Noon update

My blood pressure is stable and i am all the way off that medication! yay!

Havent had a fever in the last 12 hours, yay!

They need me to stay here until they run a full course of IV antibiotics on my because as they doctor said, I 'have a nasty bacterial infection coursing through my bloodstream."

Had an echocardiogram today to check if the bacteria was around my heart, but havent heard back on that yet.

thats all for now! thanks for praying!

oh my gosh

kinda freaking out that i just linked this blog to facebook.

definitely not my thing.

when the Holy Spirit prompts, He prompts.

maybe you can pray for confidence and humility too please? :)

Kaiser, sweet Kaiser...permanente that is

Well, in the interest of keeping all if my faithful friends and people praying for me updated, I thought I would share my blog with you, and I will update it as we learn.

Driving home from slo after a purely fabulous wedding, that was beautiful and fun, I started to feel crummy. Started taking my temp and it went from 98.7 to 103.2 in two hours, so bry drove me straight to the hospital, praying for me and keeping me calm.

I started throwing up (dano I brought you home firestone but that was the only bag in the car....I think you catch my drift. Lol. Sorry boo) and we called to let them know we were coming and got seen right away. Did blood cultures, had a spinal tap that came back normal! Yay. Had a Head CT, which was also normal. Got admitted to ICU because of my medical craziness and really low blood pressure and high heart rate.

yes we did ask the nurse if there was a fan i could sleep with.

Fever kept spiking then coming down overnight.

Today the blood culture showed a bacterial infection, but they don't know what kind of bacteria it is yet.

Did an abdominal CT, and that came back normal.

So for now, they are trying to keep the blood pressure stable and find the source of the bacteria.

If you could pray for my heart to be dwelling and resting in 2 Corinthians 4 I would be very blessed by that.

Also for my family, that they would be able to rest in the Lord.

And for work, I want to get back! :)

Thank you all, I will keep you posted!

Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord!

My last few posts have been recalling the events of a year ago. But today, I want to Praise the Lord!!!! (well, everyday...but would love for you to join me in it today)

Because I have not been to the hospital in 6 months, 3 weeks and 6 days! wahoooo!

my dear friend Noelle and I chasing after birds at the beach house after 6

months of hospital free!

I praise the Lord for the times that I am blessed to be without pain, and without hospitals because it makes me so excited for an eternity to be spent that way! And lets be honest, it..... funny.... I was going to say gives more freedom, but freedom in Christ is found even when I cant get out of bed.... was going to say comfort, but some of the times that i have felt most comforted have been when i am crying out to God in the hospital. haha, guess i got humbled when trying to be funny.

its like a win win. ( i was humbles, you didn't have to tolerate my miserable attempts at being humorous)

Ahhhh, Sweet November

Today is November 11, but I LOVE November 12.

on November 11 of 2009, I had been transferred out of the ICU at Kaiser in Redwood City. I had just found out that I had a mass on my brain and had an

other miraculous recovery.

I wake up from a coma and try to break up with boyfriend (of four months at the time)

On November 12, 2009...he told me he loved me. I ask him if he is sure. He says he is. I ask him why. He tells me why. I ask a few more questions. I tell him we will have to go out to dinner to celebrate when I get out the hospital. He says he can't wait.

We wait four more days until I get out. Then three more days until I have enough strength to walk from the car to the restaurant. Then we talk.

me and Bry out to dinner that night

This amazing man of God tells me how grateful he is for what we have been through over the last 3 weeks. We talk about how much we have both learned, grown, prayed, been challenged and surrendered.

This begins a pattern... a pattern of him trusting the Lord's sovereignty above anything and everything else. Of him pointing me to it when I get lost, of both of us learning to trust Romans 8:28 with all of our hearts. Of learning that our good does not mean our comfort, of learning that love is so sacrificial.

I thought it was crazy...that he would choose to love someone that had so many medical issues, that could/would probably die young, that would have medical bills and health insurance bills and a boatload of other issues, why would he choose to love me, of all people? Thought it was crazy.

Thought about it a lot over the last year. Realized it wasn't crazy. It is a small glimpse into the love God had for us. Whyyyyy on earth would God choose to save and love me? Me who has sinned since birth, and will go on doing so until death. I... who amongst a myriad of other sins fail to proclaim the great glory of God in the fact that I am even still alive. Why choose me?

Grace and Love are beautiful aren't they?

So thanks Bry, a year ago tomorrow you told me you loved me. Thanks for taking me out and letting me take a picture that night, but mostly, praise the Lord for the grace and mercy and love he has given you, and me.

Almost 1 year later

Halloween is coming soon. I don't dislike Halloween. I don't even dislike what Halloween reminds me of. But I can't deny that it reminds me of something. No, not something... a lot of somethings. A certain time, or rather...an uncertain time.

Halloween night 2009....a little foreshadowing perhaps? :)

The day after after Halloween last year I didn't feel so good. Providencially, I had an opthomology apppointment on November 2nd for this "little vision problem" i had been having for about six weeks. The opthomologist was concerned and sent me to a neurologist. Actually, my neurologist whom i had seen about four years before when I had hydrocephalus. The neurologist took one look at the pictures from the opthomologist, and said yup, you are getting admitted to the hospital. I didn't mind because I already had a fever of 102 and for a girl with lupus and no spleen, i really oughta be in there anyway.

They had to admit me because they needed to check and see how much pressure was in my brain, and in order to do that they had to do a spinal tap (lumbar puncture). Wellp, I had been on a blood thinner medication for 6 months because of a blood clot in my brain found in April of that year. Sooo, they weren't gonna tap my spine until I wouldn't bleed profusely because of it.

They admitted me, my fever raged to 105. No exaggeration. I had to lay under an ice blanket for 6 hours. The most painful 6 hours of my life to date. Meanwhile, I had a blood transfusion to help thicken my blood to prepare for the spinal tap. aaaaaand, got an infection in my lungs from the transfusion. Lungs began to fill up with fluid, fever was still raging, still had something putting massive pressure on my brain. So, what to do but put me in a medically induced coma. Again, fine by me cause lets be honest, at this point I really wasn't feeling up to breathing on my own.

So, they put me on the ventillator. Translation, huge tube down my throat and little machine pumping my lungs for me. (I do NOT like this tube) and start doing the LPs. (lumbar punctures). The pressure if off the charts, literally....they can't even measure it. They do 5 more in the next 4 days. (OUCH!!) The doctors in Walnut Creek decide to transfer me to Redwood City Kaiser, because the neurological geniuses work there.

Kaiser Redwood City is where I remember waking up. In an MRI machine actually. I am told that I was awake before this, but as I say..this is where I remember waking up.

Neurogeniuses explain that what I have in my brain is not a tumor, its a mass, that at this time, is full of fluid. They decide not to operate, but instead pump me full of drugs to try to bring the pressure down. All the while, constantly asking me questions to check my brain function (insert sarcastic comment regarding my intelligence here.)

By a work of the Lord, the pressure begins to lighten. Neurogeniuses are stumped. They all tell me, I am a miracle. After a week in Redwood City, I get to go home. MRIs to follow every two months, then three months, and now at this point only one every six months.

Everytime I have spoken to the neurologist in the last year he tells me something along the lines of "you are lucky to be alive" or "there is just no explanation."

I will explain. Doctors, family and myself were all uncertain about what was going on and what was happening. My Creator, was not at all uncertain. He knows, He ordains, He allows, He controls, He rules everything. Life may seem uncertain to me at times, but those truths are not.

Deep Breaths

As I sit here and write, I can watch my chest rise and fall with each breath I take. It seems surreal that just three weeks ago, the people that love me were sitting next to me watching a machine perform this action for me, because I could no longer breathe on my own.

I like to sit on the couch and take deep breaths. . .simply because I can. There is no tube down my throat, I am not coughing up blood, I am just sitting here, breathing deep peaceful breaths.

But the beauty is that even when those other breaths were a struggle, I was just as much in the Lord’s hands as I am this moment. I was made weak. Broken physically to the point that I was put into a coma. There was no strength of my own to “pull me through.” God put me to sleep, and he woke me again. In His mercy and power he woke me again. And has continued to do so every morning. He draws me closer and closer to Himself by reminding me of these “simple mercies,” which as it turns out .. .. aren’t always so simple :)

I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me- Psalm 3:5