This morning, I woke up fearful. I feared the fact that I am getting closer to the last chances of getting Zeke healed. (ha! As if it's all on me...trust me, I know it's not!) I used to have all of these different options, but those options are dwindling. He's on the ketogenic diet and that's helped with the major seizures, the scary ones, but not the little ones throughout the day. I mean, there are fewer and he isn't as unsteady, but it's just not good enough! He can't really develop unless 90% of the seizures are gone. I have the GAPS diet that I am going to work into the ketogenic diet through a dear friend who has helped tremendously as she has gone through a very similar situation with her daughter.
I'm so thankful for the way God has brought Zeke out of the chaos of where he was a month ago but with the chiropractor care making him "worse" the day after he gets adjusted, even though that must mean it's working somehow, I have a hard time visualizing my son as seizure free. It's taken over so much of our lives, it's shaped us in amazing ways and it's brought Andy and I so much closer to becoming more like Christ but...
I hate.hate.hate his seizures. They make me so angry. It's not fair! My sweet, 3-year-old boy going through something he cannot control is so, so hard. I'm fighting with everything in me to bring him healing and it always comes down to, in the end, I don't have the final say. I do not have ultimate control. God's hand is so evidently in all of this and His plan is so much bigger and better than what my puny, little human brain can muster up. I have to fight fearing this beautiful truth and, instead, accept it. I should know it's far better to have a loving, powerful, strong, all-knowing, Creator-God in control then, well, me.
But I wanted to share my heart with you. As I get ready to take him to the chiropractor again tonight, I have to accept that tomorrow will be one full of seizures and chaos. I can pray for God's healing and grace to get me through it and He will, He always does.
I cry because I had this post all pre-written in my head and I stumbled across this Tweet which lead me to a man's blog who wrote about fear and love (and how they do not go together) as he was dying of cancer and in his final months...
Please read. It's so beautiful and sad, but know that he loved Jesus and his body is whole and complete. I'm sure that can only bring a fraction of peace to a grieving family and community.
Whatever it is that you are loosing...a dream, a 'normal' life, a loved one, a son to epilepsy and developmental delay, if you choose Jesus, you can rest in truth over your fears. His love is far greater and stronger than anything here on earth. He already conquered the "unconquerable" through his son, Jesus on the cross which leaves all the other things that are difficult and messy here on earth very conquerable too!
We are not promised it will look like what we planned for or hoped for (and you can just go ahead and assume that pretty often, your desires can be made perfect in God's desire for you and it's always, ironically better), but you are promised God will get you through it. His grace and love for you is great, whether you have accepted that or not.
About 2 months ago I decided to re-name my blog. Through all of this stuff we have gone through, it's brought much perspective. When I started this blog, I wanted to be funny, hip, fashionable, awesome-mom(able) and show you how I did all of that. That's where "BreeLoverly" came in. "Wouldn't it Bree Loverly?" I was very into who I was and for the most part, confident in that.
Now, I still want to be all of those things (ha!) but I want to strip more away at the "me" and point all things to Jesus. I think I have always wanted that, but it would look much differently now. I feel like my blog screams "ME ME ME!" and I just don't feel comfortable in that anymore.
Who knows when I will have the time to tell my hubby "Do this to the top! No, I don't like that, put that back! Try this!" etc, etc. But, I want my blog to scream "JESUS in my life" not "Bree and ME and ALL ABOUT ME!" Because, well, me without Jesus...psh. Ew.
And as a P.S., this is my own conviction. This is something God's revealed to me and so don't read into this too much. I'm not trying to be oober "Christian-y". Just trying to bring more of Jesus to the table and less of me and this change is all a part of it.
OH, and one more P.S. So I guess that's a P.S.S....please feel free to comment. I love, love comments and I know you're reading this because my blog stats say so ;) You don't have to understand what I'm going through in order to say what's on your heart. If you have a thought or a question, please feel free to share! Thanks!
Until next time...Love!
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
No buts allowed!
You all may know, Zekey has seizures and I'm doing everything in my power to stop them. Prayer, diet change, chiropractor and sadly, meds.
All are working! All have made him better in some way. Meds aren't my favorite thing but even those we've got under control.
Well, on Friday, I took Zeke to a chiropractor in the Newark area. Let me back up a little. God is so good to us! He's prepared us for all of this before we knew we'd even face this trial. Zeke's preschool teacher is a sweetheart. I felt very comfortable having Zeke in her class because her sister has a very similar story as his. She connected me with her mom so I could get tips on what she did to help her daughter's seizures stop (because they did!) She has been such a blessing!
Long story short, through chiropractic care in the Newark area, her daughter became seizure free and off meds for 10 years! Through therapy, she was able to get back on track with her peers. They came back (as sometimes they do during puberty) and she had surgery to take care of them.
Getting back to my story, Zekey woke up this morning and was throwing a fit. It wasn't provoked by anything and he just seemed inconsolable. I was upstairs making his breakfast (each meal takes about 15 minutes to make and another 45 minutes to feed him). When Andy brought him upstairs, I could tell things were not right. He wouldn't make eye contact and he was doing some weird, repetitive movement in his hands. It became clear he was having a seizure.
I quickly went into "calm him and comfort him" mode praying that he'd come out of it. After 5 minutes, he didn't so I had to use the diastat to pull him out of the siezure. There was such a peace during all of this. Honestly, these kinds of seizures, the ones that leave his breathing inconsistant and where I have to use meds to get him out of it, have been gone the whole time we've had him on the ketogenic diet.
During all of this, I remembered that the chiropractor said, "Now, his symptoms may get worse before he gets better but I don't expect that to happen."
Well, they did get worse and I was so thankful that he told me they may otherwise, I"d be a mess. Andy and I put so much work into his diet for every.single.meal. It's exhausting but the results are totally worth it! I get my son back and his "major" seizures are gone and his "little" ones throughout the day are decreasing...
Until this morning. I emailed Zeke's teacher's mom to kind of vent. I just told her what happened and if she experienced anything like this. Mind you, this was before 7 am. Zeke was sleeping in my arms (as a post-seizure child would) and I prayed over him. I cried because I hate failure with his seizures but I wasn't sure it was actually failure. Clearly, the chiropractor did something! Something was working, right?
As I held Zekey on the couch, I decided to check my mail. Sure enough, I received a very timely email back from her. She comforted me by telling me the same thing happened to her daughter before she got better. She told me that she was praying for me and Andy and that she prayed for Zeke's healing. She told me that, no matter what, it was all in God's hands. Also, she gave me permission to "ramble" (as I put it) anytime. It got me right in the heart.
*Insert Tweet here* "I love timely words from people that can only be explained by a God who is ever present and pursues me with a deep, unshakable love."
I needed that SO SO much. It's all so simple but guys, going through this with Zeke has rocked our world. We're desperately trying everything to give him a chance at a "normal" life...whatever that means anyway. We want to get to know him more! We want to know what the constant thoughts are in his head. He's such a sweet soul and I can't help but want more, more, MORE!
But as I fight for those things, whatever God allows is what we get. His life already looks differently than my other kids' and that's okay. Our "normal" is much different than most people and that's okay, too. I've gotten over the fact that my life is much different than I planned it would be. Through all of this, I'm much closer to being the Breena that God originally created me to be and that's humbling. Life is sweeter and silly things do not bother me so much. I love that. Things fall off my shoulders more than ever, and I love that too.
This world is not our home so don't get too comfy or he'll rock your world, too. Comfy is boring anyway. God is slowly making us anew and it's exciting and humbling and I kind of can't wait for Jesus to come back! ;)
My prayer used to be, "Dear God, take us where we need to go but please don't touch my children!" Ha.ha.ha. Har.Har.Har. Yeah...
Now, I can boldly and trusting say, "Dear God, take us where we need to go and may you give us the strength we need to get through whatever you have for us."
Ahhh...such peace knowing I can rest in such a strong and loving God who cares for me and my babies more than I'll ever know here in this "not home" world.
All are working! All have made him better in some way. Meds aren't my favorite thing but even those we've got under control.
Well, on Friday, I took Zeke to a chiropractor in the Newark area. Let me back up a little. God is so good to us! He's prepared us for all of this before we knew we'd even face this trial. Zeke's preschool teacher is a sweetheart. I felt very comfortable having Zeke in her class because her sister has a very similar story as his. She connected me with her mom so I could get tips on what she did to help her daughter's seizures stop (because they did!) She has been such a blessing!
Long story short, through chiropractic care in the Newark area, her daughter became seizure free and off meds for 10 years! Through therapy, she was able to get back on track with her peers. They came back (as sometimes they do during puberty) and she had surgery to take care of them.
Getting back to my story, Zekey woke up this morning and was throwing a fit. It wasn't provoked by anything and he just seemed inconsolable. I was upstairs making his breakfast (each meal takes about 15 minutes to make and another 45 minutes to feed him). When Andy brought him upstairs, I could tell things were not right. He wouldn't make eye contact and he was doing some weird, repetitive movement in his hands. It became clear he was having a seizure.
I quickly went into "calm him and comfort him" mode praying that he'd come out of it. After 5 minutes, he didn't so I had to use the diastat to pull him out of the siezure. There was such a peace during all of this. Honestly, these kinds of seizures, the ones that leave his breathing inconsistant and where I have to use meds to get him out of it, have been gone the whole time we've had him on the ketogenic diet.
During all of this, I remembered that the chiropractor said, "Now, his symptoms may get worse before he gets better but I don't expect that to happen."
Well, they did get worse and I was so thankful that he told me they may otherwise, I"d be a mess. Andy and I put so much work into his diet for every.single.meal. It's exhausting but the results are totally worth it! I get my son back and his "major" seizures are gone and his "little" ones throughout the day are decreasing...
Until this morning. I emailed Zeke's teacher's mom to kind of vent. I just told her what happened and if she experienced anything like this. Mind you, this was before 7 am. Zeke was sleeping in my arms (as a post-seizure child would) and I prayed over him. I cried because I hate failure with his seizures but I wasn't sure it was actually failure. Clearly, the chiropractor did something! Something was working, right?
As I held Zekey on the couch, I decided to check my mail. Sure enough, I received a very timely email back from her. She comforted me by telling me the same thing happened to her daughter before she got better. She told me that she was praying for me and Andy and that she prayed for Zeke's healing. She told me that, no matter what, it was all in God's hands. Also, she gave me permission to "ramble" (as I put it) anytime. It got me right in the heart.
*Insert Tweet here* "I love timely words from people that can only be explained by a God who is ever present and pursues me with a deep, unshakable love."
I needed that SO SO much. It's all so simple but guys, going through this with Zeke has rocked our world. We're desperately trying everything to give him a chance at a "normal" life...whatever that means anyway. We want to get to know him more! We want to know what the constant thoughts are in his head. He's such a sweet soul and I can't help but want more, more, MORE!
But as I fight for those things, whatever God allows is what we get. His life already looks differently than my other kids' and that's okay. Our "normal" is much different than most people and that's okay, too. I've gotten over the fact that my life is much different than I planned it would be. Through all of this, I'm much closer to being the Breena that God originally created me to be and that's humbling. Life is sweeter and silly things do not bother me so much. I love that. Things fall off my shoulders more than ever, and I love that too.
This world is not our home so don't get too comfy or he'll rock your world, too. Comfy is boring anyway. God is slowly making us anew and it's exciting and humbling and I kind of can't wait for Jesus to come back! ;)
My prayer used to be, "Dear God, take us where we need to go but please don't touch my children!" Ha.ha.ha. Har.Har.Har. Yeah...
Now, I can boldly and trusting say, "Dear God, take us where we need to go and may you give us the strength we need to get through whatever you have for us."
Ahhh...such peace knowing I can rest in such a strong and loving God who cares for me and my babies more than I'll ever know here in this "not home" world.
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