Perseverance...

Happy Lunar New Year! :) I say that because I work part-time from my home (from my bed, lol) tutoring South Korean students in English over the internet. This was the holiday they just celebrated yesterday. It's bigger than Christmas if you can believe it. I love my job, and I am so thankful that the Lord has given me something I can do that involves teaching and allows me to work from the bed, especially during treatment weeks. Thank goodness for laptops! :0)

Here is an update on our house. Everything is going well, no glitches yet! Yay! We are actually set to close on our house on Feb. 25th. That's a week from Thursday! I can't belive it! Okay, I will stop using exclamation points. ;)It is exciting and overwhelming at the same time. If you could begin to pray for our closing appointment, we would appreciate it. I am really allergically sensitive these days and buildings w/ all of the chemicals, perfumes/colognes etc. are really hard for me. My realtor is calling everyone ahead of time that has to be in that room and warning them to not wear any perfume/cologne. So, hopefully that will help! If you could just pray that I would be able to persevere through the appointment, we would appreciate it. Obviously, it's very important to be able to sign those papers and sometimes it can take awhile. :)

Brian still LOVES his job. It's such an affirmation that this is the career for him. It's a perfect fit. He has the opportunity to work on a couple of auditing teams and has completed many assignments. They are really impressed with how fast he has caught on and also the level of difficulty he is able to successfully tackle with only working there a month. I am SO proud of him!

On to a health update... I wanted to write an update yesterday, but today is actually the first day I have been able to function. This treatment round was pretty horrible. Since the start of treatment, I have never experienced anything like it. After my first day, I had a lot of trouble breathing. It hurt to take a deep breath, and I felt like I couldn't get enough air. I have asthma, but I could tell it wasn't that because I wasn't coughing or wheezing. We think it must have been inflammation around my rib cage called costochondritis (inflammation where your ribs meet your sternum). I have had trouble with that for years now off and on; however, now we know that Lyme is the culprit. Over and over I thank the Lord that he led us to finally being able to get a diagnosis and start treatment. We went six years without knowing why I was so sick. It was agony to have life be so limited and not know why. Even though treatment is tough, it's such a relief to finally be working towards better health.

By my second to last dose of my antibiotics Saturday, I could barely walk to the bedroom. I was experiencing a lot of pain and nausea on top of being extremely dizzy and fatigued (the kind of fatigue where you can barely move). It was pretty horrible. Brian said he had never seen me this bad. Thankfully, because of the Lunar New Year holiday, I did not have to work yesterday. That was such a blessing! I don't know how I would have made it through. I spent most of the day sleeping and the rest of the day watching the Olympics with Brian. I just have to take the opportunity and once again say what a wonderful man God has given me. He is so caring and shows me the love of Christ in so many ways. He cooked, did the laundry and cleaned when I couldn't do anything. What a blessing he is!!! Today is better than yesterday, but I think these symptoms are here to stay for awhile. Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement. They are helping us to get through this time! Know that each one of you are in our prayers!!