These Days

These days I’m taking it easy.  I’m breathing deep everyday, and leaving my hands open for whatever God decides to give me that day.  Although I’m not getting everything done that would be on *my* list, I know at the end of the day that I attended to the things that were important.  So in the last week or two that I haven’t been blogging, because unfortunately I haven’t had the time.  Here’s what I have done:

Gone a little overnight getaway without kids with Knut to the extended family’s lake cabin to celebrate our 13th anniversary.  It’s the first time in a few years we’ve done this, and it was very peaceful.  We actually sat and not talked for several of those hours, not because we were mad at each other, but because we both were in desperate need of silence in general.  It was short, yet glorious.

We had company stay overnight at our house…twice.  ‘Tis the season for family passing through town.  I’d complain except they are so awesome.  So I just have to put up with their awesomeness.  😉

I testified in a legal case.  I’ve never done that before.  I won’t get into details, except to say I’m not the one in trouble, lest you worry.  I was very afraid the days surrounding the case, because I didn’t want to re-live the event I was testifying about.  I was worried how I would handle it.  Once you have been in a dark place, you fear anything that could throw you back there.  The day before and the day after I spent a lot of time staring at walls, blankly.  I gave myself permission to do that.  My kids missed the doing county fair this year, because of this case, but I think that’s okay.  Actually, it slowed things up a lot removing those multiple deadlines for projects, and coaching the kids for their 4H interviews.

I went through a bout of insomnia.  It was likely related to the above mentioned event, but maybe not.  I really don’t think so.  I couldn’t go to sleep because I had on my mind completely different events, where people I loved were hurting.  So since I couldn’t sleep, I prayed for them.  2 nights in a row I didn’t even get remotely tired until about 3am.  It was like electricity was running through my veins and there was no way I would sleep.  With a 7am wake up, that is loud and abrupt due to my kids’ excitement about the sun rising, it left me dragging a bit.  Maybe it was stress.  Maybe it was biological.  I think that praying was just what I needed to do then and I did it.  Maybe there’s stuff going on we just can’t see.

I’ve taken David to yet another doctor for his alopecia and surrounding medical issues.  David is shedding worse than our dogs now, and I think that within 2 weeks he won’t have any hair left.  He just has to touch his head for a downpour of hair all over his shoulders.

He was crying before his shower last week because he was worried that if he rubbed his head to wash it, he would come out of the shower bald, which was a real possibility.  This new doctor is taking a different approach, instead of offering a steroid treatment to fight his immune system that is attacking his hair follicles, she is probing why his immune system has gone awry in the first place.  She thinks that he has some markers in the MFTHR gene mutation, which means he cannot absorb Vitamin B properly, as well as a severe case of Celiacs disease.  We have to do a 4 day fast of all his supplements that help him function day to day, and then they are going to get full blood work done to confirm or deny these diagnosis.  Actually, she said Celiacs requires a surgical biopsy to diagnose with certainty, but she feels that the labs do at least point to this or away from this without being quite so invasive.  We could use your prayers as he goes off everything in preparation for the blood tests.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another with this kid.

The picture above was taken about a week ago, and it looks even worse now.  The back of the head is nearly gone, and the sides and top are thinning with chunks missing there too now.  Apparently this is rare for alopecia cases.  He’s our outside the box kid.

Also, while at the doctors, he was goofing off outside the building, hit a board he didn’t see, running at full speed, and now his balding head has a huge egg sized bump on it.  So we may delay shaving it yet a bit longer…  He’s nervous about shaving it.  He’s keeping a really brave face about it, but he’s acting out in other ways that I know he’s sick and tired of being sick and tired.

We spent time together as a family over suppertime with a tornado warning and visible rotating clouds from our front door.  (The picture above was taken the next night.)  We played foosball and other games in the basement while we listened to hail pound our windows and garden outside, and prayed it wouldn’t come any closer.  While things were looking limp outside, nothing was damaged beyond repair, though I can’t speak for Knut’s fields.  I know he had some of paperwork to file after the storm.

I have raspberries coming out my ears now, and I’m behind on harvesting peas and green beans as well. So the garden wasn’t hit too bad, though we lost a day or two of garden harvest.  My theme this last week or so was “be gentle with myself and just go with it.”  I’m glad for that.  I made 1 bottle of raspberry syrup for pancakes, but other than that raspberries are aging very slowly in the fridge, and I hope to catch up on those the rest of this week.

Another small joy that I’ve been blessed with is continuing to write letters to you dear readers.  I look forward to that “chore” more than anything some days.  I have a good handful left, and am giving myself to the end of August to finish them up.  I’ve already received a few letters back, though that was not the point of this project, and they have brought me more encouragement than you can possibly imagine.  I’m so grateful that I did this 50 letter project this summer.  You readers are just so dear to me.  You have no idea.