Blogging again? I can't even say if it's a good idea.
I really don't know... I hardly know myself some days; so much has changed. Theres been a remarkable transformation that's been going on in my life and it's far from over.
I've gone from status quo to being a very sick person to being a person undergoing major transition and landing somehow on my feet and beginning the remarkably difficult uphill climb to being a person on the road to health...physically and otherwise.
I guess I had the thought that to write and share in some small way the parts and particles of the journey that myself and my family has been on might be a way to step back and gain the perspective so necessary to being able to continue forward every small victory side-by-side with every small defeat on step at a time.
For those who don't know... I was diagnosed after going off of writing this blog back in the early spring with Multiple Sclerosis and I can honestly say that blindsided our whole family and close circle surrounding us. What followed that diagnosis have been some of the most challenging and difficult months of my life (which is saying a lot if you know any of my life story) and yet through it all, God has been there and He is truly making all things beautiful in His time.
I have made some amazing discoveries and made some major life changes in the past months and my life has a new normal that is quite different from what I would've considered normal only a year ago.
It's incredible how much a single year can change one's life so drastically and I am certain that the changes are only just beginning.
I'd like to write about the changes we've been undergoing... the changes I've been undergoing! Even just to keep them all straight in my own head, but furthermore that they may serve as a testimony for what God has planned for my life. A plan to prosper me and not to harm me, a plan to give me a hope and a future...in His time.
I heard this song earlier this week and it has become my anthem this week...my soft and slightly breathless anthem... I may not be here all that much these days of long drawn out waiting, simply because I am at a lack of what to say...but I know that most importantly...I am here in His hands and really, there is no better place to be. Thank you to all of you who are praying for me and loving me... I feel it.
I hope you are equally blessed by this:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."(James 1:2 NIV)
And it looks like more testing is required...
literally.
So how will I learn to be joyful in knowing that another MRI must be scheduled to further investigate the results of the last one???
Oh just you watch me.
It's already amazing to me since walking out the doctor's office in a daze yesterday that the simplest things around me are hitting me as incredibly beautiful.
The snuggle with both my kids at bedtime. The songs I sing them to sleep with
Father in Heaven, hear my prayer
Keep me in thy tender care...
The commitment to uphold me in love and prayer from so many, the sun shining in all it's spring time brilliance...
Yes, He makes all things beautiful
and that is my joy.
I don't want to say it's killing me...but I feel a tremendous fluttering of butterflies each time I think about my appointment on Friday afternoon with the Specialist. I've been waiting a long time to get in to see her, and then all of a sudden the results from my MRI came in and I received two cryptic phone calls from the receptionist at the clinic asking me to bump up my appointment at the next possible opening...
Ummm...of course...may I ask why?
No, of course you can never ask why....the receptionist doesn't know anyway...you have to wait as patiently as possible...praying and trying not to worry...meanwhile the stress alone has resulted in three back to back migraines already this week...that's a new record for me.
Oh God, please help me.
I mean it.
I go back and forth trying to tell myself that if it was something really really serious they wouldn't let me wait until Friday even...if it was nothing at all they wouldn't be bumping my appointment by a whole month.
So my poor wearied, migraine addled brain is left with a vague category of things to choose from that it could be that the specialist needs to tell me...
I don't like that category very much...
Maybe there should be a rule about what receptionists are or aren't allowed to say to prospective patients in their phone messages....
Maybe I could use some prayers.
Cause as much as I believe in the power of prayer...mine feel a little pathetic right now.
That's all for today.
C'mon Friday.
I've mentioned here before that I don't care much for fruits and vegetables.I've also mentioned how I need to eat much more of them.
Complex carbs. It's what we all need... and what I need to find a way to get into my diet more and more.
I should rephrase my disdain however, by saying that I like vegetables when they are prepared nicely. And by nicely I mean not just chopped up on a plate...cause it has to be pretty incredible dip to make that appetizing day after day.
It should also be stated that I'm also quite done with worrying about being a purist. I know raw is the healthiest way to eat them...but I just don't eat them that way ( I mean I do...just not on a daily basis), so I'd rather they be cooked than go uneaten.
I have spent quite a lot of time in the past two years getting all lathered up about how much I wish I could have shelves of preserved this and that grown locally and organically in my own garden or some other worthy person's, ...but alas, it's just not going to happen.
I may get a small number of tomato plants or some lettuce going again, but last year's container garden of vegetable plants looked a little...um...low brow ( for lack of better term that won't offend people who come from certain less desirable neighborhoods)...and in the interest of making our house as desirable as possible for market value this summer...that just won't due.
And again I'd rather just be eating a vegetable or fruit at this point no matter where it came from.
I noticed one day that my kids will eat their vegetables willingly if they come in soup form. So I give them a lot of soup.
I decided I may as well start making up some soups for myself and here is what I came up with....
 |
| Here is a much more sophisticated recipe with a much classier photograph too. |
I use my hand blender and blend the whole thing smooth which makes it extra delicious and fulfilling somehow.
If I were you, I'd grate a little cheese on top and enjoy it with whole wheat crackers; rejoicing in the fact that you are eating much more broccoli than you would be if you'd chopped that bad boy up and just tried to chew it down like a mini tree mulcher...
My whole body went cold when I saw the number on the telephone. Univerisity Hospital Urgent Neurology Department.
I had an M.R.I. last week and they said the result would take about seven days...
Everyone knows it's not usually a good thing if they actually call you about the results...
Would they want me to come in and discuss them?
Dear Jesus....help me....
help me just to pick up the phone.
He did, and I did and it was all a false alarm. Apparently I've finally been booked into an appointment with a migraine specialist in the city.
A sigh of relief so mighty I think my knees gave out.
Isn't it amazing how powerful fear is?
My sister and I were reminiscing last week on our separate but equal experiences of being chased home from kindergarten by a large dog. Two different kids, two different schools, two different towns , two different dogs...exactly the same adrenaline that made us fly home faster than any five year old's legs every carried them; swept along by blind panic that any minute the large playful dog hot on our heels would devour us in it's enormous jaws.
Thinking about it, still gets my heart beating.
And just last night we took our five year old for her first ever horse-back riding lesson and no actual horse-back riding actually happened. Because it was the same combination of small child and large animal and my poor overwhelmed kid just stood there after all the months of chatting excitedly about getting to ride a horse, after all the drawings of herself on a horse, after decorating her bedroom and filling her wardrobe with homemade "cowgirl" outfits, after all the times we've driven out to visit horses in their stables where they were being ridden by other girls, going to the rodeo and even just watching it on YouTube, after pointing out loudly, every horse spotted on the side of the highway...after all this, she burst into tears.
I can't do it mom, I can't ride it mom, I just can't. I just can't do it!
Now granted I think her normal amount of pluck was badly bludgeoned by the immunization incident she suffered on Tuesday morning. But I really wasn't that surprised that she had that reaction. After all, docile and old, she may be...but that horse was still pretty big.
It took a lot of coaxing and the special touch of her very skilled trainer to get her close enough to old Mary to begin brushing her and eventually with me standing beside her we got to brushing out her mane and tail and even picking out her hooves. She got more and more relaxed and she began to chat and I could see her relaxing and beginning to open up.
Finally it was time for me to stand back and her trainer showed her how to hold the lead rope and together they took Mary into the practice ring. My daughter learned how to guide her left and right, how to back up and how to say "woah" and bring the mare to a stop.
By the end of the class her trainer was standing on one side of the ring alone and my daughter focused and pleased with herself led that big creature all around and through the pile-ons that had been set up.
All. By. Herself.
She never did get up on Mary's back, although she assures me she'll try again next week and with the progress she made in only an hour last night, I'm pretty confident she will too.
The hard part for me as a mom is simply knowing when to step in and when to back off. When do I put my hand over hers with the brush and help her get her hands onto the horse's back and when do I fade into the distance so that she can take the reigns so to speak?..
The best teachers are those that have perfected that art.
It's humbling on one hand to realize my little girl still needs me and it's humbling to realize she only needs me to a certain point.
It's a balancing act, Even for myself in mastering my own fears. When do I accept or ask for help, when does that support become a crutch?
Driving home from the stable, my shoulders were tense and I felt strained and nervous. I have very poor night vision and it was at my husbands push, that I was the one behind the wheel. He wants me to be able to be the one who shares these weekly classes with our daughter and I want that too, but I don't usually like to drive after dark, especially on little gravel roads that lack streetlights, lines and proper ditches.
But I did it and I'm glad I did, because next week perhaps I can make it on my own.
Me behind the wheel and my little girl up in that saddle.
Both of us conquering our fears.
2 Comments