Countering Worry

Summer has finally arrived here in Southern California after the longest "winter" we have experienced since moving here. Either way, summer or winter, we can't complain, as winter is not what we would have experienced even 7 short years ago in West Virginia and certainly not what we lived through all those years in Massachusetts. Even summer has taken on a whole new meaning this year, as it is almost mid-July and we have not even had to turn our air conditioner on one time. 

I truly believe that when we are going through some of the hardest times of life, God offers us such blessings to allow us to see He is still there. I know I speak for Kyra and myself when I say one of those blessings is, in fact, the opportunity to live, grow, and just BE in Southern California. There's something very healing and peaceful about this place. Multiply that by a million on the days we get to go to the coast. It's one of the reasons, as our daughters Lyme Disease progressed, we knew we had to move her back home to SoCal from where she was living in NoCal, there is that much of a difference between the two parts of the state.

She also needed to be with us. She needed the help her dad, her brother, her sister-in-law and I could provide with the baby, with medical appointments, just doing life with Lyme. This weekend she had a unique opportunity to take her daughter to Disney. Somehow my children dodged their momma's Grinch, Disney hating gene, and they love it. Kyra spent weeks excited for the trip, planning outfits for not only herself, but her baby girl. Which Disney characters would they be? In the end, she chose Padme for herself, and Moana for the baby. Aren't they just adorable?????

But the weeks didn't come without worry. How long could she last at Disney? Would she end up a tired burden to the family she was attending Disney with? She did not want to interfere with their time, but, with her whole heart and soul, she wanted to go. I admit, I was worried as well, so, I did what mom's do best, and I came up with a plan. Since the family Kyra was going to Disney with was actually going for two days and Kyra was only going for one, her dad and I would plan an entire day around events near Disney so that we would never be more than a half an hour away if she fell ill and couldn't walk around the park anymore. 

Every night as Rich and I go to bed, he listens to a Christian program on his computer called Growing Thru Grace. I admit, I really do try to listen, but, having never been one to have a problem sleeping, I usually fall asleep within the first five minutes!!! It is Pastor Jack Abeelen out of Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier, CA. Only twelve miles from Disneyland, we thought this would be a great place to start our day. So yesterday morning, Rich and I headed north toward Whittier. The sermon was on Luke 12:22-34. Worry. Ok, God, I hear you, I had to travel 70 miles north to hear a sermon made just for me for such a time as this. Our family has been experiencing another really dark moment these last seven weeks that I am not at liberty to write about, but between our daughters illness and the other matter we are trying to walk each other through, worry has not only been my middle name, but my first and last as well.

I was excruciatingly worried about Kyra going to Disney for many, many reasons. The Momma Bear in me was alive and well, even though my baby girl is very much an adult. I tried to turn her over to God and just have an enjoyable day with my husband. Then, Pastor Jack said this, "The next time you say, I am worried, I want you to replace worried with FAITHLESS". OUCH....."HOLY SPIRIT ACTIVATE!!!" as one of my favorites, Chynna Phillips alway says. There was no one else in the church but me when he said that. And instantly I knew I could not spend another minute worrying about Kyras illness, I couldn't spend another instant worrying about her at Disney, and I could not spend another minute worrying about the other storm we are walking through as a family at this time. Faithless.......go ahead, try it. What are you worried about right now? Now say it out loud. Now replace worried with faithless. Here, I will go first. I am worried about my daughters illness. I am FAITHLESS when it comes to my daughters illness. What a difference! Imagine having to face God Himself some day with the repentance of being FAITHLESS for my daughters healing?? Wow. This was one of those moments my favorite Pastor ever, Roger Adams in Lewisburg, WV would call an Ebenezer Stone moment. From the very core of my soul I believe my life changed yesterday when Pastor Jack said those words and I will never look at worrying the same. 

Rich and I went on to spend the rest of our day in Dana Point, CA at one of our favorite places, the home of two of our dearest friends. Ed was in Afghanistan with Rich one of the years he was deployed, and, no offense to my real brother in law, but I always call Ed my favorite brother in law because he always took such good care of the kids and I when Rich would deploy from here in SoCal and he always checked on us and would tell us the most amazing stories of the time he and Rich spent in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. We hadn't visited him and his dear wife Annette at this home they have in a while because they usually live closer to us, so, since we were in Dana Point last, someone had installed this surfboard on the hiking trail. I tied it together perfectly with Pastor Jacks message in my mind. Keep Paddling, Stop Worrying, BE FaithFUL Not FaithLESS. In a strange way, it was as if I couldn't love Dana Point anymore, this surfboard sealed the deal for me.

Well, SURPRISE, it turns out all of my worry, was in fact, for nothing. Imagine that!!! Kyra had stopped taking her meds on Saturday in the hopes that the extreme side effects would go away by Sunday and she could enjoy her day at Disney. Her plan worked! I must have received 50 texts of how much fun she was having and the joy on her face and the babies face in the photos is priceless! She was able to stay at the park until 630, when, honestly, her dad and I had to make the call to pick her up because WE were exhausted and it was still an hour ride home. I think she would have been able to last a few hours longer even. So, all of my worry over this matter, was, in fact, for nothing and proved me faithless. So from now I will counter my worry with a strong faith, knowing in my soul that God is working through all of our trials right now and we will see beauty from these ashes in the end!

Carrying On

I am not really certain how it is already the first of July, time continues to run away from us.  Between working, keeping my husband a priority, helping Kyra through treatment and taking care of the baby, my memory blends into one giant time fog.  Without viewing a calendar, its hard to recall if this is week four or five of the latest trial life has handed us, but I know each day, we all look for the beauty and gratitude to sustain us.  The hope that can only be found in Jesus.

As we travel through the extensive healing process and protocol, its important to both Kyra and I to update everyone so people can see, if it works for her, it might work for you or someone you love as well.  So, as of my last post, we had determined which parasites we are at war with.  Last Friday, Kyra and I headed off to CVS to pick up three antibiotics, her new protocol for the month of July.  Kyra had no idea of my secret prayer that somehow, someway, these antibiotics were not going to cost us an arm and a leg.  With no health insurance at this time (honestly, most Lyme doctors worth their weight don't take health insurance anyway), and unable to work due to the extreme all over body pain and shakiness in her hands, Rich and I have budgeted $2,000 a month for this care for the next two years, all the while helping Richy and Lauren pull of a glorious wedding this November!  Talk about leaning on the faith of God's provision!  When it comes to picking up new medications each month, I just told Kyra "Download the Good Rx app", and I prayed for a miracle!  Good Rx doesn't help with the holistic supplements she will be sent each month directly from the doctor, but we will use it when we can.

As we began to talk to the kind woman in the pharmacy (I note that she was kind because, is it just me, or is it very difficult to find kind, caring employees anymore?), she said to Kyra "I need a new insurance card".  When Kyra told her she doesn't have insurance, she said, "You know which medications you were prescribed right?"  I immediately interjected, "We know, it's not a problem" so there would not be a hyper focus on the cost.  I already know Kyra feels bad that we are paying for this and there is no reason to add guilt to the list of stressors she already has.  She was given hydroxychloroquine, cefdinir, and azithromycin and told to start one every few days.  By the grace of God we had that Good Rx app, which, if you haven't heard of it, I highly recommend you download it.  I can't wrap my simple mind around how it works and honestly, I do not care.  That medication would have been $1,000, but as soon as they scanned Kyra's Good RX app, it went down to $150.  Praise God!!!!  Financially we also had more good news as, the initial $550 doctors fee turned out to just be an initial fee.  All appointments after that are "only" $400.  I know that is still a lot, but we will take any reduction at this point and the doctor is so worth it. Also in the budget this past week, a test for mold toxicity.  Mold toxicity tends to go hand in hand with Lyme, so the doctor mailed Kyra a test to take and send back.  We are awaiting the results of that.

I list all of the costs, not only to praise God for providing, but as another thing that needs to be addressed regarding Lyme Disease.  I am normally not a conspiracy theorist, but there is some sort of correlation between this being a government created disease and some insurance companies not covering it.  I will talk about this more in future posts.  Imagine the hindrance if you do not have the finances to pay for all of this care AND your insurance company doesn't pay for the treatment or you do not even have health insurance.  I mention that because I know there are a few people on my friends list who have had or have Lyme Disease and I would be curious to hear other experiences with reference to how care was paid for.

So far Kyra has only been able to start one of the antibiotics due to a drug reactions between the combination of two of the medicines, today we go to pick up a replacement for the one that causes the reaction.  This past week she had another terrifying episode of her temperature dropping to 95 degrees combined  with extreme weakness.  She was basically home alone and her brother and I had to cut short what we were doing so we could run back to their house and make sure she didn't need to be hospitalized. She is experiencing a lot of dizziness, and, though I didn't mention it to her, I noticed on Wednesday when we went shopping she got extremely fatigued and we had to walk a little slower down the aisles.  It was very reminiscent of the previous week when she had taken a long walk on the beach with her precious sister-in-law carrying the baby for her, but paid the ultimate price as the exhaustion from that walk left her too tired to stay at the beach and we had to leave early.  But she pushes through and spent the week cleaning her house as they will have visitors this coming week.

The dizziness reminded me of yet another time in her youth when I should have known the Lyme was still attacking her body.  She was ten years old and we lived in our beloved rental "Barny".  Her Daddy was in Iraq for the second time and coming home, so we were about to catch a plane to Northern California where he was being flown to, for a much anticipated family vacation.  Always prone to a bit of anxiety (now I know, due to the Lyme Disease), two days before we were leaving, she began to feel extremely dizzy and weak, her temperature was nosediving.  Not one to rush to the doctor, ever, I began to become extremely worried and called our dear friends at her pediatricians office.  Though I have had a severe skepticism of MD's since my husbands near death experience at the hands of one in Massachusetts, in our new small town in West Virginia at the time, both of our pediatricians went to church with us and were two of the most amazing women we had ever met. So I called them, and off went Kyra and I while her brother went to hang out with a friend.  

My sweet doctor friends immediately knew she was dehydrated and tried to find a vein to hook her up to an IV, but they could not find one.  As they tried multiple ways of helping my baby, it was clear she was becoming drastically weaker right before our eyes, so they made the decision to transfer her to ICU.  Looking back, you know, I don't even know if I informed these ladies that she had ever even had Lyme Disease.  Why?  Because we had been told she was cured when she was four, so why would it even cross my mind that this could have anything to do with it?  How I wish it would have.  Our pediatricians were the best of the best, but what we have found out over the past few years is that, due to no fault of their own, most MD's really don't know anything about Lyme Disease and they get no medical training on it in med school.  Lyme is not part of a standard blood panel that you would get to see what is wrong.  If you want to know about Lyme, you have to learn on your own, much like the Boston Oncologist I mentioned in my previous post.

Once in ICU, she stayed overnight until she was stabilized and then they released her to come home.  But now, fresh out of ICU, and with no diagnosis except for dehydration, it was time to drive to Charleston and board the plane.   She still felt as though she had been run over by a train, and her anxiety levels were at an all time high, which we now know as a Lyme flair up.  But we had to take this trip.  We hadn't seen Daddy for nine months! And for months we had been planning our stay in Northern California, followed by a flight to Southern California where we would stay at the military friendly Lawrence Welk Resort and take the kids to Legoland (How funny looking back that we were clueless to the fact that in six short years, we would be living 20 miles from that resort!  Had you told me that at the time, I would have called you a flat out liar and out of your skull!!)

As we sat in the tiny boarding area at CRW, she looked at me and said, "Mom, I can't do this".  Always one to want my kids to be tough (just ask her about the time her Uncle Frankie accidentally broke her finger playing football with her and her brother and we didn't find out until six months later at her next sports physical!), I was compassionate to a point, but basically gave her a "Buck Up" attitude and said the trip was paid for, and Daddy was waiting for us in San Francisco, we could not disappoint him.  I will never forget the look of shear panic on her face when she realized I was going to make her stay locked up on an airplane for over five hours.  In my own mind I was envisioning an emergency landing somewhere over the Mid-West due to my poor babies panic attack, but I never would have told her that! Of course she did it, because she's Kyra, and we made it, and, in the end, that vacation ended up being one of our best family memories we have.  

It wouldn't be the last time she would have to be tough.  I know that her faith plays a huge part in her intense determination, and I do believe her level of determination is extreme. Right now, she is being tough for this little one pictured below, her life, her joy, her baby girl!  Many nights her Daddy and I just sit and talk about how remarkable her will to push through as she faces two turbulent issues at the same time, two things a person should never have to experience at the same time, but she just carries on, takes care of her baby, does her protocol, prays and tries to learn.  She might stop for a cry, text me a mile long text to vent, or spend an afternoon talking it out with her sister-in-law who is also her best friend,  but then she puts her big girl pants on, does the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing and carries on.  Short of Jesus Himself, she is the biggest inspiration in my life right now.

Clueless

In my last post, I told of how our adult daughter has begun treatment for Lyme disease.  The big missing piece of the puzzle is that, for many years, 15 plus to be exact, we thought she was cured.

In my last post, I briefly mentioned Momma Guilt.  Even though, as a therapist, I know what I would tell any client who thinks like I think, it is just so hard to look back and not think "Why didn't I see it?"  We were going on the doctors words that she was healed, so, once we were told that, I put Lyme Disease to rest and never thought of it again.

Well, I guess NEVER is a strong word.  When our daughter Kyra was 19, ever the independent one, she moved out on her own to Northern California with little help from us with the exception of helping her put a deposit on an apartment.  At first, things were great, but she began to get lonely because she was about an hour away from her high school boyfriend who had joined the Air Force.  Since she moved to NoCal to be closer to him, she took it upon herself to truly adult, apartment hunt, job hunt, continue college and move closer to the Air Force Base.  All that adulting began to take its toll, until, she began to realize she was feeling worse and worse.  At first, we really did think it was just the stress of trying to do too much, trying to make it on her own, but as her pain levels grew, I asked her to come home for an extended visit so we could go to the doctor and do bloodwork.

Now 20 years old and in severe pain, I took my daughter to an integrative doctor.  They put us in touch with a host of people who could help us get things done at home because she was in so much pain.  Who knew you could actually have bloodwork done in your house, a mobile phlebotomist!  A couple of days after his joyful visit to our house (no sarcasm there, she has a tremendous fear of needles, but having the peace and quiet of her own home really made the experience doable for her), the results were in, our daughter tested positive for Lyme Disease, which meant she had never actually been healed, which meant, I had missed a numerous amount of signs over the years.  Which meant, maybe we should have had that spinal tap after all.  Hindsight's 20/20 right?  And boy, looking back could I ever see clearly.

As I wracked my brain trying to think of all the things I should have seen, my mind immediately shot back to her 6th grade year.  Always a straight A student, I would more often than not make up tests for my kids to do the night before they had an actual test.  I would look at their material and make questions to give them to see what areas they still needed help in.  Kyra would always pass with flying colors (they both would actually) and we never needed to go over anything else.  Somewhere during the school year though, she started failing science.  This made no sense to me because she was passing the tests I was making up and those tests were based on her notes.  Luckily, in small town rural America (West Virginia at the time), everyone knows everyone, so when I noticed her grade was failing, I caught up with her Science teacher Mark at church one Sunday.  I explained to him that it made no sense.  He happened to mention that he had gone from paper multiple choice tests to a handheld device where the kids had to press A, B, C or D.  As an experiment I said, "Would you mind setting her out in the hall and giving her the handwritten test?"  He kindly accommodated and instantly, she went back to straight A's.

Though I had never seen any sign of a learning disability, I thought for sure that must be what this was.  Since Mark was willing to accommodate, I just thought, "Well, this is a rare occurrence, I will just keep an eye out for anything in the future".  But nothing else ever happened as far as unique school incidences like this one.  An avid reader, Kyra still mowed her way through one or more books a week outside of school, her grades stayed good.  We did notice as she entered high school, she had to work extremely hard to get the good grades, but neither her Daddy or I had ever liked school, so we just figured this was normal.  We never really pressured our kids about grades anyway.  Of course, now, with a Lyme lens to see the past clearly, I know that this is a Visual Motor Deficit and something very common with someone with neurological Lyme.  By the time she entered college, however, she suffered through two years before the work became completely unbearable.

So college takes us back to 20 year old Kyra for a moment.  We got put into contact with an amazing, compassionate, caring doctor here in our SoCal hometown and she knew all about Lyme Disease.  She put Kyra on a grueling protocol, so, with three pages of instructions, a bag full of supplements and her strength starting to come back because some of the supplements were fighting inflammation and she had finished about 6 rounds of ozone therapy, she went back to NoCal. Ok, hit the brakes....a 3 page protocol?  Remember that Visual Motor Deficit I just mentioned?  Yeah, you can imagine.  After a few weeks of not only trying to follow the instructions, but, as is typical of every Lyme patient, you actually start feeling worse way before you ever start feeling better, Kyra was done.  She called me one day and said "Mom, I just can't do this anymore.  This protocol is too long, its too hard, and I am so sick I can't even work or do anything."  And, just like that, her hope for getting better vanished and she swore off treatment.

But it wasn't just the protocol.  To make matters worse, just before Kyra decided to stop treatment, somehow my brother-in-law had found out about Kyra's situation.  He had a dear friend who had ALS and her father-in-law, a prominent oncologist n Boston, had switched his practice to all things Lyme related because they knew his daughter -in -laws ALS was actually progressive, undetected, untreated Lyme Disease.  With the best of intentions, my brother in law had put us in touch with this doctor via phone and the doctor literally screamed at us for the holistic approach we were taking to Lyme "Your house is on fire and you are just trying to get the smoke out of the chimney".  That was the kindest thing he said.  I know this doctor meant no harm, but he really scared me, and, in turn, an emotional wreck, I think I scared Kyra and turned her against treatment even more.  

As Kyra swore off treatment, I began doing even more research.  I found an author who was also a Lyme specialist  in San Diego, I bought her books and sent them to Kyra's boyfriend so he could get a better understanding of Lyme for the times he was with her.  I bought a book about a mothers Lyme journey with her daughter, but, as Kyra refused treatment, I couldn't bring myself to read it.  So I stopped and I prayed (funny how we always do everything else first, THEN stop and pray, huh? Anyone else, or is it just me?).  As the years continued to pass by, I prayed more and more that she would seek treatment.  As she got married and had the most beautiful baby girl you have ever seen, I prayed she would seek treatment for that child if she wouldn't do it for herself.  I overpowered every ladies bible study I went to asking people to please pray she would choose treatment.  

One of the reasons I believe she didn't seek treatment is her unbelievable ability to power through.  When she was a toddler I began saying to her "What can you do?" and she would reply "Anything!" and I would say "No limits?" and she would excitedly repeat back, "No limits!!!".  Man do I think we instilled determination in that girl!  Looking at her, you would never know she is sick.  She takes such amazing care of her baby girl, a toddler with the energy of 100 toddlers.  Even though they only live 3 miles from us, she Facetimes us every single night as they do their Momma/Daughter bedtime routine.  Its a minimum of 30 minutes of laughter, songs, prayers and rough housing to get out the excess energy.  I'm exhausted by the end and I'm not even the one doing it, but she does this alone, every single night with the exception of nights our grandbaby sleeps over with us.  When Kyra starts to really feel pain, she gets up and cooks. or cleans, or does a simple task like cut strawberries, just to not be DOWN.  It is one of the most inspiring things I have ever seen.  This week she felt really rough, but, instead of wallowing in self pity, which she had every right to do given her circumstances right now, she not only joined me for worship practice, but she mustered up the strength to get up and sing with me Sunday morning in front of the whole church. 

Prayers were answered as she recently came to her Daddy and I and said its time to get better.  SO you know that author I mentioned earlier?  You can bet I didn't waste a minute jumping on her website and  making an appointment.  Though I was there for the first appointment, just to see how it goes, this is my baby girls journey, and I know she is strong enough to handle it on her own.  She hit the start button and now there's only one way to go from here!  

TODAY

Kyra is three plus weeks into a much simpler protocol that will tell the doctor which Lyme parasites are still active in her body so we will know exactly which ones she has to fight.  The first week, she had a pretty strong reaction to Borrelia.  The second week was Babesia and, good news, she had no reaction, so that means one less parasite we have to fight.  Then the third week, Bartonella.  Within one hour of starting the protocol for Bartonella, she knew this was the worst one yet and probably the biggest parasite she will have to slay, as the pain that regularly shoots through her joints suddenly began to feel like rods being drilled through her legs.  She has journaled and taken notes on symptoms just as the doctor asked her to do, and will return to the doctor this Thursday for a follow up and to see what her next steps are.  Please join us in prayers for complete healing, not only for Kyra, but for everyone with this horrible disease! 

Next week, I will be back with some results from this weeks doctors appointments, as well as continuing to step back in time to rehash things this Momma didn't see as Kyra was growing up that I see so clearly now as Lyme.

When Someone You Love Has Lyme

 My coping skill is writing, so, over the next one to two years, if you so choose, you all can walk alongside us, pray for our family, as our family walks along side someone we love while they receive treatment for Chronic Central Nervous Lyme Disease. With my daughters permission, the informational journey starts right now & will continue on my Hills of Mercy blog. 

In the early 2000's, we had moved from the heart of Worcester, MA, where our house practically sat on the campus of Worcester State College, to the woods of central MA where we were blessed with a couple of acres smack in the middle of no where. When the weather was nice, we were outside a lot, hiking, picking blackberries in the woods behind our house, walking Ty-Ty our grumpy, oversized, purebred schitzu, down country roads. To make the walks exciting for the kids, Rich had proclaimed the road across from our house "swamp monster road" and off we would go, in search of the nonexistent central Mass swamp monster he had made up for their entertainment.  

One day, when Kyra was 4, I noticed a weird circle on her back, a bullseye, right at the top of her spine. Our friend was a paramedic & he said he thought it might be ringworm. For several days I treated it as such, but it didn't go away. So I took her to our small town pediatrician & he immediately knew, she had Lyme Disease due to a tick bite.  

A little history about Lyme disease for those unaware...during the Korean War, our government used a lab in Lyme, CT to inject ticks with parasites that they would later plan on releasing in Korea, but, of course, the ticks escaped the lab & the parasites began to enter the woods of New England via the ticks . The goal was for the parasites to enter the nervous system through a tick bite. For the longest time, Lyme Disease was very centered around New England, but now it's everywhere, though more rare in places like California, where we are now.    

Shortly after the diagnosis, one side of her face became paralyzed & we started treatment immediately. To this day, her little preschool picture hangs on our Christmas tree each year, a childhood decoration, one side of her face drooping. What was more shocking than the paralysis, however, was the extreme joint pain. Always a tough child with a high pain threshold, she would wail at the excruciating pain, mostly behind her knees. Up to this point in her life, she was always a daddy's girl. Had you seen her, she was probably riding on her daddy's shoulders. But those shoulder rides came to an abrupt stop, as, her legs dangling over his shoulders would hurt her the most. I have never heard her cry so hard or so much. About this time the horrible nightmares started as well.  

 As the doctor began a 3 week antibiotic regimen, the pain ever so slowly began to subside. Her beautiful little face went back to normal (in the attached photo it is almost healed). Along the way someone had mentioned to us how serious Lyme disease was, so we drove to Boston multiple times for second opinions & always made sure our Boston doctors were on the same page as our wonderful hometown doctor.  

As I tell this story I realize I have to go back to say, during this time, not only was our marriage falling apart, but three years prior Rich had almost died at the hands of a doctor who made a mighty mistake & then lied to us about it. I've written many times about both of these experiences, but, as we began this Lyme disease process, we were already in a stressful place marriage wise & extremely suspicious of doctors in general. Both of these things would eventually play a part in the future of this story and the mom guilt I still carry to this day. 

After the three week treatment protocol was done, all doctors involved assured us she was healed. How could we know? That was the major question on our minds. All answers pointed to the same thing...a spinal tap would show if all the parasites were gone. But a spinal tap on a four year old, we were told, came with a 25% chance of paralysis. Having just survived the hideous experience with my husband almost dying, we managed to decide together (during a time when my husband and I just speaking to one another was difficult) that we would trust the doctors opinions that she was healed and not risk the spinal tap. We were so stressed, we just couldn't risk anything else going wrong.  

Life went on, and we miraculously survived the next couple of years that were full of stress due to the state of our marriage. But all that mattered to me was that Kyra was healed and our kids were safe and healthy. Or so we thought........ 

TODAY

On a recent plane ride to Oregon, I finished a book I had held onto for the last 3 years but never read. It's about a mother's journey helping her teenage daughter find a cure for her Lyme. I couldn't bring myself to read it all those years I had the book, because, at the time, Kyra was choosing not to seek treatment. But now that she has chosen a path to healing, I was able to open it up and dive into another mother's journey. The book was very well written and informative, so many similarities to what we have seen with Kyra, but it was missing something......Jesus was not a part of their story. But He IS our story. As I told Kyra that I thought the world needed to see a faith based Lyme journey, she graciously agreed that I could write it. This is only the beginning. To God be the glory! 

Rocking Chair Realities

What I would not give to sit on the front porch of a farmhouse for an afternoon and chat with two of my writing hereos...Stormie Omartian and Ann Voskamp.  I might actually have to meet with them one at a time, that two totally different writing styles and life circumstances could touch my heart in such a life changing way.  As I begin typing, I realize I will probably have to blog about them separately as well.

In 1979, when I was eight years old, Stormie Omartian had looked divorce in the eye, planted her feet in the ground and told the devil, "No, you do not get to have my marriage."  In 2003, I would praise God for the fact that she decided to put pen to paper back in '79, or maybe she used a Smith Corona typewriter, but whatever her means of telling her story, the fact remains that the Yankee and I are happily (not perfectly) married today because she did.

Thirteen years after The Power of the Praying Wife was gifted to me, I still wear the pages out.  Thirty different chapters of thirty different topics us wives can pray over our husband's lives (husbands, she has one for you too, so don't think you are left out of this).  Sometimes I think, "Oh, my husband is doing great right now, he certainly does not fit in any one of these thirty categories for me to pray over." And then I have to check my logic.  Prayer.  We all need it all of the time.  It's life.  It's breath.  It's fighting things we can't even see with our earthly baby blues or browns or greens, so who are we to judge that our precious husband's do not need it.

Precious, you say?  Maybe right now you are thinking your husband or wife is just about the least precious thing you have been around in quite some time.  Your marriage is grueling, it's as painful as natural childbirth, it brings an agony to your life that leaves you daydreaming about days spent alone with no one to answer to, no one to hit that last raw nerve that will push you over the edge.  You feel powerless.  I get it.  I hear your story, because I lived your story.  And in 2003, 24 years after she wrote the words, Stormie Omartian said to me, "We can fight for them in prayer and not give up, because as long as we are praying, there is hope.  With God, nothing is ever as dead as it seems. Not even your own feelings."  Do you know what I learned?  A very harsh reality....she was right.

I wish I could invite all of you onto the front porch with us, those who think, "Oh, you don't know my situation though, it is different for me."  Friend, if you could sit on that porch with me I would tell you all of the things The Yankee and I survived and what you are going through now is probably on the list, I can't guarantee that, but trust me when I tell you, the odds are pretty high. I have been told I should write a book or two...or six just based on our marriage alone.  And as we rock in our old squeaky rocking chairs I would tell you the outpouring of blessing in not giving up.  I would tell you that there is no perfection to be reached on this side of earth, but I would paint the picture of twenty five years spent with a man I love who loves me in return.  I would speak of the outpouring of blessing I watch daily pour out over our children because of our decision to stay when the world told us to split.  When all we wanted was to split.

The reality is, I left the land of farmhouses and rocking chairs on front porches.  We now live an hours mileage away from one of the largest, craziest cities on God's precious earth.  The reality is, I have never actually met Stormie Omartian, let alone had the privilege of rocking away a summer afternoon chatting with her on the front porch..  Another reality is, marriage is hard.  But you probably already knew all of that.  Maybe there is a reality you don't know....marriage is worth it.  Don't miss out on the opportunity right here, right now, to stop reading and pray for your spouse.  It will change their life......and yours.

Sickness, Severe Adrenal Fatigue & Slim

Who am I to second guess God?  Maybe He needed to knock me off my prideful high horse when it comes to my health.  I blame my Mamaw Fields, or maybe my Aunt Joretta Jewel, or maybe my Dad, they were never sick, or if they were, you certainly didn’t know it.  Once I had my first baby, realizations began flying at me like never before.  I needed to take better care of myself for that sweet, precious baby girl, to set an example for her.  Once I came to know Christ, I knew I needed to step it up further for this ONE body He blessed me with was the only one He was going to allow me to have.  So step it up I did, and, like my Mamaw, my Aunt and my Dad before me, you would be hard-pressed to find me sick over the last seventeen years.

About seven years ago I began having some dizzy spells.  One night, late in the middle of the night when we lived in the precious barn we loved so much, our daughter K woke me up in the middle of the night and said “Mom, I have a nosebleed”.  My Momma-bear instincts woke me up immediately.  I jumped out of bed and ran up the stairs to her bathroom to help take care of her.  As I helped with her bleeding nose, the room swirled and down I went.  Was that what fainting felt like?  I had never fainted before so it all seemed so crazy to me.  The next day the doctors diagnosed me with anemia, not, “Here take these iron pills and you will be ok” anemia, but the type that had them saying, “Blood transfusions for eight weeks and you will be good as new” kind of anemia.  I guess this would be a good point to tell you that I am pretty much against modern medicine for my own family, so I was actually grateful that what I heard was pretty much a natural solution and I would not have to take anything.

I did ok for the next couple of years, but then had to go to my doctor for yet another issue.  I was forty.  I exercised all the time, I ate healthier than anyone I knew, and I was gaining weight like it was THE thing to do!!!!  And I guess THIS would be a good time to tell you, I do not think I am fat.  So I don’t want anyone reading this going, “Oh yes, we know how hard it must be to be a size four and gain 8 pounds!”  The problem actually has nothing to do with thoughts of being fat, it has everything to do with being 5’1.  When you are 5’1 and you gain 8 pounds, you feel it…in your back, in your knees, everywhere.  So even though your body doesn’t outwardly present any type of obesity, my body was saying to me, “This hurts!  Can’t you get rid of it?”

So I asked my doctor, you know, the one that diagnosed me with anemia.  The reply?  “Well, you know I have some bad news for you, you are forty now.  This is your life.”  I think I have written about this before.  That was the last day I ever saw a conventional doctor.  Instead I began running tests on myself.  I eliminated foods and reintroduced them until I could tell what was causing me to gain weight and what wasn’t.  The culprits?  Wheat and sugar.  I could only have them in moderation, once or twice a week, a special occasion maybe.  This in conjunction with limiting carbs and BOOM!  Eight pounds gone AND I felt like a new person to boot!  Life was good.

Fast forward to a little less than a year ago when suddenly just thinking about exercising would exhaust me, but I pushed my way through anyway.  A few months later I noticed there was one day a month where I literally found it almost impossible to get out of bed.  I had to redo my already strict diet just to stay at 132 pounds.  I felt like day in and day out, all I ever could think about was what I put in my mouth, how much I exercised, and how completely exhausted I was.  Did I mention I don’t nap?  My mom says I never did (lucky for her I was a well – behaved child otherwise that whole no nap thing could have been rough on her!).   So any day that I would lay down and sleep for twenty minutes, I would be super worried in the back of my mind that something was wrong.

Then we moved.  And a day and a half after we moved my husband had to go back overseas.  New state, new town, we only know our two dear friends thirty minutes away. No family, no friends.  Just me and the kids, day in and day out, doing the best we could.  And with each passing day, my fatigue grew and grew and grew.  Now instead of that one day a month that it was difficult to get out of bed, well, now I just couldn’t get out of bed that day period.  When it was that time of the month, I realized it was taking my body at least a week to recover, then I would have a week of feeling great, and then by the next week my body was already feeling weak again as it began to start the process all over again.

I closed my eyes, threw a dart at the listings on the internet and randomly picked a holistic doctor to try. Ok, ok, let’s be honest, I picked him because his competition was charging $400 an hour and he was charging $65.  I hit the jackpot! Dr. John Cassone in Old Town for any of you locals reading this!  He listened to me for a half an hour and said “Severe Adrenal Fatigue”.  So let’s back up, that anemia I had, it probably wasn’t really anemia, but the very beginnings of my adrenal fatigue.  Back then, I probably had what was considered mild adrenal fatigue.  Let’s hit rewind again..that impossible weight gain despite the healthy eating and exercise?  Moderate Adrenal Fatigue, the next step up, where your body can not handle wheat and sugar.  But since it went five more years undetected, it has now hit the Severe stage.  Don’t get me wrong, that sounds bad.  Severe Adrenal Fatigue is not serious so much as it is a royal, royal pain in the butt.  It’s a daily annoyance like a mosquito buzzing around that you just can’t find to kill.  It’s the frustration of not being able to get out of the chair when you know your house needs cleaned and dinner needs cooked.  Praise GOD that my kids are older and can semi-take care of themselves, though I take a lot of pleasure in doing things for them, being there mom while they are still here for me TO BE their mom.

So Doc has me on supplements, plant based supplements.  No conventional medicine for this gal.  I am actually allergic to most fillers that pharmaceutical companies put in medicines anyway, so I am more than happy to go the holistic route.  He does acupuncture every week, and this past week, he realized I was actually much worse off than he thought, so he mixed up the nastiest herb concoction you have EVER tasted, and I take nine teaspoons a day with one and a half cups of bone broth.  It is truly, truly nasty.  A conventional pill would be easier, quicker, less painful to my taste buds, but it would only do what modern medicine does, treat the symptoms.  Doc is treating the cause.

I also found this great product that is apparently known for treating adrenal fatigue (and many other issues)and all of the problems that come with it.  It’s called Plexus .  I researched them before I began taking them and they seem like a fabulous Christian based company and this is holistic in nature as well.  To be fair, I had begun Doc’s concoctions about twelve days before I began Plexus and only seen little results each day.  I am now five days into the Plexus and for the past two days I have felt like a normal person for the first seven hours of the day before I hit the wall I would normally hit at 9 am!  It is so wonderful to feel so much hope!!!!  Don’t be fooled by the “SLIM” on the package.  I can’t stress enough that I am NOT taking this as a weight loss product.  There are multiple, multiple benefits from taking this and I will get into all of that on future blogs!  Until then, feel free to look at all the different things they have available.  It’s a pretty interesting company and I know I feel better already.  I am so excited to see what the next few weeks bring!  If it happens to bring weight loss as a side effect, I will be thrilled with that because I would really like to get out of my older jeans and back into fitting into my daughters!  Lol!!! But I just want to feel better, and so far this is helping more than anything!

So I will be updating you on this journey as it goes along.  Until then, I would love to hear from any of you that have been diagnosed with severe adrenal fatigue.  I feel so alone on this journey, like it is an excuse if I call someone and say “I can’t meet you today because I am too tired to move”.  I would also appreciate your prayers, like I said, I know this isn’t a serious disease or anything, but if you know me, you know I like to go, go, go and this has hit me like a brick wall.  My comments are hit or miss on this page, you can try to leave one, however if it isn’t working for some reason feel free to message me on Facebook or at missylampert@hotmail.com!  I would love to hear from others suffering from adrenal fatigue! 

Fifteen Months of Living

I feel a bit like Adele starting out this blog, “Hello….it’s me…”  Life is swift and sudden and, I have found after all of these years, often gets in the way of my fingers hitting the keyboard to put into words what God puts on my heart.

A year plus has slipped by now since I have written, and, though I am pleased to report I did not just let a year slip by doing nothing and putting my dream of writing aside, still, I wish I had not stopped for such a long period of time, but life happened in a pretty major way over the last fifteen months or so.

To begin with, my husband sat me down last summer while home on leave.  We were having a beautiful dinner at Food and Friends when he looked squarely at me and said, “Look, you talk about being a writer, you talk about saving marriages, and you talk about having a wedding venue.  I support you no matter what you want to do, and maybe you can eventually do all three, but right now you have to pick one and follow it.”  I knew three things instantly.  One, he was right (yeah, I used to have a problem admitting that, but after twenty-five years, it comes pretty easily now, I highly recommend trying it with your spouse!), two, my heart literally jumped out of my chest at the phrase, “You want to save marriages”, and three, I knew it was impossible to miss the gratitude I felt over those words, “I will support you no matter what you want to do.”

I knew what I had to do.  The next day I applied to the Liberty University Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy Program.  I was accepted and began my Master’s work immediately.  Blog?  What blog?  Did I even have a blog?  Taking three Master’s courses per semester left no time for writing simply for the sake of speaking from my own heart.  There were weeks when I had to write three papers per week and the last thing I wanted to do was grab my computer and write even more!...so, that is part one.

Part two is probably more monumental, but I have to digress a bit to get everyone up to date.  Our youngest child has always just felt like he belongs in California.  We brought him to CA in previous years, mainly to dissuade him from any thoughts of it.  We traveled the state from North to South so he could see the good the bad and the ugly, including a trip where we easily could have lost our lives when we accidentally exited the freeway in LA during rush hour in search of a gas station.  The first thing our son exclaimed from the back seat as we exited the freeway was, “Hey, I see two guys over there fighting with machetes”.  Now, since this is not a common occurrence in the Appalachian Mountains, we thought for sure that once we were back home, he would have fully recovered his senses and see the joy in living where we were living.  Instead I noticed he seemed a little sad one day upon returning home.  When I asked what was wrong he said, “I just wish we hadn’t come home from vacation.”  Whoa, parent fail moment!  We moved these kids to this wonderful little town so they could experience something on the level of a Norman Rockwell childhood, but our son’s visions of it were far from ideal.  We continued to encourage him that he could go to college wherever he wanted and we would support his decision no matter what.  His decision?  UCLA. Yikes!  What if there are a lot of machete's there????

Which leads us to our daughter, the older of our two kids.  She immediately fell in love with our little West Virginia town when we moved there from New England.  We just knew she was going to be the one that would grow up, fall in love with an awesome guy, buy a farm just outside of town and stay there forever, she loved it THAT much.  That is why her Daddy and I were so shocked when she came to us one day during the beginning of her sophomore year and said, “You know, I am with my brother, I think I want to go to CA for college also.”  I for one was in love with our little town, so to think of leaving was really not much of an option, so I began doing what I do best, planning.  West Virginia University was known to have an awesome Fashion Design program, so I told our daughter, “Why don’t you plan on going there for your first two years, then you and your brother travel to CA together when it is time to go to UCLA, that way your Dad and I will feel better knowing you guys are out there together, then we will consider whether we want to come live out there when you guys graduate.”

West Virginia has an unexplainable way of literally becoming just as much a part of ones heart as the blood that flows through it, so I had zero desire to leave, but I knew it wasn’t likely to happen.  After four years in LA, I imagined our kids would welcome the chance to come back to a quiet, simple life in the mountains.  But isn’t it funny that we even plan as humans?  Am I the only one that does this? When we serve a mighty Heavenly Father who already has it all worked out, but we just sit here on earth and plan and plan and plan like we are in charge, digging our feet in the mud, convinced our plans are better than His!  Well, I had it all figured out in my head, but on December 14^th, 2015 He would literally show us His plan and begin to teach me to let go.

Our daughter, who has the most spiritual heart of any child I have ever met, came to me on the morning of December 14^th and said, “Mom, God told me we are supposed to go to CA now.”  Now remember, this is our child who loved where we lived!  Luckily, The Yankee was home on leave so I said to her, “Well, take Dad on your walk with you when you walk your dog.  You guys talk about it and let’s see what comes of it.”  About thirty minutes later they returned from their walk and the Yankee called a family meeting.  “So, God told K we need to move to CA,” he looked at our son, “What do you think of that?”  Our son replied, “I wish we were already there.”  He looked at me, “Mom, what do you think?”  I replied, “I trust K’s heart, if God told her that then He told her that for a reason and we should probably listen, what do you think Dad?” 

“I THINK WE ARE MOVING TO CALIFORNIA”, he replied.  And just like that, our new life began. (Just FYI, that tends to be the way we roll!)

We have had a lot of people question our decision, but those are thoughts for another blog.  We began the moving process on December 15^th, getting our house in order in WV, trying and failing to sell it and then God providing the PERFECT renters for us.  And on May 31^st, after help from some very dear friends loading up an excessively large moving van, we sat off, a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies, two Jeeps, a hound dog, and a mutt from Wyoming County, off to see what God had in store for us in our new home outside of LA.  I prayed it wasn’t machete wielding strangers on the side of the road!

So now that we have been here for a few months, we are getting settled in.  I had to begin a new Master’s program with a new school because California did not accept most of my classes from my old school.  My health has failed me a bit, which will also be another upcoming blog post, hard for me to deal with because I have always taken great pride in how healthy I have been.  But school, and move and health aside, I am writing again, for one, because my new Master's program is a tad less stressful than my old one, so I have a bit more time on my hands.  I will soon be switching my blog format to new website because I have a new business to promote, so many changes, it makes my heart beat faster with anticipation just thinking of it all, but for this week anyway, we will stay parked here at Hills of Mercy, we do still have hills here, they are just a bit different, some of them even have a beach view!!!.  Thanks for being so faithful to always read my blog!!!