I'm starting this blog as a journal for my thoughts. I am a daughter of God, mom, wife, daughter, friend, homemaker, book lover, chicken rancher...etc. etc. There are many titles that you could apply to me. I currently have 6 month old twins, a boy and a girl who are beautiful and so loving and growing like weeds! In addition to that I have Epilepsy. I have lived with Epilepsy since I was 6 years old. This was when I was originally diagnosed. Epilepsy is a disease that runs in my family and is something that is different for everyone. Not everyone with seizures has Epilepsy and not every seizure is the same. For most of my life I have had Petit-mal seizures that were extremely predictable, small, and mild. I would have an aura which is like the body's warning sign telling you that you are going to have a seizure, then the seizure would come and I would have dizziness, a rising stomach feeling, bad tastes in my mouth, blurred vision, changes in hearing, and some mild loss of my ability to control my movements. When I was Pregnant with the twins that all changed. In July of the pregnancy (around 14 weeks) I had 2 seizures in which I had no aura and I lost partial consciousness. I did not convulse during these seizures so in some ways they still resembled my 'normal' seizure but they were not like those at all. This was just the clam before the storm I am finding out.
Throughout the remainder of the pregnancy I continued to have my normal seizures and some of these other types as well. By the time I delivered at 36.2 weeks I had had what I thought was my last pregnancy related seizure the day after delivery while I was still on Magnesium Sulfate in the hospital. We went home and things were looking up from there. The story of the twins is on another blog www.atwinelllife.blogspot.com if you're interested.
Because of the pregnancy, the seizures and 13 weeks of bed rest I had not driven or really done much for myself since August of 2012 so when I had the babies November 25, 2012 I was counting the days until I could drive again and gain some of my freedom back. According to the law you have to be seizure free or 'controlled' for 6 months after each seizure. SO this meant that I was going to be able to drive in April. However, because the seizures were pregnancy induced my Dr. thought that it would be ok if we used my best judgement on when to start driving again. After talking it over with my husband and others it was decided that I would drive in March.
At last spring had finally started to show some signs. February was here and I could see that perhaps life was going to get a little easier in the future. The babies were doing fantastic and I was sleeping much better and both my husband and I had more pep in our step after surviving the first 3 months with Twins! Then it happened. February 17th 2013 I had my first grand-mal seizure. It happened around 2:00am. I was in bed and woke my husband up by kicking him. He could see something was wrong and turned on a light to see what was going on. He watched as my body convulsed and I bit my tongue and dug my fingernails hard into my hands. He worked to keep me from falling off the bed and hurting myself anymore. Not knowing how to handle the situation he called my mom who promptly fainted when he told her what had happened. So then he called an ambulance. His aunt who thankfully lives practically in our back yard came up with her daughter to watch the babies and make sure they were ok while we rode to the hospital to get checked out.
As Jared asked me question after question and tried to get me to come back to my senses I started to understand what was going on but had no sense of urgency at all. He told me an ambulance was on its way and that I should go to the bathroom and brush my teeth and get anything I think I need; I did. The Ambulance driver came in the door and asked me some questions, all of which I answered without a problem and then I got in the back of the ambulance without help and we were on our way. I still didn't have any real sense of emergency about me. It wasn't until I got into ER and was waiting in the room talking with my parents and Jared that I burst into tears as I realized what this meant. Things were not getting better and I would not be driving in the next month...Life would not be returning to a place of familiar any time soon.
I went home that day with a new prescription and a basic sense of dashed hopes. I still had my babies, my husband, my home, my family and those things are far more important than my 'freedoms' right? This is the question that I have to ask myself and that I have to answer I have to let God speak the answer to me every day. YES. Those things are more important, more valuable, and more beautiful. But if I am being raw and vulnerable I have to share my thoughts and that is why I started this blog. I needed a place where I could write down how I am feeling as a homebound mom of two, living in the country, trying to find God in the little things in life and trying to remember that YES life is more than what comes with the ability to drive yourself places.
Today is the third day in a row it has been raining. This means that I cannot get outside and take the babies for a walk. You cannot know what this does for my psyche. It kills it. I feel myself get caught in this repeating motion of actions and thoughts. We live in the country so other than an occasional text message from Jared during the day to see how things are going I don't get phone calls or visitors. I feel so trapped by these deadly thoughts that tell me 'it's never going to get better, it will always be like this, they will never stop crying, you aren't going to get to the store this week so just plan on eating crap all week, Jared isn't going to be happy because the house hasn't been swept AGAIN, the laundry is STILL on the couch...' they keep lying to me and going on. I know that they are lies. I can see them for what they really are but it doesn't make it go away. The truth is we have 2 infants and life is busy, I need to cut myself some slack and tell myself they are happy, healthy, growing, and getting strong and that is enough they don't need to be eating 3 course meals at 6 months old. The truth is I have a lot on my plate throughout the day and its ok to let myself sit for a few minutes while they nap and read a few lines of a good book instead of working myself to the bone to get the house spotless just to let it get dirty again. The truth is my husband is proud of me and loves me unconditionally and knows that I love to cook and clean and keep a well maintained house and that when things have more of a rhythm again and I can plan my menu and do my shopping on my time again we will have a better diet and I will take care of him like I want to be doing.
The TRUTH is I am a daughter of God, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit is living in me and CAN get me through and give me what I need to get these thoughts that threaten out of my head. The thing is I need to be in his word. I have been the farthest from his word through this rough patch than any other rough patch I have gone through yet. I am not sure why and I fight it daily. I pick up his words and I read a chapter or 2 but I seem aimless in it. I don't think I've prayed more in my life than I have in these past months since being pregnant and having the babies but being in his word has been so hard and I feel that tension between us and I know that I need it...to renew my mind. So something I want to use this blog for is to digest His words and give me a place to put his words down and use them so that I think about them more than just reading them once through at night.
I don't know if anyone will ever read this and I don't really aim to become a popular, famous, blogger from this, I just need a space of my own to share my thoughts. This place will be for sharing hope, fear, victories, the journey, grace, thanksgiving, simplicity, and the little beautiful things that God shares with me on this road of life being a 'homebound mom'. I pray that if you've stumbled upon it and, like me, you need a little hope in the midst of life's ups and downs of building a home I pray that you will see reflections of Christ here. I pray that you will know that though life is difficult and our thoughts and our fears and temptations threaten to overtake us sometimes, we have a God who is bigger and who longs to take hold of us and call us his child and take care of us. Let's let Him.
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