Valleys, hilltops, and everything in between.

I'm trying to figure out how to fit five years into one blog post. If you read it all, bless you! In 2009, my husband noticed that vision in his left eye was suddenly gone. This, of course, was an alarming fact. We went to the doctor who referred us to an opthamologist who diagnosed him with Pigmentary Glaucoma. The diagnosis shocked us, but treatment of eye drops seemed manageable enough. With the diagnosis came the news that his optic nerve was damaged beyond repair, and he would never regain vision in his left eye. It was crappy news, but it wasn't the end of the world, because, after all, he did have the other one. This is when we experienced our first healing. We stayed at church to have someone pray for his eyes. Immediately, his "bad eye" began to twitch and tingle. When we went back to the doctor, he had regained vision in his bad eye. He is still legally blind in it, it wasn't a complete healing, but he regained peripheral vision which meant no more running into cabinets or doors, and he can now see "how many fingers" in front of his face where before he could see nothing. Over the course of this disease, we began to notice changes in Kevin. He no longer came home after a twelve hour shift and cleaned the garage or did massive loads of housework. Mostly, he came home exhausted and went straight to bed. He no longer was able to function on 5 hours of sleep. A quirk we chalked up to the new medications and the fact we were now comfortably in our 30's. But, back to the glaucoma...In 2011, his specialist discovered that the course of treatment of medicated eye drops was no longer working to control the disease. He was scheduled for a trabeculectomy in both eyes. The recovery time for this surgery is about 6 weeks, during which you are basically told to sit and try not to move your eye. They only do one eye at a time, so they did his good eye first. One might imagine the incredible stress and strain we were under to keep the kids calm, while I handled everything from childcare to shopping to driving him to appointments. As soon as his first eye was healed up, he went into surgery for his other eye. Even with insurance, this was financially devastating. The first surgery was in November, the second in February of the next year, so all deductibles, out of pocket, and coinsurance had to be met not once, but twice. Fortunately, our families were able to help us meet the cost. Following the surgeries and extensive recovery, life returned back to normal for awhile. Kevin no longer needed medication to control his glaucoma, so we saw a little pep in step return. He wasn't quite back to himself, but for awhile, he seemed almost normal. Then, things began to change--fast. He began experiencing tingling and numbness on his left side. He had chest pains, and he had periods where I thought he may have been having a stroke. With a strong family history of cardiovascular disease, we went to a cardiologist. Here, he had a complete work-up. Angiograms, ekg's, echocardiograms, and a super fun (not) ambulance trip to the ER after fainting. The cardiologist didn't discover anything that would account for his symptoms. He did discover hypertension and high cholesterol, which, of course, we began treating. He did, however, state that when it isn't the heart, these symptoms point to a neurological disorder. And so, off to the neurologist we went. Did I mention, he was off work during this time? His doctors felt he shouldn't be working with his erratic blood pressure. So, we were feeling the pressure of a ticking clock to try and figure this out as soon as possible. Weeks were creeping by with no answers. The neurologist felt immediately the answer was ms, especially when we told him about Kevin's now frequent "falling for no reason." MRI's, nerve conduction studies, and blood tests were ordered. Second opinions given, and the result was, "we have no idea what is wrong with you." In the meantime, Kevin is getting weaker, he is shuffling like an old man, and as an additional kick in the teeth, he has to go in and get a glaucoma implant in his eye. Not once, but twice (because the first one failed). If we thought the original surgery was a financial hardship, this year was more like a financial catastrophe. We end up in our Internists office with a referral to Stanford from the neurologist. The Internist says "I can tell you right now what your problem is, you have cervical and spinal stenosis. You need to see a neurosurgeon and get surgery." Relief flooded us with the knowledge we had an answer and a treatment to "fix" him. He had the decompression surgery, and he came through great. He was in a lot of pain, however, and we had our second healing. A man from a sister church did a guest preaching maybe a week after his surgery and said he had a word of knowledge for neck pain. Kevin was prayed for and all the pain was gone. No one could believe how quickly he recovered from a surgery that is normally given a year for "full recovery." So, all was good, right? Unfortunately, no. The numbness and weakness continued to progress. Remember how I mentioned Kevin used to work a 12 hour day and come home and clean? Now, our life was reduced to the fact he couldn't complete a shopping trip to Costco. Our referral to Stanford? Cancelled because the stenosis was the diagnosis! Except, it wasn't. So, more tests, a referral to UCSF's Fresno campus, thanks to our amazing neurosurgeon, and finally, finally a tentative diagnosis of Peripheral Neuropathy of unknown causes. Along with this, came the news that we were unable to rule out ALS as a diagnosis, and we would have to go to UCSF in San Francisco to finalize his diagnosis. The thing with Peripheral Neuropathy is that if you can find out what causes it, you can treat it. Treat the diabetes, you treat the Neuropathy. Treat the vitamin deficiency, you treat the Neuropathy. With an unknown cause, you do your best to treat the pain and and the uncomfortable feeling, but you can't treat the disease. As we are walking in the reality that my husband, at the age of 36 is permanently disabled, an invalid, and practically a shut-in, we were feeling pretty low. I was pretty angry. This was supposed to be the good part of life. Our kids were finally past the baby stage, and we were able to go places easily. Financially, we had a little extra now that I had gone back to work as a substitute teacher. Every penny, every minute, every thought had been sucked up by this illness. I couldn't be excited about my kids winning an award at school because I wasn't sure if Kevin would be able to make it through the ceremony. We couldn't plan a vacation because 1.) we couldn't afford it and 2.) he couldn't sit in the car long enough to get there. When the real lows would come, we would speak out all the good things God had done for us. "Remember the time your eye got healed? Remember how Tessa got healed?" We also began a 'when Kevin gets better" bucket list. It included things as simple as a drive to the beach, to a trip to the British open, to walking the girls down the aisle. We didn't know what out our future held, but we weren't really very optimistic these things were every going to take place. So, here's where our story has it's twist. My mom was attending a conference with Randy Clark, a faith-healer. She came home, and she told us, "you have to go." Kevin had been at his brother's wedding the day before, and he was basically bedridden. I was exhausted following a long week of work. I didn't want to go. Kevin didn't think he was "up" to going. She persisted, and we agreed to go. I had a bad attitude from the beginning. The first two worship songs didn't have their words on the screen, it was too cold inside the sanctuary, and I needed to be home packing for the reception for my brother-in-law's wedding. Randy began speaking, and it was a very nice teaching on the power of the testimony. He was very normal (much to my delight), and I could related to him. Suddenly he said, "I have a tingling, numb, burning, painful feeling that's starting in my left foot. If you have this symptom, stand up, I'm going to pray for you." Kevin refused to stand up because his tingling, numb, burning, painful feeling was in his whole body, not just his left foot. Randy said a quick 5 second type of prayer, and a woman up front began to cry. She said, "I've had neuropathy for years. I've been unable to feel anything in my feet. I've stepped on a nail, on glass, and I can't even feel it, but I can feel my feet." So Randy says, "Ok, if anyone has neuropathy, please stand up." Kevin stood up, and from the podium, Randy said a quick little prayer and said, "wave at me if you feel something" and kept on teaching. Kevin was waving both arms. He was walking and jumping and squatting and skipping. He was completely, totally, miraculously healed! We got home after 11 pm, and he stayed up all night cleaning. The next morning, we left for the reception which was 3 hours away. He was able to make the drive, stay at the reception for 7 hours, and he still felt great. It has been a few weeks since the healing, and Kevin still feels great. We've already crossed a few items off our bucket list, and we have been enjoying what feels like a second chance at life. If you've read this far, bless you! I write this in hope that the power of our testimony touches someone who finds healing through it. For more information on Randy Clark, please see http://globalawakening.com/home/speakers/randy-clark.