Peace

Peace. It's amazing how my emotions go up and down through this thing as I struggle to cast my axieties before the Lord and experience His peace which passes understanding. I memorized Phil 4:4-8 as a kid in Awanas. Yet ,despite the fact that its in my head, it often feels oceans away from my experience. I go from worry, to anger, to a just buckle down, to hardness of attitude in just an hour. While driving Cody to Mothers Day Out (I've heard it's called parents day out up north--still I don't feel any discrimination right now), I started trying to apply Phil 4:8 and just mediate on all that is good in the midst of everything--I have a sabbatical that allows me to work at home, I'm actually eating lunch with Rhonda (which I rarely ever get to do), I'm actually spending more time than most dads ever get with their kids, I'm probably working more productively in my 6 hours than my usual eight (It really is hard to write for more than 6 hours a day anyway), our kids are doing great, learning more responsibility, and seeing the compassion of Christ's body, we have experienced a tremendous outpouring of love from friends, neighbors, family, church, etc. I could go on and one.

Now to what you really want to hear. We achieved some stability today. Rhonda felt better largely by limiting her activity even more. She finds she feels better when she does very little (she did venture beyond our bedroom door once today). I probably should give you some idea of what she can do. She is able to get up, shower, and go to the bathroom. Plus, she can move around the room a bit, read when her head doesn't bother her, and interact with the boys (she helps Bennett with his homework, gives lots of hugs and also helps dress them, etc.). Nonetheless, it seems like we're just idling at that level and not moving forward. In the first two weeks after the hospital, she had actually abandoned using the walker around the house. After the relapse, she is extremely weak and must still use the walker even around the bedroom. As already mentioned, we sometimes feel even a little activity sets her back (Rhonda has had to cancel her physical therapy appointments the past couple days). We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to try and ask some questions about this odd journey.

P.S. For readers to this blog who didn't see the earlier link to learn more about guillain-barre, it is: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/guillain-barre-syndrome/DS00413