Random Story

I really feel led to start off this post by sharing a story. There is always a chance I have shared this before but it was placed on my heart to share today even though it doesn't seem to relate to anything else I have to say. I have learned to not ignore those feelings. Someone needs to hear this. Here it goes.

About 6 1/2 yrs ago I found out I was pregnant with my second daughter. My husband and I had already decided during my first pregnancy that we would never terminate a pregnancy even if test results said our baby had significant health problems. We had been blessed with one healthy daughter already and although my first pregnancy wasn't a walk in the park I didn't have any significant issues. I wasn't very far along in my second pregnancy when I began having some severe pain. It was very similar to pain I had before from an ovarian cyst but of course being pregnant I was a little concerned. I called my OB whom had delivered my first baby and whom I trusted completely.  She said I should go to the hospital for an ultrasound just to make sure everything was ok. We went down to the hospital and the results came back that I was pregnant but I was definitely not as far along as I should be. There was some concern of an ectopic pregnancy and I needed to come back in a week or so. The pain continued on and off and I went back for my followup. We were blessed with an amazing tech this time. Although he couldn't confirm anything, he told us that things had changed and appeared to moving in the right direction. I remember it was a Friday and he said he worked all weekend and if I needed to come back everyday for reassurance he would be happy to help us. Little did we know what a blessing this man truly was going to be for us. We were definitely relieved. The afternoon of the following Monday, my OB calls. She tells me she just received the ultrasound results and I did not have a viable pregnancy. She needed me to come to hospital to terminate the pregnancy. Of course my husband and I were devastated and we just couldn't understand why this was so different from what we had heard a few days earlier. We got settled in the hospital and while we were waiting for my doctor we explained to the nurse what we had been told and how this all didn't make sense. She was kind enough to pull my ultrasound results and told us the notes indicated exactly what we had said. She told my doctor as soon as she arrived about our concerns. When my doctor finally came back she apologized and said she had been sent the wrong results. Everything looked fine on the new ultrasound. We were free to leave. Today we have a healthy beautiful 6 yr old little girl. One persons mistake almost cost us my precious daughters life. Like I said at the beginning, I'm not really sure how this ties into everything else I'm sharing but someone out there needed to hear this. Please don't sit back and rely on someone else for health and well being. 

Well with that out of the way I did want to give you a little update on my new "job". The first few weeks are always a little crazy and this is no different. I am signing a contract with myself outlining everything this will entail. The basic premise is I can work as much or as little I want. My pay is based on how much I work. I am kind of on call 24/7 but my schedule is really up to me. I have a a fairly good idea of what my daily assignments will be and what special projects I might be tasked with. I definitely have lots of meetings to attend (i.e. doctors appts). In fact I have had a few of those meetings this week. I saw the acupuncturist yesterday and had an ultrasound of my thyroid to day. I will be seeing the endocrinologist on the 25th to go talk about all of the hormone issues, adrenal fatigue, and thyroid problems I may be facing. I am hoping to hear my ultrasound results before then because I am relatively sure I will be told I have a least one if not multiple tumors growing and they need to do biopsy. If that is the case, it will be the third time I am facing the possibility of thyroid cancer. I guess I will know if a couple of weeks for sure. 

My first real assignment is to nail down a treatment protocol and schedule. As I have said many times, with this disease there is no one treatment protocol that works for everybody. Each persons case is unique, each doctor out there has a little bit of a different approach, and you really need to listen to your body and your heart to determine what is right for you. Although I don't know 100% what my treatment will hold I can tell you some basics. I am really leaning to toward options that focus on restoring my bodies balance and ability to heal itself. Things like what Hansa offers, bowenwork therapy, acupuncture, zyto, and Synchronicity Wave System to name a few. Diet, exercise, enough rest, detox and a positive attitude are also a must. I am on antibiotics right now but  I am not sure for how long. I have a lot to sort our and get straight before I make any big decisions.  Organization in this job will be key. 

I have a lot more to share with you and in a few days I hope to have an updated current treatment protocol, some starting point statistics, maybe even pics, etc...I definitely need to share what I learned at acupuncture a few days ago and the challenge he gave me for the week. Although this post is kind of all over the place and not what I had planned for it to be, I knew I could not ignore that voice that said you need to share your story. I'm praying that what I said may be a blessing to someone. I look forward to getting back on track and sharing some more with you in a few days. God Bless.

Finding Balance

I apologize for the long break since my last update. In reality, I haven't had much down time and I guess that is a sign right there that things have improved somewhat. Unfortunately I don't have much time now either so this update may be brief. I promise to give a proper update soon. Overall the improvements I had made since going to Kansas have held pretty steady. I don't have the energy I want and need yet but I guess the fact that I have been so busy means it is better than it was. Since I had a few days here and there where I was bouncing off the walls I guess I desire that everyday. At a minimum I know I can have more energy than I do.    My pain is definitely less. I don't have pain very often anymore and when I do it is milder than it was. My temperature issues are somewhat better, my seizure type stuff is better and my heart may be even a little better. So overall I have held onto some improvements but don't feel much better than I did 3 weeks ago. There is one thing that has been really bad but I do take it as a sign of overall improvement...my hayfever is out of control. I have had some bad allergies before but it has been probably mid to late nineties since they have been this intense. They have never lasted this long. They are intense everyday and have been for about 3 to 4 weeks. It would be really interesting to see where allergies show up on my top ten list now since they were number 10 when I had gone to Kansas. I finally decided to try a remedy from Hansa to see if it helps. Hopefully it will be here this week and I can get some relief. I had one little flare up about a week and a half ago that was a little strange. I was really having an amazing day or few days I should say. Then out of the blue I got sad and super depressed over that matter of a few hours. I wanted to crawl under the covers and be left alone. Some of my physical symptoms came back also. My feet got really cold, I had some pain and was sick to my stomach. What that was all about I don't know for sure but it did clear up. I am still learning to find my balance as I still have the ability to over do it. When you start feeling better you want to run out and try to make up for lost time and I catch myself paying for that every now. I just have to remember to take my remedies, get enough rest, and keep on my detox and diet.

God has really blessed my family and continued to take care of us this past month. I really feel like God has confirmed the direction we are going and I am working on continuing to trust Him to meet all of our needs. I have definitely has some ups and downs. I realize though that those down moments come from trusting man and not God. There are some big decisions in our future and I am excited to see where God will take us and how He will continue to provide for us.

One of those big decisions is  about going back to Hansa. My goal was to go back here in the next few weeks, with my husband and two girls. There is a good chance my husband can't go which make me sad but it is a must that I take my girls. My youngest is having increasing complaints of pain and stomach problems and I just want to go and get them back on track to healing whatever the reason. Of course money is always the big factor. I need a fourth person to go if my husband can't because my girls need to be watched while I am in treatment. When I looked at air fair it would cost us like 1500 for all 4 of us to fly.  That does make it cheaper to drive even with fuel being closer to 5 dollars a gallon. How we will pull this off I am not sure but I have an urgency about going back. I want to continue to heal and get my girls well on their way to healing as well. I would rather postpone starting light therapy again as that is not cheap and go back to Hansa again first. Lots to figure out in the next few days.

I wish I had time to tell you more but that is about all I can say right now. Please continue to pray for me and family and our upcoming big decisions. Oh and one last request,please look up Surf Chaser Photography and like my page on Facebook. Then share it with all of your friends. The future looks exciting and I can't wait to share more over the next few weeks.

17 Days and Counting

I knew I was behind on an update but I didn't realize it had been a month. A lot has gone on in the past few weeks. Where to begin...Well I took the leap of faith and started acupuncture. I can't tell you how happy I am that I did. I was so nervous going to that first appointment. I still get anxious when they are going draw blood or access my port. So of course the thought of having even needle stuck in some odd place was going to cause a little anxiety. Before I went in I filled out my health history. I was surprised at the amount of detailed information I had to give. I gave the acupuncturist more information than I had ever given any doctor. It was actually somewhat comforting. I brought that with me to my first appointment and we reviewed it before we did anything. I guess while I was on my antibiotic break, this guy had started working at my doctors office doing some pain management type work. We had had a chance to talk a few times before my visit so he knew how apprehensive I was and he already knew I had Lyme. After reviewing my history he checked my pulse and a few other things. Of course with being nervous my pulse was really high. The first thing he did was called cupping. I had heard of it but didn't really know what it was. It involved placing briefly heating up these glass bowls or cups and placing them quickly on my back which created a suction. You leave them on there for 5 or 10 minutes and then take them off. They are supposed to help release the stagnant blood and I believe increase circulation. He told me he knew I would bruise easily so don't be surprised it I had some marks. I did have these big circular almost hickey looking marks all over my back. They didn't hurt though. This procedure was also supposed to help with some of the tension in my shoulders and neck. I have done it on all of my visits except this last one and it has really helped a lot. After the cupping we did some needles. He made sure I was comfortable and didn't do to many because he didn't want to overwhelm me. It was nothing like I had thought and wasn't bad. He told me I would know in probably my first visit if this was for me or not. I was quickly a fan and am still going once a week. I don't know how other practitioners work but as long as he is around I won't see anybody else. His knowledge is amazing and it is evident that he wants you to get a lot out of your experience. He reviews how you are doing before starting, during, and after and makes adjustments as needed. I can say enough about what I positive experience this has been. So for all you San Diego people here is a shout out to Michael at Eight Wave Health in Encinitas. I highly recommend seeing him. He has helped with my diet, and overall healthy living. He has helped reduce my pain and is working on a couple of other issues as well. I couldn't be happier that I gave it a try!

Along with the acupuncture, I continued with the light therapy. I completed 6 treatments over about 3 weeks. I have doing okay symptom wise but I haven't had any significant breakthroughs. At the end of 6 treatments I had an appointment with the doctor to see how he wanted me to continue. He decided instead of taking a break and doing six more that he would start treating me with another type of light therapy. So yesterday I did my first treatment with the new machine. Now this one is different and is administered by the doctor or nurse. There are no glass bottles taped to me. This machine uses coherent and in-coherent light. I can't explain to you the science behind it but there is a lot of positive feed back about this kind of treatment. It is even safe for kids. It can even be used to counteract the bad stuff from vaccinations. I am really hopeful about this. One of the first things we treated with this were all of my scars and my neck from whiplash I've had once or twice. Then we treated some of my viruses, the vaccinations I have had, etc. We will begin focusing on the lyme in future treatments. I haven't been feeling great so it is hard to say weather today is because of the light therapy or something else.

In regards to how I have been feeling. I was thinking I was back to about where I was before treatment but it appears I am not even that far yet. And that isn't my goal. I need to be much better than I was before treatment to really feel like I have gotten somewhere. If you could take me back to when I was about 20, it would tolerable. But realizing that i have been sick for so long, what I felt at 20 wasn't right either. I don't really have an idea of what healthy feels like. I know now the things that bothered me then were signs of a problem even though no doctor would agree to that at the time. I am really set on getting healthy and staying that way. As I was saying, I have been doing okay. I have made some changes in my diet and have lost about 4 pounds. So that makes me happy. I had a little bit of pain and all during my cycle but nothing extreme. Then all of sudden for almost the last week I have been going down hill. I have had some pain, a ton of palpitations and heart racing episodes. I have had some dizzy spells and extra fatigue. In fact Tuesday night I had the worst creepy crawly, weak feeling in my arms and legs that I have ever had. It kept me up most of the night and I was so ready to cut my legs off at the knees and my arms off at the elbow or maybe even the shoulder. That feeling has stuck around since then but is not as intense. I'm getting transient bone pain and muscle aches. I have been muscle spasms at some place on body probably everyday for almost a month. So needless to say I am a little frustrated. I can't say what the cause is since it seems to be out of the blue. A flare, a herx, reactivation of a virus I have no idea. I guess it just a reminder I'm not done yet. I'm sure the stress surrounding the holidays, money, my trips arent' helping. I never know if stress caused it but I certainly know when you feel like this you get more stressed. Such a vicious cycle this is.

Onto something a little happier. I am officially going to Kansas. I fly to Wichita on January 1st and begin treatment January 2nd. I have been in contact with a girl who a has recently gone and has had great results. That gives me a lot of hope and I am so excited to go.The great thing is, some of what my doctor is doing here with the light therapy seems directly in line with what they do at Hansa. My hope is that for the two weeks I am gone, I get a great jump start on restoring my health so that when I come back we can finish up. I get to stay in a nice hotel where all of the rooms are kind of like studio apartments. I have a full kitchen and all so this will a nice retreat to really focus on my healing. I can't say I won't be lonely and somewhat distracted by leaving my family behind. However, I believe that this is where I am supposed be and it will be worth it if I can come back feeling better. I will doing my best to update regularly when I am back there. I will at definitely keep a journal so I can always blog about it later if I need too. I am trusting God that this is right thing to do and that not only will he take care of my family while I am gone, but that he will continue to provide for us financially. Between the light therapy, acupuncture, and this trip the available funds for treatment will be down to nothing. God has provided for us this far and I believe he will continue to do so. In His time, according to His plan and will for my life.

To end on a happy note, I have a new excitement and passion for what the future holds. In fact, I even signed up for a college class for next semester. I am ready to put in the effort to make my dreams a reality. If I don't get to update before I leave I pray you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

You can continue to support me and my family by praying, by buying some of photography, or by making a donation to help pay for treatment. You can now donate directly to a donation account at US Bank. Just tell them you would like to make a deposit to the Jessica Madson Donation Account and give them account number 153466674998. Thanks for following along on my journey and for all of your support.