My sister loves me :)

Yes, my sister really loves me and it shows in ways that most people wouldn't recognize.

We live far apart - roughly 800.44 miles. We talk almost daily and I've never felt like the physical distance has created much emotional distance between us. In fact, we have to actually talk a lot more to keep up. We vent to each other A LOT! Throughout my recent health ordeal, I've vented and cried and even sat silent with her on the phone. We used to do this thing when I first moved to Kentucky and Party of Five and Beverly Hills 90210 were still on the air and not in syndication; we'd call each other and literally watch the shows together, like we used to do in person and make comments, laugh so on. It was a way to stay close and still enjoy the things we had in common together even though we were not physically together. It meant a lot to me, although I'm sure other people didn't quite understand our "wierdness." Whatever.

I have helped her with marketing and promoting a now defunct candle company - why those things never took off I still don't know; they were the BEST candles ever and I'm not just saying that out of sisterly bias. So we moved right into marketing a new business venture for her - a children's consignment sale called Adorable Affordables. It's been very successful in the first two installments and we still have a way to work together on things across the miles. God bless technology...really!

It's these little things I've learned to appreciate the most. But this most recent act of love on her part is so sweet. She knows I've struggled with gluten intolerance/celiac disease and that I just really don't like to cook. She on the other hand, loves to cook and plan menus and she's very good at it. I told her, jokingly, it was her job to find a way to make a gluten-free cake that tastes like her wedding cakes. She's taken me seriously and really started to research it. But it's gone beyond that; she is out buying gluten-free products and taste-testing them for me...awww, right? She left me a message today about buying a Thai product that was gluten free and how good it was. I was just really touched that she's doing this for me. For those of you with gluten intolerance/celiac disease, you realize how tough the taste battle is sometimes with gluten free products and to know that your family is supportive is just exceptional.

Catching Up, Celiac and Lots of Needles

I just realized I haven't blogged in forever...well okay, two weeks, but it feels like forever. I just haven't felt really well and I got behind. I've been a pretty healthy person most of my life so the last 7 weeks or so have been extremely miserable and annoying for me. It all started out with my heart racing when I laid down at night. I went to the dr. and they did an EKG and said it was fine. I've been known to produce a little too much adrenaline so they put me on a beta blocker and drew some blood. That's where the fun begins. My labs came back showing elevated liver enzymes, which prompted my dr. to draw MORE blood and schedule a liver ultrasound. In the meantime I was sick with bronchitis, walking pneumonia and some awful stomach symptoms that I won't detail here.

I felt okay after the Z-pack, but my cough never really went away and a week later I started spiking a fever again. So, off the to the urgent treatment center I went where the dr. told me that she wasn't concerned with my 100 degree temp and that it was probably all allergies. WRONG ANSWER. She told me to call back if my fever didn't go down or if I felt worse. Well a week later, I was still coughing, still feverish so I called. She called in a 10 day course of high-dose amoxycillin. That should've killed basically any bug in my body, right? Eight days into that, I still had fever at night and they did a monospot test on me, which came back negative.

Meanwhile, I had the ultrasound that showed my liver was fine, but my spleen was enlarged. At my followup with my real dr. she said she thought I could still have mono and they had not tested me for the right things at the UTC (imagine that). So you guessed it, more blood drawn. This time the results came back showing I had elevated lymphocytes in my blood, which my dr. thought pointed even more to a viral infection. The Epstein Barr virus test (for mono) came back negative, so we're stumped. She was ready to punt me to hematology, but when I told her I hadn't had fever in 4 or 5 days and that I was feeling a lot better, she decided to ...you guessed it, draw more blood. SO tomorrow I have to get another CBC with differential to determine if the lymphocytes have improved.

Oh and I have to mention that in the midst of all this I went gluten-free and it solved all my stomach issues that I've had since Zachary was born. My dr. has not yet fully addressed the gluten problem, but I'll likely get a celiac disease diagnosis before this is all over. So now my theory is that the celiac disease (gluten intolerance) has depressed my immune system so much that my body was just fed up and decided to protest by accepting each and every infection to cross my path. Eating gluten free is a challenge and at times very depressing, however, I'm dealing with it and it's been a month of strict adherence and I KNOW it's helped already.

Yes I'm still nervous about my big ol' spleen and my high lymphocytes, but I truly believe the prayers of God's people have carried me this far and He is not going to let me go now. Whatever is to come, I will face it with the Lord holding me the whole way. I pray that God answers the prayers so many of you and other friends and family have lifted up for my complete healing very soon. I know it's working! I even had the energy to cook supper last night and play outside with Zach. Lately all I've wanted to do is sit on the couch or sleep so this is a huge step.