For His Glory

To "be" or not to "be"; that is the question!

When trying to conjure up a creative title for this entry; I immediately thought of this old adage.  Quite simply because it contained the words "to be".  I have pondered this for the last couple of days and tried to wrap my mind around it.  To "be"....hmmm.......excuse me for my deep thoughts, but they don't happen often, so I have to go with it when it strikes! (Us blondes, we don't regulary sit and ponder things, especially when we are supposed to be packing for a 7 day trip!) Anyhoo, back to my musings.....I was sitting in the pedicure chair ministering to the lady working on my feet.  We were discusing my illness and all the ways the Lord had brought me through many major trials.  When she was ready for me to put my feet back in the foot bath she said, "Just be".  "BE".   Those two words, that one word, struck a cord with me and I began mulling it over....thinking too hard about "being" that I couldn't just "be".  You know? What does it take for an analytical person to  just be! It reminds me of "BE Still, and know that I am God".  "BE" means many things but to start it means I need to quiet my spirit and mind and just sit.  No worrying, no mulling, no trying to figure out what someone "really means" by their body language, what they said or the fact that they ignored me.  Does it profit me anything to think on such? Indeed not! I pray that the Lord will allow me to grow and change so I can just "be".

Sometimes I long to  travel to the ocean and sink my feet down in the warm, soft sand.  Ahhhh......and just "be"......now there's a place I can literally sit and relax.  Wouldn't it be nice to get away for just a couple of days by yourself and sit there staring at the Lord's beautiful creation, with no where to go and nothing to do and no one to analyze.......just "be"......

But instead of heading South by myself, I am reminded my entire family will be heading Northwest to a very cold Kansas City.  All five of us packed in the minivan heading for a snowy, cold Kansas City.  We have never been there before and hopefully will not have to go back for awhile.  Please pray for us as we seek medical care for our family for the Lyme disease and Bartonella.  Pray and just "Be". 

Ah, Sweet Summertime

Despite a nasty flare of my symptoms this week, I am still enjoying Summer.  After all, it could be much worse...gray, cold, rainy and me feeling bad.  But no, I see beautiful blue skies outside and children who are learning how to play "pretend together".  Summer affords us that extra time to relax and wind down a little and draw close as a family...or at least lots of family time is in our forecast! Now, if I could just get my body to cooperate! Lyme disease has its on brain though.   I still choose to look for the positives....Lord, please help me stay in that mind frame.  I can't do anything without Him!

Hospitals........ugh.....

After 3 days of stomach pain, nausea, and well...other issues you probably wouldn't want to know about....I ended up going back to the hospital.  I went Monday night and they gave me fluids, took blood and gave me anti nausea and pain  meds in the ER.  We got home around midnight.  Today we were back again, this time to my Gastro Dr.  I waited what felt like forever, sitting in my wheel chair and then was taken back to wait another hour.  When the Dr came in he nearly shouted my name and sat down across from me with his computer.  Now they have computers instead of charts...lovely.....so, I am telling him how horrible I feel and all that has been going on since Sun afternoon, and he never looks up from his computer...just keeps using his stylus and umhumming.  When I mentioned how hard this has been for me on top of my already very debilitating illness he says, "I'm sure it is", without even looking up.  He never even did a physical exam on me to feel of my stomach! I am sorry to be venting, but I have this need to get this off my chest...

(I had my gallbladder taken out last Summer and ever since then I have had trouble.  I get these horrible pains under my sternum every few months...the last three times this happened I ended up in the Hospital having ERCP's done, that gave me pancreatitis and the last one I had a perf in my intestinal wall-basically the Dr accidentaly poked a hole in my intestinal wall.  So, when the pain came back this time I was so afraid i would end up having to have surgery again...)

So, then he sends me to do labwork and tells me that I will probably have to come back up there in a day or so for the catscan, because BCBS requires a preapproval now and that takes them 24 hrs.  Then they make the appt.  I begged the Nurse to call BCBS right then.  She was very nice and apologized that she couldn't....then she gave in......and while i was getting labwork done she called them for me! I went back and she told me she had set it up and to go on down to catscan.  

Needless to say, we were at the hospital all day....and I am waiting to hear what the reports say.

I am trying very hard to forgive the Dr for being so prideful....

We all have our faults...

Hospitals.........they aren't what they used to be.......ugh........

First day of Summer Vacation

Summer may not officially start until June 21, but here at the Burchfield house it has begun! I made a Summer routine for us to follow roughly so as not to get too bored.  I find that the children do better with a general routine.  Meal times are a little later than during the School year and mornings will not be quite so rushed...ahhh....there is plenty of room in the schedule for swimming, crafts, and free play.  I also planned out 8 different units for us to study this summer, one week at a time.  The books we check out at the Library and our crafts and research will revolve around the theme for the week.  Sadly, if I don't plan for this sort of thing, good intentions to do crafts or research fall by the wayside.  Examples include: Ocean Animals, Reptiles, U.S.A., and my favorite-Food Fun!

I had a horrible allergic reaction to my I.V. med today.  The strangest thing is that I have  been  taking it for two weeks with no such reaction.  I guess it was a delayed sensitivity type thing.  I ended up sleeping for 3 hours this afternoon during rest time.  Thankfully our 2.5 year old took a 3 hour nap! Our 5 and 7 year old watched Sound of Music as I lay half awake half asleep.....funny how we mom's can do that sort of thing, isn't it? It's like God gave us the built in mechanism to be able to sleep and listen to our children at the same time.  I could be wrong that it is mostly women with this capability, but in our house, when Daddy is asleep, he has to get a nudge to be able to hear a child  crying in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately for my husband, because of my illness, he has to do most of the getting up in the middle of the night.  Thankfully, it is very seldom that one of ours wakes and has to be comforted back to sleep.  We are leaving those baby days behind again, now that our "baby" is almost 3. 

I look forward to this Summer, as well as time to spend planning for the Fall.  I begin Konos this Fall and am very excited! The children are going to love it and learn so much! We will have one in 2nd and one in 5K. 

I would love to hear from any of you, and look forward to blogging more in the future.  I have a seperate blog space on Caring bridge for updates on my battle with chronic Lyme disease, so I will be dividing my time between the two.  If any of you are interested in learning more about Lyme or my battle against this dreadful disease, please email me and I will give you the site name.