Landscaping

Have you heard the saying, "The cobbler's wife has no shoes, and the doctor's wife dies young"? I like to add, "and the landscaper's wife has no yard." (However, my friends have called me out on that one, because the breeder's wife does indeed have strawberries :).

We took a step in the right direction on Saturday. Vance felt well enough to make a Home Depot run on Saturday, and he came back with about 10 foundation plants. Isaac could not wait, and since Vance wasn't feeling the best, he took an advisory role and let his wife do the actual installation. He acted all surprised to see me shoveling--I reminded him that I am also proficient with a pickaxe. So watch out, all you people.

Isaac was in charge of fertilizing and spreading mulch. Vance was in charge of critiquing. I was in charge of the gruntwork. Eve was in charge of soil sampling. We all had fun!

A Little R&R

Thanks to some very gracious friends of ours, we were able to spend a couple of days at their condo near Fort de Soto Beach. It was so fun!

You know how, when you're in charge, suddenly vacation seems almost like too much work to be worth it? Isn't it sad that adulthood can almost talk you out of having fun sometimes? With three little kids and a sick husband, I had a hard time getting a vision for a 2-day vacation. It was going to be longer, but Vance wasn't feeling well enough to go for the first day. There were many times while I was getting everything ready that I was struggling with self-pity. It's just hard to have to do everything sometimes...or at least that's the way I felt. And it is true that these days, if it's going to be done, it's going to be me doing it. It's a battle most days.

But as I was standing in the Gulf holding my baby, looking back to the white sandy beach where my children were happily playing, I had to repent of my skewed vision. Yes, we have trials we are facing. But in the grand scheme of things, we are so blessed. It's one thing to ask for the mercy of relief and healing. I do countless times a day. But it is quite another thing to be so blinded by the difficulty of life that I cease to marvel at the mercies he is continually giving. God save me from myself.

And while I look forward to the day that I am not trying to pack, clean, load the car, take care of the kids, AND simultaneously look cute enough in a sundress to go out for dinner, it was so worth it. :)

Eve needed a bit of convincing that the beach was fun, but she warmed up. Crawlers sure do get sand everywhere!

My favorite part of the trip...grilling out at the beach for dinner and walking back to the water for the sunset...

an update on Vance

It's been too long since I've reported on Vance's health: that's left those of you who are so faithfully praying with us hanging. I'm sorry about that. Here's a bit of an update.

About 6 weeks ago we put Vance on the GAPS diet to try and relieve some symptoms of his chronic fatigue. We also kicked up his "exercise" regimen into a no-matter-how-I-feel priority, and worked harder on the insomnia front. Within four or five days we saw noticeable improvement, and since mid-June he has been working pretty much full time. Praise God! For about a month, he had enough energy to play with the kids after work, was increasing the intensity of his exercise, and even started mowing the lawn again. As he described it, some of the low points in his illness have brought him to about 30% of normal. Lately he's been more like 85%. That's a pretty huge change.

At least it was, up until a week and a half ago. He had been feeling well for several weeks, and was feeling well enough to do some yard work. He was encouraged at how energetic he felt, and he did more than he should have. The bummer with CFS is that the recovery period from one afternoon of overdoing it is brutally long. Weeks, even. It's so discouraging, especially because I think we were both feeling that maybe he was done with the worst of it, and on the way to recovery. Chronic fatigue just doesn't give you much room for error when it comes to limits.

Our friends Yesupadam and Monika came over yesterday for lunch (so grateful for overseas friends who travel to us!), and they took the opportunity to pray with us for Vance's healing. Obviously we've been praying daily for healing, but as we prayed together Vance and I both felt a new level of faith that God would bring restoration to his body soon. We were also both impressed that this is an issue of spiritual warfare. I think in the spiritual culture I'm in, we pay more attention to the tempations of sin and self than to external foes like the devil. Generally speaking, that is probably fine...but Satan is still our adversary, and one we are commanded to actively resist.

After we laid hands on him, Vance felt significantly better, and has continued to. He's not completely healed yet, but I am waiting in expectation, even as I am so thankful for all the healing that God has thus far granted. Please pray with us!

Did we in our own strength confide
Our striving would be losing
Were not the right man on our side
The man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he
Lord Sabaoth his name,
From age to age the same
And he shall win the battle.
~ M. Luther

Evie at 10 months

Look how I found Eve when I came to get her from her morning nap! All smiles and getting herself into a sitting position by herself for the first time.

At 10 months, Evie has finally hit the, "Hello, trouble" stage. She started crawling a week ago (3 months later than the other two), but she was a quick study after her delayed start. Within a day she was moving from room to room. I did enjoy having her stationary for so long, and I wasn't really encouraging her to crawl, but I think mobility is making her a happier baby. She's able to get what she wants now.

She hasn't really added any new words to her vocabulary, but she has waving down to a science now. She is sleeping better, which is wonderful. She and Claire like having a room together, and just like with the Isaac/Claire combo, having two kids in one room just hasn't been the Armageddon I dreaded.

This girl has pretty much given up baby foods for good, and I think she's going to be a foodie. She likes all the cheeses she's tried so far (even blue!), and cries when she runs out. She demands to receive the same food that we do, which made for some emotional drama when I denied her a chocolate chip cookie (It was my first time with this recipe, and it was pretty awesome). I am already thinking about how fun it is going to be to watch her eat cake, just two short months from now...

Sunday Lovin

We had such a lovely Sunday. It was one of those days where both Vance and I just really enjoyed being with the kids all day long. (That sounds bad, but if you're a parent, I think you know what I mean). Evie has started waving and saying "Dada" over the last couple of days. She also made up for her cutting-teeth fussiness by being a perfect angel all day today.

Just look at those pudgy little arms.

I need to get a better picture of Isaac and Eve together...I think they look so much alike.

Claire wanted to be in a picture, but was making crazy faces the whole time, so this is what I have.

Evie at 9 Months

In the midst of all the busyness that life is right now, it's been a bit hard to find the time to blog. Mostly it seems I'm spending my "free time" culturing yogurt, simmering broth, and figuring out what Vance can eat when. I should have spent more time catching up when the kids were away. But more on all that later... :)

Evie is 9 months old! Her checkup at the doctor yielded these stats--she weighs in at 18lbs (48%), and is 71% for length and 98% in head circumference. This girl was built for brains, not speed, apparently. That is proving true in real life as well. The other two kids were crawling at 7 months. Eve has had no interest in such things until the last couple days...only recently have I seen her really going anywhere. She doesn't really like being on her hands and knees, so she does a lot of scooching. But she's crossed the line from immobile to slowly somewhat mobile, and it's only a matter of weeks before she's on her way.

Moving isn't really her forte, but talking is! She is an incessant babbler, and last week she debuted her first word: "Mama"! I was beyond proud. Isaac's first word was "duck", and Claire said "Dada", so I was really pulling for my place in the lineup. And I scored! She says "Mama" all the time now, when I walk into the room, or when she's looking at me. She says "Dada" too, but never when he asks her to. Hmm...

I think she has also become my Most Complimented Baby. I don't know what's average, but I assume that all mothers get bombarded with the usual, "Your children are so adorable!" stuff. Almost all kids are cute, and people want something to say, so it's pretty natural. But I think Eve takes the cake! I have had 5-7 people stop me per store to tell me how beautiful she is at times, an older lady told me that Eve was as cute as her grandkids (!!), and a mom at the gym said that Evie was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. Of course I agree! I think her blond hair really gets people going.

Eve is showing a little more "personality" these days, as they say. Some of that is due to the two teeth she is cutting in right now, poor thing. She is a die-hard cheese fiend, and will spit other food out if she gets cheese first, throwing a little hissy fit for more. She loves food of all kinds, and eats a ton. She can be very violent, and I have been pinched, bitten, and generally torn to shreds by her exuberant curiosity lately. But even with a little bit more spunk lately, she's still my sweet, easy-going girl.

Toward a Diagnosis

I know some of you have been waiting and wondering about the results of Vance's doctor's appointment last week. I am sorry it's taken me so long to update. Things are just busy around here, and it's hard for me to get more than a minute or two together that aren't already spoken for by someone or something.

We went to see an Infectious Disease specialist at USF on Thursday. Unlike Vance's other doctor appointments, we felt like this one was actually helpful. The good news is that Vance does not have a life-threatening diseases. He doesn't have hepatitus or cancer. His blood tests have come back beautifully, ruling out autoimmune disease, adrenal failure, and other possible infections. The doctor also said that he's sure Vance does NOT have CMV.

So we're left with ... chronic fatigue. They don't really know what causes it, don't have a cure, and can't really treat it. It can last anywhere from a few months to the rest of your life. It can be mild, severe, or debilitating. As best I understand it, CFS seems to be the result of an immune system that just won't shut off. His body is running in overdrive all the time. Basically, the doctor told us that there was no one he could refer us to, and nothing traditional allopathic medicine could do for us. He told us to check out homeopathic medicine and dietary changes, and gave us the name of a doctor who uses some alternative treatment methods for CFS and Lyme disease.

In many, many ways, we've felt very relieved after Vance's appointment. It is, of course, unnerving that chronic fatigue doesn't have a cure or even a standard trajectory. The internet is my enemy here, since it is the outlet for the embittered and malcontents of the medical world. Start searching for information on chronic fatigue and it's all too easy to envision the future with Vance in a semi-vegetative state for the rest of his life.

I was initially feeling overwhelmed and discouraged as we drove home. I kept wondering, "What are we going to do if this doesn't go away?" But that evening, I was overwhelmed with a sense of peace and faith about all of this. We are back to where we were before Vance's "diagnosis": waiting for God to raise him up. I am content to be in that place. I believe that God will heal him, and while we will do everything we can to help him recover, we are ultimately and finally dependent on him to come.

So where do we go from here? We're still working that out. I'm going to be putting Vance on the GAPS diet first. It's often been used to help children with autism, adhd, and developmental delays, but it's a diet that has been helpful for people with UC, Chron's, IBS, autoimmune issues, Lyme's disease, and chronic fatigue. The purpose of the diet is to heal and reduce stress on the digestive system, which is closely linked to the immune system (70% of your immune system is located in your GI tract). I don't know if it will help. I know it's not going to be particularly fun in the beginning stages, but at this point I would spoon-feed Vance an elephant if I thought it would make a difference.

After that, who knows? Researching alternative treatments for CFS feels a bit like walking into a crowded room and shouting, "Who wants my money!?" Everyone has a corner on this market, and it's very difficult to know who is really able to help and who is a quack. And many of you know that my very intelligent, very scientific husband likes treatment backed by scholarly research and peer-reviewed journal articles.

The past two weeks have been particularly difficult, but I have been overwhelmed with blessings in the last four days. Vance has been feeling a good bit better, we had a good friend visit from MN, our friend Dave took Isaac and Claire out for a wonderful 4.5 hours on Saturday (and came back with flowers for me and Gatorade for Vance :), another friend sent us dinner on Sunday, and Dave came back today to mow our lawn and blow the leaves off our roof (thank you, thank you, Dave!). Someone prayed for us last week that the kids would be obedient and peaceful during this time--they've been playing dog and master since Friday for hours and hours. God is taking care of us, and we are beyond blessed.

Blood Tests and Other Mysteries

I'm overdue for giving you all a Vance update, so here it is. I probably shouldn't be writing about this when I'm exhausted (like now), but c'est la vie.

Vance's second blood test came back positive for CMV. Blood tests can have false positives, but with two positive tests, I think it's safe to assume he's still fighting off cytomegalovirus. The blood was drawn almost a month ago at this point, and he's no better than he was in February. This week has been somewhat worse. Case in point: I had a (pretty tasty) black & blueberry pie on the counter, and he skipped it to go to bed last night. You know it's bad when your man doesn't want pie.

He has made an appointment to see an infectious disease specialist next Thursday, and we're assembling a battery of questions for said expert. In the meantime, the words "chronic fatigue syndrome" are being batted around occasionally here. It's always dangerous to self-diagnose with the help of the Internet, but he does have many of the symptoms. Since some people think chronic fatigue can be caused by a Candida overgrowth, I'm looking at putting him on the GAPS diet. It's strict, but if it would get him better, I'm totally game.

We're kind of settling in to a new routine with this illness...the kids are (a little) more understanding of Daddy's need to be in bed, and they don't swarm him as constantly as before. My martyr complex is definitely getting a beat down through all this, for which I'm grateful. Even so, managing our household is pretty solidly a 2-man operation, and I feel pretty wiped out by the end of the day. Lots of moms do this all the time...it's just that I've been spoiled for so long. But I'm getting a little tougher. I think :)

We're more aware than ever that God is the only one who can rescue--both right now and on the last day. He has always been faithful to us, and I see so much good he's working through these past months. Really, truly. But I'm ready for him to say "done!" Until that time, we'll pray for the faith to keep trusting.

Ana Maria Island

Isaac has been begging for a beach trip for weeks now; last weekend Vance felt well enough to go, so we piled in the van for a lovely evening on the sand. I think we determined that it was Evie's 4th beach trip. It was the first time the water was warm enough for her to experience. She loved it! I hadn't planned on it being warm enough to swim, but the lack of proper attire didn't seem to bother her.

Isaac and Claire made some new friends, and were hard at work building walls and moats and such.

It was a beautiful evening.

Seven Months

My cutie is seven months old...closer to one than a newborn. She celebrated the auspicious day by cutting a tooth. This is unaccountably exciting to me. It takes no talent to get a tooth, and as far as I know most every baby cuts them. And yet there I was, squealing to everyone who would listen about the new arrival.

We also celebrated her 7 month birthday by taking her into the pool. She was not really a fan. The water was 82 degrees, which is probably not warm enough for her discerning little self. Maybe we'll try again when it gets to 85 or so.

I noticed that she has been sleeping better in the last few days, and I wonder if her short naps were due to teething. I can never identify teething except in hindsight.

The girls are sharing sisterly confidences.

Everyone wanted to get in on the photo session. One day I will get a picture with all of them looking and smiling at the same time!

We are doing a bit better around here. Vance has had some more fatiguing days, as we expected, but the second half of the week has not been as exhausting as previous weeks. I started to get sick yesterday, but slept for 11 hours last night, and that seemed to stave it off. Thank goodness! Overall I think we're feeling a little more hopeful that Vance is (slowly) mending.

Thanks again for all your prayers and care--we have felt very loved by you all!

Vance: An Update

Many of you have expressed your concern for Vance over the last few weeks--here's an attempt to fill you in on what's going on with him.

We are on week 6 or so of the relapse (or so we think), and about to hit the 3 month mark for the total virus run. It seems these days that Vance has several good days in a row (usually Mon-Wed), followed by the rest of the week in bed (usually Thurs--Sun, it seems). The well/sick periods don't seem to have any correlation to rest/sleep/eating habits, etc. Right now he's having one of his good days, and I have learned to just be thankful for those without expecting this to be the beginning of the end. We're both learning a lot of patience.

He went to see the immunologist last week, and that was very discouraging for me. Basically he told Vance, "On the scale of 1-10, you're a 10! Everything about you looks perfect. There's nothing wrong with you!" Except of course, there is. The immunologist even seemed skeptical about the CMV diagnosis, leading me to wonder if we were dealing with some dark horse disease that nobody knew about. It didn't help that after he went to the doctor, the rest of the week was pretty rough.

We decided to send him to his regular physician on Monday to get his blood drawn again. While the first titer indicated CMV, it takes a second test to confirm. If we know it's CMV, then at least we know what to do...wait. If it's not, then we start the search. His doctor said there was no obvious alternate diagnosis...in his words, if it's not CMV, figuring out what's wrong would be "like hunting zebras." I'm assuming zebras are hard to catch? :) At any rate, it will take a week or two for the test results to come back.

Last week was pretty difficult, I must say. I was exhausted, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I had all these expectations that weren't being met. I expected Vance to be making some sort of progress toward health. I expected the immunologist to be helpful. I expected the kids to understand that we were in emergency mode, and act like perfect little angels in consequence. All of those went unmet.

I have been fighting for faith, hope, joy, peace...but last week seemed to show more losses than wins. I felt like I was drowning in chaos, crying out to God and hearing only silence in return. In desperation, I have started to get up 45 minutes earlier so I can have a more profitable time with the Lord before everyone is up and the day is running away with itself. That has helped. But ultimately, the Holy Spirit has been comforting me and reminding me of my identity--not in my failures, but in Christ who is my "all in all".

Vance has been struggling somewhat with discouragement, weariness, etc...but overall he has been so patient and longsuffering through this whole process. He continues to express his trust in God in all the ups and downs. Amazing.

I'm still having difficult days (like today, when I'm starting to feel sickish myself--noooooo!), but my feet are touching bottom. Hiding myself in Christ is feeling more like a reality, less like mere words. And that is worth everything.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in Thee
Let the water and the blood
From Thy wounded side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Happy Easter

Sunday was the best day of the year. I did not really understand that until I became an adult, but now Resurrection Sunday (as my mom so rightly insisted) is my favorite holiday. I think I've said that before.

This year I celebrated by bouncing babies and rocking infants and changing diapers. You should have seen me trying to get everyone into their Easter finery, putting a hot cross bun and a banana into each sleepy hand, and piling them all in the car by 7:45! Vance stayed home until the second service so he could rest, which partly explains why this Easter shot of the kids is so haphazard (and this is the "best" one I got!). It doesn't really show off the heirloom dresses that Granny smocked for us girls growing up, but it does show that we were alive and well, at least. I didn't have an assistant for this one...and Isaac let Eve roll into the dirt afterwards :(. Fortunately she wasn't hurt in the slightest, and didn't even cry.

I'm working on taking some shots to enlarge for our very undecorated church nursery...and I got one halfway good one of Evie :)

I had a lot to be grateful for on Sunday. Firstly, the resurrection--Christ's and mine. Secondly, that Vance was well enough to come to church and enjoy the rest of the day with us instead of in bed. Thirdly, friends to come over and celebrate with good food, lots of little kid chaos, and fun in the pool. Fourthly, for my very comfortable bed that I crashed into by 10pm :).

Family Shoot

Everyone wanted to be a photographer this morning! Here's my picture.

Vance's work.

Isaac's picture.

And Claire's. You should have seen Claire try to shoot a camera approximately as large as her torso! So funny :)

Our Strawberry Girls

Their first matching outfits are, appropriately, strawberry dresses. I tried to get a few shots before church this morning.

"Behold, the baby!"

Eve & Great Grandma

These are the pictures I meant to post last time...not sure why they didn't show up. I meant to get some more of Eve with her 2 other great-grandmothers when we were in NC, but I didn't check my camera battery before we left. Phooey on me.

Aren't they so cute together?

Thanks for coming, Grandma. We love you!