I haven't written here much because I have been so very sick for weeks. Just when I think I have turned a corner or see some light in the distance I fall back again. I spent the night at the emergency room on Monday and the tests and scans didn't reveal why my lymphs are so swollen, especially the ones in my neck and head. My throat is still so very sore and my ears hurt horribly. Any noise, especially the reverberation from the television or talking on the phone makes me cringe and want to cry. The dog barking is like a knife in my right ear. I am well into my second course of antibiotics. No one knows what else to do for me.
I have been unemotional through this last few weeks. I wonder if I've hardened or if I have just developed better coping mechanisms. I no longer wrestle with why God continues to allow so much suffering in our family and particularly in my body. I have seen enough good and pure Grace flow from these past years to understand our story is about so much more than flesh and bone. As the day is wearing on I feel worse again. I want to cry, but I can't.
Dan and I "celebrated" our 11th anniversary on Friday. Besides quickly exchanged cards the day was hard, the weekend was harder, and when he tried to pray for dinner on Monday before my mom took me to the ER he literally couldn't find any words.
I have had a special night away planned for this coming weekend for a long time. We cannot really have a date night at "our home" anymore because my mom and dad watch the girls, and they live here too. I can't tell you how much we miss sending them off to my parent's house and just BEING together in our own space. Now we have to get a hotel if we want to really be alone. You might remember early on in our journey how we committed to taking money once a quarter, four times a year, and having a special date out. Sharing a good meal together, talking for hours because we really want to see and hear one another, and loving in a space with no other demands on us so we can be fully there is like light and water to our marriage. No matter what this helped sustain our relationship and gave us something to look forward to. For many reasons including my downward spiral of pain the resolve to make this happen faded away after our June date last year. In reality our trips to Maryland and Cincinnati for health issues had to take the place of time and resources we might have used for this purpose.
I desperately want to feel well enough to go away with Dan Sunday night. It won't even be 24 hours together, but we need it to keep breathing and living. We have to turn around and drive to Cincinnati Wednesday morning for Danica's long brain and lumbar MRI under sedation in the afternoon. We will see her neurosurgeon on Thursday, and I will see the geneticist on Friday. I cannot even go there in my mind, because I will break under knowing how truly difficult these trips are and how badly I feel right now.
I am weak and tired and broken. It feels so dark here still. God brings me these words this morning,
Glory.
Grace.
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