this day

Last night with the thunderstorms came the mother of all migraines - WOW! I finally got to sleep about 11:00, and had my fully expected sluggish, dopey wake up this morning. COFFEE PLEASE!

A sweet friend comes for coffee before work once a week and today was the day - was it tempting to text and cancel? Yes.  I could barely lift my head.  She totally would have understand ... but I was awake and I knew she would still love me dopey and sluggish, so I didn't. And what a blessing it was to spend that time with her - it always is, but today was an extra special time.

Next up was some pre-planned time with Christa and the littles. I've had so few opportunities to spend time with them this summer, and that makes me so sad. So again, while I was so tempted to crawl back in bed, I went on over, and had some precious one-on-one time with each kiddo. Mase and I built with Trios - some sort of amazing Spiderman contraption that would keep out the bad guys and keep the good guys safe, complete with ladders and stairs, steps, swinging doors, labs, etc. Of course everything I tried he had a "better way" (he was almost always right, darn kid). It was sweet time with him. Next up, Lexi and a ferocious game of Rummikub. Speaking of darn kid, she beat me! But it was a good, fun, close game - she is so good! Lots of chatting which is not normal during that particular game, so we got "caught up" too. Also got to see her new ginormous bear that she bought with her own money - the thing is half again her size and she lays in it to read. :) Also got to see her new backpack and peek into her new school supplies - pure joy, for REAL!

Then Callie, not to be left out, wanted to play a game too. This was actually hilarious. The game she picked was ridiculous - it's a tub of tiles that each have a word on them, and the point of the "game" is to make sentences out of the words. (I'm not even sure it's really a game at all, and remember she's THREE. She CAN'T READ.) Somehow it took on Rummikub-ish rules and we divided the tiles and the goal was to get rid of them as fast as possible. So picture this ... I'm over there obsessing on how to make these random words into real sentences and she's lining her tiles up by color as fast as she can. Guess what, I lost that game too. :)

And that was it ... my "push" was over, and I dragged myself home for a bite of lunch and a super long nap.

I started a book by Warren Wiersbe called "The Bumps are What You Climb On" - only read the first chapter, which was good - I'll let you know as I progress - but it led me to Psalm 91 which was fantastic for me today - do me a favor and put this aside, go find a Bible or go to biblegateway.com and look it up, and tell me if it encouraged you as much as it did me!

This day.

these days

These days ... I've been waiting until this "season" passes to start blogging again. You know, my usual eclectic weird mix of goofy, serious, littles'-adoring posts. But as I've alluded to in the last few, I've got some health stuff going on, and on ... and on. So if I want to keep posting it looks like I'm going to need to give you at least the short version of the backstory and catch you up to speed so that I can tell you about the cool things that are happening on the journey, and I really want to share that stuff! First, this song seemed really fitting this morning - pretty apt description of where I stand right now ... trying to learn how to love these days.  (Plus I just love Mandisa!)

On April 7th, I had a sudden onset migraine accompanied with vertigo, and shortly thereafter started having seizures.  Thankfully my husband was home, and he called an ambulance.  I spent several days in the hospital, including being transferred to an epilepsy unit, and came home with no real answers.  I began having nearly daily migraines, sometimes accompanied by the vertigos, and occasionally with seizures.  I made several more trips to the emergency room, obviously started seeing numerous doctors, and the short version is this:  no one can figure out what's going on.  I have lots of other symptoms that started at the same time - swallowing problems, balance issues, numbness & tingling in my hands and feet, vision problems, excruciating fatigue, I could go on.  The latest is that I had a a bunch of blood work and a lumbar puncture last Friday looking for MS and Lyme Disease, and the results should take about 10 days.  The closest thing to a diagnosis I have is "migraine with seizures," which I believe to be true, but it cannot explain all the other things that are happening at the same time.  I have been sent "chasing symptoms" (such as the vision problems) to specialists, none of which can be explained within the specialty of that doctor.

I will tell you that if the lumbar puncture/blood work come back negative, we are considering going to Mayo Clinic.  We think at this point that we need a team of people on "the case" to see what is going on - obviously it's quite complicated.

I've been on a leave of absence from work since July 1.  I can't say enough about the wonderful people I work for and with - they were not only gracious but encouraged me without hesitation to take this time to get well.  My co-workers and other friends have been encouraging in so many ways, checking in on me, bringing meals, visiting me, and breaking me loose from jail from time to time (I'm not driving either).

As you might guess, though, the days can get long, and nearly daily migraines are quite frankly exhausting and depressing.  I fight against losing joy and hope ... my heart and mind know the truth - the source of my joy, the source of my hope, are in the God who is right here to comfort me, and who has a purpose for this time in my life - I know it I know it I know it!  But I'm human, and there are just days when I am sad, and days that I get mad.

I have made a choice, though.  When I realized that I would have empty hours stretching before me every single day, I knew that I would have to choose carefully how to spend them, or the depression would envelop me quickly.  Law & Order, fooling around on Facebook, etc., are great time wasters for me, and I could easily spend all my days doing nothing more, especially if I'm not feeling well, and of course it could be rationalized by ... you guessed it - I don't feel well!! 

However, I knew that for my spiritual, emotional and mental health, I needed to make a different choice.  So I am spending my mornings with the Lord, one way or another.  I don't have any "formula" (unusual for me - another post about that coming soon :) but rather am reading a number of books that have been on my "I'll get to that someday" list, listening to music, reading devotionals, studying scripture, and journaling like crazy.  I'm learning to get real with God, and it's been absolutely stunning to me how near He has come when I let my defenses down.  (WHY do we keep up our defenses up against God?  I suppose because we've learned we need to keep them up against people to stay safe, so we automatically keep them up towards Him too, our ONLY safe place?)  Anyway, I'm still stutter-stepping my way into this "realness" but it is raw and lovely, and I wake up excited to do it again every day.

That's it for now.  Back soon.

hula hoop hips on the 4th of July

Gotta love these two hula-hoopers - Lexi's been working at it for awhile (now don't forget the coordination gene factor that runs in our family - all in all she's doing pretty well in my opinion)!

And never one to be outdone, youngest little must have her turn in the limelight.  Now she is definitely the most coordinated of the three, so at her age, I again think she does a pretty darn good job!

I had to laugh when Christa sat down to make Mason repeat the the punk rules to her before they started doing their fireworks - most of them were the usual expected ones, but the very first rule he stated was "DO NOT touch anyone with the punk!"  Ha ha ha!  Wonder if that had already happened the night before??