Problems

I think all the newest problems started about a year ago, when we moved into this very small apartment.  Finances made it impossible to stay in the much bigger apartment that we had lived in for the last ten years. We did find a little two bedroom apartment that looked nice, and we could afford.  

The first month we were here we had three broken pipes in the walls.  The first broken pipe was in my boys, Elijah and Michaels room.  It soaked a lot of the boxes that were in their room, and the carpet.  Maintenance came over quickly and pulled up the carpet, cut a hole in the wall and fixed the problem.  So after that, we had the same problem in our room, twice.  Maintenance came quickly both times to fix each problem.  

We had several small problems, not worth talking about.  The next thing that happened was a car accident.  I crunched the front of my car up on the way home from taking my son to school.  It ran for a few weeks until the transmition mysteriously went out.  We couldn’t afford to fix either of the problems so we got rid of our car.  

No car meant a lot more problems.  I have medical issues with my back and neck, and I ended up having to walk or take the bus everywhere I had to go.  One of the good things is that walking improved my back pain.  Thank God he still works even when we think he’s not looking.

Elijah graduated, which was another good thing.  But the bad thing was that him graduating hurt our finances even worse.  I hate to admit it because some are looked down on, but because of our disabilities we are on welfare and SSI, part of our welfare was cut off for Elijah.  So we had to tighten our belts even more.  

I couldn’t make it to my pain doctor anymore, no car, no medicine for my back.  My pain doctor was 45 minutes away in the car so there was no way I could make it to him.  

I also ran out of antidepressants and my anxiety medications.  Instead I thought I would see how I fare without all the medication that I had been on for many years.  Big problem!  Withdrawal from all of those meds at the same time left me depressed anxious and in much pain.  I started spending most of my time in bed and Mark and the boys took over most of my work.  

We found a wonderful church in walking distance but we got another broken pipe, this time in the floor, on the day we were getting ready for church.  That got fixed but I slipped into a deep depression.

Mark was in and out of the hospital this year many times.  Every time he went in he came out a little worse.  He is an end stage renal patient, he has hepatitis C and he had open heart surgery in 2006 and only 35% of his heart is working at this time.

Wow, what a year!  I haven’t written much lately and I haven’t posted anything new in a long time.  But praise the Lord, I got to the doctor.  I got on some medication, I got on much less of everything though to start and after a couple of weeks I started to feel better.  Our apartment hasn’t gotten much better but I feel more equipped now to handle all the little problems, and I know it wasn’t just the meds that helped me.

I have prayed so much, had many good talks with my boys about God, and I feel blessed to have wonderful kids and a wonderful husband that I know is there for me in the hard times.

And, today I got my hope back, hope for joy and peace.  I have also started writing again as you can see.  And I thank God for that.  I don’t know why I am going through all of this but, if you’ve ever read Footprints, that is how I see it.  One set of footprints in the sand because Jesus has carried me through this last year.  I know I could have never made it on my own.