Tag: Lyme disease

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Published on by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

Therefore, send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.  (John Donne, 1624.  Meditation 17.  Devotions upon urgent occasions.)

man riging bell

Such is the reflection of these famous words scripted by John Donne and later repeated by Ernest Hemmingway in one of his most famous works of literature.  The intent of each author is to emphasize the interdependence of humanity; no man can truly live or function as an island.  Whether we live or die, honor God or blaspheme His name, our actions at some point will touch the lives of others around us given time and opportunity.

Case in point:  I’ll never forget that day in Dominicks, a grocery store in the west suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.  It was my day off from work and I was picking up a few groceries before heading home.  I’m not sure why I was dressed up while running a few errands . . . I do recall wearing my nice and warm, long wool coat to fend off the early Spring chill still lingering outside.  Suddenly at the end of the aisle was my good friend’s dad!  He said a cherry “hello” and explained that he was in town visiting for some family occasion.  Mr. Y. always had a gracious way about him:  asking permission to tell you another story or joke before parting ways.  He laughed about me humoring an older person by talking with him or something like that then shared a quick note to give his regards to my husband.  I looked him straight in the eye.  He had no idea.

Immediately Mr. Y knew something was wrong.  I walked closer to him, recognizing that I was about to open my heart in the middle of a grocery store aisle!  My former spouse was discovered in an affair less than 3 weeks before.  Intervention from our church had begun and my life was in turmoil as my heart was still reeling in crisis mode.  It didn’t help that my grandmother had also died and I was in the middle of facilitating the refinancing of our home (not knowing if I would be living there in the future or not).  All of that stuff was about me and my drama.  What I did not expect was the look on Mr. Y’s face when I told him my story.  Do you know that look in the movies when someone has just been punched in the stomach so hard the person could not breathe?  The smile on his face turned to anguish.  He could not speak.

Mr. Y’s reaction showed me the reality of love between the body of believers or those who call Jesus Christ Lord and Savior.  We bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).  We know what it means from a human level, a heart level, and a violation of God’s plan for us when a brother in Christ falls.  Craig probably never realized that his actions affected so many people and perhaps did not care.  This was astounding to me.  He was a leader in our Bible church and a gifted Sunday school teacher.  Craig excelled in his work in the mental health field, loved working out, and was quite good at photography.  He loved a good philosophical discussion and we had many.  It is a matter of history that my coming to faith in Christ was facilitated by these very sessions:  Craig helped answer many of my questions and led us to both a seeker-friendly church then a smaller, more intimate body of believers.  I got saved because I dated Craig.  In that Bible church is where I had met Mr. Y and became good friends with his daughter, Deb.  Friends like this are closer than my own family at times.

So where am I going with all of this?  When I am home alone every day, not even leaving the house for days on end, of course it is easy to forget the love of dear friends and family in my life.  Sure the pup looks up at me with soft brown eyes when I walk into the kitchen but it’s just not the same!  My intended beloved, Steve, is away from home a lot and often into the early evening.  Since I don’t feel well most of the time I just stay home if I don’t have an appointment or urgent need for food!  This week was particularly dry in this regard.  As it turns out, most of the week was devoted to adjusting to a new treatment we’re hoping will eliminate the daily seizure-like episodes.  I slept or moped about most of the week anyways; I didn’t notice that I was by myself as the quiet was itself healing medicine.  When I come out of this fog of late and I’m still isolated at home, I must remember that I am totally never alone.

Do you have this confidence Gentle Reader?  We are connected by this blog.  For that I am humbled and honored, that you have taken the time to step closer to me.  We probably resonate some on the issues of life or you would not have chosen to stop by when so many other bloggers have their own yada yada yada to share.  Our connection will be even more meaningful to me if I know that it goes beyond my stories and our simple humanity to the very essence of what gives meaning to life:  a shared faith in God through His son, Jesus Christ.  If you do not yet have the peace, love, and joy that comes from knowing the Lord intimately then I invite you to step before the throne of grace today.  Ask Him to reveal Himself to you and seek Him with a sincere heart through the Bible, His words.  When we repent and invite Jesus into our hearts we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; we are never alone again.  Please tell me what you find, k?

For those of you who share the love of Christ already:  I look forward to meeting with you one day!  Whether in this life or the next, we’re going to have a great time celebrating the glorious riches of a life surrendered to our King.  Standing in the presence of the Lord will wash away our tears and troubles bringing joy beyond what we could ever see today.  May the glimpses of His holiness and glory in the goodness that surrounds each of us sustain you, encourage you, and lift you up until we arrive in our eternal home.  Therein the bell will toll with tales of triumph for all of us.  Such a sweet sweet sound that will be!

A Heart Message from Snoopy and Woodstock

Published on by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment
Happy Valentines Day Gentle Reader!
Happy Valentines Day Gentle Reader!

And in the meantime . . .

Published on by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

November 20, 2011 around noon.  I was alone when my body began shaking uncontrollably.  I was having difficulty thinking clearly and my speech was strained.  All kinds of fearful, crazy thoughts ran through my mind including blaming myself for what was happening!   It was the day after travelling about 16 hours to see family out of State and my husband had gotten up early after just a few hours of sleep to go to church and out to lunch with everyone.  Having never fully recovered from viral hepatitis 1 1/2 months earlier and somehow surviving the extended car ride, there just wasn’t any strength left to get up in the morning and join them.  Now I was immobilized and terrified of what was happening to me.  Somehow I figured out that low blood sugar was worsening the symptoms.  Finally I figured out that I needed to call Steve:  he could bring home a take-out lunch for me from the restaurant and I would hang on until he got home.  The only problems is that everyone was stuck on the other side of town anyways, with the drawbridge up that connected the roads between us!  Flash forward about two hours and the episode was over.  I fell into a fit full sleep and showered much later that day, pretty beat up from everything and quite embarrassed too.  What had happened to me?

April 15, 2012 at 3:00 a.m.  I awakened on my birthday with a nightmare and unusual shaking.  The nightmare wouldn’t stop even though I was awake, whether or not my eyes are closed.  I remained awake a long time, unable to fall back asleep.  This incident occurred nine days after beginning to use a Rife machine, six days per week.  (A Rife machine generates wavelengths of light and sound in program sequences designed to match the vibrational frequencies of various tissues and organisms in the body.)  Treatment for Lyme disease had begun in January with a 5-week course of antibiotics then continued with Rife treatments late in March when I could not tolerate the antibiotics.

April 18, 2012 at 9:20 a.m.  After running 15 minutes of various Rife programs, I was shivering uncontrollably.  My hands and feet felt extremely cold.  Fatigue overtook me and I napped almost two hours.  I woke up feeling somewhat rested until crashing after additional treatments including the beginning of a series of magnesium injections.

April 19, 2012 around 5:20 p.m.  I am suddenly awakened from a post-Rife treatment nap with the barking of our dog.  I am unable to move for almost 30 minutes.  My mind is dull yet rested until the second Rife treatment two hours later when I felt depleted once again.  I learned that this can be a typical response to various treatments for Lyme disease and is often called a herxheimer reaction.

April 21, 2012 around 3:30 p.m.  From my treatment journal I note, “moderate then moderately severe tics as I went to take a nap.  Cast out with calling out the name of Jesus.  Calmed.  Re-started.  Called out 2-3 more times and stopped.”   A two and one-half hour nap followed shortly thereafter!  Napping became my pattern after running Rife programs; my days were consumed with managing all the aspects of treatment.

The attacks of tic episodes continued every other day or so, mixed with nightmares most every day through the rest of the month of April.  Beginning May 5th, the low grade and severe tic episodes ramped up to virtually every day.   Most often they occurred when falling asleep after a Rife treatment or when trying to fall asleep at night.  The first extended episode that appeared to be a full-blown waking seizure was on May 12th after a nap.  It lasted 1 1/2 hours!  I struggled to keep myself from hyperventilating or stop breathing altogether.  Talking or voluntary movement were extremely difficult and made the attacks worse when attempted.  I cried!  My body temperature dropped and both thirst and hunger pangs increased dramatically.  I was miserable, exhausted, and terrified all at the same time.  While the nightmares would continue most days for another two weeks, they generally ended and recurred occasionally when taking a new medication or supplement.

Flash forward one year.  We remediated our home for mold early in 2013 and both my medication and supplement regimes had changed many times.  The seizure attack episodes increased to a couple of hours on a daily basis with some patterning in addition to after exposure to noxious stimuli.  I stopped attending worship services at our church since it is a water-damaged building with mold.  A recurrent urinary tract infection required treatment with a series of different antibiotics.  The seizure attack episodes escalated into convulsions 1-2 hours after taking an antibiotic.  My world continued crashing in on me as I began reacting to more and more foods, supplements, and types of noxious stimuli including loud music and bright lights.  The tic and seizure attacks ramped up in the summer of 2013 to 3-4 times per day for a total of four hours per day and continued at this level for the next EIGHT MONTHS UNTIL JANUARY OF 2014.

In January of 2014 I was very beat up from the wretched seizure-like episodes.  Remarkably they generally decreased to three hours-per-day in February after a series of extremely strict dietary regimes:  a stricter, no-low-starch-veggie-Candida diet; Candida and mold-free diet; Candida, mold-free, and low sulfur diet; and finally where I am right now:  Candida, mold-free, and low oxalate diet.  I have religiously documented my treatment protocols and responses to them, tracked trends, consulted with neurologists & a pulmonologist, networked in numerous online forums and support groups, and researched every angle of this illness to no avail.  Overall these days, this sickness is looking more like a biotoxin illness than Lyme Disease as evidenced by some genetic testing of late.

As of February 2014, some improvements have come including being better able to stay asleep and having stronger nails!  My hair is thinner and so am I!  However, I am largely deconditioned from intolerance to a full daily schedule of activities including exercise; headaches, global pain, ringing in my ears, and more have worsened.  I haven’t worked in two years and am homebound much of the week.  Concentrating on my hobby jewelry business is extremely difficult.  Somehow I have still continued to blog and am grateful for a two-week improvement in my cognition long enough in October to publish my eBook:  Hope Beyond Lyme:  The First Year.  I am grateful for all of the wonderful fellow sojourners I have met these past 2 1/2 years and have made some new friends too.  When I see that a non-believer has read this blog, my spirit soars to think maybe the Lord is using my trials to reach others with hope for His glory!  To see the Lord, Jesus Christ, as my sustaining grace and a source of hope for enduring the trials of this life makes this blog more than a journal and for that I am humbled, grateful.

And in the meantime . . . I am ready for the seizure-attacks to stop, of course!  My neck is killing me from all of the thrashing about you know!  I grieve the loss of time, the thousands of dollars, the stress, the isolation, and the strain on my beloved Steve.  Will I become disabled or return to work?  There is only One who knows the answers to that question and another big one, “why?”  Gentle Reader, if you have read this blog before, you know what I am about to write here:  it’s o.k.  I’m going to trust the lover of my soul anyways, no matter what happens.  I may try another treatment approach before I can see the doctors in a new clinic up in Michigan next month.  High CBD hemp oil (legal in all 50 States) has been shown to work well for both children and adults with seizures and who knows, it just might help me too.  However, I have been down this road of hoping for a cure before, only to have things worsen.  Yeah, supreme bummer for sure.  Sigh.  It takes what it takes.  Sometimes we wait and sometimes we go backwards.  If the Lord leads me to some new information and gives me the ability to search it out . . . if my husband agrees . . . if the resources present themselves . . . and if there are no barriers after prayer and sleeping on it . . . sure, Ima gonna try it.

So when it works, Lord willing, you can join me in rejoicing for having hung in there with me along the twists and turns of this difficult journey.  I hope I remember to lean on the Lord when times are good as well as when they are bad.  Please help me keep my Jesus in front of me as He goes before me each day.  Now let’s all get ready for some good news, k!

We all have but one past

Published on by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

“We all have one past, but many possible futures,” stated Canadian hockey player Guy LaFleur, in an interview at his retirement (as quoted in the February 2014 newsletter of RZIM ministries).

24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.  (The apostle Paul speaking in Acts 20:24)

Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.  Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.  (Proverbs 4:25-26)

Oh to be able to empty myself of yesterday and walk forth into tomorrow with great expectation!  To live in the moment with hope that what comes will be filled with the Lord’s tender mercies and grace is to really live freely in Christ.  And to know that the struggles of the day will work itself into a beautiful tapestry of my eternal life that has already begun, well, that’s really head-y man!

When I was researching yet another new dietary approach to the illness I endure, I realized how many times I have done this work before.  Over and over again I have sat here at our computer and continued to research solutions to the treatment failures in the past.  I admit that the new ideas don’t always come from the Lord, however.  Who else would come up with a way to make turnips to fit a Candida, mold-free, and low oxalate diet?  (Chuckle.)  I believe it is the Lord who inspires the best of what comes from me through the Holy Spirit and then provides just enough energy to get me there.  For example, I had an unexpected, Divine appointment with a friend who happened to be in the lobby of our doctor’s office on Friday.  She needed prayer badly!  The Lord in his mercy used me to step out in faith and pray with her right then and there.  The fellowship moved each of us.  The moment would have been missed if the Lord had orchestrated the events for me to leave the building just a few minutes earlier or later . . .

But really, until I started writing this I always thought that deep down inside I was someone who carried the events of my sordid childhood on my sleeve.  My utility to this world was somehow limited because of my past.  I thought that the facts that I came from a broken home, witnessed and experienced abuse, grew up lacking basic provisions at times, and didn’t find Jesus Christ until I had spiraled out of control as a young adult limited who I would eventually become someday.   Even if my outward appearance showed a measure of success, the inner woundedness kept me from enjoying it.  For example, I have had to remember to smile:  the joy just isn’t there a lot of the time to beam out from within me.  This should have changed when I found Jesus and entered into a personal, saving relationship with Him.  He redeemed my sin and began to fill the emptiness in my heart reserved only for Him.  Why wasn’t it enough?

I’m not sure I have the answer to that just yet.  I do know that sometimes we are our own worst enemies, eh?  We get in the way of what the Lord has planned for our lives, the opportunities he places before us and noticing the lovely little niceties he sprinkles around us to show us His love.  His love is always around us.  It’s my opportunity to let more of it dwell within me and let my eyes find it around me too.  And when that happens, more of Him flows through me to others, to my work, to my walk in this life with Him.   I can see that it is happening despite my weakness; I just haven’t recognized it enough.  I’m worried about appearing humble and making sure I “keep the gate closed” on the sordid remnants of my past.  Maybe I don’t need another few years of psychotherapy to figure it all out.  I just need to wait on Him.  He is leading me more than I realize!  And if that means anything to you, well let’s give God the glory!  Like Patsy Clairmont says in her book of the same title, God Uses Cracked Pots (1991) like me.

We all have one past.  Healing the hurts from our past requires grieving, reflection, restoration, and the passing of time.  But carrying it around and letting those wounds drag down the current day that has enough challenges of its own is a mistake.  Cut the ties to the past and live mindfully in the present.  Don’t deny who you are or your unique story.  Tell it to others who need to hear . . . talk about it with your heavenly Father who has sustained you to grow you into the man or woman you are today.  The possibilities of an amazing future awaits, adventures big and tiny, and we don’t want to miss them do we?

Say, I saw a gathering of robins (that signal the first sign of Spring in the Midwest) playing in a couple of feet of snow the other day when I was coming home from that doctor appointment.  I was exhausted as I turned the corner in my truck and some yucky stuff happened later that evening.  All of these events were in the mix of the activities of my day.  The bottom line is that the robins are back!  That is just sweet enough to warm my heart and the tips of my fingers in my fingertip less gloves as I type into the wee hours of the morning (until it’s time to take my final saliva sample for a lab test at the correct time interval, that is!).

Talk about cracked pots . . .  JJ

Sometimes you just know

Published on by Jesus is for the Wounded4 Comments

13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.  (John 16)

Jesus spoke these words as he was instructing the disciples about the Holy Spirit they would receive at Pentecost.  These words came hours before He was to be arrested, tried and convicted of crimes He did not commit.  He would be tortured, beaten and crucified in fulfillment of the scriptures that were written hundreds of years before He was born.  All of this happened so we could be saved from the consequences of our sin and live forever with Him in heaven.  For those who believe in Him, He dwells in their hearts, comforted and counseled by the Holy Spirit.  Call it supernatural intuition if you like.  Sometimes you just know something to be true, the right way to go.  For followers of Jesus Christ, walking in the Spirit of truth is a smidgen of heaven on earth:  one’s heart can be at peace at last.

I experienced this today.  A phone consultation with a second physician within a week brought hope.  I felt like my heart was at home in her care.  I was moved to tears when Dr. B. confided in me her faith in the Lord, shared how she had reviewed my records at length in preparation for our appointment, and led me through a plan that incorporated everything that has transpired in the past 2 years.  She has experienced biotoxin illness herself and has worked with the leading authority in the United States on this topic.  Her gentleness calmed my fears.  She listened.  Hey guys:  I am going to get well!

This next phase in my “Hope Beyond Lyme” journey will likely take another year.  The treatment steps will include baby steps such as 1/4 tablets of medication, micro nutrition, retesting at better labs, and plenty of out-of-pocket expenses.  At this point I am trusting the Lord to provide, to guide.  My husband has been a great spiritual leader during this time of illness and I know he will lead us in these next steps as well.  I am so glad I followed his advice not to fly across the country for medical consultations!  We could not have afforded it anyways.  And now the Lord has provided help from a clinic just a 2 1/2 hour car ride away.  Pure Michigan.  I’m going home to my home State for healing!

O.K. I don’t know if everything will be rosy but hey, I have hope again.  Gentle Reader, isn’t that just swell?  :J