This post has been a long time coming! I am so happy to be back. I have been needing to write. Where have I been, you ask? That is a long story, but I hope to unload some of it here. There is so much to tell, and it is more than one post. So I hope to write a few posts over the next week or so.
The main reason I have been absent is due to busyness, stress, family problems, and health problems. I am a mom of two young children: Joshua is 3 1/2 and Rachel is 10 months. I also pastor two churches which takes a good bit of time. I am in the process of ordination in the Methodist Church which requires participation in a Residency group which meets once a month, all day. That is an extra requirement, in addition to all the normal pastoral duties.
My in-laws have had their fair share of health problems (see my last post from November 2012). Finally in November, my mother-in-law was able to go to the nursing home. Once she was there, we were still really busy. We had to pay her bills and run errands for her. It was a little overwhelming. Not long into that arrangement, my husband and his mother had a little falling out. We spent several months dealing with the fallout from that, and trying to fix things. My mother-in-law was released from the nursing home in February because the board that ran the nursing home said she was too healthy to be there. She had to go back home for awhile. Matt's aunt was supposed to be staying with her, but she stopped. Matt's mom was too proud to tell Matt or his half sister that she was staying home alone because she wanted to be independent. Well, one morning she fell and broke both ankles and one leg. She went to the hospital. They did surgery. During her surgery she had a stroke. Now she is back at the nursing home and she will stay there indefinitely.
While all of this was going on, Matt was dealing with his own health problems. He got sick in November. We thought it was the flu. The doctor said it was sinus infection, then bronchitis. He was given medicine, but he didn't get any better. We finally found out, after about 2 1/2 weeks of sickness, that he had mono. Well, with his mono he had a bad case of vertigo. As the mono began clearing up, the vertigo was getting worse. So Matt began a long journey of visiting specialists. We needed to get the vertigo cleared up. It started with a trip to the ENT, the allergist, the immunologist, the neurologist, and then back to the stomach doctor. None of the doctors found what was causing the vertigo. The neurologist found a cyst on Matt's brain (scary, but nothing serious). They are going to watch it and see if it changes. Down the road they may need to remove it. Finding the cyst did answer some other questions for us, though. Matt also got to see the stomach doctor and have the last test he needed that was put on hold last fall with everything else that was going on. Matt's test came back good. He has nothing like Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, which is a major blessing. Matt's stomach problems were due to stress, and our family doctor, with help from the neurologist decided that headaches from stress was what was causing the vertigo. Matt is on some new medicines now, and everything seems to be better.
Due to missing so much work, when Matt got the all clear to return to work, he decided to find a new job. Matt started working there a month ago. He loves it! And it has been a blessing for us. Matt had been unhappy with his former job for quite sometime.
Our family has seen a lot of changes and tests in such a short period of time. But with Matt's medication and new job, it finally feels like we have turned a corner. Please continue to remember us in your prayers. I will update about the children and myself more later (hopefully this week). Until next time.
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