The Extended Forcast is Good!

Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.  Psalm 55:22

But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel.  Philippians 1:12

I am 2 days post surgical removal of 2 root-canaled teeth and THE CONVULSIONS ARE GONE!!!  Yipppeeee and praise the Lord!  This 3 years of daily hell for me and my beloved husband, Steve, is finally over!

While there is still much work to do to detox mercury toxicity and re-evaluate chronic Lyme and mold illnesses, I feel more optimistic that I will be able to tolerate those treatments someday.  Until this week, I was failing.  I was bedridden most every day with convulsive episodes.  The grief and impact was huge on everything from our finances to my aching neck.  My husband no longer got a full night of sleep and this illness had changed virtually every activity inside/outside of our home.  How would Steve find me when he came home from work?  Would he have to make me my pureed dinner and feed me again before bed tonight?  Carry me to the toilet?  Our hearts were weary after 3 years of this living hell.

Nine months ago I began investigating how two sore molars in the upper left section of my jaw might be impacting my health.  Four dentists and three oral surgeons, a cone beam CT, MRI, and pano plus regular x-rays later (including a consultation out of State) we had no objective data to guide us.  Everything looked “fine.”  The teeth had bothered me for over 13 years!  Fifteen years ago I had all my amalgam fillings removed but was never guided to chelate for mercury.  Were there silver filings containing mercury remaining underneath the crowns over these two teeth?  We will never know the answer to that question.  My saliva had started tasting metallic.  Eating started triggering the convulsive episodes.  With Steve’s support, we took an expensive leap of faith and pursued a dental solution.

Additionally, seven weeks before what would become the big day, I started eating only on the right side of my mouth.  Two and one-half weeks later I started a pureed diet to eliminate the chewing action that seemed to make things worse; all this was quite a feat since my struggle to get well led me to eat low oxalate, virtually dairy-free, and completely sugar/sweetener-free, gluten-free, and mold -free foods too!  Another two weeks later and 1 week before the surgery I noticed that using plastic utensils delayed the onset of convulsions after eating.  Even drinking my foods through a straw helped initially then ultimately triggered episodes.  I feared eating anything at all!  The only problem with that was hunger and thirst could also trigger convulsions or make them worse.  I felt trapped!

Three and one-half days before the dental surgery my doctor recommended trying an EMF deflecting device.  “It might help” he said, like so many other recommendations I had received all over the spectrum of traditional and alternative medical care.  After one such technology (a Rife machine called a Beam Ray) I tried 3 years ago to treat “Chronic Lyme,” the daily tic attacks started.  Within a year these episodes would escalate to waking seizure attacks then convulsive episodes lasting 2 to 5 hours per day.  We had tried to shield me from wireless technology in our home in the past yet the results were initially helpful then inconsistent.  This time the GEOMACK from Spain reduced the intensity of the convulsions 50%.  That reduction gave me a tiny boost of strength that I needed to physically and mentally prepare for surgery.  My husband got some much needed sleep as well!  Could their be an electrical cause after all?  (See this blog for more anatomy and discussion.)

The morning of the surgery went as usual.  Convulsive episodes began shortly after opening my eyes and periodically as we prepared to leave the house.  Seizure zips ripped through my hungry and thirsty frame as my beloved drove us to the hospital.  We were still reeling from the large check we had to carry with us since the oral surgeon insisted on performing the extractions near a crash cart, I guess.  And after some prayers, many silly jokes and one last shake/rattle/and roll with placement of the IV in my arm, the time had come to let go and not look back.  We reviewed my situation with the anesthesiologist and oral surgeon, surgical tech, and several nurses.  They were not to abort the mission if I seized under anesthesia!  Just wait a moment and get the job done.

I’d like to say that I woke up in a calm, blissful state but that simply was not the case.  I became nauseous and pain management was a problem over the next day and one-half.  Oh well.  One thing was certain:  THERE WERE NO SEIZURES OR CONVULSIONS!   The “battery effect” of dissimilar metals in 2 adjacent crowns over root-canaled teeth WERE FRICKIN’ GONE!  No more tazoring of my brain would continue.  And hey, if there was hidden infection in the root-canaled teeth then the problems caused therein are now also “history.”  The hell is over.

My job now includes retraining my brain to relax when falling asleep instead of bracing for impact.  My job now includes remembering all of the relaxation techniques I used to train my patients in psychiatric hospitals to deal with anxiety.  I need to rework those memory pathways and feelings of impending doom that followed me, waited for me every night, every morning, every time when I was exposed to noxious stimuli, or even on the clothing or breath of my beloved anytime, anywhere.  Hey, no problemmo.  I am ready to live and the extended forecast is good!

Thank you and big hugs to those of you who have followed my story for any length of time,  You have been an important part of my lifeblood to go on when I could not.  Sometimes my husband could not be home with me and I was alone, feeling terrified mostly of even greater suffering and it came.  The worst episodes were never captured on YouTube videos because my warrior husband was needed to hold me tightly to keep me from greater harm instead of holding onto a camera.  Sometimes the Lord was silent even when I cried out to Him when breathless, facing death again and again when my breathing stopped.  When He did speak I gained the courage I needed to face the next trial.  In the end, death was not my greatest fear.  Dying without my Heavenly Husband was.

But you know what?  I made it through.  Steve made it through.  A new chapter in our lives is about to begin.  I’m going to take some time now and regroup.  I am very weak.  An infusion of my Jesus is needed.  The warmest embrace with my beloved must follow.  And really good food cannot be far behind.  After tomorrow the putty d’ jour will be history!  Yeah God!

Pureed Tri-Color Carrots, Cauliflower, Bacon, Ground Round, Potato Chips, Homemade Broth, and Sea Salt
Pureed Organic Tri-Color Carrots & Cauliflower, Bacon, Organic Beef & Potato Chips, Homemade Broth, and Sea Salt in the Recovery Room!

With love, JJ

But the Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.  Psalm 18:18b-19

Cast your burden on the Lord and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.  Psalm 55:22

UPDATE:  The holiday from convulsive episodes did not last, unfortunately.  There were many benefits from having these two infected teeth removed:  significantly less mouth pain, less congestion in the upper shoulder and neck, decreased TMJ symptoms, decreased auditory anomalies, reduced ringing in my ears, and more.  Then there was a miracle:  our insurance company covered most of the $10,000 bill.  Amazing!  :J

Oh How He loves You

Jeremiah 31.3

This truth resonates with me today.  My desire is to extend this truth to the only person still living who hurt me beyond measure.  While much healing has occurred, I recently realized that more emotional baggage needed to be discarded out of my life from this old relationship for me to fully live in today.  The process began about 2 weeks ago.

I knew that I needed to thin some files to make room for new ones in our home office.  While this may not seem like a very large task since I keep fairly up-to-date with such tasks, there was a section in a drawer that had never been touched since it was created.  Fifteen file drawers neatly organized alphabetically and the folders in the “Legal” section were bulging a bit too much.  I had been in car accidents, named in the will of a few different parties, and survived a divorce with much accompanying paperwork telling the grueling details.  The latter one was taking up too much space for my current lifestyle.

The Lord had convicted me many times in the past of discarding the “Divorce” section:  the remnants of pain from divorce.  I got rid of a few things awhile back but not enough such that I could still recount the many hurts, injustices, losses, and pain with the remaining documents.  A sick badge of honor was left intact should I ever need to tell the whole story again.  In holding onto more than the final court decision, I was burdening myself in more ways than I realized.  Conviction came again when I was pleading with the Lord to heal me of a serious illness.  At first it seemed so unrelated that I put it off once again.  Then I decided to respond differently:  with obedience.  With trust.  With faith.  With swiftness.

I felt nothing after the folders fell into the recycling bin.  Whoa.  After all, maybe some good can come from the papers chopped and shredded into something more useful, eh?  Within a day I had forgotten about all of those files and memories altogether.  It is only in the writing of this blog that they have come to mind as I attempt to illustrate the power of letting my Jesus Who loves me and knows me so well lead me into His place of righteousness.  Only He evens the score, makes things right.  Only He redeems the hurt by filling it with His love.  Only He will lead me into using the past for His glory should He choose to.  Ahhhhh.  Another measure of healing has come into my life by letting go of all of “the evidence” of sorrow.  My Jesus transforms sorrow for His good.  I am sure of this.

Now comes the next step:  finishing the task of cutting off any energy that goes to feeding the pain from this great loss in my life.  This is an ongoing practice.  My former spouse left 11 years ago!  So why did my curiosity cause me to check on his status periodically on the internet?  I could justify it a million ways and virtually all of them drained my joy in today.  So gently with the encouragement of another believer in Christ, I moved away from such nefarious activities completely.  Decreasing the frequency further was not enough.  Only by cutting them off have I found freedom!

Gratefully, all of this stuff has nothing to do with the love I receive from my intended beloved, Steve.  He is an amazing man of God, after His own heart, whether or not I choose to love him with baggage or without.  Oh yeah, I am blessed beyond measure!  The second part of the admonishment from my friend was that I needed to get rid of these behaviors to be free to fully love Steve.  My focus needed to be unhindered by pain from the past, especially that which I did not realize I was stirring up by dabbling in past hurts.  What a dumb thing to do!  My Jesus knows and holds my heart on all of these issues.  My Jesus is leading me to himself more and more to become the woman He intends for me to be each day and in doing so, moves me closer to Steve within the covenant of marriage He ordained.  Incredible.

The final step in this process (call it what you may:  healing?  letting go?  letting God?  joy?) is to lovingly dedicate Craig’s life to the One Who created Him just as he is.  Oh sure, I have prayed for Craig hundreds of times.  With a different kind of love I profess that the message of the cross is all Craig needs to come into the fullness of life.  The message of redeeming grace is all Craig needs to find the answers to questions he once asked, he challenged, he doubted with, he ran away pursuing.  The message of love, Christ’s everlasting love, will transcend everything he has ever felt in a finite earthly existence.  And the love of our Lord will be perfect.  The message of the Bible, that Craig used to profess in Sunday School classes so eloquently, is the only great read he will ever need to find joy and meaning.

And so Craig, I lay you before the Throne of Grace.  I pray that you will look up and see the eyes of heaven open up to you and bring you the true desires of your heart in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  In Him you will find nothing less than every good thing.  I do hope you will find every good thing.  I have.  It is waiting for you as well.

In the meantime, I step away from this odd chapter in my old life.  My life was restored and love beyond measure has entered into my heart.  I am grateful for so much and a lot of it is in the form of one who is tall, blue-eyed, athletic, handsome, winsome, and loved and respected by many.  Tonight I have the privilege of celebrating an accomplishment in the life of my intended beloved and I am honored to be there at his side as he accepts recognition for his achievement.  I still know the greatest achievement stands above it all:  his surrendering to the Lord, Jesus Christ brings true victory!  Now that is something worth celebrating.  JJ

 

Who God Is

Bible and crossLove this post from a Calvary Chapel pastor, Joe Mann.  He gave me permission to share this from his Facebook posting yesterday.  Here is a great reminder of who God is paradoxically from the perspective of what He cannot do.

10 Things God Can’t Do:
1. God can’t get tired.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.—Isaiah 40:28
2. God can’t take on a job he can’t handle.
Ah, Lord God! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you.—Jeremiah 32:17
3. God can’t be unholy.
And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”—Isaiah 6:3
4. God can’t be prejudiced.
In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him.—Acts 10:34-35
5. God can’t break a promise.
My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of my lips.—Psalm 89:34
6. God can’t remember sins he’s chosen to forget.
I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.—Isaiah 43:25
7. God can’t make a loser.
Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ.—2 Corinthians 2:14
8. God can’t abandon you.
Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, he is the one who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.—Deuteronomy 31:6
9. God can’t stop thinking about you.
How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with you.—Psalm 139:17-18
10. God can’t stop loving you.
Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.—Jeremiah 31:3

These words bring me comfort today.  I hope they do for you too, Gentle Reader.  JJ