In the moment

Sitting on the back porch, sipping a pumpkin spice latte, I am content.  The housekeeper a friend is helping us pay for is cleaning the house so I am forced to be outside. The smell of cleaners gives me severe migraines.
It is beautiful out here. A faint breeze gently blows through the air and rustles the leaves of our now barren peach tree. The plump green oranges on the tree behind me have yet to ripen, but burst with promises of so much sweetness to come. I can hear the faint sound of a leaf blower in the distance and the trickle of my neighbor's pond next door. The occasional cawing of a crow interrupts the stillness and makes me smile.
Down the street, a dog is barking. I have no idea what he is trying to say, but it sounds mighty important to him! I wonder if he cares that no one seems to listen.
Contentment. In the moment. Peace.

Psychiatrist issues

I cannot find myself today amidst the fogginess in my head. It is not the dense fog of the major depression of my past, but the mild, confused fog, perhaps brought on by pain, perhaps by meds, perhaps by boredom, perhaps by some depression, or perhaps by an assortment of all of these.
My head hurts. My teeth hurt (I need major dental work, but buzzing drills and migraines and muscles spasms are not a great combo). My muscles hurt. And yes, I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm tired of trying to see the silver lining. I know I have a good life. Actually, I have a great life, but today, I don't care. I don't feel good. I feel like crap actually and I'm tired of feeling that way. My therapist is encouraging me to try to live in the moment. How am I supposed to live in the moment when my moment includes a major migraine and teeth that won't stop throbbing?? Yes, I'm thankful I'm not a human slave. Yes, I'm thankful that I have a husband who loves me and that I have two amazing kids. Yes, I'm thankful Jason has a great job with great insurance and that we have incredible friends.
At the same time, though, I'm mad that the psychiatrist that I LOVE no longer takes my insurance and I have to find another one. I went through the ringer with him and it's really hard to find a good psychiatrist. From experience, I can attest to the fact that many psychiatrists out there can just make the situation much worse rather than better and right now is not a good time for me to be psychiatrist hunting. I met with a new psychiatrist my former one recommended about three weeks ago and I REALLY don't like him, but I have to go see him again because I'm almost out of anti-depressants and need a refill. Besides, I do need to find someone, so I should probably give him at least one more shot, but he tried to argue with me about the fact that my Paxil (anti-depressant) and Tamoxifen (traditional hormonal therapy for pre-menopausal women with breast cancer) don't actually interact. My oncologist and my former psychiatrist went into great detail over this and researched it thoroughly months ago. Putting me into menopause isn't something we did lightly. And then his darn air-conditioner puts me into spasms, badly!!! Ugh. I'm really dreading going back.
Anyway, I'm whining. I'm feeling down today and I can't seem to snap myself out of it. Honestly, I'm scared, because with all the tweaking of my meds, I fear that I will go into a medical depression and without a good psychiatrist on hand, that really scares me. The "rational" depressions don't scare me as much because I can talk through them with Jason and my therapist, but the medical ones aren't rational. They make me do stupid, impulsive things like my last suicide attempt, where from one day to the next, with only one bad fight with a friend in between, I went from happy to popping a handful of sleeping pills in less than twenty-four hours. It was a rash, completely irrational act and as my meds go up and down and around and around in my brain, I fear that irrational, dangerous brain will return.
We looked into paying cash so that I could continue to see my former therapist and we were told his cash rate is $325!!! WTH! Jason's going to attempt to work his negotiating magic next week, but I'm not sure how much he can do. The reason my psychiatrist no longer takes my insurance is that he joined Sutter Gould, so it's more corporatized now, and corporatization tends to mean less flexible, but we'll see. My doctor wasn't happy about it. He didn't understand at all why they couldn't continue to accept the same insurances, but it wasn't up to him. If you wouldn't mind praying that things would work out and I could get back in with him, or that I would be able to quickly find another capable doctor who could help me walk through this medical mess confidently, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.

Unity

My heart is heavy tonight, troubled by issues that are far beyond my ability to fix. Laying in bed for hours on end these days, I have plenty of time to think and pray. God and I have been talking about a lot of issues and I'm realizing more and more how little I know and understand.
This morning, I was reading through part of the gospel of John, the part right before Jesus was arrested and crucified. He prayed for His disciples and then He prayed for those who would believe in Him through their message. As part of His prayer, in chapter 17, He said:

20“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

I read that and I ached, and ache still, because I know that Christ's followers are anything but unified these days. Why do we argue and dispute and divide ourselves when the desire of the God we serve is clearly that we serve in perfect unity? What is the answer to this problem? How do we, as modern believers, go about fulfilling the desires of our Lord?
In my life, I left a group of believers that I loved with all my heart, in discord and strife. This happened nearly a year ago and while the pain doesn't tear me apart as it used to, the ache never completely leaves, because it was not right for Christ's followers to tear each other apart like that. It just wasn't. And yet I hear stories similar to mine all the time, stories where one or both parties may have been in the wrong and instead of coming together in love and working through it as God intends, we tear each other apart and both parties go separate ways a bleeding, broken mess.
WHAT ARE WE DOING??? Why are we claiming to follow Christ and yet tearing each other apart?? How are we supposed to live in unity as He prayed we would? How do we, as millions of believers with different opinions of what living as Christ intends us to live looks like, live in unity? How do we work through our differences so that, as Christ prayed on that dreadful night, we "may experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me."?
The cost of our discord is not small. In fact, our unity is so important that it was one of the last things Jesus prayed about before He was arrested. I'm seeking as an individual to know what that looks like in my life, how I am to live in unity with my brothers and sisters. I'm also praying that we as a Church, as a body of believers, wake up to the damage we are doing through our division and learn what it means to live in unity.

My Everest

I have a flippin' headache. I started a post and had almost finished it when I accidentally deleted it, and I just don't feel like retyping it. It was whiny anyway, so I decided to go a different route. I'm not sure what that route is going to be, but I'll just type and we'll find out.
Have you ever wanted to fly? I have. From the time I was a little girl. I remember jumping off my grandpa's deck and flapping my arms so hard in an attempt to fly off into the air. It never worked, but I kept trying.
In my dreams, though, I fly. When I was young, I flew often. I loved that feeling. There was nothing like it. For awhile, my flying dreams stopped, but they returned a few months ago, not as often as before, but still so magical.
It's kind of funny that one of my dreams is to fly, since I am terrified of heights. Mom and I watched a Dateline NBC last night about people who had summitted Mt. Everest. It was amazing to see what they invested in time, money and energy to make their dream come true. Some people even died in their attempt.
As I was watching that, I thought: I want to live. I mean, really live! I don't want my fears or the idea that it would just take too much effort to keep me from achieving my dreams. For several years now, I've wanted to write a book, but I just keep putting it off. I'm not sure why. I wrote the outline a few weeks ago, but that is as far as I got. I don't know if it is the fear of putting so much time into a project and then having it fail, or maybe it's the fear of revealing too much about me and others. (Yes. You may laugh now. I know I'm mostly an open book, especially on here, but there are still things you don't know, and when I think of what I want to include in the book, I'm not sure I can handle the world knowing how human I really am!). It is something I really want to do, that I feel I really should do, but I'm afraid. I need to face my fears, and climb my Everest.
I also have a sermon that has been burning in my heart for a year now. At the time, we were involved in a ministry where lay people were allowed to preach and I was excited because I felt like God had laid this message on my heart. Unfortunately, the opportunity for me to preach never came to fruition and the sermon is still burning a whole in my heart. I realized a couple weeks ago that I don't need a pulpit to preach. We now have this thing called YouTube (amazing, I know!!). I could videotape my sermon and post it there...but I haven't done it. I think it's easier to hold on to my dream of preaching without ever trying it because that way, I don't have to chance finding out that I might be a terrible speaker! Again, I need to face my fears and climb my Everest.
Well, that is all my thoughts for now. A game of checkers with my son is calling my name. Over and out!

Stanford update

I met with two Standford neurologists this morning. Very kind women, and very thorough. The "student", who was already a neurologist herself but studying for a specialty or something like that, took a detailed medical history on me, and then did a physical examination. My body decided to put on quite the show and show her exactly what my spasms look like (she didn't get to see the paralyzed episodes or the loss of speech, but she saw pretty much everything else). After conferring with her teacher, they both returned to the room and this is what they said:
They believe that my spasms are not epileptic, but are caused by pain. The pain from my migraines gets so intense that the way my body responds is through spasms to relieve some of that pain. This didn't appear to be new concept for them, but something they've dealt with before, although I didn't think to ask them if that were the case or not. What Dr. Le (the teacher neurologist) wants to do is put me on migraine medicine. Because I am so sensitive to meds, I'll start on the "baby" dose, as she called it and gradually up it. In the mean time, I will be weaning off the Baclofen (muscle relaxers), and eventually off the Valium. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about that! Those drugs make me so sleepy it's not even funny.
She will also be ordering a 24 to 72 hour EEG, where I will stay at Stanford for one to three days on constant monitoring, wired up to a machine and being videotaped. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to use the restroom during that time, but again, I didn't think to ask ;-). She expects that to take place about a month from now. At that time, they will also most likely do an MRI. She'd like to do a spinal tap at some point, but right now it's too dangerous because of my spasms. We don't really want a needle in my spine while I'm flopping around like a fish out of water. That could be, well, bad.
Oh, Oh, Oh... I forgot to mention! I also get to have Botox treatments! Yep. Apparently Botox is a great treatment for migraines. New boobs AND Botox! Now I just need some kind of condition that requires liposuction and I'll start my new modelling career!
The neurologist also said I can't lay around in bed all day. She said that especially with my recent cancer, laying in bed all day increases my risk of blood clots. I told her that exercising causes me to have spasms and she said that's ok. Do it anyway. I'm actually excited about that one. Two workouts in one. I'll go for a walk, then come home and spasm for twenty minutes and be in super shape in no time! Who knows? Maybe I won't even need that liposuction after all!
So that's our plan for now. Thank you so much to all of you for your prayers and support. We will keep you updated as we find out more.