Tag: faith in the Lord

Free Coupon Ends Soon!

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Just a quick note that the free coupon for the eBook, Hope Beyond Lyme:  The First Year, ends on Saturday.  If you’re interested an updated collection of my most meaningful and encouraging blogs plus several Bonus Pages, head on over via the link below.  It’s available in 10 different formats, including a new smartphone app from Dropbox.

Final few days that it's free with Coupon Code: UR45T
Final few days that it’s free with Coupon Code: UR45T

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/371334

Here’s a little video with a personal invitation from me too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opCttpUCZW0

Take care Gentle Reader and thank you for your support this past year online.  I am grateful to the Lord and humbled knowing you are there . . .

Just Julie

So where are we now?

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Driving+steering+wheelWhen I wake up from a nap while travelling in the back seat of my beloved’s Dodge Magnum, I often ask, “so where are we now?”  We may have been on the road travelling for hours when I finally settle down enough to fall asleep then wake up in a daze and ask this question.  Perhaps I could sound like a kid who would go the next step and ask, “are we there yet?”  Well since I’ve already used that question for the title of another blog post, I opted to go with the first question!

So if you are a gracious reader who has been following my story of recovery from Lyme Disease, Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), and Fibromyalgia, you have read in three prior posts about some new treatment directions (reference April 29th, May 11th, and June 20th of this year).  You have also read perhaps with horror of my battle with my most noxious complication of illness:  seizure attacks and all of its variants.  After 16 months since the “neuromuscular events” began, I have some good news for you:  beginning two days ago, the pattern of seizure attacks has started to change!  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!

What prompted the new direction?  It appears that I’m close to landing on:  1) just the right dose of Losartan (an off-label application which has lowered TGF beta-1 levels and chest-compression pain) and 2) VIP (vasoactive intestinal peptide for CIRS which causes me to react negatively to most intense sensory stimuli in any form).  Additionally, a fifth type of antibiotic taken in the past 7 months is reducing the symptoms of a urinary tract infection within a matter of hours after taking it; nothing else has come that close, a la natural or by prescription.  While I am also still feeling spacey, sick, low level headaches, aches and pains, ringing in my ears and a host of other symptoms, the bottom line is that I am starting to get better!  The violence and frequency of the seizure attacks/pre-tics/tic attacks is coming down.  Praise the Lord!

I wouldn’t write about these things if it didn’t feel real to me.  I have had false hope many times before only to have my hopes dashed with more sickness.  Still I have kept the faith and persisted with the strength the Lord has provided; to Him be the glory if any good has come from this blog.  It’s time now to acknowledge that it is too early in this new direction to say any more than I already have written here.  So now I will end this post.

For today, please join me in being encouraged that after 16 months of hellish suffering, some relief has come.  I wish I could hug you out there for standing by me.  Thank you.  Just Julie

The Laundry Still Gets Done

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Take me to the top

I don’t wanna cry no longer

Take me to the top

Can’t you see I’m getting stronger?

Take me to the top

Yes there’s room for me and others

Take me to the top

Hey that’s where we will recover!

A simple song, yes it is, written long before I knew the diagnosis of Lyme Disease and sometime after the diagnosis of fibromyalgia.  How could I have known how long this journey would last nor how rich the experience would be if I just “bothered to recover.”

Yes, doing the work of recovery from any illness, addiction, loss, or heartache is a bother!  It takes time, energy, resources, finances, and emotional strength.  When I did it all on my own with my own determination I did get somewhere for a while.  After all I was told at a very young age that I am a “very determined person.”  I’ve tapped into books, self-help resources, 12-step programs, support groups, special diets, supplements, retreats, doctors, specialists, the internet, advice from others, my own creative intuition, and so on.  Yup, I should have figured it all out by now if it were up to me.  Just gotta keep staying positive, helping others, practicing gratitude, and memorizing a ton of slogans and following helpful inspirational wisdom from others on the journey ahead of me.  Hey that’s were we will recover . . .

Well guess what?  It ain’t enough!  No amount of wishful thinking, earthly wisdom, and STUFF is enough to cure or figure out the consequences of living in a fallen world.  This world is not perfect and everything will not be revealed or resolved by the right karma, nirvana, carpe diem, keeping my chin up, and the like.  Sometimes the world simply does not make sense.  I’ve heard the trouble of this world described as the influences of three forces acting against us:  the world, the flesh, and Satan himself.  Maybe so.  Or maybe it’s a combination of them?  Perhaps you would debate me on many of these points.  That’s o.k.  I welcome it.

You will never convince me however that this world is my home and that what I see is all there is.  You will never convince me that there is no purpose to our suffering and that it will end if we just do this or that.  You will never convince me that I deserve better, am entitled to more and should just set more goals to have them.  Sometimes my best is to lay low, to settle where I am.  You will never convince me that if I don’t act now, I will  miss “the boat.”  His timing is perfect now and forever.  You will never convince me there is no God because he allowed this suffering to happen.  Sorry.  I have seen too many blessings that I would have missed or screwed up if I acted to change things in my own strength and timing.  I know better than all this and you can too when you consider inviting Jesus into your heart.

So today, despite the pain and the wretched symptoms last night, the laundry will still get done.  How is that?  It is not by my strength that I live but by He who lives within me and this includes the gumption to fold towels!  When I tanked this afternoon I chose to read The Word first and not surf the net.  Why?  Since He is my ultimate source of wisdom and peace I simply cannot waste my time or energy elsewhere.  They are too precious these days.  Then it didn’t take very many of these precious moments before my relatively small list of things to do became overwhelming.   That’s when I came before the Lord’s throne of grace and He met me there.  Looks like writing about Him was my most important task on the list.  And if I wondered why I couldn’t do something else instead (like go to work or work on my home business), I had to let it all go to the God who holds my life in the shadow of His loving arms, His loving wings.  He knows the right time for everything.  He knows why all this is allowed in my life and He will be glorified in the end.  My best is in the best of hands.

So me and my unfolded laundry are pretty stubborn this afternoon.  Have I convinced you?  I’ll get to those clean washcloths soon enough and I’ll be glad the One Who loves me and knew me before I was born got to me first today.  Forget the laundry.  Hey Elle, where’s your leash?  Remember that walk I promised you yesterday?  Bow wow.

It makes no difference to a dog

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DSCF5182

I finally got off the couch today around 1:00 a.m.  That’s when I started to feel better and realized that a few more newly installed plants still needed watering in the yard.  My husband, Steve, had graciously watered a few before he went to bed at 11:30 p.m. when it became clear that it was not going to rain this evening.  Yipes!  I don’t want to lose the new seedlings, annual flowers, bare root starts, transplanted bush and perennials that I was miraculously able to get in the ground these past three weeks.  And now in the wee hours of the morning, I am grateful that it makes no difference to my dog what time we go outside to the garden.  Anytime, any weather, any occasion, she is ready.  I wuv my pup!

I am so glad that it also doesn’t appear to matter to my Jesus what I am able to accomplish in a day.  While I look around and see the paper towels that need replacing in the kitchen, the crock pot that has been running for a day and a half that needs to be put in the refrigerator, a full load of clean dishes in the dishwasher that need putting away, and so on, I am acutely aware of all that I am unable to do.  Ah, there’s that phrase from my 12-Step Program days:  I am a human being, not a human doing!  I am perfectly o.k. just as I am, sitting on the couch for most of today.  Now I also know that there are other issues such as stewardship, working as unto the Lord, and using my spiritual gifts to serve others unto Him.  Those tasks will be there another day.  Today was a low key day.  Today was a sick day.  And today is over, yeah God!

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?  One thing appears to be certain:  Elle will be ready to go, available without needing to stop and take care of anything else but please me, but be with me.  Oh do I ever love like that?  I pray that if I am able, I will love like that too, with a smile and a spring in my step.  Maybe I’ll even get to help out at the plant sale at our local Cooperative Extension Office.  Wow.  That would be fun!  Regardless, I will be o.k. It makes no difference if I fuss about it either.  As for right now, it’s time to get some sleep!

Matthew 6:25-34

VIP New Treatment Tracker: Day 1

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VIP47900-24-3With the rather loud barking of our pup, the mail lady delivered the foam cooler today containing vasoactive intestinal peptide.  Wow.  It is here!

I quickly gathered myself together with a quick prayer, reading of the instructions, and sipping some water before ceremonially administering the first dose.  A quick spray in one nostril delivered 50 mcg of VIP in a stable saline solution.  It must be stored in the refrigerator so I found a special spot for it shortly thereafter.  Here we go again on another great adventure:  another promising new treatment approach to lessen the burden of recovery from Chronic Lyme Disease and Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.  Like Mach I with your hair on fire, no?

Within an hour I had a slight runny nose that quickly resolved.  No problemmo and this could be expected from a nasal spray.  The stress of it all brought fatigue so a nap will follow shortly.  Then maybe I will shower for the day.  It is beautiful outside today after all.

(For more information on VIP, head to the References section of this blog.)

My Lord goes before me this day and always.  To Him be the glory for the results of this new treatment approach.  He will be the author of the story that will follow, not the pharmacy, doctor, nor myself.  He allowed me to stumble upon this information again and participate in my LLMD prescribing VIP for me.  Thank you Jesus for preserving my mind this past year so that I could respond when a new modality presented itself.  Thank you for continuing to lead me, walk with me and see that this whole ordeal not be wasted.  There are many blessings You have brought me despite the dark days  that began October 11, 2011.  Your light is forever before me no matter the outcome.  Lord help me keep my eyes fixed on You.  And if it is your will Lord, heal me.

In Jesus name,  amen.  Just Julie