Rebirthing

I have wanted to post this for a couple weeks now, but I haven’t really had the time to get it out of my head.  I’m still not really sure how I want to say all the stuff I have to say, but let’s give it a shot and I hope you can follow along.

As you know I am a follower of Christ, and the events of this last year have brought me a bit closer to the Lord.  For several years now I have listen almost strictly to Christian music, I enjoy the positive message and it helps keep me focused on the Lord and all he has done for me.  Now, many of you may be thinking “church music” when I say Christian music.  It’s actually Contemporary Christian music and there are a wide range of styles out there.  I am more into the Rock/Metal style of music than I am Pop and Gospel.  I listen to Air1 when I am in the car and I have a bunch of different stuff on my Zune, which I use at work.  One of my favorite bands is Skillet, they are the band Daniel and I went and saw for his birthday this year.  Well, one of their songs is the inspiration for this post.

I am guilty of listening to the music and not really hearing the words.  This is not always the case, but most of the time I get caught up in the instrumentals and don’t really hear what the song is saying. (ADD Moment: Casting Crowns has Awesome lyrics and a great message behind most of their songs)  Well, the other day the words to “Rebirthing” by Skillet managed to make it all the way in and it has become one of my favorites.

I could go into a very long post but I will do my best to keep it as short as possible, that way I don’t lose you.  As you know if you have been following my story over this past year, I was about 75% paralyzed in January of 2009, I was a victim of Guillain-Barré Syndrome.  I consider myself lucky, I was not totally paralyzed, I wasn’t on a ventilator and I was at least able to communicate with those taking care of me; many GBS victims can’t say that.  During my time in the hospital and through physical therapy I did my best to lean on the Lord for help.  There were times when I questioned why (Job did the same thing, so I don’t feel so bad), but I never doubted God or His plans for me.

I am going to post the lyrics to Rebirthing, please read them and if you are a GBS survivor see if you can relate to what Skillet is saying, both in a physical and spiritual sense.  If you have never experienced GBS please read these lyrics and maybe you can gain a very slim understanding of what we GBS survivors feel as our bodies are being destroyed from the inside.

Skillet – Rebirthing
From the album Comatose

I lie here paralytic inside this soul
Screaming for You till my throat is numb
I wanna break out, I need a way out
I don’t believe that it’s gotta be this way
The worst is the waiting
In this womb I’m suffocating

Pre-chorus:
Feel Your presence filling up my lungs with oxygen
I take You in
I’ve died

Chorus:
Rebirthing now
I wanna live for love, wanna live for You and me
Breathe for the first time now
I come alive somehow
Rebirthing now
I wanna live my life, wanna give You everything
Breathe for the first time now
I come alive somehow
Right now

I lie here lifeless in this cocoon
Shedding my skin cause I’m ready to
I wanna break out, I found a way out
I don’t believe that it’s gotta be this way
The worst is the waiting
In the womb I’m suffocating

Pre-chorus:

Chorus:

Bridge:
Tell me when I’m gonna live again
Tell me when I’m gonna breathe You in
Tell me when I’m gonna feel inside
Tell me when I’m gonna feel alive

Chorus:

I come alive somehow
Right now
I come alive somehow
I come alive somehow

Label: worshiptogether.com

View the lyrics: http://www.air1.com/music/lyrics.asp?2543

Hear a clip of the song: http://www.air1.com/listen/?href=/broadcast/stream.aspx?href=/Audio/hooks/2543.rm&onespeed=true

Remember God is good; all the time God is good.

Saved by the Blood,

Donovan

One year ago…

One year ago I was living a week that I call hell.  From Dec 26, 2008 to Jan 2, 2009 my body was doing things that no one could explain, at least no one I could find.  If you have read any of my blog you have had a taste of what I was living.  Day by day, minute by minute I was losing control of my body.  I still have a hard time remembering many of the details of that week and following month.  I can remember taking several hot baths because that was the only thing we could find that would relieve the pain I was feeling.  The only problem was that each time it got harder and harder to get out of the tub.  I spent one night sleeping on the floor because while I was trying to get to the bathroom I feel and couldn’t move enough to get up, I had my wife bring me a pillow and blanket to the spot I was at and that is where we slept.  Finally after the fifth visit to the ER I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and it took me over a week to learn how to say it correctly.

I am sure I could go on and on about the things I have gone through in this last year, but I don’t have that kind of attention span.  Instead I will say, “Read the other posts in my blog to gain an understanding to the things I have dealt with the last 12 months”.  What I will do is try to explain how I feel now.  My body is doing things that are hard to put into words.  My mornings are hard and have seem to gotten more difficult the last couple weeks.  I wake up and find it hard to get out of bed.  If I take my Ambien I sleep great but drag backside really bad until about 10 a.m. or later, and if I don’t take it I have very odd dreams and sleep horribly.  When I get up and start moving around my chest feels weird, it kind of feels like I am out of breath, or have labored breathing, it is very hard to explain, finding the right words is so hard.  Once I get up and finally moving things begin to improve and by the afternoon I am feeling “normal”.  At night I feel like I hit a brick wall and out of the blue I have to head to bed.  It’s not like that every night, but the nights that it’s not are far and few between.

I have been doing as much as I possibly can, I don’t want the two syndromes I have (GBS and Marfan) to control my life.  I realize that because of them I have limitations, but I don’t want them to dominate my life.  I could very easily give in, lie down, surrender.  However I know that the second I do it will all be over.  Once you give in it’s so much harder to get back up.  I have a family, kids that want/need attention, a wonderful wife that needs her husband.  I can’t just give in; I can’t surrender to the illness.

I know that the Lord has a plan for me, don’t know exactly what it is, but there is a plan.  I have gifts that I want to use to further His kingdom; I just need to find the physical strength to use them.  I have no idea how many people’s lives I have affected and in the end it really doesn’t matter what the number is, it just matters that I have lived for Him and done His will.  I try.  I am by no means perfect and will never claim to be, but I do my best to get as close as possible.  It’s like running a race you know you will never win, no matter how hard you try.

God is good, all the time, God is good!

Saved by the blood,

Donovan

Make a Difference

I have always had a place in my heart for others.  It has typically been filled with thoughts and compassion for the homeless and young children and for most of my life that is all it has been, a thought.  I seem to always have an excuse as to why I can’t do something for those that I know have less than I do.  While my heart and mind might be on them it really doesn’t do much good if I don’t go.  Now I realize that I don’t have to get up and feed all the homeless or provide a teddy bear to every little child in need, but sitting on my butt sure isn’t doing anything for ‘em.

Well, last week I finally got up and did something.  Our church has a ministry where they provide for the homeless.  The first thing they do is take a few of the church vans out and pick up those in need and bring them to the church.  They then provide breakfast, clean clothes and showers to those who want them.  It is amazing to see all of this in action.  The hard part of me is the getting up in the morning.  Things start at 7 a.m. and that means I have to leave the house at about 6:30 a.m.  This is not easy but then when you are getting out there to help others it’s not about you and your needs.

I spent about 3.5 hours working in the men’s shower section last weekend (7 Nov).  My job was to hand out towels, hygiene kits, and a pair of new underwear to everyone who asked.  These are all things that I know I take for granted each and every day.  Things that when I find myself in the need for more I simply do a load of laundry or run up to the store and buy more.  These men and women, and sometimes children, don’t have that luxury and I’m glad I was able to get out there and provide my time to each and every one of ‘em.

We were not as busy as I hear they normally are and I also learned that the third Saturday of the month is usually the busiest week, because by then more folks are out of money because the checks they got at the first of the month are gone.  See the church does this on the first and third Saturday of each month and it is my goal to get up there as often as possible.  I am not writing this to tell everyone how I did such a good job getting up and getting out there to help others.  I am writing this to ask those that know me to hold me accountable and to ask me when I last volunteered and it went.  I also want to challenge you to get out there and make a difference.  Many of us have it pretty good.  We may not think so, but if we stop and look at all the “stuff” we have we begin to realize just how good we really to have it.

Get out there and make a difference!  God is good!

Saved by the blood,

Donovan

Health Update

Well, I have a few ideas to blog about and while I want to pound them all out right now I think it would be too much for one post.  So, I may write them all now and spread them out over a few posts and just put them out here over the next few days.

The first one I think is going to be a bit of a health update.  Things are going well.  I still have numb toes, but there is about 50% feeling.  Some is better than none I guess, right?  I still get the achy feeling in my bones after a long day and my joints scream at me as well.  Today is one of those rather odd days here in AZ, it is rainy and “chilly” (that is if you can really call 65 degrees chilly.)  I have that arthritis ache during weather like this and I hate it.  It is one of those pains that just don’t go away and your mind just keeps coming back to it.  Something I get to live with forever so I guess I will learn to deal.

On another good note I stopped taking the Morphine and I did it “cold turkey”.  While that was not the easiest thing to do I did have a little help.  I didn’t just stop taking pain meds all together and I’m not sure how much better the new med is for me.  I am now on Tramadol.  When I take one pill it takes care of mild pains, but when things get pretty uncomfortable I take two, and that is how the script is written, take 1 or 2 as needed.  When I take two I get a “funny” feeling in my head, in fact I am feeling it at this very moment, so I hope this post makes sense.

I still have a rougher time in the morning and if I have a long day I am beat early in the evening.  I do still find myself getting quite winded when going up step, however it doesn’t really hit until I get to the top and all the sudden I find myself needing to take a seat for a minute or two.  But other than that things are going rather well.  I am a lot further along than I thought I would be at this point.  It was 10.5 months ago that I was lying in a hospital bed, paralyzed and not knowing what was happening to me, and today if you looked at me you would never know.

God is good!

Saved by the blood,

Donovan

Miss read

So, the Air1 verse of the day yesterday was Proverbs 26:20 and I read it as follows:

 Fire goes out without wood, and squirrels disappear when gossip stops.

 Please understand I did this like six times and I finally had to put my curser on the screen because this just couldn’t be correct.  I finally read it correctly and it was quarrels, not squirrels.  That makes so much more sence….

Enough is Enough

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

It has been 8 months since I got out of the hospital and there are pains that are still hanging around and a few medications that are ingested daily to help reduce the discomfort I feel.  Up until yesterday one of those meds was Morphine, which has lived in my pocket, so it was never more than an arms reach away, for the last 8 months.  Well yesterday I decided that I have had enough.  I have reduced my intake to as little as I could possibly take and finally decided that enough was enough.

Today has been uncomfortable.  My feet, legs, hands and arms all have a stinging/burning type pain that seems to want to stay around.  My bones ache a bit as well and while the Morphine helps with these pains I simply don’t want to keep putting it in my body, it can’t be good for me.  These pains are not so bad that I can’t survive with them, however they are rather distracting.  I pray that I don’t give in to the discomfort, but as I type this the feeling grows stronger.  I know in my mind that by taking a simple little half a pill my pains will go and I can continue on with live a little more comfortably.

I realize I may feel this way for the rest of my life, but I continue to remind myself it has only been 8 months since I was paralyzed, laying in a hospital bed able to do much of nothing for myself.  While in some situations 8 months seems like forever, in reality it really is a very short time.  Please pray that I will find the strength to continue on with little to no pain and that the healing will continue as the days go by…

Saved by the blood,
Donovan

Short Update

As usual it has been forever since writing anything out here. I have been both busy and exhausted. My days have been full and my nights have been a time of me not doing much of anything. Things have been picking up at work and I have been out of the office spending more and more time out at client’s offices. While this is a good thing as far as work goes it makes for a long day for me. While I am out and about it’s really not all that bad, however when I stop moving and I’m in the comfort of my own home everything catches up to me. I just spent four days out of town on a business trip and while I did my best to take it easy I came back with some really good back pain. I have a feeling that most of my issues came from carrying my backpack on my right shoulder so much and because I have such loose connective tissue everything kind of shifted out of place and not everything has moved back where it belongs. I have done my best to get up and move about over the weekend, but no matter what it still hurts, but the cool thing is, I will survive.

Well, this post is not full of wisdom, great revelations or any powerful words, but then none of my posts ever are. I just wanted to give a quick update and will do my best to add more in the next few days.

Thanks for stopping by…

Saved by the blood,
Donovan

Faith

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. Mark 5:25-29 (NIV)

How is it that a woman who had been sick for so long could have such faith? Was it because she could actually see Jesus? Did that really make the difference? Was it like so many say, “seeing is believing?” Why is my faith not this strong? I try so hard to reach out and touch the robes of Jesus, but it seems that as I make contact I begin to question both my motives and beliefs. Why do I want healing, for either myself or others? Do I really believe that reaching out and simply asking for healing is going to accomplish anything? This is where the battle begins. I tell myself “Yes, I do!” Then I ask “Really, how could such a thing be true?” God is bigger than any of us can ever imagine, ever wrap our heads around, and this is where I have so much trouble. I base so much of my life on logic and problem solving and to say is crudely the idea of God is neither logical nor a problem to be solved. He simply is. (Exodus 3:14)

I am a child of the one true King! I believe that with all my heart, and even as I say that I question myself. I am working on this and as I spend more time in the Word I know my faith will grow.

Saved by the blood,
Donovan

Taking Photos Again

I was finally able to do something I wasn’t sure I would ever do again. I got out my camera and took pictures of some friends. This was a fear I had lying in my hospital bed back in January. As I laid there, unable to barely move a muscle, I wondered first if I would ever walk again and second would I be able to continue with my hobby. I enjoy taking pictures of anything and everything. I have not been nearly as active as I would like, but I have done a little bit of work in the last year and I did the SOFOBOMO project a couple months ago, but that is a lot different than taking pics of people. More often than not, when you are taking picture of people there is a reason, to catch a moment in time. This moment is often a special moment and I don’t want to be responsible for a failed attempt at doing so. This is the main reason I have not attempted a wedding. Much of my work has been family photos, monthly shot of babies and senior pics. In all of these cases I have the time to snap the shot, look at the image on the back of the camera and determine if I need to take another attempt. This is not something you really have time to do at a wedding. You don’t often hear, “Um yeah, could you please do that first kiss as husband and wife again? I was blinking and missed the shot.”

With that being said, yesterday I attempted something I had not done in the past. I took maternity shots of one of our friends. If I am not mistaken she is only a few weeks from delivery, which means we don’t have much time for multiple attempts. I did a little research in an effort to finding different posses to twist and tangle the mother to be into, but when the time came I drew a blank. There before me stood a very pregnant mommy, a proud daddy and a beautiful little two year old and we just kinda looked at each other. I have never been a fan of posed shots, something always seems so, well I guess posed. I guess this I why I love taking pictures of little kids. They don’t really sit still and you are able to capture them the way they truly are, sometime happy little bundles of energy and sometimes sad little frustrated creatures. I find myself laying on the floor and chasing them around just so I can be there to catch that one special look. I have such a blast doing it an I must say yesterday there was a time when I forgot about the pain and some of my inabilities as I chased an energetic two year old around my living room. Could life get much better?

I must admit that looking at the little two inch screen on the back of the camera I thought I had some really good shots, and after I downloaded them to my PC I was not as excited. Things were not as crisp and clear as I thought, however after a small amount of editing, simple exposure and contrast type corrections I must say I was rather pleased. Please take a moment to check out a few of the results.

Oh, and thank you Steph for letting me take the pics!

Saved by the blood,
Donovan

Struggle

Wow! Really has been awhile since I have had the energy to sit down and write something.  I have sat down many times with the intention of writing a post and just could not find the strength to type it out.  The strength I speak of is not a physical one, but mental.  First let me say that health wise I am doing okay.  The aorta is not as bad as we first thought which means that for now my chest will remain in one piece and no artificial parts will be added to my insides.  I have another echocardiogram in a little more than a week and a stress test a couple days after that.  The cardiologist wants to be there for each test to ensure everything is done correctly.  These tests will be used as a baseline for future tests, so all the more reason for accurate results.  I am still taking it easy for the most part anyway.

We are still trying to get settled in the new house.  While this is the house I plan to live in until I no longer need one, I would like it if I did not have to do it out of boxes.  But as I said in the beginning of this post, the energy is just not there.  We have been having issues again with our 12 yr old bi-polar son and it is draining everyone in the house, including the other two children.  Last week he spent a few days at the only behavior health center here in Phoenix for his age.  In the three weeks of school he has been in class maybe 5 days total.  I must say that the school has been a great help and done as much as they can do, but it is hard on everyone involved.  We are all at the point that we simply want to throw our hands up and say, “I’m done!”  But this is a 12 yr old child, how can one do that.  But then you stop and think about the verbal and mental onslaught each and every day and some days multiple times a day.  It isn’t fair for anyone involved, including him. 

My loving wife is taking it the hardest.  This is her child and to see him hurt like this just tears her up inside.  Depression has spread through this house like an angry beast, unleashing its furry on anyone it can.  I know it is only by the grace of God that we have made it this far.  Our God is a good God and there have been many times that our children have questioned why these things continue to happen.  All we can do is to remind them that He is our heavenly father and He loves us very much, but he has given us the ability of free choice.  He loves us and does not want to see us hurt but we have to want to change things.  The thing is in this case we are asking a 12 yr old bi-polar child to stand up and take control of something he does not understand.  There are adults that can’t understand what is going on inside his head, how can we expect him to figure it out.

It’s so hard. Please pray!

Saved by the blood,

Donovan