Good News!

Hi All,
Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement, it goes a really long way and I appreciate it more than you can know. This week my doctor scheduled an appointment with a specialist in a near by town, a small town, something a kin to Washougal, so I wasn't expecting too much. . . I was pleasantly surprised. : ) The doctor is a neurologist and he apparently specializes in headaches and, of course, neurological dissorders, of which I have both. He knew exactly what I have, knew the actual NAME of the disease that I have and said that there are a few reasons why I am predisposed to having the menengitis, (which is called Mollaret disease, nice to know, FINALLY.) So, I guess people who had the chicken pox severely as children, which I did, tend to have the re-occuring menengitis and people who have hardware in their spinal column also are predisposed. So there you have it. It is a very rare disease, but at least I know a little bit more about it and that I am not a complete freak, or that I am not making things up...of course I knew that, but it's nice to finally have some one who knows about it and can help me get well and stay well. He put me on some medication for six weeks that should help to get me well from this latest bout of fever, headache and fatigue and then there are a few other meds that I can take in the future to prevent getting sick or help me not get as sick. The other thing he said is that I have to take specialized antibiotics at the very first sign of any infection because the barier around my brain has some holes in it now and if the infection goes unchecked for more than a few days, it can affect my brain and it will become an infection in my blood stream. The other thing that will happen with out taking antibiotics is what always happens when I get run down or sick, I get REALLY sick and it doesn't go away for months. . . Totally not worth it! This is all very good information to have and very important information to have! Holy cow! I think that this last out-break of menengitis started with an ear infection that I tried to take care of on my own at home. I don't like taking anti-biotics because of the whole building up an immunity thing, and that it is so hard on my stomach, but now I know that some things are worth dealing with to avoid the greater evils. : )

Yada, yada, yada. Every time I say that I think of Brother Bradley Stuart...the speaker from South Africa. For those of you who are still completely lost, he started a school called Yada and he would often make jokes to that effect. Blah, blah, blah. Perhaps that would have been the better one to go with in the first place. : ) Ari and I are doing well. He started back to work tonight. He has been off of work because we had planned on being up in the NW this past week. We enjoyed the time at home though. We got about two feet of snow in the last 24 hours, no joke! It is beautiful. I will post some pictures of the trees outside our living room window in the next couple of days so you can see. Some times I am still amazed at the weather around here. It is still strange to have snow on the ground until the end of MAY! I don't know that I will ever get used to that. : )

I had fun tonight. One of Ari's co-workers, also our neighbor, just got engaged to the love of his life. She is a very sweet and lovely Australian whom I absolutely adore. I just never get to see her, she works nights when I'm awake! Anyway, they had an engagement party up at one of the local restaurant/bars in our neighborhood. All of the police officers from Ari's department were there, all of the officers from the department in the little town we technically live in were there and most of the sherrif's officers and the jailers were there, we were quite a group!

I don't get out much, so I really enjoy any and all socialization I can get. : ) Several of the officers from both Telluride, (where Ari works) and from Mt. Village, (where we live) are our neighbors...one of them is adjacent to us and one of them is directly below us. Then there are at least five others who live in other buildings, maybe more. It's fun and every one is really nice, they are good people for the most part. I must have hung out for about two and a half hours, had three giant diet pepsis and talked about everything, even Jesus! : ) Some how we got to talking about religion, a topic I tend to avoid around these parts because, believe me, it is unfortunately wasted breath most of the time. Once in a blue moon God will bring some one across my path up here, but it is so extremely rare. For the most part, people are young, very wealthy, have "every thing" they think that need and want and they don't believe in God, and if they do believe in God, it is certainly NOT Jesus. It is really sad. So, one of the guys mentioned that he was in seminary and he dropped out, he sounded bitter. He was saying that there was no difference between Judaism, Islam and Christianity. After he was done I said, well, there is a huge difference with Christianity. Jesus is the only one who rose from the dead and that says to me that He is divine and that He is the Son of God. My heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. The table went silent for a few seconds and then he slowly said, "You know some thing? You are right." Yay! : ) Wow, I still can hardly believe it happened. No one else said any thing. Religion is an extremely heated topic around these parts, so most people don't go there. But at least I got one man to think about God again in a way that maybe he hadn't for a long time. I really hope that God will use that seed and that He will water it. I trust that He will.

Love you all, Kristen