72-Hour EEG

Well, I survived the dreaded 72-hour ambulatory video EEG monitoring.  It actually wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  I mean, don't get me wrong, it wasn't all roses, but I had reallllllly been dreading the 3 day diagnostics in my home.  Here's the gist of how it went:

A lady from Global Neuro Diagnostics came to my house and set up 2 cameras:  1 in my bedroom, which filmed only my side of the bed, and 1 in the living room, aimed at the recliner.  I had lots of instructions, but the main instruction was to try to be in front of one of the cameras at all times.  Additionally, she glued 23 electrodes to my head and a couple to my chest (to monitor my heart rate).  Then she fashioned all the wires into a fancy little "pony tail" sleeve to keep them from getting tangled, and they were connected to this little portable device I had to sling over my shoulder for the duration of the evaluation.  (Of course, when I was sleeping, I would just keep it above my head, and it didn't really interfere with my ability to toss & turn in my sleep).

The evaluation was scheduled to take place from Saturday morning until Tuesday morning.  My episodes had tapered off substantially before the evaluation, and in fact, I had gone 3 days completely episode free, prior to the eval.  So, Jeremy and I were frustrated, feeling like we were about to toss our money down the drain for an unnecessary evaluation.  But, it was really too late to cancel.

Well, I'm glad we kept the evaluation scheduled because I had episodes each night at bed time, and additionally, I had 3 episodes on Sunday, and 1 awesome (ha!), classic (aura + arm, face, and abdominal muscles contractions all involved) episode on Monday.  Now, of course, I would prefer for these to go away completely, and I am still believing on faith, in complete Divine healing, but if I am still having periodic episodes, this was the time to have them!  So, for that I give a big Praise GOD!

At first, I was afraid the kids would want to pull the electrodes off my head.

They were all over my head, and the worst part was that I couldn't take a shower or wash my hair for 3 days!

I wore a hat, to keep the kids from messing with my head, which worked pretty well!

...until they decided they wanted to wear my hat, instead :)

Here's the "big picture" with my lovely sling and the camera that faced my bed.
There was another one in the living room.

The worst part of all was washing all the glue out of my hair!  It was AW.FUL!
But, alas, I was relieved after taking the longest shower in the history of the world, and back to my CLEAN self again!

The results will take about 10 business days to read.  I was supposed to have a follow-up appointment on Monday, 2/27, but it has been rescheduled to Wednesday, March 7.  In the meantime, I'm praying that no news is good news :)  I'll post an update, as soon as we know more!

Jonah according to Jonah, and then some...

Jonah and the Big Fish
Jonah learned about Jonah at church last Sunday.  At lunch, we decided to recap the story:
Me: Do you remember why Jonah got eaten by the big fish?
Jonah:  Ummmm.....[ponders]... because he didn't listen to God!
[pause, ponders some more]
Jonah: But ME [points to self] This Jonah? I LISTEN to GOD!

The Birth of Jesus
Later that night, we were reading in Jonah's Toddler Story Bible.  Of course, he wanted to read about Jonah.  The book has lots of wonderful illustrations.  In the Toddler Bible, the story that follows Jonah, is the Story of the Birth of Jesus.  I pointed to the pictures and read to Jonah that the Angel of the Lord went to the shepherds in the fields to tell them of Jesus's birth.  Jonah wanted me to read him the story again, but I needed to stop to eat dinner, so I encouraged him to read the story, himself. 

I'm listening as he recounts the story of Jesus's birth, by looking at the illustrations, and the next thing I hear is:

Jonah: And the Angel came and said, "YOU GO NIGHT NIGHT RIGHT NOW, BABY JESUS!!!"

Ohhh, I laughed so hard!  I don't believe I've ever heard that version of the story of Jesus's birth....but I guess you never know :)

Medical Update: Healing Prayer

People have been praying over me.  A couple of weeks ago, at Life Group, my entire group prayed for healing into my life.  (For more information about what I need healing from, read my other Medical Update post).  I had to go to Austin on Jan 24-26, and that week was ridiculously bad with episodes occurring frequently throughout each day.

But, then on that Saturday, it was as if a switch was thrown, and my episodes tapered off substantially, out of the clear blue.  I went from frequent and severe episodes Mon-Fri, to virtually NONE on Saturday.  I had 1 or 2 episodes on all days, Saturday through the following week.  Still no episode-free days, but as close as I've come since December 22 (my one and only episode free day since the onset of this mysterious condition at the end of November).

So, I ventured out to Healing Prayer at church on Tuesday, February 7.  Let me start by saying that I was extremely nervous, having no idea what to expect.  I had mentally "planned" to attend the healing prayer opportunity, but physically, I hadn't.  In other words, I didn't get any child care.  So, the day of, I was scrambling to find someone to watch my kids, but in reality, I think I was hoping I wouldn't be able to find anyone.  But, leave it to my life group leaders to say, "Just bring them over here."  Then, I had more excuses....like, "But, they live about 25 minutes away from Beltway...."  Still, I felt it pressed more and more strongly upon my heart that I was to go receive this gift of healing prayer that night.  So, I did.

It was nothing scary.  I wrote down a summary of my healing needs, and I was assigned to a small group of 3 other people to pray over and with me, in a private room.  They were complete strangers to me.  Correction.  They were complete ANOINTED strangers....to me.  They prayed over me for healing, but they also spoke words of encouragement from the Father into my life.  Rick (one of the prayer partners) spoke a vision over me, and it was as if I was walking with him through that vision, not just listening to him as he described something.  No.  I was there.  IN it!  It was phenomenal, really.  Then, he spoke words of prophecy over me.  Words of prophecy that I believe God has spoken into my life personally, but that I'd doubted and, consequently, never grabbed ahold of.  Confirmation of things I had already heard from the Father.  Things, such that I would be praying encouragement and healing over others.  It was a little freaky...but in an amazingly comforting way.

So, here I am, in the middle of prayer, and I have an episode, in which my head pulls back, like normal.  But ... NOT like normal.  Rick has his hands on my head, and someone else has her hands on my shoulders from behind, and then I have this overwhelming sense of peace, like a flood over me.  This sense of ... well ... it's indescribable really.  Like a reassurance that this is not some attack from the enemy (which I had wondered).  It's not something over which God has no control, but that He is there, and HIS hands are on me, and IN me, and THROUGH me.  I just felt it.  It was a newness.  A peace.  Something completely different than I'd ever felt, especially right in the very midst of an episode. It was like a big ol' great Divine, "No worries, kid! I GOT THIS!"

And, so it was.  Healing prayer.  Nothing scary.  But, in fact, something Miraculous.  Amazing.  A phenomenal encounter with my Savior.  With my Great Physician.

And, since that night, I've had only one episode.  I've had some bouts of dizziness/aura (maybe once a day), but when I've felt it, I have prayed, declaring the Truth, that God is my Healer, and He is IN me, and so He can renew all of my neurological signals to their original flawless purpose.  And, aside from the one instance, the aura has never developed into the physical manifestations of the episodes, since that night, when God gave me His great big, "I got this!" message.

Wow!  A thousand times over!

Incidentally, after the team prayed over me, they asked if there was anything else for which I may need prayer. The only thing that stuck out to me was that I really really feel this calling to write, but I'm struggling with exactly what, where, why, or how that is supposed to take shape. Now, remember, these people were complete strangers to me. They didn't really know much about me at all, except what I told them about my medical stuff.

I'd been praying to God, requesting clarity about the direction I am to take with my writing, and I kept feeling this nudge on my heart to give up Facebook. I even said to God, "Is that from YOU, or ME?" Because I am well aware that Facebook can become all-consuming for me, but I also think that it is not all bad. So, I had asked God to "give me a perfectly clear answer, maybe even through a dream" as to whether He is telling me that I need to close my Facebook account.

Well, so back to the prayer team. There was a man in the prayer group who wrote down all of the words of encouragement that were spoken over me during our time together, but on a separate sticky note, he wrote a word he felt he had heard from the Lord, but hadn't spoken aloud. "Fasting brings clarity. Food, Facebook, whatever you can give up."

Um, hello! Does it get any clearer than that?

Thank you, Lord, for adopting me as your very own, and for caring so intimately for your children!

Oh, and in case you're wondering. Yes, I'm fasting Facebook :)