Day 358 - Day 361

I am so tired of this illness controlling my life. I don't know how much more I can take. I know God says He will never give us more than we can bear, but I feel I am quickly getting to that point. The endless nausea, weakness, and pain, unable to do anything about it. Doctors giving me no hope, and losing hope for what they can do for me is very disheartening. I feel like I am stuck watching everything around me just fall apart. I almost don't want to post this to my blog because I just want to be a source of inspiration and I feel like a total failure. At this point I don't want to write anything good, bad, or indifferent, I just want to cry and I am. This is so hard. I don't know if I am strong enough to keep on keeping on. My blood work looks great while my body is falling to pieces.
I stopped writing this and was not going to post it because I have been going on a downward spiral that is not pretty. This is most definitely the ugly side of illness. The mundane day in and day out constant nagging at you. Nobody want to see that. I am just an emotional wreck right now because my meds are not doing much good and I keep getting weaker. I will finally get back to a specialist at the end of this month and it is the only glimmer of hope I have because I feel like I have just been left dangling in the wind. Either I can't sleep or I sleep all the time. My pain is back to a point where it is constant. I just feel so helpless and so lost. I am too weak to get up and take care of the things that have needed to be done for months. I am also afraid if I go to this doctor and he just tells me the same thing that I am going to totally lose it, if I haven't already. I am disconnected from the world, disconnected from my family even though they are right here, especially disconnected from myself. This is not me. I can't even find myself in this shell. i have spent so many years being so hopeful even when every door was slammed in my face even when i was treated less than, I still knew that I was going to get through this. Now I just feel hopeless.

Day 353

I know my post yesterday was not a great way to start off the year but sometimes I get so overwhelmed and I just have to share. I didn't get to sleep until 7am yesterday and slept until about noon and I still have not been to sleep again. I really hope I can wake up in time to call my doctor so I can get in to see him because something's got to give. I know before I have said the closest thing to an equation of what I have is like having the stomach flu 24/7; but when I get a stomach migraine, and yes those are real but I certainly wish they weren't, it is more like having the swine flu and I can make that equation because I have had the swine flu.
Friday my baby boy is going to be 8. It seems like just yesterday he was born. I really want to give him the same attention to detail and amazing birthdays I was able to give my older children when they were young. We may have been on a shoestring budget but I put my heart and soul into those parties. I have always loved having get togethers and putting on huge events. Right now on top of all of my other raging symptoms, I am swollen like a stuffed sausage. We are not planning his party until next weekend but I really hope I am able to do something special on his birthday. We have always gone so big, even over the top on birthdays because Clint and I decided that Christmas should be all about Jesus and yes we do presents and Santa but not without the Christmas Story being read and putting the utmost importance that it is Jesus' birthday. Over the years the kids seem to have more of a birthmonth than a birthday because we celebrate on the day, then there is the party with friends, most of the time we have a separate party for  family because ours is so big and somehow it expanded from a day to a week to a month, but the main reason for that is because it is a time to celebrate their life, the precious gifts God entrusted us with from before they were ever conceived.
I hope you enjoy my blog, I know sometimes it can just be mindless rambling and sometimes I feel like God is speaking right through me. Right now my arms are so weak and my fingers are so swollen that I am going to have to stop for now. I do wish and hope and pray for everyone who reads this, that this new year will be the most blessed, joyful, entertaining, and love filled year you ever could have imagined!

Day 352

I don't know how much more of this I can take. My nausea is like an angry bear and my pain is screaming at me at the top of its lungs. To top off I am too weak to lift my arms and every time I stand I feel like I am going to pass out. My nerves are on edge and I feel like I am about explode. I am so tired of people saying I am faking being sick because I don't look sick. I do a good job around people for a few hours acting like I am not sick and that just makes them believe their little theory is true but that is because they don't see what happens to me most of the time. I never asked for this but alas it is my lot for now and I hope my days aren't as bad as this one until I am well. 

Day 351

Worry. We all do it even though we know better. Worry can't help a single thing but it can harm you in so many ways. It can make you emotionally off balance. It can make your good health bad or your bad health worse. It can make you spiritually blocked. It takes away peaceful sleep, precious moments that you can never get back. Worry is a whole lot like cancer and I believe in some cases it can cause cancer. Jesus tells us as His own not to worry in such a beautiful way in Matthew 6, not even to seek after the things we need because He knows our every need and if we truly seek Him first then all the things we need will come. It never says we will get all the things we want, but on that front, if the things you want, the deepest desires of your heart are intertwined with the desires He has for you than all you have to do is ask. He says we have not, because we ask not, or we ask halfheartedly. A life filled with worry is a life filled with turmoil and nobody wants that. But you sometimes have to ask yourself how to stop worrying, how to let things go. I think the first step to letting go of worry is to realize that you have absolutely no control over the things that worry you. I know that can scare you even more and increase your worry but not if you look at it from the right perspective. If we are not in control then who is? God is in control of everything. Trust Him and He will give you that peace that defies understanding. Trust Him and watch as the needs you were so worried about, the hole you dug so deep that you can't see the light of day are filled in the most obscure ways. Nothing is too big for God. Trust Him to meet your needs, and after all the decorations, sights, sounds, and smells of Christmas fade away keep the true meaning of it in your heart every day. Parents, watch your child grow and change daily and imagine what those first months, first years of Jesus' life might have been like. I can tell you I want to worry right now because there is so much to worry about. I hate being that way so I fight it. There are times when all i see is negativity, and that just causes a vicious cycle of negativity and suddenly you see the worst in everything and everyone. The wonderful thing is that there is a flip side to that coin and the same way you can find the negative you can find the good, positive, beacon of light in everything and everyone. My prayer for every day comes from Proverbs 31, "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness." I don't always succeed and it breaks my heart to know I have been ugly to anyone but especially my children. I never want to be a cause of pain for anyone in any way. I know that, bar none, is the hardest part about being ill, seeing the pain it causes others. Lord, bless everyone who reads this post, meet them where their needs are, fill them with true love, true joy, and true peace, bring the desires of their heart to the center of your will! Amen!