Tag: Christian

Be true to who you are

Published on by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

This song will make the point of this post more clear.  Have fun as you listen to this upbeat tune from the Beach Boys!

<img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-4432″ src=”https://jesusisforthewounded.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/beach-boys.jpg” alt=”Beach Boys” width=”480″ height=”360″

“Just like you would to your girl or guy.  Be true to your school.  Rah rah, shish boom bah!”  And Gentle Readers I submit that this also applies to US TOO!

In a recent trip to the Emergency Room (yeah same story, different day) I was received by the male nurse who did my initial evaluation less than a month ago.  I remembered the gooley, inappropriate look on his face as he handed me a hospital gown and asked me to change clothes then waited for me to do so right in front of him.  He had the gown opened just below his eye level.  His eyes were staring at my chest.  The expression on his face was blank.  And I didn’t buy it one bit.

I really don’t know how I had the presence of mind in the middle of non-stop convulsive episodes and a struggle to breathe to ask him for some privacy.  He paused for a moment then looked up at me.  “Of course,” he said or something similar and handed me the gown.  He pulled the hospital curtain and continued typing on the portable computer just beyond what is also called the “privacy curtain.”  My beloved husband, Steve, assisted me in changing my clothing thank you very much!  My dignity in an extreme moment of vulnerability was spared.  Thank you Lord.

I know that this nurse is a medical professional.  He has probably seen thousands of naked bodies and women a lot better endowed than yours truly.  In a time of crisis, the medical professional assists a patient in changing clothes as a part of the procedures.  Yeah but they are not to do so while acting in an unprofessional manner.  He was not going to help me in that moment unless I was dead!  Period!  The rest of that visit went more cordially and more appropriately.  I changed clothing on my own after the assessments and treatments were completed about four hours later, thank you very much.

Flash forward to this past Tuesday night.  Mr. un-Wonderful was working the p.m. shift again in the ER and begins his nursing evaluation.  I cringe.  This time it was a petite, blonde nurse co-worker who asked me to donn a hospital gown.  The dude was within arm’s reach of the gurney upon which I am lying.  I felt his eyes upon me.  In that moment, shaking violently with convulsive episodes and struggling to breathe, I was glad that I had been trained as an occupational therapist and muttered as much.  As such I know more ways to dress and undress than the average person with virtually any disability that you can imagine.  I laid the gown over my clothing, covering my personhood, and struggled then succeeded to doff my own clothing and get into the approved garb.  Steve might have helped some; I don’t know as my eyes were closed.  The nurse  wasn’t happy but I was.  And in doing my own thingy, I remained true to myself.

The rest of the ER visit went as they usually do.  After about 750 cc of fluids, IV Rocephin, and a shot of Morphine (my first ever!) I was feeling better.  While the second bag of IV fluids diminished the severity of the episodes, the tremulous part of the episodes didn’t stop until after the Rocephin.  And that improvement lasted for about a day with barely a tic attack here and there.  Yeah God!

Now I am in the aftermath of trying to decide what to do.  The prescription Keflex (same cephalosporin drug class as Rocephin) has begun irritating my stomach.  While there were findings of a urinary tract infection in the ER, the urine culture was negative.  There are still fewer and less intense episodes overall:  the hell that plagues my life and keeps me clinging to the Cross of Christ for hours every day.  My Doc says to stop the Keflex.  I held the herbal Biocidin (anti-microbial) after the ER visit to avoid an interaction with the new prescription drug.  What shall I do now?  Hmmmmmmm.

I know what my gut is telling me to do:  be true to myself.  I will pray for the Lord to guide my very wise husband and me.  I will strive to be respectful to those trying to care for me with as much courtesy as I can muster in any given situation while protecting my own privacy and integrity when it is all that I have.  In due time we will figure all of this out and be much better for the journey the Lord has allowed for His purposes and our good.  Of this I am still sure.

And if anyone tries to tear down my alma matter, Mott High School and the mighty Marauders, well then I will be “true to my school” as well.  “Go team,” I will shout on high!   Lord willing, we are going to win!  JJ

 

 

Hope Beyond

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My hope this day and always:

Fernando Ortega Home

A Plausible Case

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As you may have read in the About Julie page of this blogsite, I treated for Chronic Lyme Disease early in the four years that I have been battling serious illness.  I had not recovered my health four months after a bout with viral hepatitis and our Family Practice Physician convinced me and Steve that latent Lyme disease was keeping me sick.  Then the story changed a few times . . .

Treatment for Lyme disease, Candida, mold exposure, mercury toxicity, gut parasites, and infected root-canaled teeth has still left me with the following symptoms four years later:

  • Hours of daily convulsive episodes, every single day
  • Headaches
  • Painful shoulders, forearms, hips, neck, jaw, and more
  • Ringing in my ears
  • Multiple severe chemical, mold, and sound/light sensitivities
  • Significant nutritional and hormonal deficiencies
  • Fatigue
  • Episodic cognitive and emotional setbacks
  • Periodic night terrors, nightmares, waking terrors
  • Weakness and deconditioning
  • Air hunger and chest compression symptoms
  • Neuropathies
  • Severely disrupted sleep/wake cycle
  • Food sensitivities despite a restricted diet
  • Gut dysbiosis
  • Inability to consistently perform activities of daily living or work
  • Social isolation
  • Intolerance to treatment

So in other words, my life is kinda hellish a lot of the time!  Today was no exception.  Then right in the middle of the trauma there were tender encounters with the sweetest man on the face of the earth:  my Stevers.  We talked in between seizure attack episodes, he provided care when I could not move, and we made the most of a low-key day.  It was the “same story, different day” around here.  And something else happened too:  I may have discovered another piece of this wretched illness mystery:  Latent Lyme Disease can affect the gut which in turn can contribute to neurological complications much like the ones that have eluded all of our attempts at recovery.

No, it’s not systemic Candida as I suspected when I wrote my last Treatment Update.  It’s called “Bell’s Palsy of the Gut,” a term coined by Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD) Virginia T. Sherr.  “Gastrointestinal Lyme disease may cause gut paralysis and a wide range of diverse GI symptoms with the underlying etiology likewise missed by physicians,” states Dr. Sherr in the April 2006 issue of Practical Gastroenterology (p. 74).  There are tests that can be performed to determine the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi along with other microbial pathogens  transferred in tick saliva after a bite.  In two weeks I will have a diagnostic procedure in which these tests could also be performed.  Whoa Lord.  Is that why I felt led to add an anti-microbial to my anemic treatment plan?

God is good.  All the time.  God is good.  Today I felt led to add back a probiotic that I actually was able to tolerate this time.  The new information about Lyme disease may explain the increasing gut inflammation this past year and my supremely negative response to a trial of a far-infrared light treatment to my abdomen.  Or to any abdominal exam.  Or to physical therapy to the hip flexors in the lower part of the abdominal wall.  Or to certain foods.  At any rate, a new door has opened and there are new possibilities for getting well.  Perhaps it is time to re-visit the diagnosis of Lyme disease.

Stay tuned.  This exquisitely wild roller coaster ride of recovery from serious illness is about to reach a new station.  In the meantime, please pass a spoon and 1/2 of a carton of Siggis plain, grass-fed, organic and Icelandic yogurt.  We’re going to get this thing right or keep screaming all the way to the bottom of the next hill until we do!  (I told you that I worked in an amusement park one summer didn’t I?  Yeah, Cedar Point is really cool!)

Cedar Point gatekeeper_wallpaper

 

This one is for you

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Dearest Gentle Reader:

In the words of the apostle, Paul, I humbly express my gratitude for your readership, support, prayers, and friendship as we journey together in this thingy called, “life.”  You make a difference in my life and for you I am grateful.  Thank you!  Just Julie

Ephesians 1:15-21New International Version (NIV)

Thanksgiving and Prayer

15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[a] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

 

Treatment Update

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outnumbered

The concept of negative numbers to me is as mind-boggling as that of anti-matter.  If something can be measured on an integer scale then I suppose the values could go up just as easily as they could go down.  But when they go below zero, which is nothing, how can anything be less than nothing?

Perhaps the answer depends upon to what subject the scale is being applied.  Ha!  I would love for my personal scale of symptoms to be at zero.  I would love for the intangibles wreaking havoc in my life to be less than nothing as well.  But that is just not how it is.  This past Fall was very bad, indeed.

More days this past Fall than any other time since I got sick over 4 years ago, did I write “Sick Day” on my calendar as the activity that characterized the entire day.  That means that over 8 daytime hours were spent in bed due to an inability to perform any goal-directed activity:  about 3 days each week.  That stinks.  I had three trips to the emergency room when exasperated with noxious symptoms, more variety in the traumatic nature of seizure attack episodes, an increase in triggers of episodes (which were unclear more of the time), and less ability to perform my activities of daily living.  Steve had to physically care for me (from toileting to feeding) about four times each week.  This year was the first time that I was unable to complete both my Spring and Fall clean-up chores for our gardens.  An occasional meal out with Steve has ceased.  There even was a blow-up with my Doc in which he suggested I might work with someone else.  He admitted that he doesn’t know what to do.  Fine.  But who else would that be?

So here is my status:

  • Results of blood tests and stool tests are now pending to identify microbes that may be keeping me from getting well.  Flare of systemic Candida is one possibility.
  • Chronic Lyme disease is back on my radar as a possibility so for these first two items I have started to take an anti-microbial supplement every day.
  • Mercury burden is significantly reduced yet its role in ongoing illness is still unclear.
  • Dehydration is a daily battle regardless of how many fluids I ingest or receive via IV.
  • Continuous daily seizure attacks total 2 to 5 hours every weekday and often increase to 8 hours at least one day per week.
  • Social isolation continues to be a problem.  I am grateful for a weekly Skype Bible/prayer time with fellow bloggers and may add a telephone support group soon.
  • An extremely restricted diet (sugar/sweetener-free, dairy/mold/gluten-free, low oxalate/copper/meat) only becomes more restrictive as time goes on than more permissive.  There are often episodes after eating and I do not know why.
  • Physical therapy has generally helped to reduce neck and other pain yet the 30-minute convulsive episode at the end of nearly every visit is burdensome.  I bring my own sheets and graciously they avoid fragrances around me.  They are saints!
  • Generally I am only able to leave the house for medical appointments, grocery shopping, etc. twice per week, remaining homebound the other days.  Recent exceptions:  two wakes!
  • Physical exercises and activities, including my P.T. home exercise program, are rare due the likelihood of triggering episodes.
  • Travelling, even with our super clean travel trailer, increases sickness too much to bother for awhile.  Setting it up takes me 3 weeks and cleaning it afterwards takes 3 weeks as well!  Oy vey.

So now my pity party is over and I have nothing left to say.  I am praying constantly for the Lord to keep my heart from bitterness yet I fear that I am losing the battle.  Crying comes forcefully during the setbacks and I am concerned that it is more a manifestation of illness progressed to my brain than true grief.  My husband Steve carries the burden of all of this in his own way.  He is a saint and my hero.  Thankfully he has a great support network at church and work, his athletic activities, and lots of social outlets to keep him going.  Steve is an amazing man surely one after the Lord’s own heart.

I am hopeful that the anti-microbial treatment will help me; sometimes it even stops the episodes.  Yeah God.  However I am very stressed about the upcoming holidays.  Maybe there will be a “Christmas miracle” at our house too?  Lord willing, the numbers in my life will improve in a positive direction.  In the meantime I will be hanging tough.  It’s the best I can do.  JJ

senior numbers