I wanted this first entry to be an update on our lives. I realize some of my friends haven't really heard much about me since my wedding, and a few are a little more updated, since I see you more often, but I'll include even some more details for you.
That leads me back to my title... What's been happening lately?
A Current picture...
I'll start with where we live now... Currently my husband and I live in the amazing Olive Branch. Though I was somewhat worried at first before moving, I am really starting to like it here. It feels like home. I love that we have a target, and a few other choices on restaurants. I love that it still has that country feel, but in a few minutes we can be at a mall. I love being able spend my Saturday mornings at a farmer's market meeting locals and finding some awesome healthy food and products for my family. I also love still being able to drive through tree tunnel roads, and see stars in the sky. I also love getting to know some of the owners at local restaurants and shops. Mostly however, I love the people here.
My husband and I have been blessed with some of the most supportive and encouraging friends we could have ever asked for since arriving here. Though my husband is actually originally from this town, a good majority of his friends do not live here anymore. Some do, and some have moved back, and we love them too. It is also nice that his family is close.
Most of our new friends come from a church we joined several months back. God has blessed our socks off. I believe we now both know and feel this is one of the main reasons God led us back here. The church is actually a church plant called Revision. They meet in a local high school on Sunday mornings and in small groups at houses Sunday nights. Praise God for this church, for holding me accountable, encouraging me, helping me grow in the Lord, and giving me opportunities to reach others. I love that this church gets back to the core, and really strives to copy what Biblical church looks like. Can't say enough here.
It always amazes me to look back and see God at work, what he has done in my life, and the paths he has lead me down. I think about what I thought before, and see what his better plan for my life was. I was so nervous before moving here, but now I am here, and it is good. I was nervous before changing my majors my junior year in college, but now I am here, and it is good. I went through so much stress in graduate school, but now I am here and it is good. I took a chance after many heartaches, and gave a boy my heart, I am here now and it is good. Every path happens for a reason. (more on this later)
What we are doing now... We have been married now for almost 2 years- this December, hard to believe, and I am so blessed to call Will Delk my husband. It is crazy how you grow, and learn to love even more than you ever thought possible. Some things aren't easy. Sometimes work drives you crazy. Sometimes your spouse won't have a job for months in a tough economy, and will daily need encouragement to know that one day he will be a great provider for your family. Sometimes you are miserable in whatever job you finally can get. Sometimes you reach your breaking point and the top of your scale on stress. Sometimes you find out 2 months after you were married, that there's a wall of toxic mold in your house, rendering you sick and homeless for several weeks in the middle of an internship and finishing graduate school. Sometimes your health goes completely haywire. And the answer is yes, we have had all of this and more in those short 2 years. Things go wrong period. Thus is life. I am so thankful for the guy God put beside me, to weather those storms with. Blessed is an understatement. Sometimes also, you just need someone to hold your hand. Ha, and to kill spiders, fix things, and hang pictures all things as he is currently graciously doing as I write this post. Got to be a practical side of love too right?
Getting past all of the storms, my husband now has a job he loves. He's a research engineer for an elevator company. He gets to design, come up with new ideas, and even test some things, which he loves doing. He also gets to travel some, mostly out of country. That will be much cooler if I ever get to go with him in the future. I also finished my degree in counseling and currently work as a therapist with old folks in a nursing home setting. It probably isn't where I want to be forever, but it has been very nice currently. I love getting to spend my days getting to know people, and where they came from. We do a lot of behavioral things and reminiscent therapy to help them avoid depression.
A Current Storm... Unfortunately not all of our storms have passed. However as I talked about before regarding paths, I have faith that when I look back on this one day, whether I am completely healed or not, I will see exactly how God used this path, and this storm, just as he has all the years before. My current storm is my health. I know some of you know this, some of you may be new hearing this, and some might know, but not know all the details. Also for those reading,it is good to keep in mind you really don't always know what someone is going through in life. You never know their struggles. Sometimes these things, and in my case most of my symptoms are invisible. Most of the time, I would rather choose not to talk about it. It is a daily fight for me, but I do realize now that God does call us to share in our burdens. It's a lot of history, but I wish to fill you in the best I can.
I first started having a symptom here and there while I was in college. I just remember having some weird things happening, such as a molar rash and temperature in my face. Other times I remember feeling dizzy and just off in the mornings while in class. At one point my hands got itchy, and at one point they were swelling and turning blue. Things would come and they would fortunately go. It would be months in between symptoms. I had some tests here and there, but all would turn up negative.
I really started having symptoms shortly after we were married. I had ridiculously bad migraines for the first time. I became sensitive to light. I started having heart palpitations and a racing heart. Every once in a while I would have air hunger- which is kind of a feeling of burning hunger, even after eating a full meal. I noticed a difference in my activity level. I went from being active, running and hours of zumba, to barely wanting to get off the couch. It felt like major mono, that was definitely not normal. I started seeing floaters. I also started having increased sinus issues. Then I had episodes of vertigo. Some nights and days everything was swimming. I had increased stomach issues. I also started having a feeling of my blood sugar plummeting and had to leave work one day. I also had rashes. For the first time in my life I was breaking out in hives. They were worse after a hot bath, but would appear on my chest, neck, and face.
This is when we discovered a wall of black mold. Apparently there had been a slow leak in our nice townhouse behind the refrigerator. We were never able to see any water because it leaked directly down into the wall soaking the wall and the floor base. Once the mold was found, I could not breathe in the house. I had previous mold allergies, and asthma. We had to evacuate the house for several weeks living in hotels thanks to our gracious parents. While out, the rashes increased, and I felt like I had food poisoning multiple nights. Not being able to leave, or get out of the lease, we moved back into the house, only to find it had not been properly repaired, though they had replaced half the wall. The house and all of our things still reeked of mold.
We were able to move out just a few months later, after finishing school, and moved to a new house in Olive Branch. My symptoms decreased dramatically. It took several months, but the rashes decreased. The headaches decreased. I however did during this time gain a lot of weight. I hadn't changed activity levels, or diet, but I gained 40 pounds in 2 months. I saw an internist about this matter and other health concerns, but never really got any answers. I also saw my allergist and got new medicine to help with sinus problems. I was also still tired often. Things were at least starting to clear. We thought the worst was behind us. We were wrong.
In November my health went haywire again. I started having moderate joint pain. It would start in my ankles and move to my knees, eventually a few weeks later spreading to all of my joints. This prompted me to seek a doctor again. Along this same time I started having fatigue. Again this wasn't your normal tired at the end of the day stuff. I was TIRED. I had trouble getting up in the mornings, would get going, crash around 3, but then be wide awake when I was actually supposed to be going to bed. I also started having some dizziness again. Sometimes I wasn't sure how to explain things but my vision was just off. Sometimes it felt like my blood sugar was also unsteady. I also still had headaches, but this time they were in the back of my head. My neck was also stiff, I always complained about this, but thought it was stress. I also noticed my hands swelling like balloons sometimes. I could no longer wear my wedding rings, and had to order a fake set on amazon, because my fingers were two sizes bigger. I also had hand tremors.
I saw an internist around this time who was one of the top in this area. He had an idea that my body was just going haywire from allergies and the exposure. My hystamines were out of whack. He checked tons of things in bloodwork, also finding a vitamin D deficiency, B12 deficiency, and that I previously had a cytomagalovirus-the less common mono virus that sticks in your system. He thought the joint pain was a result of psoriatic arthritis, but this diagnosis is difficult because it can't be clinical. He put me on a strict diet to balance my body which cut out gluten, and was more alkaline. I stuck to the diet for 4-5 months. My health improved some, but the diet was difficult to stick to. Once I went off of it, I started having crazy stomach symptoms. I also began having spells where I would get dizzy and weak, lasting several hours. He started preparing paperwork for mayo-clinic determined to get me answers, but referred me to an endocrinologist and rheumatologist for other opinions.
The endochrinologist stated that my thyroid was normal, along with my blood sugar, and stated since I had been becoming weak in my spells thought I should see a neurologist for another opinion, because he worried about multiple sclerosis being a possible cause. This scared me to death upon further research.
The neurologist, stated that he didn't see anything wrong and thought I was wasting my time and should see a rheumatologist. Though he did bring up the possibility of lyme disease, he was unable to test, because we waited so long in the waiting room that all his staff had gone home.
At this time, I was sick, and so tired of playing musical
Around this time, my cousin got word of what I had been experiencing, and the things were similar to some that his wife had experienced. He gave me the name of an MD that also specialized in holistic or natural therapies. He strongly suspected some of my symptoms could be linked to lyme disease the great mimicker. I doubted, knowing, I did have a previous history of tick bites from hiking, but thinking it was very uncommon. I never had the popular bulls-eye rash.
I saw the new doctor, who was amazing. He not only looked at black and white and the usual, but checked into the grey. Most who come to see him have been to at least 8-9 other doctors and have found no hope. He definitely restored mine. In his blood tests, he found that I did indeed have lyme disease, along with rocky mountain spotted fever. He explained that when one tick is infected, it usually has multiple co-infections. The diseases also made me more susceptible to the mold sickness. Because I had been infected so long, the disease starts doing damage to other areas of your body. This is why I also had hypoglycemia. In the past I tested normal for this. He explained that my normal numbers weren't normal however for me. My blood sugar runs abnormally low, so a spike looks different than other people- which is why I almost felt like I would pass out during the five hour blood glucose test. I also had damage to my thyroid. He tested some numbers not everyone usually does test. These are the RT3. It gives you the same symptoms as hypothyroidism, but some doctors never test these. (most likely where my weight gain came from along with the impossibility of losing) I also was experiencing adrenal fatigue because of damage to my adrenal glands. (the whole pattern of not feeling rested upon waking, crashing at 2, wide awake at night) Also most of your immune system takes place in your gut. I possibly have food allergies, or an intestinal yeast infection that was affecting my gut and my immune system causing IBS.
It is a lot to take in and process, but everything was kind of inter-related. It makes a lot more sense to look at your body as a whole, and to look at removing the tack you sat on instead of trying to help the pain, and thus is my current treatment. Lyme is pretty crazy, and the fact that it is in fact much more prevalent than anyone thinks. You also don't have to have a bulls-eye rash, it is only in about 50%. Often Lyme goes misdiagnosed as fibromialgia, chronic fatigue, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, thyroid problems, and other diseases. My 8 specialists never checked for it. And most of the people you see with Lyme were in fact very active people. Someone also made a good point that you don't see couch potatoes getting tick bites. You see people that camp, hike, run, hunt etc.
I am glad to finally be getting treatment for something I have struggled with for so long. And alas one day in the future, I hope to have complete health back. I want to be able to focus on my social relationships and feel caught up on things in my home and in my job for once. I want to be able to walk several miles, maybe even run a half marathon, and feel in shape again. I want to be free of pain, and not feel like I want to go to bed each day around 4:00. I'm glad to have started the process, and can't wait to look back and see how God has used this. I already see that I am much more aware of others and hardships they are facing. I thank God and praise him through this storm.
I apologize that this entry was so long, but I felt each part was pretty important.
And that my friends is an update into the lives of Will and Susan.
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