Shingles- and why I'm thankful

I (Rob) found out this week that I have shingles.  It's almost exam week at seminary, term papers are due next week, I'm scheduled to speak at a Chinese church in Miami next week...great timing, body.

Shingles started with what I thought was a strained muscle in my back.  Then some tingling in my skin around that area and spreading to my armpit and chest.  Before we learned it was shingles, my thoughts for possible problems were:
*fast moving cancer (not unlikely, given my family history)
*heart disease (I always assume this is inevitable as I get older)
*kidney failure (because WebMD suggested it)
*spider bite (since moving to Florida, I've woken up TWICE in the middle of the night because a large roach crawled across me.  I killed both roaches.  If roaches are crawling on me at night, why not spiders?  And we have some BIG spiders in Florida.)

But then, very suddenly, the rash and bumps appeared, and I was able to rule out all of those except "spider bite," which then got ruled out by the doctor saying "you have a textbook case of shingles," which, for those of you that don't know about shingles, it's basically short for "What chicken pox does when it's been dormant in your body for decades and gets bored."

So compared to my fears, shingles isn't so bad, and I'm thankful for that.

Also, when researching shingles, I've realized that the only people who really write their personal medical experiences online are people who have horrible experiences.  Nobody writes "yeah, I had such-and-such illness and it was not as bad as I feared."  No, nobody with those experiences is motivated to write about it.  The stories you see online are: "I was in constant pain for 4 months." "I wanted to stab myself and cut off my skin."  "It was more painful than my broken tailbone."  And everyone who hears you have shingles shares the horror stories they've heard or experienced.   So I've been ready for the worst pain of my life.  Thankfully, that hasn't happened...yet.

But it is painful.  Very painful.  And itchy...burningly itchy.  And this will probably last several weeks.  I woke up today and the pain had risen to a new level.  It's hard to concentrate long enough to study, write papers, or work.  And the kids don't understand why I can't hold them or roughhouse with them, which makes things much harder for April, too.

So to sum up, I'm thankful that I don't have any of the things I feared at first, and I'm thankful that my case isn't as bad as it could be.  But I don't like having shingles.  And if anyone wants their kids to get chicken pox, send them over, I think I'm entering my contagious phase soon.

(Also, for the seriously twisted, I have pictures of the rash available upon request.)

I don't care if the glass is half empty or half full, I want to know who drank my water!

It's one a.m. and I just finished studying for the night.  Specifically, I just finished memorizing the paradigm for present passive indicative contract verbs in koine Greek.  Don't you wish you had my life?

Seriously, though, before I head to bed, I'm doing my part to keep this from becoming a total mommy blog :)  Heading to bed, I'm thinking about the past few weeks, of which our dying car was only one of several dramatic episodes.  And I'm realizing that I'm still struggling with perspective.

Lately, when people ask how I'm doing, all I can think about are the rough patches of the past few weeks and months.  I even told one naive would-be small-talker that I would defer answering his question until next week, when I would hopefully have a happier answer to "how was your weekend?"  And let's face it, the past few months haven't been easy on the emotions or the pocketbook.

But that's not even half the story.

For every trying moment, for every loss, for every stressful day, there are corresponding and conquering blessings.  Our car died, and we've had new friends and classmates loan us their vans until we could get a more permanent ride.  Our housing situation was up in the air for way too long, and in the end we landed in a great house with amazing landlords.  Unpredictable appliances and sick kids cut into (or totally cut off) my study time, and yet I'm still doing well in class.

I'm not talking about mere silver linings in the midst of our frustrations and losses.  These are the signs of God's abundant blessings in our lives.  And yet I always think first of the dark spots. I wonder if we've become so caught up in the entertainment value of drama in film and on TV that we seek to highlight the drama in our lives.  Life has drama, to be sure, and some lives have more of it than others.  But if all we focus on is the tension, the unfulfillment, the disappointment, then we aren't being true to the whole story.

I want to tell the whole story of my week- not in all the details, both mundane and extraordinary- but the story with all its contours.  I don't want to talk about the low points just for the sake of dwelling in them, but only insofar as they take me back up to the high points of God's redemptive work.

I'm not there yet.  Thankfulness takes discipline.  In the meantime, I may need to stop deferring answers and simply affirm to the people around me that God has been good to me.  Better than I deserve, better than I understand, and better than I'm willing to admit.

Visa trip to Ma - Cow

Our visa requires that we leave the country every 90 days. So we usually end up taking a short trip to a neighboring country- wherever we can find the cheapest flights. This time, we took our first trip to Macau. Cosi was very excited about going to see a cow.

Sadly for Cosi, we never once saw a cow... But we did have fun :)


Honestly, Macau is not a very family friendly location. I pictured beautiful sidewalks with multi-colored Portuguese influenced homes lining the street. I think I saw a picture like that and my imagination flew. Although there are some tourist locations like that, the majority of Macau is a city with cheesy casinos. It's hard to navigate and bad for pedestrians (especially those with strollers, which might have been just us in the whole city). I'm thankful to have gone, but I'd be okay with never going back.













The Ruins of St Paul's Cathedral was one place that I really liked - though it could be because a Starbucks and a McDonalds were nearby. The Ruins were amazing. I couldn't read the brochure about it, because Trey slobbered it to a pulp, but I think it has something to do with a church that was destroyed by fire and only one wall was left standing. Even without the history, it's an incredible sight to see. If I knew the history....well, I can only imagine how awesome that would be...

Here's Cosi holding her new keychain. The ruins are behind her.






















Cosi, the destroyer of idols (a veritable Josiah of modern day), stroller-rammed a Buddhist offering that was sitting outside a store. It looked much like this one, but had a lot of fruit. I guess Buddha likes pomelo. What Buddha-lovers do not like is a stroller running over their offerings. What they like even less is a culturally insensitive mother who tries to upright the offering with her foot. I know, I know, it was an impulsive move for a non-Buddhist. I realized it as soon as the store owner yelled at me. But, I was trying to hold onto a wirey 4 year-old girl who often forgets that she's not allowed to push the stroller into the busy car-filled street located mere steps away. What I'm trying to say is that my hands were otherwise occupied, as they have been for the past 10 months since Cosi joined our family. Anyhow, what I'm really trying to say is that if you want to tick off a Buddhist person, knock over their idol and then upright it with your foot. Works every time.







The most disappointing part of our trip (for me) was missing the Macau Grand Prix. It's a car race that happens on the streets of Macau - how awesome does that sound??? It happens every year in November. Since I didn't know anything about Macau before our trip (except that it's a cheap flight in & out, therefore a good location for a quick visa trip), I had never heard of this race. But, once we arrived and I couldn't help but hear about it and see it at every turn. It was then that I knew my forever dream was to see cars go fast on streets. I picture it being like a James Bond movie. What's not to like? Sadly for me, the Macau Grand Prix was Nov. 17-20. We were there Nov. 14-17. All we got to see were the signs and street preparations mocking my lack of proper travel plans. I blame it on my preoccupation with the children....too many poopy diapers slowing me down...The closest we got to the action was walking past this grandstand a few times a day. In Macau's defense, we should note that our view of macau as bad for pedestrians might be strongly influenced by the preparations they made for the Grand Prix.





And - who's that boy? (rocking the swing like it's his business) who's that boy? It's Trey!

We took this on the day that we ate at Fernando's. (no pictures from the lunch itself) It's a famous, beach-front Portuguese restaurant. Rob had no desire to go (there was a McDonald's in Macau, remember?), but I was determined. We took a bus for 30 minutes to get there. We could have taken a taxi, but we're cheap. We waited in line until the restaurant opened at 12. By this time, our kids were already fussy. They didn't have any kids seats (Rob pointed out that McDonald's has kids seats). Our kids were the only kids present. Their usual clientele didn't need kids seats. I'm kinda surprised they even let us in the door actually. Anyhow, in a classy mom-like fashion (or desperation), I sped through the menu and picked out our food, which were the only two non-seafood items on the menu. Since the waitresses were all at other tables, I approached the server station, baby in tow, and begged to get our food order in first. I need not have begged. They wanted to get us out ASAP, too. I then proceeded with the next phase of my plan = nurse the baby to sleep and then Rob & I will outnumber the awake child and be able to split the work while we eat. Fail. My normally good little eater kept pulling off and exposing his mother to the other guests. I could have forgiven his lack of discretion had he eventually dozed off, but it was not to be. The two little ones teamed up to make lunch a mildly unpleasant experience, somewhere between getting a splinter and minor surgery. Rob was right, McDonald's might be our best choice for eating out these days :)

So, there's an overview of our trip to Macau! One of the things that I like about our life is that we get to travel. In honor of thanksgiving, I'm going to write a list of things that I'm thankful for. This will be near the top.

"Congratulations, You Are Parents"

That's how our facilitator, Helen, translated the judge's ruling on our court date yesterday. She was crying as she said it, April was crying when she heard it (part stress, part happiness), and Rob just couldn't stop staring at the judge's big hat. We'll post a full description of the court date later (it was a 3 hour ordeal, not the relaxed 20 minutes we were told to expect). Right now we're in between guestrooms and need to pack up.

The one possible fly in the ointment is that, according to the unique rules of this little city, they may need April to sign a piece of paper on the 18th, which would mean she can't fly back on the 12th. We'll know for sure on Monday, the 10th. Apparently, power of attorney doesn't carry much weight in this province. We're praying it works out for April to still leave on the 12th (because April has an ultrasound scheduled on the 13th and a doctors appointment on the 14th - to find out why she was measuring over a month ahead at her December 8th appointment), but we'll keep you all updated!

One more prayer request - that nothing happens in the next 10 days (the official waiting period) to challenge our rights as parents!

Prayer Requests (and some things for which we're thankful)

By way of prayer requests, here is an update:

April has been having some problems sleeping lately, and last night she had three separate nightmares that really upset her- please pray that God would calm and protect her.

On Sunday, we'll be traveling overnight to meet a little girl that we may end up adopting. Pray for us as we handle the usual risks of travel, and pray for April's health (and for baby #2).

Also, we've been hitting a lot of red tape- officials with ulterior motives, indifferent bureaucrats, etc. Pray for patience and wisdom as we (and our wonderful facilitator, Helen) work with these people.

Pray also for wisdom as we meet with this little girl. She is a little older than we had expected, and we're not sure how to make this decision. We need to be able to know that we will be able to meet her special needs while living overseas. We hope that we will know right away that this is the girl God has prepared for us.

If we do go forward, timing will become an issue. We're running into the New Year holiday as well as the Christmas Holiday (which is Jan 7th-9th), so getting all the paperwork we need and setting up the court date will take longer than usual :-/ We'll probably be here for another 3-4 weeks.

And here are a few things we are thankful for:
-Wonderful brothers and sisters in Kiev who have welcomed us, hosted us, and served us, though we were strangers only one week ago.
-Five cups of hot tea a day to keep us warm!
-No health problems so far.
-Rob has been able to find enough to eat, despite his allergies (Pierogies- yay!). Although at one buffet-style restaurant, we asked which foods had eggs, and an excited server replied, "Everything!"
-Our helpful facilitator, who has been working hard on our behalf.
-Some of the most incredible snowflakes we have ever seen. Huge! And they hold their shape for a few minutes after they land on you, so you can observe their amazing detail. Rob thinks it's like God saying a quiet hello.
-Being able to spend 24 hours a day together (April made me write that...)
-The hope that this adoption just might work out after all...

Thanksgiving

Perhaps I (Rob) was a bit hasty (and negative) in my venting about the weather. This week has been a beautiful autumn week- cool but not cold, sunny, crisp...
So of course I got sick, Maybe I got that "Swine Cold" April was talking about. April, for her part, is in class this Thanksgiving Day, because there's no such holiday in East Asia!

So I'm trying to learn thankfulness. I'm realizing that default mode for me is to only be driven to thankfulness when I am in want. When something is lacking, I realize that I shouldn't take for granted what I do have. Even that phrase, 'take for granted' speaks a lot to me. I take for granted, that is, I assume will always be the case, that I have food, general health, friends, shelter, etc. I never envision a world where I lack these things.

True thankfulness sees even the 'givens' as gifts. Ironically, we call them "givens" and mean that we ought to have them. We are entitled to them. But the word "given" even points to the gift, and the gift points to the Giver.

So Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you are able to celebrate in a warm home, with a full plate of food, surrounded by loved ones. Good gifts all around.