob and I were running some errands together for the first time that I felt myself moving differently "out in the world." Stopping in at Starbucks to get the kids something I realized how much I enjoyed the fact that I could move slowly through the store. It didn't bother me that I knew I didn't look well, or that I've gained some weight. I was able to take in so much more because I can't just whip in and out of places. I was saying under my breath, "Thank you, Lord, for letting me be in this store today and smell the wonderful coffee." I guess its our version here in Seattle of "Stopping to smell the roses." Rather than complaining and feeling sad about what I can't do, I have moved to a place of gratefulness for the things that I can do. In the past when I've had good days and felt like maybe this was it, maybe I was going to start getting well again I would start planning, thinking, analyzing. Only to have everything yanked out from under me again a week later.
It has seemed as if for me that the past two years have been like the movie Ground Hog Day. Everything was the same. I kept waking up to the same debilitating dizziness, fatigue and weakness. And, that's all I could dwell on. I knew in my heart that God wanted to heal me from the inside out...meaning starting with my heart and then moving to my body, but it felt like nothing was happening. Not until I walked into Starbucks. It felt like God was saying from Isaiah 43:18 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I AM doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" I knew from that very moment I would never move through this world again without remembering there was a time that I couldn't move at all. That God was giving me "a garment of praise instead of a spirit of dispair." Isa 61:3
But, there's just a little bit more to the story. This journey that I'm on, which is far from over, has taken me to a new place. A place where my life is no longer defined by what I do, who's mom I am, who's wife I am or even where I live and what my house looks like. My life is defined by who's Daughter I am. Ignatius Loyola, a Basque priest from Northern Spain sums it up with this prayer:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will--all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To You , Lord, I return it.
Everything is Yours; do with it what You will. Give me only Your love and Your grace. That is enough for me.
May 2, 2007
RUN'S HOUSE ON MTV
I know it sounds weird coming from me to share about a series on MTV that our family has grown to love, but just give me a second to explain. Because I get the great fortune of watching Oprah everyday at 4:00, I get to find out about things I would have other wise not known about. This is one of those things. For those of us who, back in the day, got our first taste of rap from Run DMC might remember Joey Simmons. After making millions he realized that he wanted more for his life and turned his life over to God. He became a Reverend and is now known as "Rev Run".
This series is about his family and how he raises them. They are hillarious to watch and always a few lessons to be learned. I love the investment he has made into his wife and kids and faith while living in a very secular world of wealth and hip-hop.
This link will take you to one of the top 10 moments of their show. Its just a little snippet of it but pretty funny. It airs on Monday nights at 10:00 p.m. Just a word of caution...even though its rated PG and I find it to be fine for Bob, Whitney and I...as soon as it goes to commercial we have to switch to something else until the commercials are over because they are too much for us. Anyway, just another flavor of Casa de Gore.
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1555696&vid=140298#
This series is about his family and how he raises them. They are hillarious to watch and always a few lessons to be learned. I love the investment he has made into his wife and kids and faith while living in a very secular world of wealth and hip-hop.
This link will take you to one of the top 10 moments of their show. Its just a little snippet of it but pretty funny. It airs on Monday nights at 10:00 p.m. Just a word of caution...even though its rated PG and I find it to be fine for Bob, Whitney and I...as soon as it goes to commercial we have to switch to something else until the commercials are over because they are too much for us. Anyway, just another flavor of Casa de Gore.
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1555696&vid=140298#
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
