I seriously cannot believe that today is the one year mark since Jed’s initial seizure. It was the beginning of the world we’d built for ten years being crumbled. It’s also the exact same time as the pandemic becoming serious and the kids discontinuing school in person, and the whole world shutting down. Certainly not the best time for a brain surgery.
I’m so grateful that Jed’s surgery was a success. And I’m still so grateful for the incredible support we had from so many people during that time. We will never forget your kindness. It was something I was convinced of ten years ago after Jed’s first surgery, that I could never endure again. Yet here we are, two brain surgeries under our belt. After Jed’s surgery we stayed in Utah for 2 months and returned home to Southern Texas in June. We had a very warm welcome from some of our dear friends and we felt so loved.
Jed returned immediately to work, and has been doing so great resuming all his responsibilities. He exercises 6 days a week, and chooses very difficult work outs to rebuild his strength and get back to normal. He really does inspire me!!
In July we were hit by Hurricane Hanna. We were one of the fortunate families to not have any damage from the storm. We were without power for 18 hours, and our street was a river, but the kids saw that as opportunity to go swimming, and I felt blessed things weren’t worse.
In September I came down with a crazy illness (COVID 19’s twin) that had me bed bound for 2 weeks straight, barely able to move. My symptoms were extreme fatigue, weakness, and occasional shortness of breath which was really scary. I was tested for COVID but it came back negative, but I really do believe it was a false negative, because we had several friends with the same scenario. Whatever is was, it kicked my butt and it took me a month to feel myself again. It was really hard to feel so helpless, and still have the responsibility of making sure the kids were doing their online schooling as well as all the duties at home. It was a very trying time and I tried to endure it with patience and submissiveness for what the Lord would have me learn through that experience. One thing I learned was how grateful I am for my health. How just feeling good even when my task list is so long is such a blessing! A huge tender mercy was that the first day I could function and feel up to anything was on my birthday that I share with Brooks. I really wanted it to be a special day for him since he was so excited to go to the nearby beach for his big day. I was so grateful that we were able to go and make some fun memories!
Later in the fall our area hit #1 in the US for highest fatality rate with numbers of COVID 19 cases. My heart breaks for the people here that have lost so many loved ones. It’s also resulted in more isolation and less social interactions.
For Jed's MRI appointments we have to travel 6 hours to MD Anderson in Houston every 4 months for a scan. For the first one in October, we decided to bring the kids with us and make a fun trip out of it. We found a fun AirBNB and went to the Houston Zoo, the only thing open to go to. Jed seems to really like his new oncology team but we really miss our doctors at the Huntsman!!
As you might have seen from an earlier post, in October, my oldest son Ammon, 11 years old, woke up with swollen lips which quickly spread through his whole body into scary and angry looking hives. He also had serious stomach pain and wasn’t able to eat or drink anything without throwing up. With that and the intense itching, he was extremely miserable. We had to take him to the hospital for dehydration, fever and for him to get steroids through IV to calm the allergic reaction that he was having. I was so sad that he had to be in the hospital over Halloween, but since Trick or Treating was banned here, that helped him feel better that he wasn’t missing out too bad. Thankfully after one week, he had finally improved and made a full recovery, although we never found out what caused it.
In November on the 18th, Jed and I celebrated 15 years of marriage!! I can't believe how the time has flown, and all the experiences we have had in just this amount of time. I'm so grateful that I have this guy for eternity!! We spent a few days at the beach near us called South Padre Island, and had such a blast. We ate amazing food, mini golfed, go cart raced (Jed lapped me) and lounged and ran on the beach. It was so nice to just be the two of us for a moment.
December was a month of blessings. Jed was called as a 1st Counselor in the bishopric (a church leadership calling to assist the pastor of about 150 people) of our ward and has really enjoyed serving in this calling. My hair stylist who also has become a good friend introduced us to the Martinez family that just recently moved here from Utah! They have 5 kids and all of my 4 kids are the same age (from a few weeks to a few months) and gender as hers but her oldest. It has been so fun with everyone having a “twin” to play with, and they’ve been a huge blessing to us.
We got to spend Christmas Eve with the Martinez Family (who is just as close now as real family) We also had the missionaries spend Christmas Day with us and that was so special! We love our missionaries!
In January, the kids were really struggling with online school. They were exhausted from looking and learning from the screen all day and I could see that they were falling behind. With much prayer and fasting, as well as meeting and talking to people that had home schooled. I decided to withdraw the 3 kids from school and am doing a home school program with them. (The Good and the Beautiful) It has been very challenging some days to never get a break or for them to get sick of each other and quarrel, but honestly, it’s going better than expected. I’m laughing at myself for once saying that never in a million years could I EVER home school my kids. What I’ve learned this year is to NEVER say NEVER. I’m learning that I’m capable of things I couldn’t have ever imagined.
In February we were hit with the Texas Freeze! It was COOOLD! Almost all of our bushes and smaller trees, and our big beautiful palm tree died. We were without water for one day, and power for a few days, and stayed with the Martinez family to stay warm. The grocery stores were completely empty of essentials within a day as well as the gas stations being totally cleaned out. Again, others had it WAY worse, and we felt very blessed again to make it through without any serious problems. It definitely was a reminder of how amazing it is to have simple things like warmth, power to do household duties and water from the tap. Oh and water that flushes the toilet LOL!
Soup to stay warm and feed an army!
It is now March and the since January, the border has become so overwhelmed with illegal immigration that they are coming in by the thousands. We are only ten minutes from the border, and one of our best friends works for Border Patrol, so we are seeing first hand just how big of a problem this going to be for our nation. There are many who are sick with COVID 19 and it’s spreading among themselves. Since there isn’t enough room to hold them since there are thousands, they are being flown and bussed to other cities throughout the country. My flight to to go to one of my besties wedding was 2/3 illegal aliens to Houston. I was friendly to them, it was mostly moms and babies but I don’t know where they are going or what their plan is. All they had with them was a grocery bag containing all of their belongings. I’m very worried what this is going to do for not only the United States but even for us in McAllen where we are being told that a lot of drug cartel and other scary people are coming in along with the good people that just want a better life. It’s a sad situation all around. I hope to bring awareness from here about what is happening on the border and what we can do about it. It is a crisis for America.
Here is a pic I took of just a small part of the long line of illegal aliens to go through security.
Lots of darling little kids. I wish they could've seen me smiling at them, but it was hard through masks. My heart aches for the entire situation. We truly are so blessed to live in America.
So that’s an update on us! Whew! Sorry that was long! It’s never boring around here haha! We’ve had quite an interesting and challenging past 12 months. Yet, a year of tremendous growth, learning, blessings, and miracles.
It’s been so interesting and scary to see all the natural disasters and other trials that are happening in the earth right now. Earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, floods, freezes, and pestilences all around. The world seems to be in commotion everywhere, and no one can escape it. I also feel like I’m seeing more trials and personal disasters happening to so many people in their own lives as well, including many loved ones. I’ve never seen so many hardships happen to so many than this year. I know we aren’t alone in getting life altering news or given a hard hand of cards recently.
Speaking of earthquakes and hurricanes… many have asked how we are doing. I think it’s fair to be honest and transparent about how we really are doing here on this post for those who want to know in hopes that it can help anyone struggling with your own trials know you are not alone.
When we got home from Utah to our home in Texas, I really went through a very difficult time. Actually it was the lowest I had hit since all this began in March last year. The best way I can describe it would be like the aftershock from a high level earthquake. “Aftershocks are sometimes just as hazardous as the main quake itself. In fact, aftershocks may be so strong that they're stronger than the main quake. When this happens the aftershock will be renamed as the main quake, and the main quake will be considered a foreshock.” (I pulled that from the dictionary and I felt it was spot on with how I’m feeling right now.) My aftershock was almost becoming the main quake and I didn’t know how to navigate it.
If you are new to our story, you can look at my previous posts about how we found out that Jed had a brain tumor, but the seizure that I witnessed and the episodes that followed were very difficult, and it took me a long time to cope with the trauma I saw. In fact, everything happened so fast leading up to his surgery and being in Utah with family and loved ones, really distracted my mind and covered the pain a little. Within 23 days our world went from normal to dropping Jed off at the curb to get major brain surgery all on his own. Being surrounded by a support system was such a huge help, and now I was away from that system and feeling extremely lonely and hopeless.
It was as if I was experiencing everything that happened for the first time, like it happened just the night before. If Jed made a weird face, moved funny or too quick, or if he said something that doesn’t make sense to me at first, I would go into that same panic reaction. I would feel my heart speed up and my breathing stop every time anything that tricks me into thinking that he’s going to have a seizure. In reality, the chances are very low that he will have one since it’s been almost a year since his surgery. Also his tumor was completely removed, and he’s on a high dose of anti seizure medication, which also decreases it. But it took a really long time to be able to turn off my fight or flight reaction in my head. My mind still thought there is danger and it was always on alert. This also caused me to be very jumpy with any loud noise, or sudden movement such as my kids throwing a toy or something falling to the floor. It also caused me to worry if I couldn’t get a hold of Jed or find him in the house.
Some other symptoms I had been experiencing was trouble sleeping, headaches, indigestion, waking up gasping for air, and most of all- muscle twitches happening spontaneously all over my body all the time.
One of the tender mercies on this journey is one of my neighbors from my childhood home, that went to my same church is a customer in the program of the company I worked for (DARREN HARDY) We have been keeping in touch about the different trainings he has done and on one call he asked how I was doing. I usually spare a long story and say I’m good, but I felt impressed to tell him the truth - that I was struggling. He was genuinely caring and told me that his wife was going to Life Coaching School and had already learned so much, and that she has a gift with talking to and helping people. His wife was my youth leader in church so I know her well. He asked if she could call me and I agreed.
My talk with his wife Valerie, was so helpful. We zoom called for 2 hours and it felt like 2 minutes. Her husband was right- she really did have a gift. Some things that I learned from our talk were so helpful. Here are a few things she said-
- It’s really hard to sleep when you are in fight or flight mode because you are constantly looking for danger. That helped me understand why I wasn’t able to completely relax and just sleep.
- I told her that I was confused with the timing of being in a different state (I’ve lived in Utah my whole life until last year) where we are still in lock down mode and not only being able to see family and friends, but have the regular associations down here such as church and other social gatherings. I told her that those kinds of things would have really been helpful for me to have people around me. She told me to look at it as a blessing in disguise. If I were always with family and friends, then I wouldn’t be left alone to deal with the thoughts and feelings that are still in me that are haunting me so badly. That I would only be masking the hurt. She said with me being an extrovert that it can sometimes be a distraction to deal with my pain. As hard as it is to be alone with my thoughts and worries, it is an opportunity to not only address and start the healing process with what happened with Jed, but with some other tragic things in my life that I have ignored because I’m constantly on the go and being with people.
- She told me not to be afraid or try to ignore feelings that are sad or scary. She said to be curious about them instead. To feel also means I am human and that in itself is a gift. That it’s an opportunity for me to explore and allow myself to really feel the things that come up instead of pushing them back down. I’m an optimist and like to feel warm and happy all the time- so those feelings are uncomfortable for me. I need to break open the cement that I have created around my feelings and truly let them out and embrace them as part of this mortal existence. To welcome sorrow instead of be afraid of it, or it can never truly heal.
After talking to her and praying for guidance, there were some first steps that I needed to take to heal and let the trapped feelings out inside of me. There are some things that I had to apply into my life in hopes of helping with this anxiety that was trying to tell me I needed to heal.
It helped me feel resolved and convinced to really make myself a priority. If I want to give my best to others, I have to take time to give my best to myself first. I thought of all the things on my plate, and what I could take off to be able to focus more on what I need to recover and feel good again. One of the things that came up was my job. I’ve worked part time virtually from home for a company for the past 3 years. DARREN HARDY is a team of people that truly want to help others and make an impact, so working there has been very rewarding and I’ve grown to love all the amazing people I work with. As much as I love this company, after a lot of praying, I knew that this was something that I needed to step back from, especially with online learning now consuming the most part of my day. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to be mentally strong to do both, and also focus on getting better. They were incredibly loving and supportive and I’ll forever love and miss them.
Jed got me flowers and balloons to cheer me up when I put in my two weeks. He knew it was a super hard decision for me, and the kids and him were excited to have more mom time. This picture to me represents mental health and choosing to lighten your load when you are struggling to keep up with it all.
I’m so grateful to say that 12 months later of letting time heal, continuing to make exercise a priority, (lots of running- my favorite therapy), choosing better eating habits, lots and lots of prayer, lots of writing, and allowing myself to just be, and observe and ponder the things that have happened this last year- I feel closer to God than ever, I feel more like myself than ever, and I feel hope for the future. There are still hard days and worry about what’s ahead in my personal life, and in the world as well, but I feel peace and trust in God that if I put my whole life in His hands and tell Him I’m open to whatever He would have me learn, as hard as that is to think about. It’s given me a calm that everything is going to be okay, because I know who’s guiding my ship. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have difficult days or weak moments where I question everything or feel fear but instead of fighting those feelings, I’m allowing them to come out now instead of suppressing them. I’m happy to report that I am sleeping better than ever right now, I no longer am having physical discomfort such as headaches and chest pain, and the twitches in my body have decreased immensely. I did lose about half of my hair last year do to so much stress. Thanks my friend Stephanie for putting in extensions so I could fill in where I was lacking lol! I’m amazed how much our bodies are connected to our mind. I’m so grateful that my body can tell me through other ways that I need healing and some effort on making my health a priority.
The main thing that I have been feeling from God and the main reason I’m writing this is because know I am not the only one suffering or who has suffered. That there are a lot of others that know how I feel or that might be in the same shoes I was in when my anxiety and PTSD were becoming uncontrollable, or when my hopes of the future seemed bleak. I want to help others know they are not alone and offer any comfort or encouragement that I can. I also know that others have experienced much worse than I have so I won’t pretend to know what it’s like. But I do know that no one is alone. That YOU aren’t alone, and that with God- There can be miracles.
I love miracles and believe in them with my whole heart. One of the first miracles I can remember that happened to me in my life was when I was 11 years old. I was going through a very difficult time and had really bad anxiety and depression. Just went it couldn’t feel any darker, I was introduced to the idea of running after watching my dad complete a marathon. I became hooked on Marathons and how much it healed my soul. My son Ammon was the same age last year when so many trials began, as I was when I had a traumatic experience when I was growing up. And although he says he’s fine, I really feel like it affected him with all that he went through. He’s changed. Not bad, just different. He’s not a little boy anymore and I’m sad that he kind of had to grow up over night. He’s been asking to run a marathon for a long time, and I feel like this year would be the best year for him to give it a try. Since he is 12 and that was the same age I was when I ran my first one, I think it would not only be a cool tradition, but mostly I think it would offer him the same healing and joy that it gave me when I was his age.
So stay tuned to follow our journey as I will be running it with him, as well as Jed! It’s going to be a lot of healing for all three of us, and I’m really looking forward to this experience. We will be running the one and only St George Marathon in October and I hope you can follow along as we will share this experience with everyone from training to finish line. I am also writing a book about the marathon and the 26 life lessons that it taught me. I am going to write this book for Ammon to help him know what to expect, but it can apply to anyone in life. There are so many metaphors and parallels to a marathon and life and I’m excited to share how much it has helped me overcome so many challenges and trials. So stay tuned!!
First run and my dad got to be with us for it! (the one who inspired me to run a marathon)
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