2018 In Review...What Was That?!
Sometimes it's just easier to focus on the negative than the positive but if I'm honest, the first half of 2018 was good but I feel the need to point out the good that God DID do.
We found the kids a private Christian school to put them in and it's been a God-send to all of us. Would I love to not have to pay for school, of course, but I just can't bring myself to send my children to public school, especially in the N.E. In fact, for me personally, the school is the only reason I'm still living up here.
The second good thing that happened in the first half of the year is that we moved into our new home - back up North - January 3, 2018, which is exactly the date we moved down to TN, 7 years previously ;) Kinda cool how that worked out. It seemed God's hand was in every detail of selling our dream home in TN and moving us up here.
The first half of the year brought redemption. That's the word the Lord laid on my heart for this move back up North. He gave me an inkling that coming back up here would bring redemption for Neal's PTSD because coming back North would mean he'd be faced with his war zone, the demons of PTSD as a State Trooper. Coming up North meant that he'd eventually be driving past his triggers as life led us throughout parts of the state. If you know PTSD, you know you avoid your triggers at all costs.
But, we knew Neal couldn't combat PTSD, fully, making it lose it's power over our lives, being 700 miles away in TN so this was a huge reason we moved back. Well, God was faithful to that inkling He gave my heart as we did the unimaginable, moved back to his war-zone. We moved back to a place we said we'd never move back to. I mean, come on. Who moves BACK to the North East after living in middle-Tennessee for seven years?! There's a meme that sums it up, "Say what you want about the South but no one ever retires and moves North." #truth
December 31, 2016, I posted on Facebook, "A lot can happen in a year." OH. MY. GOSH! *insert eye roll* Technically we moved Oct 2017.
So, as life unfolded, Neal was exposed to his triggers and slowly but surely some became just bad memories and not triggers that turned out lives upside down for weeks/months on end. This alone was worth the move. Can we go back home now? 😋
What seemed like redemption for myself came along as well in the first half of 2018 as I received Biblical counseling. The previous ten years of life had really added up and I was in a rut but through counseling, I was able to process and make peace with all God had allowed. I had found my hope again, that 'all things work together for His and our good.'
And then, the rain.
Yes, literal rain. Like the gray, overcast sky that leaks water days on end. In fact, for our area, 2018 had twice as much rain than Seattle. Seattle! We thought about moving to Seattle once, before TN, but decided it wouldn't be good for our mental health, all of that rain, lack of sunshine. I know you're probably rolling your eyes right now like, "Jess, you're really complaining about rain? Geesh." From my perspective though, I NEED sunshine and warmth. I had moved from an area where there were indeed four seasons but the winter wasn't bad at all and not that cold (what I consider cold), six months out of the year. Heck, this past year, it was 62 degrees and raining on my daughter's birthday in June! Anything under 75 is cold in my book. We had our first real snow storm March 21st. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE IN MY BOOK 😂 Coincidentally, I had waited for six weeks to have a cyst removed because there was the possibility it was cancerous. Of course, we had our one and only major snow event on that day. I was getting this thing out of me and finding out if I had cancer and the weather was not stopping me. See, this is proof the North hates me as much as I hate it, hehe. What seemed like every other day in 2018, the overcast sky was just egging on depression. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm happy for you. Just Google S.A.D., rain and depression than 😉
And then, the end of June, July and August came...
No words really but I'll try with this....one event that shakes everything, turns your world upside down and makes you question everything. I mean everything. Especially the thing that had gotten me through so much before, my faith.
I'll save you all of the details but the next few months went like this...
One minute Neal was fine, the next severe abdominal pain. The hospital said, "I don't know." Next two doctors said, "I don't know, see a specialist." We were led to a doctor, a specialist the family had used for years, happily, despite my inkling to see someone closer to our home. This doctor was over an hour away but we went with the testimonies of previous family experiences. Doc said it might be a micro perforation which could have easily caused him to go sepsis. Um, okay...so Neal could have just died while the hospital and two doctors just said, "I don't know?" Wow, that's scary.
Next, the doc decided it wasn't a micro perforation. Try medication. No change. "This doesn't make sense! This is above my pay-grade" said this specialist. "Maybe it's an infectious disease, I've got nothing else." Next, we get sent to an infectious disease doctor. Nope, this isn't an infectious disease. I was thankful we could at least erase this possibility of him picking something up from being a State Trooper. You know, like HIV or Hepatitis or something of the sort. Back to 'specialist' because this was the only one to go to, the doctor hospitals referred to in the greater Baltimore area. "I'm stumped. There's really no reason for you to come back to me unless you have new symptoms" meanwhile, he was not able to eat, in a massive amount of pain (and this is someone who goes to work with kidney stones so he's not your typical sissy man!), unable to do anything.
We kept asking about Chron's Disease, because there's a family history of IBD and a younger sibling, at one time, had a loose diagnosis of this disease. All of the symptoms made sense but the doctor wouldn't give this diagnosis. After basically being told not to come back, after one more ER visit, months wasted with this doctor, work lost, summer wasted, I made an appointment with a doctor 1.5 miles from our house, the one whom I wanted to see first. Eventually, we got into seeing him, he looked at all of the tests from the previous months, we talked about the family history of IBD/Chron's and we walked out of his office, 30 minutes later, with a loose diagnosis of Chron's disease. With new medication (that should have been prescribed months ago), Neal showed improvement and then another visit to the ER, he got an official diagnosis of Chrons.
He got temporarily better on this medication so we decided to take a vacation since the summer sucked so much. Our family needed Daddy, at his best in months, and quality time together. So, we headed down to Myrtle Beach but Hurricane Florence chased us back three days later. Of course, this kind of stuff was our life at this point.
When times are tough, you learn who's really there for you. This past summer has really shown me the relationships that my touch heart, that make life sweeter despite the storms. It's those people who don't forget about you when you're out of sight. It's those people who rearrange their day to help, who send you daily/weekly texts of check-in, messages of their prayers. It's a hard pill to swallow when you realize, 99% of those people are 700 miles away. Was life perfect there? No way! But, at least it's a place I loved to live and filled with people who love me just the way I am, in the place I am, no matter what.
Then there's a Pandora's Box of family circumstances that I won't even touch in this blog because that would probably wouldn't be a good idea ;) But to sum it up, frustration, disappointment and more heartache.
So here I am, filled with so much confliction. I'm questioning just about everything, that's a scary place to be. I honestly fear the future because I wonder what else God will allow to oppress us. If I'm being honest, the only thing left is death for one of us.
As depressing as that last thought is, it seems God keeps orchestrating a few ideas in my path that I'm daring to believe might mean He might actually bring good through everything. Maybe. That'll be another blog though....soon to come.
We found the kids a private Christian school to put them in and it's been a God-send to all of us. Would I love to not have to pay for school, of course, but I just can't bring myself to send my children to public school, especially in the N.E. In fact, for me personally, the school is the only reason I'm still living up here.
The second good thing that happened in the first half of the year is that we moved into our new home - back up North - January 3, 2018, which is exactly the date we moved down to TN, 7 years previously ;) Kinda cool how that worked out. It seemed God's hand was in every detail of selling our dream home in TN and moving us up here.
The first half of the year brought redemption. That's the word the Lord laid on my heart for this move back up North. He gave me an inkling that coming back up here would bring redemption for Neal's PTSD because coming back North would mean he'd be faced with his war zone, the demons of PTSD as a State Trooper. Coming up North meant that he'd eventually be driving past his triggers as life led us throughout parts of the state. If you know PTSD, you know you avoid your triggers at all costs.
But, we knew Neal couldn't combat PTSD, fully, making it lose it's power over our lives, being 700 miles away in TN so this was a huge reason we moved back. Well, God was faithful to that inkling He gave my heart as we did the unimaginable, moved back to his war-zone. We moved back to a place we said we'd never move back to. I mean, come on. Who moves BACK to the North East after living in middle-Tennessee for seven years?! There's a meme that sums it up, "Say what you want about the South but no one ever retires and moves North." #truth
December 31, 2016, I posted on Facebook, "A lot can happen in a year." OH. MY. GOSH! *insert eye roll* Technically we moved Oct 2017.
So, as life unfolded, Neal was exposed to his triggers and slowly but surely some became just bad memories and not triggers that turned out lives upside down for weeks/months on end. This alone was worth the move. Can we go back home now? 😋
What seemed like redemption for myself came along as well in the first half of 2018 as I received Biblical counseling. The previous ten years of life had really added up and I was in a rut but through counseling, I was able to process and make peace with all God had allowed. I had found my hope again, that 'all things work together for His and our good.'
And then, the rain.
Yes, literal rain. Like the gray, overcast sky that leaks water days on end. In fact, for our area, 2018 had twice as much rain than Seattle. Seattle! We thought about moving to Seattle once, before TN, but decided it wouldn't be good for our mental health, all of that rain, lack of sunshine. I know you're probably rolling your eyes right now like, "Jess, you're really complaining about rain? Geesh." From my perspective though, I NEED sunshine and warmth. I had moved from an area where there were indeed four seasons but the winter wasn't bad at all and not that cold (what I consider cold), six months out of the year. Heck, this past year, it was 62 degrees and raining on my daughter's birthday in June! Anything under 75 is cold in my book. We had our first real snow storm March 21st. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE IN MY BOOK 😂 Coincidentally, I had waited for six weeks to have a cyst removed because there was the possibility it was cancerous. Of course, we had our one and only major snow event on that day. I was getting this thing out of me and finding out if I had cancer and the weather was not stopping me. See, this is proof the North hates me as much as I hate it, hehe. What seemed like every other day in 2018, the overcast sky was just egging on depression. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm happy for you. Just Google S.A.D., rain and depression than 😉
And then, the end of June, July and August came...
No words really but I'll try with this....one event that shakes everything, turns your world upside down and makes you question everything. I mean everything. Especially the thing that had gotten me through so much before, my faith.
I'll save you all of the details but the next few months went like this...
One minute Neal was fine, the next severe abdominal pain. The hospital said, "I don't know." Next two doctors said, "I don't know, see a specialist." We were led to a doctor, a specialist the family had used for years, happily, despite my inkling to see someone closer to our home. This doctor was over an hour away but we went with the testimonies of previous family experiences. Doc said it might be a micro perforation which could have easily caused him to go sepsis. Um, okay...so Neal could have just died while the hospital and two doctors just said, "I don't know?" Wow, that's scary.
Next, the doc decided it wasn't a micro perforation. Try medication. No change. "This doesn't make sense! This is above my pay-grade" said this specialist. "Maybe it's an infectious disease, I've got nothing else." Next, we get sent to an infectious disease doctor. Nope, this isn't an infectious disease. I was thankful we could at least erase this possibility of him picking something up from being a State Trooper. You know, like HIV or Hepatitis or something of the sort. Back to 'specialist' because this was the only one to go to, the doctor hospitals referred to in the greater Baltimore area. "I'm stumped. There's really no reason for you to come back to me unless you have new symptoms" meanwhile, he was not able to eat, in a massive amount of pain (and this is someone who goes to work with kidney stones so he's not your typical sissy man!), unable to do anything.
We kept asking about Chron's Disease, because there's a family history of IBD and a younger sibling, at one time, had a loose diagnosis of this disease. All of the symptoms made sense but the doctor wouldn't give this diagnosis. After basically being told not to come back, after one more ER visit, months wasted with this doctor, work lost, summer wasted, I made an appointment with a doctor 1.5 miles from our house, the one whom I wanted to see first. Eventually, we got into seeing him, he looked at all of the tests from the previous months, we talked about the family history of IBD/Chron's and we walked out of his office, 30 minutes later, with a loose diagnosis of Chron's disease. With new medication (that should have been prescribed months ago), Neal showed improvement and then another visit to the ER, he got an official diagnosis of Chrons.
He got temporarily better on this medication so we decided to take a vacation since the summer sucked so much. Our family needed Daddy, at his best in months, and quality time together. So, we headed down to Myrtle Beach but Hurricane Florence chased us back three days later. Of course, this kind of stuff was our life at this point.
When times are tough, you learn who's really there for you. This past summer has really shown me the relationships that my touch heart, that make life sweeter despite the storms. It's those people who don't forget about you when you're out of sight. It's those people who rearrange their day to help, who send you daily/weekly texts of check-in, messages of their prayers. It's a hard pill to swallow when you realize, 99% of those people are 700 miles away. Was life perfect there? No way! But, at least it's a place I loved to live and filled with people who love me just the way I am, in the place I am, no matter what.
Then there's a Pandora's Box of family circumstances that I won't even touch in this blog because that would probably wouldn't be a good idea ;) But to sum it up, frustration, disappointment and more heartache.
So here I am, filled with so much confliction. I'm questioning just about everything, that's a scary place to be. I honestly fear the future because I wonder what else God will allow to oppress us. If I'm being honest, the only thing left is death for one of us.
As depressing as that last thought is, it seems God keeps orchestrating a few ideas in my path that I'm daring to believe might mean He might actually bring good through everything. Maybe. That'll be another blog though....soon to come.
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