...and repeat...

I feel like I'm on repeat here (hence the name of this post) but I figured I needed to share what's been happening around here...

Tuesday night I made a great homemade white bean & turkey chili, no tomatoes involved, just enough spices for flavor (and Quinn added some hot sauce to his bowl) along with some white cornbread. It was delicious! We ate at 6:30 giving me plenty of time to adhere to the "do not eat 3hrs before bed rule." However, at 1:30am I experienced the chili again- let me tell you, not so delicious the second time around. I woke up every 45min, it was so uncomfortable, I felt terrible that  I was keeping Quinn up.

I called the doctor's office first thing in the morning hoping to get in, unfortunately the next available appointment wasn't until Thursday at 8:30am. I took it and fought through my day, I managed to keep down 1 strawberry yogurt, a handful of cherries, and half a bowl of rice. Not much sustenance there... needless to say I was tired and worn out and sick of burping/feeling as if I was about to puke. I called my mom and she tried to calm me down, we decided that besides our housing situation (which we can't change) my desire for a job lay more in the fact that I felt I wasn't contributing/had a bachelor's degree and wasn't doing anything with it, so I was worrying about so many things related to having a job (such as vacations, spending time with Quinn before he deploys, having my family visit, etc) it was breaking me apart. I ended up dry-heaving that evening and had a fitful sleep.

Thursday I was up at 7am, forcing a few bites of cereal down my resistant throat. I arrived for my appointment, filled out the paperwork, and was taken back by the nurse. I had lost 3lbs in the past week (I blame it on Tues/Wed) and my blood pressure was high, again. I saw a new doctor, a civilian (interesting) in the Navy medical center... she actually listened to everything I had to say, including my thoughts that it could be stress related. She would like for me to meet with the on-site counselor (considering I broke down in tears) to have an unbiased ear listen to me, and she changed my medications from Nexium to Prilosec. She also recommended an edible aloe gel to coat my esophagus/stomach and drinking coconut water. I have yet to buy those, but I probably should soon.

After my appointment I forced myself to attend the new women's study beginning that day through our church. We are going through the book "Lioness Arising" by Lisa Bevere. There were some very powerful things said during the introductory video. Afterwards the ladies all introduced themselves to me (since I was late) and then went around saying what stood out to them the most from the video. For me it was something she said about striving versus stretching. Striving can only get you so far... you can strive to be better, strive to improve, etc. But if you are allowing yourself to be stretched you can be molded into new things! I ended up breaking down with these ladies (mind you I had only entered the room 45min prior and just learned their names!) and they all surrounded me, anointed me with oil, and prayed for my complete healing! I was definitely suppose to go to this women's group. I had an hour and a half "daddy/daughter talk" that afternoon that helped me out a lot as well! I still didn't manage to eat very much, a handful of pretzels around lunch, then three tomato-less tacos at dinner. I did however play around a little on the wii-fit.

Thursday night Quinn fell asleep on the couch and I couldn't wake him up enough to join me in the bedroom, but it was a blessing in disguise because I stayed up fighting the burping/puke feeling by reading scripture, singing praise songs, speaking prayer/praises, and when I would wake up (every 45min again) I would start over. He came to bed around 2am and I actually slept from 2-5. Friday I spent moving around the house as much as possible- watering our plants, completing 2 loads of laundry, cleaning the master bathroom, sweeping the entire house, wiping down the kitchen counters, washing the dishes that had been sitting in the sink since Wednesday, burning picture CDs of my cousin's wedding to mail out to him and my grandparents, wrote a letter to the little boy we sponsor in Peru, and organizing my crafting supplies. Around 1pm while I was folding laundry in our bedroom and I laid down to "rest" for a few minutes and had a beautiful 45min nap where I didn't toss or turn or burp. Quinn knew how much I wanted to see Harry Potter, so he asked if I thought I could handle it, I said I was super shaky because I hadn't been able to eat more than pretzels again, so he had me make one of his cookies'n'cream protein shakes... I burped a lot afterwards but I could tell it was giving me more energy. We decided on the 6pm movie giving me 2hrs to make a final decision on going. I took a shower and said "I can do this!" I wasn't going to eat at the theatre because I didn't want to burp through the entire movie but I ended up taking my medicine and eating a small amount of mini-corn dogs. I burped for awhile afterwards, luckily everyone was super into the movie.

Which brings me to now (Saturday morning) I actually slept pretty well... the process of getting to sleep is still hard (with the burping/acid in the throat) but I only woke up twice. I actually ate a small bowl of cereal instead of just a few bites...

I'm still praying for complete healing.
I really don't want to live this way forever...