This post was originally posted on my Fridays With Lorelei Facebook page along with several other updates. Tune in there for additional updates.
I know so many of you popped over to this page or my personal page yesterday hoping for an update… the thing is, Lorelei is what I will call “critically stable” and until she shows the doctors what her body can handle, we just have to wait and see if she will pull through this. She needs to rest. Lots of rest. She needs to refill her reserve energy tanks that have been drastically depleted if not completely emptied. She needs to fight, because mommy needs this little warrior.
She is far from out of the woods. Actually, she is so deep in the woods, the vines are so thick and the trees are so tall, it is dark and we are unable to see the blue skies somewhere up above us. But right now, in that forest, our little glamper is setting up camp, building a fire and hunkering down to continue to fight for her life.
Mitochondrial Disease is a scary, fickle beast lurking in the woods that no one can trust. It is ugly, hairy, huge and dirty with fangs for teeth and claws that leave scars. It’s the monster that you fear will pop out from behind a tree in the middle of the night, when you finally let your guard down, and you don’t know how it will hurt this time. Will it drag her through the forest on another downward spiral? Will it affect an unsuspecting organ? Will it make her body more acidic? Will she have enough energy built up to handle whatever rocks this beast throws at her?
For a while you feel like you’re on a snipe hunt… telling yourself that this all can’t be real. What we are hunting for must be a myth. Like Big Foot or the Lochness Monster. But it’s not. This Mito Monster is real. It’s lurking and waiting. You can almost feel it breathing down the back of your neck. And it’s out of our control. There is absolutely nothing I can do to protect my little child, who is innocently sitting in her purple camp chair by the campfire in the woods right now. All I can do is hold her and try to manage the damage after the monster tears through camp once again…
I was going to try to make an analogy about Jesus being the park ranger, who can manage and control our camp… how I may be unable to control or plan this “camping trip” but He totally can. And He will. But it is 530AM. And I am too tired to be anymore creative than I already have. Instead I am going to lay down before shift change, and have a conversation with our “park ranger”, thanking him for another night and praying for a stable, uneventful day of rest and recovery for Lorelei.
Thank you all for your love and support. I will keep everyone posted. But maybe just assume that no news is good news…
With “s’more” hope (because what’s a campfire without a s’more??) - Lorelei’s mommy…
(Pic is from August 2017)