Well, first. I now have a name for the photography company. "Times Gone By" is its name, if you know anyone who needs a photographer feel free to give them my name and such. I have business cards too which makes me happy beyond happy.

okay now for the real purpose of this.

This has been a long time coming. Months in fact, however, I am just now writing anything that deals with this.

It started in October. October 9th to be exact. I was on my last day of Fall Break from NGU and decided to head over to the High School to chat it up with the May and some old friends. Ben was at my house, but I let him sleep and I just went over by myself (i mean he didn't really know them so that would have been weird). Anyways, I had been there for a bit and sat through singers and then she and I were left to discuss the ways of the world and all. All of a sudden my phone rang. Not that this is unusual but people don't generally call me in the morning. So I took it out and looked and saw it was my dad. I answered it and did the usually salutations of a phone call. On the other end I heard a man, a slightly depleated grown man talking to me. He asked where I was and what I was doing. I answered and then heard an unexpected next few sentences. "Well, get home as soon as you can okay?" "sure, what's up?" "Well you know I had my doctor's appointment today, well we were headed back and the doctor called back with tests and I'm in instage renal failure." A million thoughts ran through my mind during that next few minutes. I had never heard of anything involving kidneys as renal, but i quickly got the memo. They told me to get home as soon as I could because he was to be immediately admitted to the hospital. Well I quickly took my leave, walked as fast as I could (i live RIGHT RIGHT next to the HS) and as I turned the corner to my neighborhood ran into my parents leaving. They drove me to the house and I went and woke Ben up and got us there as soon as possible.

My dad had been sick for just over a month. High fevers, aches, pain, pretty much bedriden. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. They tested him for everything from Leukemia to Lime Disease. All tests came back negative. Finally our doctor sent him to a Hemotologist. She is who found his problem. My dad had Anti GBM Antibody in his system. This disease is rare beyond rare, 1 in a million men...what's that tell you about my dad? It is extremely rare yet is carried in very ordinary objects like hairspray.

When Ben and I got to the hospital that day I walked in to a room full of my family and family friends. That was unexpected but very well received. We sat in the ER for hours and hours and just waited. It was pretty much an all day thing. He was finally given a room and set up for weeks of testing. It was discovered until later that the Anti GBM was what the culprit was. It was still unknown about certain cancers and stuff. We didn't know for about a week and a half of what we were dealing with. It was a constant battle. The night of the admittance once everyone left Ben and I stayed for a bit and talked and just tried to help. As we were leaving my dad looked at him and said "take care of her, i can't right now." Ben agreed and we left. I got in the car and didn't make it out of the parking lot. I bawled. I seriously broke down.

The next month consisted of going to and from school seeing my dad and doing what i could to keep up with studying. We finally heard that my dad did in fact have the anti GBM thing and they transferred him from St. Francis to Greenville Memorial because they were better equipped to handle that type of thing. From there it was Photophleuresis and Dialysis to get all the liquid out of his system. Soon he was able to leave the hospital and get home and back to a somewhat, however not really, normal life.

My dad's life now consists of 17 pills a day, 3 days a week of Dialysis treatments and a diet that sometimes isn't too pleasant. At leat for now that is what it consists of.

This weekend we went to Charleston to go to MUSC for my dad's transplant meetings. My dad is almost officially on the transplant list. At any point in time my parents could get a call and be told to be in Charleston within hours. They have to leave, I stay here and until 2 weeks after the transplant be down there by themselves. This has been a whirlwind of a journey.

During this journey my brother has been hospitalized, my aunt broke her arm, my other aunt her foot, my cousin in law his foot, my cousin married her Ben, my mom is stressed, Ben and I parted ways, God has brought a lot of new people into my life, and taken some as well and still God has been amazingly sovereign through it all. There is not one thing that has happened that it is not obvious that God is in control. In that there is peace. In that there is hope. In that there is...Love.

John 14:27 says: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

I love that verse because it can apply to ever single situation that you find yourself in.

so you most likely, if you have gotten this far, are wondering why i decided to do this now. Well, i must confess, i have a hard time with that whole bearing one anothers troubles thing. I can listen to you and talk with you about yours all day long, however it is hard for me to be vulnerable and let people, all people minus like5 really in and know what's going on in my life. so if you have read this you now know the big happenings of the past few months. As my amazing roommate always tell me "you know you don't always have to be strong right?" Well it might be sinking in now, so take my vulnerabilty nugget for what you will. and pray that all will go well with my dad and his transplant. and that he will have patience...that seems to be something he is lacking with right now concerning this whole thing. Pray for my mom, she might not have to have the surgery but she definitely needs to feel God's hand on her during this.

Okay. I think i am done.