I am not even going to try and catch things up completely. You can imagine that with the addition of Princess Mia, our lives are quite busy. Keith has a thriving Oral Surgery practice in Fredericksburg, and is well-loved by his patients who appreciate his kindness and good heart. I give thanks every day for this Godly man who leads our family and ministers to patients on a daily basis.
The kids are growing like weeds, and we are so proud of each of them. They are all growing into their own personalities, and they keep this house jumping constantly. Bella and Luca love karate, and Mia wants to be a princess when she grows up. They attend a great school, Fredericksburg Christian School - Stafford Campus, and we are blessed to have such wonderful, caring teachers to guide our children.
I have been slowly breaking back into doing ambulatory anesthesia here in our area. I make my own schedule, and am thankful to be able to keep up with my field and be at home by the time the kids get home from school.
We just had a great vacation to Disney (our first time as a family), and now I need a vacation from my vacation!
And that about sums it up.
The main reason for my breaking back into the blog is to chronicle my new direction in my journey of fighting Lyme Disease. I was diagnosed with Lyme a few months after giving birth to Mia, but it's likely that I have been infected for years. At first, I was misdiagnosed (like so many people are) with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I tried all of the toxic drugs, including Embrel and Humira - but I just got worse. Thanks to a good referral by Luca's then preschool teacher to a functional medicine doctor in Fredericksburg, the root cause of my illness was discovered to be Lyme Disease.
In the past 2 years, I have been through the Cowden Protocol I & II (and failed), as well as 2 years of cyclic antibiotics. I've been treated by a renowned LLMD in Washington D.C, and I actually improved with the antibiotics, but later developed esophagitis and severe chest pain. After rounds of disconcerting complications due to the antibiotic treatments, Keith and I decided that I should stop them - and I did.
Within 2 months, my Lyme symptoms began creeping back.. Severe joint pain, headaches, fatigue, short-term memory loss, tripping speech (the list goes on and on).
On a particular crappy day a month or two ago, I looked for a recipe for a good detox bath on Pinterest. There I found through the pin a recipe for a bath by Dr. David Jernigan. I had heard of him before, and knew that he had some sort of Lyme treatment protocol. I excitedly read through every thing I could find about him and learned that he even had a treatment center - The Hansa Center, in Wichita Kansas.
Since other Lyme treatment places I had been looking into were across the globe, Wichita didn't seem that far away. From what I found out, I could go there for 2 weeks and possibly come out a new person. I even learned that the doctors were Christians and that their focus is on optimizing the body to use God's natural design of the body to heal itself. With this new hope, I called Keith and couldn't wait to tell him what I had found. Within minutes we decided that I would make the trip. At first we would wait until summer when the kids were out of school, but as my symptoms progressively worsened (and at the suggestion of my good mother), we decided that I would go as soon as possible.
And with that, I will be off to Wichita next Sunday!
As excited as I am to get well, I certainly have reservations about leaving my babies. In fact, I have never left Mia for longer than a night. However, this is something that I MUST do, in order to BE a mom to my children, so with hopes for my long awaited miracle, I am off on a new journey.
I will use this blog to chronicle my experiences at Hansa, because my family can keep up with me that way. But I want others who suffer from Lyme to be able to know what this treatment is like. If others can be helped because of my experience at Hansa and Dr. Jernigan's work, then it's certainly worth the hand cramps that I will have from typing!
There will be more to come, but for now I will sign off and feed my hungry family.
The countdown to wellness begins!
4 comments:
Praying for complete healing for you and Bella. You will be in our prayers during the next few weeks. This blog will be sure to help others who are suffering, so your openness is to be applauded. R.Hamilton
Keri,
You and the family will be in our prayers. It is so encouraging to know that the doctors are also Christians. We pray that you will be healed and be able to the Mom and wife that you want to be...as well as all the other "hats" you wear as you work and witness.
Lots of love.
S0 excited for you to have found this place and have made the commitment to go! I know that leaving the family is not fun but either is feeling achy and sore all the time. I pray that you are able to find exactly what your looking for there and that GOD uses this clinic of professionals to bring you to full and COMPLETE HEALING! Thank you for taking us along on the journey. Laura
I am so excited for you to have found this Christian run place. I will be praying you through this process and am asking GOD to use the facility of professionals to bring about a FULL AND COMPLETE healing over your entire body. From someone who has been trying to tell the doctors for Years that there is something wrong with me and getting no where and am getting worse...I am grateful that your taking us on this journey with you. Thanks, Laura
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