A JOYFUL NOISE

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I hope and pray everyone is healthy and enjoying this time of year. It’s hard to believe another year is almost over. As we celebrate this Advent Season, I am reminded of all of God’s goodness and love that has been shown to me this past year alone. As many of you know, it has not been an easy year for me. I have struggled a lot with health issues (more so than the past few years) and have been in and out of hospitals, have had numerous medical examinations done on me, as well as a couple of surgeries. I started the year with shoulder surgery on February 4, 2010. This surgery did not go well at all. I won’t go into all the details but in short, it took two surgeries (a different doctor) to correct the problem. My shoulder is much better now! PRAISE GOD! In between my whole shoulder ordeal, I suffered a lot of stomach issues. I was taken to the UVA ER several times due to extreme pain and vomiting. I spent 2 weeks in the hospital where ...

During these past few months, I struggle a lot and ask why. Yet I'm also learning to trust in God and remember all the good He has done in my life/ I don't remember all the names of the physicians that has taken care of me for 31 years at UVA, but I do remember my 2 awesome attending physicians who has taken care of me (one has retired and one is still taken care of me). I remember the true concern and help they wanted to give me. And of course, my ONE TRUE PHYSICIAN! I don't remember all the cards, gifts, etc and what they were or what they said but the sincerity behind it, I will always remember. (Dad had brought down a bag of stuffed animals from the attic for me to go through to give away. Though I have forgotten who gave me what I refused to let him give them away because I told my folks...someone cared enough to give me this as a child, I want to keep it.) I don't remember how many times Warren and Erma gave up their day to spend a day with me at the hospi...

Most of you know the struggles I have been facing over the past 8 months. It seems as if I face one physical ailment after another and honestly, I'm worn out. My energy level has never really gotten to where it once was and my weight still fluctuates as well as how I feel after eating....so on an so forth. I've been through countless testing and aside from the diagnosis of gastroperesis, the doctors aren't sure what's going on with my body; it's a puzzle for all of us. Last week I was struggling with a lot of stomach and back pain and running a fever that my primary care doctor order a CT scan of my abdomen and pelvis. She had also put me on a different antibiotic for the kidney infection i was diagnosed with a week earlier in the UVA ER. Because my symptoms was getting worse and not better, my doctor decided that a CT scan would be the best approach to figure out if there is anything else going on. While my abdomen CT scan looked normal, my p...

The reality is, I am sick and I haven't been very well for over half a year. The reality is that the doctors are working hard to figure out what else besides gastroperesis is happening in my GI system. The reality is that I need to continue to trust in God no matter what sickness comes my way. It seems as if something comes up one after the other....... Last Friday, I really thought I was having some kind of GI attack or issue. All of Thursday and especially Friday, I was in so much pain--- pain in my upper and lower stomach. Then on Friday, my pain was still in my stomach but more in the upper part and my back part near the ribs. I tried to call the doctor for an appointment but she couldn't fit me into her schedule. I refused to go to the Augusta Health ER because of bad experience a while ago; I didn't want to go to EmergeCare because they don't know my history and I didn't want to spend time on the history of my problem and not get treated. So I opte...

I've been behind on blogging because I've been concentrating on schoolwork. Not to mention, more doctor appointments and working as a substitute day care worker when needed. I'm really enjoying my classes. It's intense and rough, but I'm excited at the same time. I have a lot of work a head of me to do. Here are some of my books and supplies for school: My 14 page syllabus!!!!!!! yikes! You can imagine how much stuff / assignment I have. I have online quizzes and tests that needs to be proctor, so I'm seeing if the library will help me out with it! MY ABA handbook my lifeline. It has all the handouts one would get if you were physically in the classroom; it's also a lot of extra reading curriculum put in there as well. MY ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis I) text book.....a lot of chapters to read! I have 7 chapters to read by 2 weeks; one paper already down and ready to go for the due date next week. My DVD set---of 6 sessions/lessons. That'...

Hannah and I have planned a mini vacation to VA beach back in July. We planned it tentatively knowing that I may have to back out the last minute due to my health conditions. We were blessed to be able to stay with her cousins and not have to make or possibly cancel reservations with a hotel. This past weekend, I felt "good" enough to take that mini vacation. Three days before I was feeling horribly sick and lethargic that I was afraid that I would have to cancel my trip but God oversaw that, and had me feeling functionally better for me to escape for a weekend with 6 wonderful ladies: Hannah and Trube Short, Ruthie, Olivia, and Pat. What a wonderful time we had getting to know Hannah and Trube's cousins and what a great hostess she was. It was wonderful to get to know Olivia and Ruthie, and Pat. We arrived in Williamsburg around 7pm Friday night the 13th. It was a pretty good trip over to Williamsburg. We all went for a walk once we got there and once we...

For the past few days, I've been feeling as if I've taken a step backwards rather than forwards. Since my x-ray last week, I have been feeling more nauseated and more pain than I have been feeling the past month. It's very frustrating. Frustrating not knowing what is causing this pain an nausea. I can be fine eating a meal one day and the next time I eat it I end up feeling horrible. Gastroperesis is a tricky thing. I usually have pain when I eat or after I eat foods. However, for the past week, even DRINKING FLUIDS makes my stomach ache and sometimes I get nauseated. I'm not sure if that is suppose to be part of gastroperesis. One would think that fluids are easily digested and easily goes through the GI track but like I said, it's been a rough week since my x-ray. I have left a message with my doctor to see if I can see him earlier to determine if something else is going on inside my stomach or GI track. For the past two days, I had trouble eatin...