If you read this and have no clue what has been going on in my life this year, here is a superfast brief update on this year. This is not a complaint list, because so many good and amazing blessings have been shown to me by going through these experiences. They are hard, but I would not take them back or change them in any way. God has used them to change me and his will has been very apparent in all of this.
"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold...- may be proved geniune and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." -1 Peter 1:6-7
If you have questions, please feel free to ask me about any of this:
-This fall, I got really sick, went into the hospital for a while, and had every test run on me known to man. At first they were worried it was leukemia (ITS NOT) so they did a bone marrow extraction which was funny b/c I woke up in the middle and gave the doctors some entertainment by telling them "This really sucks." and went back to sleep. I have no memory of that which is probably good.
Eventually I was diagnosed with an immune disease called systemic lupus. Lupus has flares and remissions (periods of sickness and health). Lupus wise, after a few months I was doing okay. I have a mild case that can be controlled by medicine and I just have to really avoid catching a cold/virus, etc and my blood is real screwed up. Mainly it makes me easily tired, cold, have to eat super healthy, and excercise to the extent I can handle. But I will have it forever.
-The end of last fall my hair started falling out (due to being so sick in the hospital, not at all related to the Lupus or the cancer I got diagnosed with later) It all fell out ...in patches... until it was pretty much all gone by about the middle/end of January.
Here is the best "before and after" shot of the hair loss i could put together (or was not too mortified to post haha):
It is now growing back and once again I look like a normal person! :) I was supercute with no hair. except not really though lol. (my mom asked...."are you sure you want to put THAT picture online?")
-Over spring break, a doctor found a lump in my neck. They did an ultrasound and biopsy and thought it was just a tissue growth so that Saturday I ran in the bridge run as planned with all of the awesome Clemson people. Two days later I found out I had thyroid cancer.
April 12th I had surgery which removed my thyroid and a tumor...all of which was the size of 1 1/2 golf balls! insanity! think of me when you play golf now and remember that was in my neck :) i have a scar now though which i have to bandage up on occasion with what pretty much looks like a napkin taped to my neck. but its a bandage. promise.
bill's, on the other hand, is actually a napkin.
Before my surgery the nurses joked with me and told me, "um, don't you know you are supposed to get cancer, then lose your hair? not the other way around!" i laughed. and i love disease jokes now. (i have gotten some GREAT lupus and cancer jokes!)
Then they had to let my thyroid levels go crazy before they could start my radiation. So, I finished school and came back to Charleston to live with my parents for a bit then i am moving to James Island bout the beginning of June or sooner if possible. I'm doing freelance graphics jobs for the summer and learning about patience and not wasting a second of my life.
This year, God has stripped everything away from me that I falsely put my hope in: myself, my health, the way I look, relationships, my family, my independence. He has made me okay with just him, only him, which is all we need anyway. Yet he has poured out amazing blessings on me that I could not begin to write about.
Every blessing you pour out I turn back to praise
When the darkenss closes in Lord, still I will say
Blessed be your name
Though I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name.
You give and take away.
You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say,
Lord blessed be your name.
So that is a little history....now comes the recent stuff......
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