Change of Plans

"Come now you who say 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy, sell and make a profit.' whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'" James 4:13-15

There has been a change in my plans.

many of you who even know I have a blog anyway have already heard the saga of my hospitalization, but I've included what I wrote on myspace and facebook below, In case you have not.

This is mostly an official update to say I will not be going to camps as planned this summer, God has chosen otherwise. I would appreciate your prayers though, in seeking His will for me this summer. A lot of it I know has to be spent "recovering" (read, "sleeping"). But there has to be a reason I am not at camps, and I would love to find it out that I might follow His direction in that.



here is the story if you have not heard,

I was down in the OC the Saturday before memorial day at my friend, Annie's place for a bachelorette party in honor of her marriage the next weekend. I decided to spend the night, since I never get to see any of the girls who were there (I'm not kidding-several flew in from other countries for the event, so there you have it). I woke up in the middle of the night, not being able to sleep, but with nothing else particularly wrong, and got up to go to the bathroom. That is the last thing I remember until waking up Wednesday night in the hospital.

But I'll tell the story chronologically. Apparently Sat night/Sun morning I started throwing up (still at my friend's down in the OC), and finally around 10am, one of my friends, Becky, called my parents to come get me because I was not doing well. I actually do have a slight memory of her popping her head in and telling me she was going to do this, but with no feelings or other thoughts attached to that memory (like I didn't wonder why, but I don't remember feeling bad, I just remember the scene itself).

My parents came down and brought me and my car home at which point they called the Dr. because I've never had migraines or anything of the sort. Those brilliant people they talked to told them to wait until after the holiday and bring me in (they may have actually called Monday-remember I have no memory of this).

Monday I was still not feeling well and apparently called my best friend, who also happens to be a nursing student, to come over and sit with me while I was throwing up and felt like crap-what a pal, Lacy! Just as my parents were arriving at a memorial day party down below, I apparently had a seizure. Lacy called 911-and then my parents-and I was taken to the ER AV Hospital. Props to my church for half of the members sitting in the ER waiting room for who knows how long-I've seen pics (c:

Some awesome nurse got me to cut in line for the CT scan and they found and AVM (in short a malformed blood vessel had burst in my brain and it was bleeding). They immediately stuck a drain in my head to get the blood out. Apparently I also needed a breathing tube, but I fought so hard against it that they had to sedate me. Tuesday they transferred me down to the ICU at Kaiser in Hollywood where I woke up Wednesday-after having the breathing tube removed-to Lacy and another friend of mine, Dana, laughing their heads off-probably at either my haircut (they shaved a nice portion off the middle) or at whatever I was saying on all the vicodin and morphine I was on. I totally thought I was dreaming until I woke up Thursday morning in the same place, with my pastor sitting in the corner of my room, instead of back in the OC where I thought I should have been- talk about trippy!

Over the next week and a half I ate a lot of jello, my brain continued to drain and I asked over and over what had happened cause I kept forgetting (c: oh and I slept. a lot. I also got a lot of visitors, so I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone that visited me (and who brought me shakes!) because I loved it-that would be Dana, Lacy, Hannah, Kerry, Jon, Krysti, Pastor and Mrs. Patterson, Mrs. Wright, Lo, Danielle, Laura, Krista, Lei, my parents, Bonnie, Tim, Andy, Rachel and Stacy, Dan, Sarah, and Marybeth, Megan, Becky, Matt, Kristin, and major props to my grandma for sleeping in those kaiser chairs (Lace, Tim, and my parents know they weren't comfy, but none of them are 73!)-if I forgot to mention you, lets just blame it on the fact that I had brain surgery and was on lots and lots of drugs. You guys rock my face off-actually most of you almost made me laugh my stitches out-but what would the ICU be without a little laughter?

Tuesday of the second week they took the drain out of my skull. They took a couple more CT scans, and then sent me home that Friday. I'm not allowed to do much here (they actually told me not to run-yes, I coached CC and Track, but run? are you kidding? I could barely stand without falling over, let alone my blurry vision/blindspot, what made them think I'd try to run?). I'm walking around fine now and the headaches aren't bad, I really only am getting em at night. I got my stitches and staples out yesterday. I'm watching lots of movies and love to have people over-as long as you don't expect to do too much more than talk or watch a movie (c:

The saddest part is that I will not be able to go to camps this summer as I had planned, which is such a bummer-but if you are going to girls camp at Verdugo, the docs cleared me to come visit for a day, so I'll see ya there (c:
I'm not really sure what God has planned for me this summer. But the half of me that isn't totally bummed about not getting to travel camps is really excited to see what He's got.

If you want to be praying for me here's how you can be:
I have another CT scan on the 27th, at which point we'll schedule the procedure they have to do to actually fix the AVM (and oh, by the way they found an aneurysm that hasn't done anything yet, while they were up there, so they want to deal with that at the same time). I'll need wisdom in deciding the best way to deal with it (apparently they can do a lot though my femoral artery-yes that's in my leg-so hopefully that will be effective enough, but I have to talk to the docs about all the options, ya know) I really want to just get it done and get better asap, so that would be great.
As of now I am still planning on moving to Canada in the fall, Lord willing. Pray for guidance there though.
And of course when I have the procedure, it'd be great to not have any complications.

thank you all for your prayers and concern. I'm not out of the woods, but I think I can see through the trees.