The Project of Me

Sixteen years ago, yesterday, May 31, 2009, I had two unexpected seizures, was diagnosed with viral encephalitis (a brain infection), and admitted to Children’s Hospital for 18 days. For the next 8 years, I lived a normal life, free of seizures and side effects. I thought my story was one of miraculous healing. But in 2017, I started having seizures again and was diagnosed with epilepsy. Today, my seizures are controlled. It’s been 2 ½ years since my last one. I used to have a difficult time classifying myself as disabled because of that. But recently, I recognized that even though I don’t have seizures daily, epilepsy still affects my daily life. I have taken anti-epileptic medication daily for the past 8 years. I make sure to carry my rescue medication with me everywhere I go. I pack an extra set of underwear in my carry-on when I fly just in case I have a seizure on the plane and wet myself (it happened once). I’m prepared to lose my driver’s license at any time in case of a break...

You’ve likely heard of FOMO- “fear of missing out.” But FOBN- “fear of bad news,” is FOMO’s much less talked about second cousin. Do you suffer from FOBN? Take a minute to reflect on your actions and reactions over the past month- which has been filled with plenty of bad news. How have you handled everything? Maybe you weren’t one of those people buying toilet paper in bulk… but has the thought of your loved ones getting sick consumed you? Are you panicking over the possibility of losing your job? Are you worried about finances? Are you stressed out over the thought of social distancing for another month or your kids not going back to school? Have you been afraid to give or stopped giving entirely to your local church or charity because you’re afraid of what the future holds? In general, do you just feel the doom and gloom setting in? Most of these reactions are what we call “normal” right now because if we’re honest, we’ve accepted the fear of bad news as a normal part of soci...

As I sit in quarantine at home, I feel at peace- not because the world is at peace or even because my personal world is at peace- but because the past year has taught me how to be okay with feeling out of control. A year ago today, long before anyone suspected the world would turn upside down, my world turned upside down. Around midnight on April 7, 2019, my husband overdosed on the bathroom floor of my hospital room and was medically dead for about seven minutes. Had we not already been in a hospital, he wouldn’t be alive today. Prior to that night, I’d been in denial, believing his addiction wasn’t that bad and he just needed a little help. The events of that night made me realize how out of control things really were. That night led to a series of events that put me in a position where I couldn’t even pretend to be in control anymore. Losing the illusion of control helped me see that I never had any in the first place. But God was and is and forever will be in control. I do...

Last September, I found myself in a waiting room for a dentist that I'd never heard of, in an office I had formerly known nothing about, waiting for a lunch break appointment that I’d been penciled in for the night before. I was in desperate need of a root canal and had been for probably a couple months by then but I didn’t have the insurance to cover it. The night before I was in so much pain I was in tears. My mom reached out to a dentist she knew of through work and he got me in right away. As I sat in his waiting room listening to other patients schedule their appointments weeks in advance for dentists they had already met, I couldn’t help but be struck by the oddity of my situation. The other thing that was blatantly obvious to me was that, as awkward as it was to get help from a stranger, this was God’s way taking care of me . The dentist billed my insurance and did the emergency work at no cost to me and then walked me down the hall to the School of Dental Medicine so they...