Aloha!
As you’ve noticed, I haven’t been able to blog lately. As I’ve been busy with other aspects of our small business. A lot has happened since I last blogged. Our small batch business is growing! And continually moving forward in my healing journey 🙂
We are also in the process of improving our website. Including our on-line store so that ordering process will be easier! So, look out for our new website soon as we unveil it in the near future 🙂
Mahalo Nui’loa for your continued support! ❤
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy, love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things; believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13.4-8
This beautiful couple showed me and my siblings how it looks like to love one another. Unconditionally.
Today, as we celebrate Valentine’s Day, and knowing what it’s all about, I can’t help but think of my parents who were more than just attracted to each other. As they grew in their marriage, they learned to go beyond feelings and took the next step of loving each other unconditionally. They learned how to think of each other and serve one another. There is no such thing as a perfect marriage as we all get selfish.
But year after year, I witnessed their marriage beautifully blossom. Especially, sometime after my Dad had a severe stroke. Whereas Dad had always been the provider and leader of the home, now he needed my mom to care for him in every way (big and small). Man, did my mom step it up. It was then I personally saw the diamond of God’s love shining in their marriage from a whole new angle. As they both learned to continue to show unconditional love to each other.
Their new “norm” could’ve broken their marriage. Instead, it made their marriage stronger and continued to grow for 64 years! Despite the difficulty of my Dad having to recover from his stroke, my Mom and Dad were a picture of unconditional love between a husband and a wife. What a beautiful display of God’s love and common grace to all men and women!
In sickness and in health, till death do us part. They truly lived it. My hope and prayer is to emulate their example in my marriage. So blessed and thankful for my parents as I have lived to see what true romantic Valentines really look like!
As we begin a new year, many of us try to set goals. The question is whether we can keep them or not.
I’ve had to set many goals as I was faced with the fact that my condition needed to be approached with a multi-disciplinary treatment plan in able to be successful in my healing journey.
It hasn’t been easy to say the least! Through trial and error, I’ve been able to get back up each time I’ve fallen and continue to remind myself it’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey.
So with that said, I may have fallen many times but by God’s grace and mercy each time I get back up this Fibro Mom is more resolved to keep moving forward! Fibro does not identify me. Christ does!
Ready to tackle 2015!
Simply put. It’s been 2 years since I no longer feel a stabbing pain on my left scapula. EVERY SINGLE DAY I felt like someone was stabbing my back since 2007. Talk about having someone really stab me in the back!
Also, my high blood pressure eventually normalized as I noticed even taking Felodipine and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, I continued to have fluctuating high blood pressure and a shooting pain on my left eye that felt like it would explode any minute. So my head also felt like exploding. And, yes, I felt these symptoms everyday as well. Eventually, more symptoms disappeared.
I was so excited to scream it to the whole world the first time I no longer felt it on a chronic basis as I’ve felt hostage for so MANY years! But I’ve learned to wait for my symptoms to go away as it takes time for my condition to be reversed.
These resulted sometime after my amalgams and permanent retainer were removed as I felt another level of healing. And this was done in a series of visits as my body would not have been able to handle toxic removal all at the same time. I later learned it’s because amalgams has mercury in them and a permanent retainer has nickel in it. Both VERY LETHAL to the human body. As I mentioned in another post, they were acting like a battery in my mouth!
I haven’t even mentioned that I still had root canals in my mouth at the time I had the mercury and nickel removed! As I didn’t learn until later that my root canals had moderate acute and chronic inflammation and fragments of viable reactive bone. My Bio-Dentist was emphatic on the removal of “root cadaver canal” teeth (as he referred to them) due to its potential and actual impact for some on general systemic health. Which I obviously exhibited with my Fibromyalgia condition.
An excerpt from an article written by The Center for Natural Dentistry says, “We have found that fatigue, regardless of the underlying disease, is primarily associated with hypersensitivity to inorganic mercury and nickel.”
Now, I don’t know if having root canals alone can cause so much health problems. And it’s true that there are others who have root canals and seem to be doing okay. So, with that said, this is a personal decision. I agreed to get all this dental work done because my body was already failing me. Fibromyalgia is also a systemic issue, so that alone convinced me that it needed immediate attention.
So this past Thanksgiving, Christmas and as 2014 almost comes to a close, I couldn’t help but reflect and be sooo THANKFUL my body continues to heal as each layer is addressed. I feel like a soldier no longer dodging bullets and stepping on land mines but I am bruised and injured and needing time to continue to heal.
Humbled and grateful I can be a wife and a mother again as I was truly losing my identity. And getting a second chance in life. I am slowly getting my life back even if it’s one year at a time.
I had no idea God would use my chronic condition to help me see how He can work in the biggest storms in my life. I had the hardest time trying to explain to people what I was feeling as my Fibro symptoms grew each year and kept attacking my body 24/7. It grew chronic and happened everyday. I really just wanted to die.
When someone has Fibro and related conditions, it’s not just musculoskeletal. It is neuromuscular, musculoskeletal and systemic symptoms. It is a dysfunction of the nervous system. And it attacks the body at the cellular level. Your body just gets pounded by huge turbulent waves one after another. It doesn’t stop.
And when it stops, you don’t know how long of a break you have. Then it starts all over again. And gets stronger in frequency and intensity. You begin to lose your identity. As it takes over your life. How in the world did I survive?
Psalm 69.1-3 “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with crying; my throat is dry; my eyes fail while I wait for my God.”
But Christ doesn’t fail! As He, even in the middle of a great tempest, can be at peace as He was asleep in the middle of it as mentioned in Matthew 8. He didn’t take away my chronic pain sooner as I wanted Him to…but He did give me peace, comfort and grace to go through it.
Today, I feel like I just left the battlefield where I am no longer in the front lines getting shot at and stepping on mine fields everyday. But I am now on a ship with my comrades injured, bruised but healing. I am not out of the woods. But thankful my nervous system has quieted down A LOT! And I will continue to wait for God to do His work in me. Because I have learned to trust in Him as He continues to prove Himself to be real, faithful and true. He is full of mercy and grace. As at the end of the day, it is all about Christ who lives in me.
Lirio's 