Can you really be allergic to the world? I think SO! :)

Happy 2010! I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve/Day with your friends and family. I can't believe how quickly this year has past. Brian and I were talking yesterday about all the changes that have taken place since we got married. Good grief, it's a lot. Life is quite different then we expected, but thankfully God has and will be with us every step of the way. I honestly can't imagine making it through all this without Him. Thankfully, we don't have to! :)

Well, we do have some major prayer requests, but before I get to that, I wanted to write about our little Christmas miracle. As you know, I am super allergic to a lot of things which interferes with both what I can eat and what I can cook in our house. Not only has my diet changed drastically since the start of this Lyme adventure, but Brian's diet has had to be altered quite a bit because I react to things in the air when they are being cooked. So, when we were planning what to cook (for just the two of us) on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, we didn't know if it would happen. Well, God gave us a gift. I not only was able to cook dinner both days, but I always was able to eat it. We were pretty shocked. We had Baked Ziti on Christmas Eve and then waffles on Christmas morning (family tradition), Christmas cookies (a very bland version, lol) and then prime rib with mashed potatoes and broccoli (obviously they were not mixed together, lol). It may seem like that is not much, but it's HUGE. I normally can't eat most of those things. Anyways, I didn't react to anything. The crazy thing is, the day after Christmas, I tried to eat leftovers and reacted to about everything. So, we call it our "Christmas miracle." I thank Jesus for the special gift he gave me for Christmas. It was SO wonderful to be able to taste some of those foods again!!

Now onto our update and prayer request. Starting the day after Christmas with my reactions to the food, I kind of created the perfect storm. I think my system was already set-off from eating all that stuff (I don't regret any minute of it though, lol) and then I tried to add in a new med from my Lyme doctor (new meds are always such a gamble with me). This med was supposed to calm down my autonomic nervous system which then would work to calm down my histamine system as it would help to make it not be so trigger happy. Well, the med worked for about 4 hours and then it did the opposite. I wanted to give the medication a good shot so I took it for about 4 days. That turned out to be pretty detrimental. I am extremely reactive now. I am reacting to almost all of the food I could eat (I am down to about 3-4 foods) and I am reacting to everything in my environment. Even my dog is bothering me and he usually doesn't. :( These flare-ups have happened to me before, so I know the drill. However, it's always pretty hard and never fun to make an already small and limited world get even smaller.

So, that would be our first prayer request. If you could pray that my system would calm down, we would appreciate it. Another prayer request is for my phone appointment with Dr. J on January 7th. On my last blog, I wrote that I was having trouble getting a phone appointment. Well, I finally got to talk to his nurse and they agreed to fit me in this coming Thursday. This couldn't come at a better time. Please pray that the doctor will have wisdom on what steps to take especially with me in my current state. I am hoping we can start a more intense treatment plan (I'm crazy to hope that, right? LOL) because my system actually seems to calm down when I am on the antibiotics, and then when I'm off it seems to flare-up. I am praying that I don't cry on the phone, lol. I always get so emotional when I am in this state. Brian is used to it, thank goodness! :0)

Finally, if you could continue to pray about our housing situation. For my health, it would really be beneficial for us to get out of this environment. We think it really makes everything worse dealing with all of things that come into our apartment unwanted. We have a small window here before interest rates rise (that is their prediction) and unfortunately, the two houses we really like are both short sales. Anyone who knows anything about real estate knows there is nothing "short" about a short sale. We have started the process on one house and will probably be starting the process on another on Monday. In AZ, you can actually submit offers on 4different houses if they are short sales. Short sales can take anywhere from six weeks to 5 months, so you can see our dilemma. We will continue to look for other options, but so far, these two houses are the ones we love. So, we would appreciate your prayers for wisdom on how to proceed and also that God would work a miracle and have our offer on one of the houses be approved quickly if it's His will.

Brian starts training on Tuesday for his job! He is nervous-excited. I know he will do great! If you could be praying for him also, we would appreciate it! Well, that is our update. I will write an update this week after I talk with Dr. J. I promise! :) Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement. It is such a comfort to us!