If You say go

A couple months ago, on this blog, she posted a verse and song that I love. It's kept me thinking ever since I read it.

Daniel 3 talks about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and King Nebuchadnezzar. The king is about to throw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego into a blazing furnace if they don't bow down to him. Everyone else is bowing down to him, but they won't because he is not God.

'Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: ⁵ As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. ⁶ Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”'

The horn sounds, and they do not bow down. They are then taken before the king. This is their response.

'Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”'

How incredible! Even if God did not do what they asked, they would still praise Him and stay faithful to Him.

These are the lyrics to If You Say Go by Vineyard. They are so simple, and go along with the verses in Daniel 3.

"If You say go, we will go
If You say wait, we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can't be done
We'll fix our eyes on You and we will come

Your ways are higher than our ways
And the plans that You have laid
Are good and true
If You call us to the fire
You will not withdraw Your hand
We'll gaze into the flames and look for You"

And here are the lyrics to If You Want Me To by Ginny Owens.



"The pathway is broken
And the signs are unclear
And I dont know the reason why you brought me here
But just because You love me the way that You do
I will go through the valley
If You want me to
CHORUS:
Now I'm not who I was
When I took my first step
And I'm clinging to the promise
You're not through with me yet
So if all of these trials bring me closer to You
I will go through the fire
If You want me to


It may not be the way I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world that's not my own
But You never said it would be easy
You only said I'll never go alone


So when the whole world turns against me
And I'm all by myself
And I can't hear You answer my cries for help
I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through
And I will go through the valley
If You want me to"


Tonight we are talking to my Lyme doctor in Nevada. We'll update him, and talk about when to go there and everything. 

Hospital trip and Update...

TMI warning. Don't say you weren't warned.I woke up Wednesday feeling worse than normal. The abdominal and back pain was bad, along with just feeling sick. Sometime early afternoon, I got dizzy and my breathing became difficult. It was very heavy and loud and quick. I had fever and was shaking and trembling. I fell asleep on the couch and I don't remember much after that until we got to the hospital. My parents kept waking me up while we were at home, asking questions and things. Getting to the hospital was tricky since the state was shut down because of a snow storm. Both my parents went with me and my brother stayed at his friends house.

We got to the hospital around 4:30 I think and it wasn't too crowded. We checked in and sat in the waiting room for a while. In triage they took blood and started an IV like normal. My parents kept getting warm blankets for me because I was still shaking and freezing.

Finally, they came to get me and took me up to ultrasound. Next I went to CT. Then it was back to ultrasound because they couldn't see what they needed to see the first time. Lucky for me, I got to have a catheter placed, then have my bladder pumped full of fluid and so on. They were looking for cysts or ruptured cysts which you can only see if your bladder is full. When you're in the ER, they won't let you have food or drinks in case you need surgery. I was dehydrated away and they wouldn't let me drink anything, hence the need for the catheter. That was a very fun experience. Before Wednesday, I thought you had to be asleep, or on good drugs, for them to place a catheter. Much to my surprise, there I was, AWAKE, with NO drugs of any kind. Apparently, most people are awake when they get them. The only time I've had a catheter was during surgery, where I was ASLEEP. The ultrasound lady can't place catheters, so an ER nurse came up. It was one of our favorite nurses, which was comforting. The ER nurse left and they got the ultrasound pictures they needed. Once we finished everything at ultrasound, they finally took me to my room in the ER.

I was taken to room 12, which was my normal room. That room is great because it's right by the nurses station, making it entertaining for us. That's the whole reason you go to the ER, for entertainment right?
 
Five minutes after we got to my room, xray came to get me. Thankfully the xray room was in the ER, so we didn't have to go far. I had a chest xray and was taken back to my room.

 All those tests had taken a really long time, and caused us to be taken all around the hospital, so it was nice to be in one place finally. My nurse came in (same one that had to come up to ultrasound) and got some IV fluids started and got me some nausea and pain meds. By this time, my breathing was really bad again and I was trembling and lightheaded. Thankfully my oxygen stats were perfect, but that was very confusing and concerning to the doctor. He left to go check on the test results of everything. We definitely had some entertainment last night! There was a lady in the room across from me that started yelling, "where's my doctor, where's my doctor, I'm freezing"! It was really funny the way she said it. She kept saying that over and over until someone came.
 The nurse accessed my port, because it needed to be flushed. So I had two IV lines now, a line directly to my heart, through my port, and a regular IV in the crease of my arm.
The doctor came back in and went over the test results. The CT scan showed a cyst on my right side. The ultrasound showed a little fluid on my right side. So the doctor isn't exactly sure what it is.
 He looked at my blood work and found some concerning things. He immediately ordered blood gasses. For blood gasses, they take blood from your arteries to test the oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other levels in your blood.
A respiratory therapist had to come draw the blood. She got to my room fast! She drew the blood out of an artery in my wrist, and out of my port.

 While we waited for the results, a man came in and did a flu test on me because they thought I had the flu. Thankfully it was negative, but the doctor said that that doesn't mean anything. I think it's odd how they say you could still have the flu even if your test is negative, and yet they say you can't have Lyme if your test is negative. Uhh that doesn't make sense. But I don't have the flu!

Buy this time, I had 5 blankets on me because I was shaking and couldn't get warm. I also got to have some ice chips since I wouldn't be needing surgery! My mouth and lips were so dry, probably from the pain medicine, heavy breathing, and since I hadn't really had anything to drink since early that morning. We didn't have any chapstick since we just ran out of the house, so the nurse found me some awesome hospital chapstick that you can put on your lips and in your mouth. How strange.

The doctor came in to explain that I have high lactic acid. My body couldn't get rid of it, causing the rapid and hard breathing. It also makes me feel like I can't breathe, even though I'm getting enough oxygen. If my levels would have been a little higher, he would have admitted me just for that. It's not good to have. It also has something to do with carbs. I don't completely understand it. He ordered another bag of IV fluids, this time with extra things in it. I think it had calories, along with several other things. I have to eat a lot of carbs to help with the levels too.Once the doctor left, I just broke down. I didn't know why I was crying. It was probably from all of the strong pain medicine, but it was so weird. Crying made my breathing worse, and made me hurt more. The nurse gave me something to help me sleep and calm down.

 We finally got to go home a little after midnight.

 In the 8 hours that I was there I had:

• regular blood and urine tests
•  a CT scan
• 2 ultrasounds
• a catheter
• a chest xray 
• 2 IV lines
• blood gasses taken from 2 arteries
• and a flu test

Because of everything that's been happening, we are going to go to my doctor in Nevada in the next few weeks. We talk to him on Monday. There is just so much going wrong. 

I'm feeling better than I was Wednesday. Yesterday I slept some and have just been laying on the couch. My parents are trying to get as many carbs in me as possible, which is difficult since I haven't been hungry. I'm eating more than I was earlier this week though. For now, I'm just going to rest.

"My soul finds rest in God alone;
   my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
   he is my fortress, I will never be shaken" Psalm 62:1-2

I will update tonight or tomorrow. I went to the ER at 4 yesterday afternoon and got home a little after midnight this morning.

Notebook and Ideas

Some people collect baseball cards, I collect hospital bracelets...that's the cool thing to do now, in case you didn't know! Just kidding, that's just what you do if you're sick.

I've been trying to figure out what to do with all my hospital bracelets since I've kept most of them. I have kept over 30 of them. I finally decided to put them in a notebook! There's one bracelet per page, unless I had more than one kind of bracelet for that stay. They are in chronological order too!

Here is the notebook. Isn't it cute?

I have all the bracelets glued in, and now I'm going to put a verse, quote, or lyrics on each page. Here is an example of one of the pages.

This next page is from my latest surgery. I had 3 bracelets (identification, allergy, and what procedure I was having) from it. I decided to put pictures on there too.

This is where you come in. I would love for you to suggest your favorite verses, quotes, or lyrics for me to put in the book. I have a lot of room, so suggest as many as you would like!! Thank you!

Timeline of my story

I wanted to make a timeline so that it would be another visual of my story, since reading my story takes a while. This just has the major, basic things. I will add it to the top of my blog under the category "My Story".

Click on it to make it larger so you can read it!

Blizzard-Day 2 and Landon's birthday!

We are still snowed in! School is cancelled again for tomorrow. We tried to get out of our driveway today just to see if we could, and we couldn't even with my dad and brother shoveling it. It was a whole 4 degrees today! Better than yesterday!

Last night's sunset

These pictures are from today. I made my dad go take these for me :)

Here is our house with Landon and his friend shoveling. Our driveway is weird and is steep going down. One of the snow drifts on our driveway was level with the street, so it was 3 or 4 feet.

Another view of our house. This blizzard wasn't as pretty as last years, because of all the wind and it was a dry snow.

It was a pretty sunny day!

Today is Landon's 13th birthday! I told him he should take a day off from school since it is his birthday..haha

Happy day of your birth Landon!!!! I love you!

Landon in Florida last Christmas

Landon and I in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this past summer.

Since we can't go out to eat for his birthday, we're having a wonderful home made dinner and chocolate cake! Landon has been in and out of the house all day sledding, so he's had fun!!

Today I finally decided to add labels to all my posts. So I went through all of them. I put a label cloud on the side of my blog, so hopefully it will be easier for people to find posts! I also re-arranged things, so take a look at that!

I hope you have had a wonderful day!

Blizzard 2011

Well, the blizzard is actually happening. Schools and businesses started closing last night, before there was even a snow flake falling from the sky. We are in a state of emergency, with the national guard here to rescue people. No one went to work, and everyone is stuck inside enjoying a day off. Most schools and businesses have closed for tomorrow too. There's about a foot of snow on the ground, along with ice. Snow drifts are up to 6 feet, and some businesses roofs have collapsed. The news stations are in heaven! They get to report all day and night. When I woke up, before I looked outside, it was so bright that I thought maybe the snow didn't come. When I looked outside, I knew that was not the case. We're having complete whiteouts, and sometimes can't see down the street because of the blowing snow. For all you who live up north or where you have snow a lot, you're probably laughing at us. But for us, this literally shuts the state down for days. I love it!

The temperatures are in the negatives, with wind gusts of 50mph.

We have beautiful Cardinals in our backyard, along with other birds, that are so pretty against the white snow.

We measured how deep it is right here, and it is about 2 feet. It's getting deeper too!

You can tell from this picture how it is blowing, but this picture doesn't show how much it's blowing.

A look down the street

The best quote from a news man today was, "I will probably get in trouble for this, but I'm sure that it would be colder if it wasn't for global warning". I'll remind you that the temperature is in the negatives with the wind chill. Coldest that we've had in 15 years. Hahaha!

We're going to make a few yummy soups this after to have for the next few days. I love when everyone is stuck at home! Especially when I couldn't have gone anywhere anyway cause I'm sick!

Stay warm, and I'll update later!