Matthew being allergic to peanuts and several other nuts means he really needs to be wearing a MedicAlert bracelet at all times. He used to years ago as a toddler, but like a bad food-allergy mommy, I let his membership go because it was something like $35/year and he was NEVER not with me. As much as I would have liked him to be not with me some, it just never happened.

Now that he is going to our church’s private school this year, he IS away from me most days. I feel completely comfortable with him being there at the school without the bracelet (though I do send his Epipens) because his teacher’s son is also allergic to peanuts, so he is familiar with the whole “allergy scene”. The thing is… sometimes they go on field trips or to compete in different events and those are the times he would not be with me OR with his teacher, and so it was time to get him a new MedicAlert bracelet (his old one broke years and years ago, plus it had his OLD membership # on it… completely useless now since he hasn’t been in their computer in years).

Today I went to order that bracelet. His first field trip is this Monday (Putt-Putt… they are competing for ribbons… too cute!), so he will still be bracelet-less for his first ‘away’, but he should be covered for all subsequent trips now.

The blessing happened like this… I spent about 45min filling in all Matt’s personal and medical info (allergies, conditions, medications, emerg. contacts, etc), and had him pick out the design of his sports band (he can’t wear the stainless steel ones, as he is allergic to nickel). Then I went to the cart and saw there was a box to enter a promotion code. NORMALLY when I see this kind of thing in an online cart, I immediately open a new tab and start a google search for promotional coupon codes for whatever store it is. This time I did not. This time I instead clicked on a little link towards the top that said “Kids” thinking I’d go look in the kids’ section just to see if there was anything unique in there that I hadn’t seen yet. I’d already picked his bracelet out, so I really didn’t have a NEED to look, but went anyway.

I’m so glad I listened to that little voice that said to go check it out, because when I did I discovered a GREAT deal. The Food Allergy Initiative was offering free “new memberships and 1 bracelet” for low-income kids with food allergies! It said you could call and mention the code number or fill out the enrollment form online. Since I was literally in the middle of ordering a “new membership and bracelet” for a food allergic kid, I called and she said yes I could do it online, just put that code in the promotional code box in the checkout process. When I tried that, though, it came up with an error, so the gal pulled up Matt’s info and put it through for me. She said they’d ship out his bracelet and card in 7-10 days.

That’s it. Easy Peasy.

Praise the Lord! That just saved me $70 right now and $25/year, since the deal comes with a reduced renewal fee as well! God is so good!

Posted: September 6th, 2008 under faith, just life.
Comments: none

The secret to having JOY is love. Here it is:

J = Love Jesus
O = Love Others
Y = Love Yourself

The bible says the greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might. You START by loving the Lord Jesus.

The bible says the second greatest commandment is like unto the first… love thy neighbor as yourself. Add to loving Jesus- loving others… but don’t forget yourself. Loving yourself above or before Jesus or others is wrong… but to not love yourself at all is wrong too. If you leave out loving any of these (including yourself), you will not have JOY. You would have Oy, or Jy, or Jo… but not JOY.

Likewise, if you love any of these out of order, you will not have Joy. If you put yourself first, you are loving yourself more than others and more than Jesus. This is breaking a commandment and would give you Yjo or Yoj. Neither of which is JOY. If you put others consistently before yourself, you’re on the right track, but if they are before Jesus, you’re still mixed up and without JOY. You’d have instead, Ojy or Oyj.

Nope. There is no other way to get JOY. You have to have love for the right people and in the right order and amount. That is…

1. Love Jesus first. More than anyone else (yourself included!). Put Jesus first in ALL you do. Period.

2. Then love others. More than yourself. Think of others before yourself. (Think: polite, courteous, etc.) Go out of your way to help others; go the extra mile.

3. Then love yourself. Do not neglect yourself. Some people go too far with loving themselves, getting all puffed up with pride and putting themselves ahead of everyone else including God, even though they may not set out to do so intentionally. Others, though, go too far the other way and think so little of themselves that they completely neglect caring for themselves. They come to despise and loathe their own selves…their own body and mind. This won’t bring you JOY either. Don’t neglect yourself; take care of your body and mind. Yes!, put Jesus and others first, but don’t leave off the caring and loving of yourself completely or you will be left with either Jo (almost right) or Oj (nowhere near right).

To recap: The secret to having JOY is in having LOVE for the right people in the right amounts and order. That is:

J = Love Jesus
O = Love Others
Y = Love Yourself

Bible references: Matthew 22:35-39, John 15:10-11

(see I Corinthians 13 for more details on what exactly love -charity- is, it will give you ideas on HOW to love)

Posted: August 23rd, 2008 under FLYing, faith, mildly "article-ish", the changing me.
Comments: 2

Things have been so busy (and so tiring) the last 3 weeks (or has it been 4?… 5?) that there hasn’t been much getting blogged. It’s not so much that I don’t think about the blog, or posting about this or that… it’s just I’ve been doing a lot of “I’ll post tomorrow” and “I’ll finish x, y, and z and then post” kind of thinking about the blog.

I didn’t really anticipate using this blog as a means to update anyone on things going on around here in any kind of family newsletter kind of way, but it seems that the last few posts have ended up that way. I’m going to sink real low and pull a “it’s because my brain has been too sick to think/do anything else” with the posts problem.

Since the posts have taken the newsletter-y turn to an extent, I suppose I should continue that to an extent, just in case there actually is a lone reader out there somewhere following along. I’d hate to leave them hanging going “ohmigosh! She has Lyme and got some meds and thinks the kids have it…WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!?! Did she ever find out about the kids? Did she ever get better? What about the whole freakin’ out about going to a dr thing? Or the telling her family and folks about what was going on?”

Of course, I don’t really expect that anyone is following along. And certainly if they are, they are doubtless NOT concerned to the extent of sitting on the edge of their seat with bated breath to know what happens next…

BUT I’m living in a reality of my own choosing at the moment and so I’m going to go with the whole exciting melodramatic scenario and make-believe that there really is a valid reason for me to continue to ‘update’ in the dreaded newsletter-y fashion.

Thus…the long awaited (humor me and edge forward on the seat, would you?) update of the last few weeks…

*drumroll*

I’ve had 2 appointments with my Lyme doctor so far. One week apart. I go back in next week for the 1 month check-in. It will be interesting on so many levels.

I never did list a complete rundown of all my symptoms/problems because that would be TOO boring and complainy but suffice it to say there are/were a lot. Before going in for that initial appointment I kinda figured I had at least one of the infamous co-infections of Lyme (Lyme in this case referring specifically to the infection of the borrelia burgdoferi bacteria as opposed to a more generic all-encompassing name for the condition of multiple infections of which the Bb is only one). I highly suspected…to the point of pretty much took it for granted… that I also was infected with bartonella (one strain is responsible for an illness commonly referred to as “cat-scratch fever”). At the initial Lyme appointment, my doctor decided to test for some co-infections, but in an effort to save me (the uninsured and BROKE) some money opted to NOT test for bartonella since my symptomology (is that actually a word? it should be…) was so strong for it. He decided that if I was ok with treating based on symptoms (i.e. based on a clinical diagnosis) then, in a sense, the testing for bartonella was unnecessary. I don’t think, though, that he actually wrote bartonella down as a guaranteed. Semantics, I guess.

Anyway, I digress. I had blood pulled and sent off to be tested for only 2 different co-infections. There are many, MANY more possible (even outside of the bartonella), but for now anyway, we were only testing for 2. Erlichia (or HME- Human Monocytic Erlichia) and Babesia (specifically just the babesia microti strain… there are many strains but the test only looks for the one…). I also had a CBC done to check my kidneys and liver.

Now… it doesn’t seem like there is a point, but there actually is…

I’ve had 2 appointments, but I’ve spoken with my dr on the telephone (yes the DOCTOR how awesome is that?!?) twice since my last appointment.

Lemme back up (only the teensiest amount) to catch-up on what happened between the blood draw and the first phone call…

Aches, new meds, tired-so-tired, brain-fry, July 4th at Bro3’s (shout-out to my wonderful snow-buddy… LOVED the whole thing… you did great at hosting, gal!) complete with exaggerated startle reflex (by-the-by… exaggerated startle reflex + fireworks = heart-that-feels-like-it-just-may-EXPLODE), more aches, more new meds, more tired. Absolutely no grocery shopping, very VERY little cooking/cleaning/laundry/etc, and only a teensy bit of crocheting and a little MythBusters (thanks Netflix!) thrown in.

Ok, that covers the 2wks between the appt and the phone call that shook things up a bit, sotospeak…

The phone actually woke me up that day and it was my doc. Wow, I thought… the DR called with the test results. A positive and another positive. Hmmm… The Erlichiosis was already being treated with the doxycycline I’d been given, but the babesiosis? Not so much. Babesia is a malaria-like parasite. In the same sense that borrelia is a ‘cousin’ to syphilis, so babesia is a ‘cousin’ to malaria. Its presence means the probability of needing to add a whole different class of meds to my cocktail at some point…anti-malarials.

Remember I said I never threw out a whole list of symptoms, but that it would be long if I did? Well now it’s beginning to make sense as to WHY… I now have 3 different ‘for-definite-because-the-test-even-came-up-positive’ infections and 1 ’symptoms-are-such-that-its-presence-is-so-obvious-we-don’t-really-NEED-to-test-right-now’ infection on top of that. That makes 3 big-bad bacterial infections and 1 malaria-like infection. Sheesh! No wonder that list would be so long and varied, huh?

Anyway, doc said at the next appointment we’d look at my symptoms again (re-assess, kinda, to see how the antibiotics, etc are working out) and if they’re not all being addressed we may add the anti-malarial. My initial thinking the first few days after that phone call was that even with the positive for babesia, the anti-malarial meds were probably still months away since it wasn’t currently responsible for any of my symptoms. This, however, was before I did much looking at babesia symptoms. The only ones I was really thinking of were night sweats and air hunger (feeling like you can’t get enough air)…neither of which I have or have had any time recently.

Then I did a little more looking into the babesia symptoms and discovered that some of my new-ish symptoms the last couple of weeks or so (lightheadness/dizzy, loss of appetite, nausea, base-of-head headaches…) could very well be the babesia rearing its ugly head. So the next appt. should be interesting on that note…

I said I talked to my dr twice. That was the first phone call. The second needs some other updating first…

I think I had mentioned that I had gotten the new pediatrician to sign the orders to test Matt for the Lyme, but that Meagan’s first appt with the new ped wasn’t for another week or two, so she still needed to be tested. The week of Meagan’s appt, the kids both ended up sick with the chest congested, asthma stuff. In calling to get them a sick appointment (to possibly end up on a short course of steroids and antibiotics) I discovered the ped. was on vacation that week. We tried to get them in to Urgent Care and that was a disaster. We ended up just giving them neb treatments at home and they’re doing much, much better now. Anyway! I cancelled Meagan’s check-up appt. that week because I thought she’d be seeing a dr at Urgent Care… and anyway I didn’t want the fill-in… I wanted the actual ped… because of the whole issue with the Lyme testing.

Well, the next week when I still hadn’t heard from the ped’s office on Matt’s test results by Wed, I called to check. I figured it’d been 3+ wks by that point, so I needed to do a little squeakin’ perhaps to get things movin’ again. They’d look into it and get back with me.

Turns out the results HAD come in the week before, but the fill-in doc didn’t know what to make of them or do with them or what-have-you, so they didn’t call. The ped. got them out and read them and lo and behold… he came up positive. I’m so shocked…NOT! haha

Doc didn’t really know what to do about it, though, and since she knew I was seeing a Lyme doc suggested I have him look at Matt’s results. Our kids’ insurance being what it is, though, that would N-E-V-E-R work as far as any kind of ‘official’ look-at-and-treat, so I suggested that perhaps the ped could call him for info and/or suggestions on what to do or where to go for info on what to do.

Today my dr called (yea HIM) again. Said he’d gotten a phone call and he’d passed on a little info along with directions on where to find more. He said the ped was going to send Matt to a dr who specialized in infectious diseases, but the reality is most of those docs don’t treat long or well enough (IF they even concede that you could, in fact, have Lyme since we don’t live in… you know… Connecticut. Those ticks must be very obliging to respect state borders or something, huh? UGG). Anyhow. My dr also said that it sounded like the ped would be treating Matt soon. He was basically REALLY shocked and REALLY surprised and dare I say… really EXCITED that this ped here in our little podunk town was actually… maybe… going to look into this and learn and TREAT.

I went about ‘business’ for the day (that means I called my mom…again… more on that in a min.), totally figuring ok… in a couple of days we’ll get a call from the ped’s office to make an appt and bring Matt back in to talk about what to do. I figured it would take at least that long for her to be able to get started on the looking into things.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the phone call at 15min till 5pm was NOT one of the kids’ friends, but was in fact the ped’s office calling to say that the dr had talked to my dr and what pharmacy should they call the scripts for the 2 different antibiotics into?

WOW! How cool is that? =)

Meagan’s check-up is this comin’ Monday so I’ll be able to at least briefly ‘check-in’ with the dr about Matt then and tell her way THANKS, while talking about getting Meagan started on treatment also of course.

Now, I said I’d talk more about Mom in a min, but I think for tonight I will leave that updating off. Why? Because this post is already long enough and I want/need to do this instead…

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

I don’t want to go any further without making good and sure that anyone reading and going “wow, what an amazing set of good fortune/coincidence” is fully aware that it is SO MUCH MORE than that. It is the work of an amazing, wonderful, powerful, loving God. Nothing less.

God has been leading me through all this from the get-go. From my first looking up my symptoms online, through giving Lyme a second glance, finding a doctor to sign the orders, finding a doctor to treat me, and now finding a doctor for the kids and ever-so-much-more in between! In so many big and little ways. Big scary leaps of faith like my going to a doctor for the first time in nearly 10yrs and telling my mom what was going on even though I was terrified of her reaction. Little, tiny, but-oh-so-important-and-specific details like exactly what bands need to show up positive and exactly what words/phrasing to use at the dr’s office and exactly what date to go and shirt to wear and a billion other things.

This whole health/Lyme/etc. journey for myself AND the kids has already involved a lot of prayer on my end… and I’m so thankful for it… a lot of guidance and answered prayers on the Lord’s end.

I can’t even begin to fully or adequately express just how blessed my family and I have been… and continue to be. ALL the glory belongs to the Lord Jesus in all of this. Again…

PRAISE THE LORD!

Posted: July 23rd, 2008 under God's Guiding Hand, Lyme disease, Matthew, blogging, faith, family, kids.
Comments: none

A few months back Mike and I had a rare night without kids. We did what most red-blooded-married-for-almost-twelve-years-American couple would do in that kind of situation…

He pulled out a movie and headed to the new TV in the living room and I headed to bed… to sleep.

Except I didn’t get to go to bed. I ended up having to watch the movie that I wasn’t interested in at all. Why? Because our bedroom floor hated me that night. Maybe it was mad at me for tossing my shoes a little too roughly… or maybe it was upset that I hadn’t given it a good mopping in awhile. I dunno. For whatever reason, as soon as I stepped into the bedroom, the floor stabbed me!

It did! A huge, gigantic LOG of the floor lodged itself in the bottom of my foot. (Probably because lodging itself in the top of my foot would’ve been too difficult for it… the stupid log!)

I gasped and hopped into the bathroom to find the tweezers whose usual job it is to keep the hair off my chinny-chin-chin. I flopped back over to the bed and pulled my leg up to inspect the carnage bestowed upon me by the evil wood floor. Yup, sure enough a GIANT log of a splinter that was starting to sting like crazy. Burn, really. Something about the fact that these floors are close to 100 years old…

So there I was with an antique telephone pole stuck in the bottom of my foot, but no worries! I had my trusty chin-hair-plucking tweezers! Alas, the bit of the redwood-sized piece of flooring that was sticking OUT of my foot trembled in fear of the mighty tweezers and promptly broke and fell off. Victory!

Or not… now there was nothing left to grab… or at least, not much. Yikes! I knew that if there was any hope of grabbing the teensy bit still on the outside of my skin it was going to take a steadier hand and eye than mine, so I hopped in to the living room and handed Mike the tweezers. He tortured me tried unsuccessfully to grab at the splinter with the tweezers, so I decided to soak my foot. The idea was for the splinter tree to kinda be drawn out and when I took my foot out of the warm, salty water…wahla! No more foreign object.

So I sat down to watch the totally boring movie (actually it was You’ve Got Mail, which is actually not-so-boring, it’s just I’d already seen it 5,392 times and so sleep sounded WAY more appealing) and soak my stinging, burning, ouching foot.

Notice I said the idea was for the splinter to be drawn out. The reality ended up being that all the warm, salty water did was soften the skin a tiny bit and wrinkle my toes. My foot was still impaled by the bedroom floor’s weapon of fierce owie-ness.

Now I have to stop this suspenseful (haha-hoho) tale for a moment and make a note that in the days just prior to being attacked by the floor, I had been worrying about my health and more specifically about what would happen if I got sicker before I got better and who would take care of me, because Mike was obviously not going to. After all he was all disinterested and seemingly unmoved any time I mentioned feeling achy or what-have-you. Any time anything medical or remotely so came up with the kids it was always left to me to handle… so obviously this translated into “I will be on my own and no one will take care of me”. Because my brain likes to put random conclusions on things that really make no sense.

Then Mike asked for a needle. He was going to have to perform surgery dig it out. OY VEY!!!

I have always hated splinters. Even just the real simple, little-bitty, out-on-the-first-try-with-tweezers kind. Once, as a kid, I got a splinter of GLASS (can you imagine the horror??) in my foot and I carried on so and screamed so much, that my mom was petrified the new neighbors would call the cops for child abuse. Splinters always seemed to mysteriously disappear anytime Mom even mentioned a needle. Not once did she manage to get near me with one. Come to think of it, there are probably some splinters still in my feet or hands that I didn’t let her get out with the needle and so the skin eventually grew over it. Yeah, I probably should not have let my thoughts wander in that direction… now I’ll forever be wondering just how much wood I’m carrying around under my skin…

Anyway. So Mike asked for a needle because the floor had done a doozy on my poor, size 7.5W (so not so little) foot and the chunk of wood was completely under the skin, inaccessible by tweezers. Great… not! Somewhere between the thoughts “AAAAAAHHHHHHH!” and “No, no, no, no, NO! NO NEEDLE!” I had the thought “there is even a reason for getting splinters and this time it might be an opportunity to show you that you can trust Mike to take care of you”.

And so, I gritted my teeth and tried with all my might to hold still while Mike dug at my foot with a needle equally as big as the log he was trying to dig out. (Or at least it felt that way.) My might wasn’t enough to keep me completely still or quiet, though. I did squirm and squeal, or at least Mike claims I did. (I think maybe he’s just foolin’…)

The thing is… Mike did get the splinter out… and he was VERY gentle in doing so. Yes, I said gentle in reference to a needle. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. I immediately declared him the World’s Best Splinter-Taker-Outer and have since referred the kids to Daddy at least twice with rave reviews of his splinter-removal skills.

Better than that though, I saw the whole episode for what it was… an opportunity to see that I could trust Mike to take care of me. I know that sounds hooky, but it’s totally true. It was hard for me to trust him with that needle, but I knew I needed to and I knew God wanted me to. So I closed my eyes and ‘handed’ over my foot instead of declaring the splinter miraculously gone and running and locking myself in the bathroom like I used to do as a kid. I’m glad I did, because I learned so much. Like how gentle my husband’s great big hands can be and how careful he is in trying not to hurt me BUT also totally capable of ‘doing what needs to be done’.

It’s a lesson that immediately came to mind a few weeks ago when my doctor told me I’d need IM (intramuscular…as in IN THE MUSCLE and so therefore very LONG and FAT needle) shots of B12 every day for awhile.

Somewhere between the thoughts of “AAAAAAHHHHHHH!” and “No, no, no, no, NO! NO NEEDLE!” I had the thought “It’s ok. Mike can do it and he’ll be good at it. It’ll be ok with him doing it.”

And truly… as much as I squirmed and squealed for the couple of weeks between hearing this news and actually getting everything in place (medicine, syringes, training) to start the daily injections… deep down I really wasn’t worried about it. That’s not to say I was looking forward to them or that I wasn’t a little curious as to just how it would feel, but I really wasn’t worried about the shots… as long as Mike was giving them.

I knew I could never give them to myself, which was actually the dr’s first suggestion. Needles are sized according to ‘gauge’. Kind of like wire. So the bigger the number gauge, the thinner the needle. Then they also have a length. The needles that Meagan uses for her growth hormone are super-thin and short. They barely go under the skin and they are just barely thicker than a hair. Seriously. They are 5/8″ long and 31 gauge.

I have a SUPER hard time poking those needles through skin… basically? I can’t bring myself to do it at all… which is why we use the Injectease. We put the syringe/needle in the Injectease, put the Injectease on Meagan’s skin and push the button. The Injectease pops the needle in her skin using spring-action and then I just push the plunger to deliver the meds. I don’t do any poking, though.

I use a big, fat 20 gauge to mix her meds. It’s almost as thick as the innards of a ballpoint pen. The needles I was going to be using? 1 1/2″, yes that is ONE AND ONE HALF inches, and 22 gauge!! You’ll notice 22 is closer to 20 than 31. There is a reason. They are THICK! Then the stupid pharmacy didn’t have 22 gauge and so Mike came home with a week’s supply of 21 gauge! Also, because they are so long and so big they won’t fit in the Injectease. Yeah… NO way I was going to be able to stick that in anyone, let alone myself.

Mike can, though. And very well, I might add. These are monster sized needles (in my opinion and since it’s my backside getting poked, it’s my opinion that counts), but the shots really, truly don’t hurt. He is THAT good! From the very first poke!! You’d think he’s been giving IM injections for years. I kid you not, his technique is better than the technique of most of the so-called professionals whom I can remember giving me injections.

Then today… oh my man is so good to me! He volunteered to take Meagan to her orthodontist appointment and then to go get the groceries…while I stayed home. How sweet, right? When he got back from the pharmacy (his 3rd trip out) he declared that “No one can say I don’t take care of my baby” and handed me a new pretty for my kitchen (a metal Coca-Cola tray) and a box of 22 gauge needles!!

Oh the romance that was in the air! Ok, maybe it wasn’t very romantic but it did make me remember the whole splinter/trust thing and prompt me to get on here and brag about how my hubby is taking good care of me despite my worries that he wouldn’t or couldn’t.

I am so thankful for my hubby and his gentleness!

Posted: July 14th, 2008 under Lyme disease, faith, lettin' hubby lead, the changing me.
Comments: none

…and he said I was sick. Imagine that!!

That hasn’t happened in I don’t know how many years. Ok, so I haven’t been to a doctor in I don’t know how many years, either, but oh well. lol

Actually this doctor said I was REALLY sick. He even talked to Mike after the appointment and told him I was “one sick puppy”. I thought that was cute. =) Anyway.

I am pretty sure he diagnosed me with Bartonella as well as the Lyme, and I think he suspects at least a couple other co-infections. He had testing done for Babesia (which is a cousin to malaria) and something else (don’t remember what), and wanted to test for Q-Fever, whatever that is, but it wasn’t on the Igenex order sheet.

He was originally going to test for Bartonella and something else, but since all these tick-borne diseases are clinical diagnoses because of the limited reliability of the current testing AND I don’t have insurance picking up the cost of these tests… he scratched out the Bartonella and one other test. That’s why I say I’m pretty sure he diagnosed Bartonella along with the Lyme. He didn’t actually SAY (or if he did I don’t remember, but that wouldn’t surprise me either since I was MEGA confused and flustered during the appt.), but he said if I was ok treating based on symptoms we could save the cost of those tests.

So, it seems I will be getting worse before I get better, so if the blogging REALLY slows down…you’ll know why.

Also he seemed impressed(?) that I was able to go right to the front of the line in terms of figuring out what was wrong and finding the right doctor. He said that most people spend years and years and see dozens of doctors, spending thousands and thousands of money before figuring out what was wrong. I told him honestly, “The Lord has blessed me greatly in being able to figure out what was going on and getting right to it.”

Praise the Lord! =)

Doc also said to remember that I can get well and the kids can get well. Sounds kinda weird hearing that, because it’s still sinking in that I’m sick. I mean I know I hurt and I can’t think worth a flip, but a lot of what he calls “symptoms”, I’ve called “normal, everyday stuff” for years and years.

It’s still hard for me to even use that word about myself…”symptoms”. In all honesty, I don’t think I HAVE used it out loud yet. I just can’t seem to bring myself to; I always skirt around that word and try to change the subject.

Part of it is I’m not used to having “permission” to be sick. I’m the mom. I can’t be sick, ya know? I gotta do what needs to be done, and besides… every weird, odd whatever (see? that “s” word still won’t flow…) I’ve ever mentioned has always been dismissed as normal.

Well, it turns out it’s NOT normal to black out when you “stand up too fast”, or get hives every time you take a shower, or have heart flutters all the time, or be super weak or tired with no energy for years on end, or have shooting pains or tingles or numb spots, or aching knees from obviously degenerating cartlidge (at age 26y), or muscle twitches several times a day in different spots, or stepping on electric needles in the morning, or bone pain in my shin and thigh and elsewhere, or dozens of other things that I thought were normal.

Wow, that was a long, rambling sentence. Oh well. At least I’m not writing this for a grade in English class!

Anyway. I’m also very much not used to spending money on myself. Certainly not in the massive amounts we’ve put out in the last two months…and to think… I’ve only seen a dr twice so far, had only a couple of basic blood tests done, and paid for only my first month of meds and supplements. Already the credit card people are rubbing their hands together! lol

Ah well, there too. I know this is where the Lord has led. I know seeing the doc and getting the meds and getting the kids tested and treated as well are all things He wants me to do. I know that He knew we would have these needs before I ever did. He also knew we would not have the means to provide them. He does, though, and so I’m trying hard to just trust Him to do so.

The doc wants to see me again next week to see how I’m adjusting to the meds. I have several and I have to work my way up to full dosage on them all. By next week I’ll only be just at the point of making the first of 4 step-ups to get to full strength. =/

I’m also going to join the land of the needled around here. While Meagan gets 2 sub-q shots a night, I’ll be getting 1 IM shot (of B12) every night. There is NO way I can do that myself (remember? I was taking Meg to the ped every month for her IM…), so Mike has volunteered to learn to give them. Isn’t he summin?! And here I was worried my hubby wouldn’t take care of me! Shame on me!

We’ve already gotten the bloodwork sent off for Matthew, and I’m hoping to hear back next week. Of course, Lyme Disease is a clinical diagnosis, so even if the testing is negative it doesn’t mean he’s clear. Actually my doctor suspects I’ve had Lyme since childhood making it highly LIKELY that I passed it on to the kids. I told him just a little of Matt’s Jekyll/Hyde like stuff and he said we really needed to get him to a LLMD to be evaluated.

Meagan has an appt with the ped in a couple of weeks, so I’m going to try to get her tested then.

Also, as for Matt’s immunotherapy… no solid news yet, but I do have a couple of ideas/leads, so I’m hoping to start figuring that out next week.

I think I’m gonna get. I’ve only had 4 antibiotic pills thus far, and already my joints are hurting worse. Don’t think I’m gonna take too kindly to this “could get better, but it’s gonna get worse first” thing. =( I do have pain pills now, but I’m trying to hang on to them. I don’t know how bad this is gonna get…

Posted: June 20th, 2008 under God's Guiding Hand, Lyme disease, faith.
Comments: none

I got a phone call from a longtime friend of mine on Monday. The first thing she said was, “Marie, we were in a tornado.” (I went by Marie in high school, so that’s what she is used to calling me.) Of course the first thing *I* said was “Oh no! Are you all ok?” After she assured me that her mom, all 4 kids, and herself were ok, so proceeded to tell me a story about God working miracles. I want to share.First a little background. My friend is a single, working mom to 4 kids. Her mom lives with her to help watch the little ones while she works…nights. She works as an aide in a nursing home while she’s waiting for the nursing school session to start in Sept, at which point she will be going to school to get her R.N. The town they live in is small, so the nursing home is not fully staffed overnight.

Sunday night she, one other aide, and an R.N. were on duty. Just about the time every one else left for the day, the sky turned dark and things went still. While some of the others at the home thought the stillness meant the predicted rainstorm was going to pass around them, my friend knew otherwise. She sprang into action, telling people there was a tornado coming. They started hustling getting the patients moved (most still in their beds, and many on oxygen) into the hallways.

Very early on, the R.N. was hit by glass and could no longer help, leaving the two aides to get the whole population to safety. My friend said she took one wing and the other aide took the other. She grabbed a pair of sunglasses and duct-taped them on. She grabbed a mask and put it on over her nose and mouth. Then she rushed around switching oxygen feeds to portable units, moving beds into the hallway and trying to direct the mobile patients into the halls.

There were a few in the lobby of the home, and the pressure and wind was such that my friend feared people getting blown or sucked away, so she sat down in front of the GLASS front door and braced herself to keep it from blowing open while the residents moved into the hall. When they were all out of the lobby, she too ran for the hall.

As soon as she got in the corridor, she says, the glass doors and windows all blew in. She said she could see huge pieces of glass flying into the corridor from either direction and knew she would be hit.

Just before the glass got to her, though… it turned to powder! I’ll say that again… it smashed up into glass DUST. So instead of being hit with giant shards of plate glass, she was hit with far, FAR less disastrous glass powder.

She was thanking the Lord, and praising God for being with her and helping her to know what to do and helping her to get it done and in protecting everyone.

The Lord held back the glass door blowing in until she was no longer sitting right in front of it. Because God gave her the sense to put on sunglasses and duct-tape them to her head, her eyes were protected from the bulk of the glass. Because He gave her the sense to put on a mask, she did not breathe any of the glass powder into her lungs. She was able to get all the residents safely into the hall, covered with blankets to protect them from glass before the glass started flying. None of the residents were injured at all, and all were later transported safely to nursing homes in neighboring towns. The R.N., while hurt, is ok.

When the storm was passed and my friend went outside to start the evacuation of the residents, she saw the home’s generator as well as a big tree limb on her car. The car was not dented, or even scratched.

She did have a lot of glass in her hair that she was still trying to wash out, and she had some glass slivers in her feet from glass getting in her shoes and then walking on it all night. She said her face felt kinda burned…like if she’d been in a sandstorm.

The biggest injury she sustained was some debri (glass?) in her eyes. Not a lot, she said, and one of the EMTs had given her some drops to put in them until she could see a doctor later in the week when the town got electricity back. She said her vision was a little blurry because of it, but she was oh so thankful for the Lord’s protective, guiding hand!

That call was such a blessing to me. Might sound funny, but if you could have heard the absolute EXCITEMENT in her voice when she was talking about how she KNEW God had been with her, helping her… About how she KNEW it was God that powdered all that glass, and that had helped her prepare for it with the glasses and mask. =) It was so cool to hear her so excited about that. I loved it!

I’ve been thanking the Lord for helping her, as well, of course! I love my daisytrippin’ friend, and hate the thought of anything bad happening to her. She’s had more than enough of that in the last 10 years as it is!

I ask for your prayers for her. For her eyes to heal,  and that the school (it was damaged pretty badly) will be able to have session so she can get her RN.

Posted: June 19th, 2008 under God's Guiding Hand, Miracles, Prayer Requests, faith.
Comments: none

I called a number I’ve had for weeks and weeks now, armed with not much more than a positive test result. Scratch that, armed with the Holy Spirit, so a whole lot more than a positive test result. I would not have been able to get through the call had I not done a bit of serious praying first. The short/good news is I have an appt the 17th… but now I’m worried…

The doctor himself called me back after I told the receptionist I’d had a positive IgM test through Igenex and that I’d heard the dr treats Lyme, and he did sound so nice, AND (and this was so cool!) he actually started out by believing me (which is so weird, ya know!). I know because he said I wasn’t very old but I’d been hit by a truck. Yup. That pretty much sums it up. And I was glad when he didn’t start asking me for symptoms, too, because that is something I’ve been worried about. That initial question. Not because I don’t have symptoms, mind you. Oh far from that! But because when asked outright like that, for some reason my mind freezes and shuts down and I have major problems pulling anything back out of the abyss of my mind in order to LIST them. So that was so nice, though I’m sure it seems kinda weird.

But then he found out I don’t have insurance, and maybe it’s just my imagination (ok, actually it probably is…probably more than a little of the OCD, anxiety, PARANOIA, etc creepin’ in), but it seemed like something changed.

Started off by saying it wasn’t free. Yeah, I KNOW that. I’m willing to pay. I don’t like it, but not because his expertise and/or the testing/meds are not worth the $$, just because I don’t like spending that kind of $$ on ME. My kids? Absolutely. Me? Never before. So it hurts me to do it in that regard.

And of course $$ isn’t exactly free-flowing around here, otherwise I would have had insurance years ago… I digress.

Why the difference I wonder? Do you think he is annoyed at/with me because he’s afraid I can’t/won’t pay?

I TOTALLY am going to pay. He will have his $$ every visit I go to. If I can’t pay, I won’t go in. I just won’t.

I HAVE gone in to the ER not being able to pay, but that is totally different. I have never and WILL never (if I have anything to say about it at all) go to a dr visit knowing I can’t pay for it. I just won’t.

Shoot. That’s why I’ve never gone in with all the various possible sinus or bladder or chest or kidney even… infections over the years. Cause I was not prepared to dish out the money. (I technically COULD have, but I didn’t see it as crucial since I had garlic and so could try that first, so therefore it was optional. And optional actually means not an option when it comes to ME. Know what I mean?)

So I did it. I grabbed the bulls by the horn sotospeak and actually DID something for FlyLady’s Anti-Procrastination Day. I made a dr appt for myself. And now? Now I have to find the $300 for the appt. Scratch that. Now I have to (attempt to!!) exercise patience and wait on the Lord to provide the $300 for the appt… oh and also the $190 for the testing for Matthew… and also the however-much-it-will-be for the meds I need.

It’s ok, though. Phillipians 4:19, Chris. Also, consider the lillies, Chris. And also? My God is a great BIG AWESOME God and no amount of $$ is too big for Him to round up. Doesn’t even qualify as pocket change for Him.

Deep breaths. Need to go either hyperventilate (not a good option) or maybe veg-out for a bit to get my mind off freakin’ out about the whole “did I upset the dr? did I offend him somehow? did I annoy him? did I say the right things? did I just mess up horribly?” thing.

Yeah. Can’t concentrate on much else at the moment. OCD much? =/

Posted: June 4th, 2008 under FLYing, faith, just life, the changing me.
Comments: none

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been avoiding posting. Truly. Outright avoidance. I’m not even really sure why.

Right now, this second, I am hating the me I am. Badly. I detest me. I’m an awful me. I have no one to blame but myself (ok, prob. can share at least a little blame with some little germies, but still…). I. Hate. Me.

I hate the me that I am. I am an awful mother. I yell at the kids. I hate that. I am getting worse about it the more I try not to, too. I hate that even more.

I tell the kids stupid stuff when I get upset or frustrated. I hate that, too. Things like “I know you hate me, you’ve made that perfectly clear.” or “You think everything has to be YOUR way or no way, and I’m about ready to tell you ok, no way and kick you out.” or “It’s ok, you probably won’t have to deal with the horrible mother that I am what with making you clean up your own messes and all- for much longer. I’ll probably be dead or locked up within 6mo anyway.”

He’s 9! WHY do I even say this stuff? I HATE it! I try so hard not to. I do. And the stuff just keeps coming. I didn’t use to be this way. Honest.

I know when the kids were still toddlers and throwing temper tantrums way more often than this (and BOTH of them were doing it!!), I was calm and cool for the most part. I didn’t ever blow up at them like this. I really didn’t. I’m SURE there were times when I snapped at them, but NOT like this. No way.

I either spanked them and put them in time-out or I tried Mom’s method of making them keep the tantrum going…long past the time they were ready to stop. (Almost reverse psychology there.) I can remember friends telling me I was sooooo patient…how do I do it? I got that a lot. At the time I did NOT think I was patient…at all… but looking back now? Knowing the way I am now? Oh I was super-mega patient mommy. Like you wouldn’t even believe!!

Now? I have no patience it seems and I HATE that! I have been trying to fix it. I’ve been praying for help and the patience thing just keeps getting worse and worse. It’s gotten like a billion times worse just in the last year. Probably about a year ago is when I first noticed I was having big problems with the whole patience/blowing up thing, and man! it just gets worse and worse.

I HATE ME!

Yes, I apologize every time. And yes I cry about it and he cries about it and we cry about it and we both promise to try and do/be better…me with the snapping/blowing up and him with the obeying/behaving to start with. Less behavior problem, less snapping problem. And NO I don’t mean that he is at fault… and yes, I tell him over and over that no he is not to blame for my blowing up. I just mean that there *is* a correlation. His constant fighting with everyone around him (whether it be fighting with his sister or fighting us parents by not doing what he’s told or correcting us or whatever….) is so unbelievably frustrating! I just can’t take it!

What I really don’t get and is where the “hating me” part comes in, I think, is that I used to get just as frustrated with him… or his sister… or my parents… or my brothers… or whatever… and yet I could still keep from blowing up nearly always. And on the rare occasions I did I *mostly* was able to keep from spewing too much junk before I quit. I’d mostly just bang things around for awhile and grunt.

Last year though, things started changing. Matthew’s behavior had been getting worse, the tantrums, the hate pouring out of him, the Jekyll/Hyde like stuff was worse and worse over the last couple of years. I was beyond frustrated with him, of course…had been for a long, long time, but I didn’t start blowing up and really losing it until last year.

When I noticed it (and believe me I noticed it pretty quick), I immediately started hating myself and begging God to please help Matthew and help me. At first I protested being his mom, I begged God to please take him from me and give him to someone who could give him what he needed because obviously I couldn’t. Nothing I’d tried had helped…at all.

I begged and begged. Then I gave up and said ok, if You won’t give him a different mom, please make me into the mom he needs.

This… this me that I am right now tonight… can NOT be it. It just can’t be. I know that.

Around the same time I started having really bad brain problems in general. Bad anxiety, freaking out, paranoia, forgetfulness (actually this had been building for a few years), inability to think clearly or to focus, word finding problems, couldn’t say what I wanted to in the right way, etc. Lots of stuff.

I started crying out to God, “What is wrong with me?!”. I knew something was wrong. I was losing my mind. I really, REALLY thought I was going crazy.

Then I started having weird nerve pain and tingles and numbness. Electric shocks going through my body in different places. I’d had shin pain for awhile, and swollen lymph nodes off and on, too. Started having balance problems walking to and from church so I pretty much took to driving. Especially after one particularly scary trip where I wasn’t sure I was NOT going to pass out once I got inside the church.

I decided I better run a quick check online to see if I needed to find a dr. No insurance makes the internet my first pitstop. I run my symptoms through and do a little research first. If it seems more likely that it is a common, simple thing I can skip the dr fee. That way I’m not paying for a dr to tell me I have a simple cold or a little bit of heat exhaustion or I’m probably a little low on vitamins or whatever. If it looks more troubling? Well, then I guess I’ll have to bite the $$ bullet and get it checked out.

This has worked fine for years. I watch for signs of infection (sinus, bladder, kidney, etc) and take garlic for that…if it doesn’t get better I’ll go in for stronger antibiotics. I’ve never needed to, btw. I’ve probably saved thousands of dollars this way.

I started with the freak-out type stuff and what was coming up was rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. Not just the “normal” bipolar, but rapid-cycling. That is… extreme highs and lows but SEVERAL TIMES IN ONE DAY. Oh yes. It was so not a good few months there… really. =(

That seemed to make a LOT of sense and I was pretty sure I better see about finding a dr to be sure and then get some meds, but something kept naggin at me… that wouldn’t explain the weird balance and nerve pain and other various PHYSICAL problems.

My knees that had been acting up off and on for 2-3yr (early onset osteoarthritis I’d decided) were doing ok, but now my feet were joining the party. And my hands, and my arms… I’d had super bad headaches more ON than off for years. And lots and lots of other things too.

So I tried again, this time being sure to include the physical stuff. The last time I’d really done any REAL diggin into possible health problems was several years ago… for the kids. At the time there was not a site where you could go and enter a bunch of symptoms and get a list of possible things to look into, but I remember discussing with a friend of mine that there SHOULD BE!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that now there WERE sites like this (besides google, I mean). So I did that.

I came up with things like: lupus, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, Lyme disease, Parkinson’s Disease, bipolar disorder, and a few others. It was really weird to watch the possibles list change as I entered symptoms or took them away. Pretty much the only one that stayed no matter what was Lyme disease.

I pretty much ignored that one, though. I’d had a tick attached back in the summer of ‘03 and had looked up Lyme disease at the time, knowing I didn’t have insurance to go see a dr because of a tick bite. I looked it up to see what to watch for that way if I DID have problems I could go in, then. Bullseye rash and then a few weeks later knee pain, and eventually the arthritic stage would resolve itself anyway. So, it looked like really I could just tough it out even if I did get the bullseye rash… it would all go away on its own. I kept an eye on the redness that showed up a couple of days after we pulled the tick off, but the center never cleared, so I was good.

I looked into each of the other possibles a little and pretty quick was able to say my problem was probably NOT _____ for whatever reason. The most likely one was looking like multiple sclerosis.

Interestingly enough, this was right at the same time my mom took herself into the doctor (shock of shocks!!!) because of a weird numbness episode she’d had. The doctor was checking her out for MS! Had an MRI and a CAT scan, both. No MS, but her thyroid levels were a little low. I thought it seemed appropriate we were both looking at poss. MS until I realized that MS actually is NOT generally found “running in families”. oh. my bad. LOL

A talk with a friend, though, told me that not everyone gets a bullseye rash with Lyme disease AND that the knee pain doesn’t always show up right away…sometimes not for years and sometimes not even then, but Lyme can cause a lot of other symptoms too.

Back to the research drawing board I went. Oh the info I found on Lyme disease! She was right… the bullseye rash is NOT always there, nor are symptoms always seen right away. Hmmm… Also every single symptom I had *could* be attributed to Lyme disease. Including the losing my mind kind of stuff.

So I told Mike that pretty much I felt sure I was looking at either MS or Lyme, and I needed to see a dr. In the meantime I did more research and reading. I found out that oftentimes Lyme disease is misdiagnosed. Many cases of: MS, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and even some cases of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, early Alzheimer’s, ADD/ADHD, and bipolar disorder are found to actually be Lyme disease. People were getting better after being diagnosed and treated properly (with Lyme) whereas they had not been getting better being treated for the ______.

Sooo… looking like maybe the most likely is Lyme? How WEIRD is that, though?? I live in TEXAS! And Lyme is supposedly RARE, right? Especially in TEXAS?!?!

Well, no.

It’s transmitted by deer ticks found in the northeast, yes. It’s also transmitted by lonestar ticks (found here in the Lone Star State!), and other species of ticks. It’s also been found in fleas, gnats, flies, and mosquitos. So there’s a potential right there. The deer ticks in nymph stage can be as little as the period at the end of this sentence. If it bites and doesn’t make a bullseye rash, you might not even know it’s there at all! Lyme has been found in every state in the USA.

I was born in Virginia. I vacationed in VA and Maine as a kid. I lived near wooded areas several times as a kid here in TX. I knew for sure I’d had at least one attached tick. I’d even had a rash with it. I definitely had the possibility of having been exposed to the Lyme bacteria.

I knew I was going to have to go to a dr and I knew I was going to have to be tested for Lyme, too. WHATEVER I had, I was getting sicker. My symptoms were getting worse. My bad days were getting worse and more frequent. The aches had spread to nearly every part of my body at random various times, and on bad days EVERYTHING ached. On bad days I was hurting everywhere…and stiff… and couldn’t think or function worth a flip. The bad days were starting to keep me in bed, even. Not just keeping me from getting cleaning done, but keeping me from being able to get up at all.

I was scared, and confused, and I still am. I hadn’t seen a dr since I was pg (except for an ER trip a few summers ago due to weird blood/heart problems which DEFINITELY is connected, I know now). I had collected so much information, but I had no insurance and could not figure out what my best plan of action was. Also? Lyme can be passed through pregnancy to the baby… I had had some symptoms since jr. high. If I had Lyme, the kids could.

Testing isn’t always accurate. Lyme is a clinical diagnosis. That means even if the tests come back negative, you might still have Lyme. This is because they need better testing… and also because the Lyme bacteria burrows its way into your tissues, organs, bones, etc and hides from your immune system, so the immune system may or may not be making antibodies against it. It’s the antibodies the tests look for.

By December, I knew I had to see a doctor who knew and understood Lyme. One who wouldn’t blow me off by saying Lyme doesn’t exist in TX (which it certainly DOES, but regardless I could have picked it up in VA or ME or CO or a dozen other places). I also knew the kids would need testing if I were diagnosed with Lyme.

I asked my friend to help. My brain just doesn’t work right a lot of the time. Besides this was ME talking about ME seeing a dr. This is just sooooo weird. I needed help.

She very graciously said she would help. =) I was still not sure, though. I mean for years I had relied on Jesus to be my only physician. After all, He is the Great Physician. I had convinced myself that for ME that is the way it should be. That I wasn’t fully trusting God if I saw a dr. I took the kids to drs, sure… that was different. Although I did totally see the irrationality of that, I still couldn’t shake it.

I was so scared I would be failing God by going to a doctor, or that I would maybe not be failing…but that maybe it just wasn’t what I should do. I prayed and prayed some more. Of course I’d BEEN praying for months that the Lord would please help me know what to do, that He’d help me figure out what was wrong and that if He wanted me to see a dr, He would help me to know that. I prayed more…and then some more. One day I prayed very specifically… I was just so scared of doing something out of His will and just so confused and it seemed like the more I thought about stuff the more confused I got, so I prayed, “Lord if you want me to see a dr, please, You’re going to have to tell me exactly WHICH doctor and exactly what to say, because I just can’t figure this out.”

I don’t think it was even two days later my friend showed up at my door and started a conversation about doctors and told me the name of a doctor she felt sure would order the testing for me and then told me to let her know if I needed help in figuring out exactly what to say when I went in.

Things got crazy and I didn’t actually get an appointment made for another few weeks, but go in I did…with my friend right beside me. Oh my goodness was that ever a BLESSING!! I was petrified and nervous and so very thankful for her presence.

The P.A. signed the paperwork so I could have the test for Lyme done through a lab in CA that specializes in tick-borne diseases. This lab has the most accurate testing, though even these tests can still come up falsely negative. We dropped the sample off in the mail and then I waited.

For two weeks, I think it was. That day Matt took off and he ended up visiting the jail the next day? Well the day he visited the jail I spent in pain in bed most of the day. I finally managed to get up around 2pm, but only just. I HAD to, though, because Meagan had to go get a Lupron shot and bloodwork done and of course Mike was waiting to hear back from the police about Matthew. So I managed to take Meagan to do the shot and bloodwork and then went to church. While I was in bed, Mike had called the dr office to see if the test results were in yet. They were not. I’d already called a couple of days before.

I called again the Monday of the next week and ended up calling the lab in CA. The results were sent out to the dr, but the dr’s office was saying they still didn’t have them. So I got a fax # and called the lab back and had them fax it over. I picked up a copy the next day.

It was positive.

I have Lyme disease.

I still need to find a dr to treat it though. I am trying to get the guts up to call a dr tomorrow. I’m scared he won’t take me as a patient, though, since I don’t have insurance.

I’ve waited till now to even think about calling and getting an appointment because I thought I’d try to get insurance first. Since the P.A. had not given me a diagnosis officially, I thought that meant I did not have a pre-existing condition and so I could get health insurance and then when it kicked in I could go to the dr. Except that won’t work.

Last Thursday we had Meagan’s Un-birthday party… at the park… at 2pm… in the TX sun. There was little to no shade. Whether it was the sun, the stress (it was a FULL week or two before that filled with Lupron reactions, ortho appointment, dentist appt to get 7 teeth pulled, end of school, awards banquet, and lots of other stuff), or the Lyme bacteria’s ‘cycle’ (the bacteria reproduces about every 30 days), or WHAT I don’t know, but Friday was a BAD day.

I mean a big bad day. Worst day I’ve had yet. I was in so much pain and was so stiff and weak in the a.m. that Mike had to help me roll over for much of the morning. Around noon I was able to get myself rolled over without help, but I still couldn’t get up. Mike was ready to take me to the ER or the GP we’d seen years ago, but I was scared to do that since I still hadn’t looked at the insurance thing closer. He called and got info on the health insurance through his work. Open enrollment is in Oct. It would cost $180 every pay period to get me put on and it wouldn’t kick in until Jan. He wanted to take me in and get something to help get me through till then, at least, but I was adamant.

I finally managed to get up and sit for about an hour in the evening, then back to bed. Mike said I had fever when he left for work that night. Saturday was better. I was able to get up and into the dining room, but with much difficulty. I was stiff and I hurt and I was weak, but nothing like the day before. I spent most of Sat. looking into the insurance.

Come to find out the insurance companies look back anywhere from 6mo-5yr and anything you sought advice or treatment for or that a “prudent person” WOULD have sought advice or treatment for is considered a pre-existing condition and most insurance companies will exclude any and all treatment costs for that condition for a year or permanently. So as that extremely long sentence shows (LOL!)… I was outta luck on the ins. Even if I got some, it still wasn’t going to pay for Lyme treatment.

Sunday was even better, though I did stay home from church in the am. I was still walking WAY funny. No way would I have been able to do the amount of walking required without a cane. Since I didn’t have one… haha. I had loosened up enough by that evening that I could go to the evening service. I was still stiff and sore and I was still walking funny, but not horribly so. I was, of course, still twitching, too. Twitching is pretty much an everyday thing anymore. I hope no one noticed. I don’t think so. Anyway, if they did they didn’t say anything. I did have 3 people ask what I did that left me so stiff. I told them nothing, but I doubt they believed me. LOL

So that brings me to tonight. Why didn’t I call yesterday or today? I’m scared. I heard another woman was calling this dr Monday, and thought it would be weird if I called the same day. Besides she was obviously sicker and in more need than I was… she’d been to the ER last week and they really messed up her arm with the IV poke. So I thought I’d wait a few days, maybe. Then I heard that the dr was going to “get back with her” about whether or not he’d take her on as a patient and I basically freaked. I wanted to wait and see if she’d get in or not.

Found out this afternoon that he is going to take her, which is great. =) She has insurance though. I do not. I’m still scared he won’t take me.

I have no reason to wait anymore either, and every reason to NOT wait. Especially since I am hating the me I have become more and more each day. No, I should not blow up at the kids no matter what, but YES the Lyme *is* playing a part. I know that now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get back to the kind of mom I was 6 or 7 or 8 years ago if I don’t get treated and get better. In fact, I’m sure I won’t. So I have to do this. Somehow.

I don’t have any idea how we’re going to pay for the dr visits, the meds, the bloodwork, the supplements. Not to mention the fact that it could double or triple as we still have to get the kids tested and then if THEY need treatment and the in-network drs can’t or won’t treat…

Matthew has an appointment with a new pediatrician Thurs. I have the test kits from the lab (Igenex) in CA sitting here ready. I’m praying the new ped will sign the paperwork to get the testing done. We’ll have to pay out-of-pocket for that, since the lab is out-of-network.

I don’t know how the Lord is going to work this out. I don’t. BUT I do know He will. I know this is where He’s led me/us. And if God leads you to it, He will see you through it.

Saturday night as I laid in bed, after having learned that no matter what I wasn’t going to get health insurance to cover Lyme treatment for me unless I waited a LONG time and/or committed insurance fraud, I prayed. I prayed and I reminded myself that if the Lord outfits the lilies, He will surely take care of me. We humans are more precious to Him than the animals and plants and other creations as we are made in His image. If He cares enough to take care of the new kitty we have, and I know that well enough that I felt ok praying that He would help us get rid of the fleas that had found her, then He cares for me enough to take care of the dr bills without insurance. I realized I had been kinda trying to put my faith and trust in the insurance to cover the costs because I just can’t SEE or fathom how He will provide otherwise.

Thing is, I don’t have to see it or understand it. I don’t have to know ahead of time how He’s going to work it out. Jesus cares so much for me that He DIED for me, He loves me and wants the best for me. I know because He tells me so in the bible. He’s led me this far on the Lyme journey. He’s allowed me to figure out I needed testing and treatment, He’s not going to quit caring and helping now… He will make a way, even if it does seem impossible to me right now.

So I decided then that I was going to go ahead and call to make an appointment this week, and nevermind waiting on insurance. For a start I was not about to even consider committing insurance fraud. Uh-uh! The Lord will provide a way that does NOT include breaking a law. Of that I am SURE! Whether or not we even look about buying insurance (and then it would *maybe* start paying for treatment after a year) or not I don’t know right now, but if so, it won’t be while trying to hide the Lyme disease!

Sunday night at church, the song sung as a special was “Consider the Lilies”. =) I thanked God right then and there for that blessing. That was the very idea and verse and what-not I’d been having to focus on and remind myself of just the night before. Ok, so it probably wasn’t me, after all, huh? More like the Holy Spirit reminding me to consider the lilies…

And the woman who sang the special? Well, she was one of the three that commented on my stiff walk. LOL

So I’m sitting here hating the me I’ve become, and knowing that while I am NOT completely guiltLESS by any stretch of the imagination, there *IS* some problem outside of my control that is making the situation all the more difficult and complicated. So while I’m hating the me I’ve become, some of that hate is actually for the bacteria that is chewing on my brain, and other body parts, and throwing my hormones into a major tizzy. The bacteria has helped to shape the me I’ve become. Stress, frustration, and lack of help (mostly due to my stubborn SINFUL pride which has led me to not only not ask for help but to actually turn it away over the years…) has also played a part. Exhaustion plays a role too. And yes, of COURSE!!! so does sin. Like I said, I am NOT guilt LESS.

I need to work even harder at locking myself up when I lose it. I always end up not doing it because I think that’ll be leaving Matthew to “get away” with something and/or it’ll leave the kids unsupervised (while I’m hiding in the closet crying or fuming). I have done it before, just not in awhile. I used to be pretty good at it when Mom and the others were still here. I guess I figured I could then because there would still be an adult (my mom) up and about to watch over things while I hid.

Since they moved out, I’ve been mostly trying to just not have the whole frustrated blow-up problem at all so I don’t have to hide and leave them unsupervised. (Trust me, Matthew unsupervised during one of his meltdowns is not good… of course me in one of MINE isn’t either…)

One thing about it… if the way I feel when I have these meltdowns or whatever is at all close to what Matthew feels when he has his… Oh my stars!! =( It’s not good. At all. It really, REALLY is uncontrollable at a certain point. Mike and I were talking about it a couple of weeks ago… if there really truly is some physical aspect to his massive Jekyll/Hyde like behavior over the past SIX YEARS, then we feel AWFUL for being so hard on him when he has these meltdowns.

We just didn’t know it could even be an honest-to-goodness possibility, ya know? Now we know it’s possible, and we’re going to try to find out, and in the meantime I hope and I pray that I can keep my own cool and quit saying stupid things to him that I shouldn’t. I HATE that I say them… sick or not, physical problem or not I shouldn’t say them. I know it and I feel awful about it and I’m TRYING to not do it anymore, I am. There truly is something to the “uncontrollable” thing though…at least after a certain point. There are times when I really TRULY can’t help but blow my top. Sometimes over the stupidest things, too…which again… sounds like Matthew.

So yeah. I’m a horrible mom. I know it, but I AM trying to fix things. Yes, I’ve yelled at my kids and said some really awful things to them. I AM trying to fix things. Please don’t hate me. I do enough of that for us both. Truly. =(

I guess that explains why I’ve been avoiding posting. I knew it would be a long, full disclosure kind of post. One in which I let it all hang out sotospeak. Not pretty or pleasant. More like painful. I don’t like pain. I tend to try to avoid it if at all possible. I’m sure you understand.

Posted: June 3rd, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, faith, the changing me.
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Matthew has been bouncing around to bible tunes all day. That’s fine (well except the BOUNCING is driving me slightly BONKERS), but he is still not getting school work done. GRRRR! However, he did ask me this:

“Mom, is it true that all jail cells have bars?”

To which I nodded, and he continued…

“ALL jail cells everywhere?”

Again with the nodding. I have NO idea what is going through his head right now. I hope some big time decisions about listening to Dad and Mom’s rules and obeying them. This is the first thing he has said to me about the trip yesterday. Meagan and I were up at the hospital doing the Lupron and bloodwork thing, so it was a guys night out kind of a thing. Cool with that I am, since that is EXACTLY what Matt needs/ed.

He hasn’t even told me he went. I guess he either figures Dad has already told me, or that if he doesn’t say anything I’ll never find out and he won’t have to be embarrassed about it.

Little side-notes to this whole jail/law/justice thing:

• Last night’s sermon was our responsibilities as Christian citizens. That is: on obeying the law. Touché ! =)   ~Even Mike got a giggle out of that one!
• Today I ran across this post... LOVE it!

Another cool little circle of coincidences. I’m loving how the Lord spins these, I really am!

Posted: May 8th, 2008 under Matthew, faith.
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I wrote this post a couple of nights ago, not knowing when I was going to post it. This morning’s preaching was on being a missionary wherever you are…whether that be on a foreign field or your own hometown. So I thought this was a good day to post it. Also tonight after church, Matthew told me while eating his grilled cheese, “Mom, I can be a missionary to my family even while I’m a kid.” Someone was paying some attention, huh? =) He then told me how easy it would be…just give them a tract or ask them if they are saved. Exactly. My hope is that we’ll all work harder at this. We can look to our missionary as an example.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our Missionary

The night Meagan made public her surrender to the Lord’s call on her life to the mission field, I asked her if she’d like to call her great-grandmother and tell her the news.

“YEAH!!!”

she answered.

When we got home, Matthew said something like, “why do you want to call Maw-Maw?”

I replied, “Because she’s OUR missionary!”

And then it hit me. She really is. I mean originally I’d said it because we’d all grown up knowing the story of how Maw-Maw had been a missionary to Argentina when my mom was little, and so by “our missionary” I meant the missionary we knew personally, and best…for a long, long time the only one we knew at all.

As soon as I said it, though, I saw much more to it than that. Yes, she HAD been a missionary to Argentina when my mom was little. (All three of my uncles were born on the mission field.) When they came back to the States one time (on furlough??), though, my grandfather left her and the six kids. She did not return to the mission field…or rather not the SAME mission field.

I realized then that while she didn’t return as a missionary to Argentina, she did return to a mission field. Her family.

All throughout my life, the first person I’ve thought of when I think of a Christian has been my Maw-Maw. When I look back and think about the person I’ve known to be a Christian the longest…it’s Maw-Maw.

I can’t remember a time I did not view her as a Christian. I can not remember a time when I did not know she loved Jesus. I can not remember a time when she wasn’t SHARING WITH OTHERS that Jesus loved them, too. I can not remember a time when she wasn’t influential in my life.

Even when I was at my punkiest worst, it still bothered me to think about Maw-Maw knowing how horrible I was being. She became the standard to which I held up my behavior… “Is this something I would want Maw-Maw knowing I did/said/read/etc?” Even if the answer was no AND I STILL DID IT ANYWAY (which I’m ashamed to say happened a lot in my teens…) the question was still in the back of my mind.

When I got saved and started my new life as a Christian, it was HER life as a Christian that I tried to model my own after. I tried to think about what I knew about being a Christian…that is, I tried to think about what I knew about Maw-Maw being a Christian. What did she do? How did she handle things? React? When I wanted to turn my home into a Christian home, it was hers I looked to as a model. Her house resonated with bible songs in my mind. It was her home that housed the Christmas play in which I played Mary… her house where the whole extended family (when I was young there were a dozen grandkids, we’ve since swelled to 17??) met for family get-togethers where Maw-Maw had us all hold hands in a giant swirly-circle and prayed before we dug into the massive quantities of culinary goodness.

I also can’t remember a time when Maw-Maw was not actively sharing with ME and the rest of my generation the stories, songs, and lessons from the bible.

Maw-Maw took me to Sunday School, dressed up in my little girl finery, and then to Piccadilly’s for lunch and jello afterwards. Maw-Maw taught me the songs “Zacchaeus was a wee little man…” and “This is the day that the Lord has made…” and “Jesus loves me, this I know…” She taught me the little hand-rhyme about the church, the steeple, the doors, and the people. It was Maw-Maw who let me listen to her kids’ praise records for hours and hours at her house. It was Maw-Maw who had a little plastic box in the shape of a loaf of bread that housed bible verses. She taught me the wordless book. She sent me books about being a Christian girl as a young teen. She sent me tracts. It was Maw-Maw who sent me to church camp at 10 years old where I overhead a camp counselor telling a fellow camper that in order to go to Heaven we had to ask Jesus to forgive us.

All these little pieces, along with the bible verse (John 3:16) and the deep conviction that God would help us and never give us more than we could handle that my mom shared with me, added up and paid off when in the spring of 2000 I accepted Jesus as the Truth…and my Savior.

So you see, my grandmother really is OUR missionary. Her influence played such a huge part of my own salvation! She reached out of her home and to me (after a fashion…I was SO stubborn and bull-headed!) and it’s trickled down to my own children as well. Without her influence on me, I don’t know if I ever would have come to Jesus. And if I hadn’t…and hadn’t started teaching the kids…would they have ever come to know Jesus? I don’t know. I do know that we see her as OUR missionary.

That is why I thought it OH-SO special and sweet that Meagan surrendered to be a missionary on the night when we had a missionary family headed to… ARGENTINA! And more than that? They have 3 girls and 4 boys. (Maw-Maw had 3 and 3.) And even more than that?

I’d learned in an old newspaper (?) article that it was Maw-Maw who was called to the mission field first. I’d always assumed she kind of followed along… I also learned that where she ended up (Cordoba, near Buenos Aires) was not where she’d wanted to go. She’d wanted to go and reach the Indians up in the mountains of Argentina. Guess where the visiting missionary family is headed? Yup! =)

A most wonderful circle of coincidences. God seems to surround me in these circles often. I love being caught up in the middle of them. They’re so beautiful!

Thank you, Maw-Maw, for being my missionary!

I am so very thankful that the Lord blessed me with the family I have. I’m so grateful to have the grandmother that I do. She’s one of my heroes of faith.

Posted: April 27th, 2008 under faith, family.
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