“How much longer?”

Everyone is asking. Seems like it has flown by to everyone else, and in many ways it has. It seems like forever to me, and to others it has felt like that as well. How much longer until I can get behind the wheel? I have 2 more months. I am so tired, and embarrassed of having to ask people to do something for me. This is so difficult for me. Boy am I really being refined there!

Truth is, the closer it gets the more anxious I am. Each day I am more fearful that I am going to have another grand mal seizure and lose consciousness, thus starting the entire process over again. I am afraid that the black hole that this new medicine has created in my brain will make me too much of a lunatic to drive with any sense. Will I remember how to drive? Or will I more likely resemble an inexperienced 15 year old with a permit? Gasp, been there, doing that….deep breath in through the nose….out slowly through the mouth…and repeat until you reach your destination. 

I’m surrounded by people, loving family and friends, yet epilepsy and the medication we have to take, force us into an obscure place that others cannot understand. So often it isn’t epilepsy that causes the problem, it is the medicine that is the evil. It takes away the person that we once knew when we looked in the mirror. I know that I do not make coffee in the laundry room, yet I found myself walking into the laundry room with coffee and filter in hand looking for the coffee maker. On more than one occasion I have looked at my 10 year old washer and dryer not knowing what to do with the knobs to make them start. I was at the gym and I forgot how to do a sit up. I can’t even explain that one. I just knew from how my body felt that I was doing it incorrectly. I couldn’t form a correct sit up. Simple facts that I have always known and been able to recall are just gone. I hope I can run again without being dizzy. Conversation is so hard. My black box brain is so empty. The words come so slowly, each word is so delicate and so cautious. I’m confused by the smallest challenges. My fourth grader has long surpassed what I can help him with in his school work. I have a college degree and I can’t help him with his homework. It is degrading. Parts of who I was… vanished. So who am I going to become? What am I going to do? Change is hard. No one likes change. This medicine is good; it is keeping me from having seizures. I have to remember that.

This has been a hard winter on many levels. It was so unexpected. I’m not used to dealing with the new side effects of this person that has been created and working so hard to dig up the layers beneath to find me. I want to be the mom that I used to be for my children and the wife that I used to be. I want to be the friend that I used to be. I want to run like I used to. I want to be able to work out like I used to.  I want to juggle those things and more. I want to give as much as I receive. This spot, this place, it is so uncomfortable for me.

On Sunday these words from Always by Kristian Stanfill spoke to my heart. “Oh my God, He will not delay, My refuge and strength always. I will not fear, His promise is true. My God will come through always. Always.”

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out some things and I stumbled on 3  greeting cards that I had tucked away for safe keeping some years ago. They were mixed in with some other things so obviously they were something of meaning so I pulled them out to read. One of them was from my Grandmother. All it said on the inside was

“Peace!

         Emmer”

There was no date. The card had a little bird on the front so it didn’t indicate a holiday, but she wouldn’t have wasted money on a holiday card anyway. She likely just sent me a card during some difficult time. I could see her gentle teary eyes and feel her soft arms wrapped around me. I needed that little hug.

I know God will not delay. I know He is my strength. I know His promises are true and I know He is all I need. I know He hears me when I am anxious, He knows my fears before I know them and I know His ways are better than my own. I know that, I know that, I know that. My God will come through always.

This journey has been a doozie. How much longer is really anyone’s guess, but I am ready for this roller coaster to come to a safe and complete stop. Oh yeah, I can’t ride roller coasters. I forgot.

© Copyright Gatewood Campbell, May 2014