Apologies for so little blogging in the past weeks, this month has just truly been something else. As I’m sure many, if not all of you, have heard, my teammate, Lindsay and I got extremely sick about three days into this month and are just now recovering. We still aren’t exactly sure what it was, but whatever it may have been took us out hard for a solid two weeks. These last two weeks, in all honesty, were hands down the worst I’ve had on the Race and definitely some of the most challenging I’ve had in my life. They consisted of a plethora of time spent in the hospital, hanging out with Lindsay (in a way, I thank God she got sick too because I’m not sure I could’ve gone through all of that alone), sleeping every two hours, not being able to keep any food in, and a butt load of “fake it till you make it” days. Every single day I was waking up and feeling like another symptom had popped up, making me feel so much worse than the day before. My skin began to yellow, I was losing 6 pounds from one doctors visit to another, a lot of tears were coming down, and calls to mom were (very) frequent. Wow, my poor mother. There was one day where I was crying on the phone, while asking her to do about three thousand different things to see if I could find another doctor, probably really freaking her out with all the symptoms, while two of my siblings were actually extremely sick at home as well. So, moral of that story is my mom’s a rockstar who doesn’t get enough sleep, puts her kids before anything else, and really needs a vacation.
Anywho, we did actually end up finding an Indian doctor who tested me for malaria and typhoid, but finally diagnosed me with “many, many parasite in there.” He gave me a ton of medications that seemed to do the trick and about 4 days later I was pretty close to my normal self (thank you Jesus!!). While I was not actually able to still participate in ministry, I was able to hang out with the team and continue with team times and team normals. One of our team norms this month was to say something we’re grateful for every day during dinner, and I honestly found it really hard to every day because 1. I was rarely awake, and 2. It felt like nothing very good was happening, but looking back that is a completely ridiculous thought. I’ve decided to name some now because really amazing things were still actually happening around and to me.
I am grateful today for:
All of the prayer warriors across the U.S. It seemed like every single day one of my teammates would say “my mom’s friend from (wherever) has her entire (group) praying for you” or “my grandma just asked how you were doing” or “Stella, what medications are you taking? My sister will see if you can pair it with (pain meds) to get rid of the nausea.” I honestly felt like humanity was restored. Thank YOU ALL for unending positive thoughts and prayers.
The people who kept me going daily: My mom, as I mentioned before, had consistency and love that reached across the oceans and kept me sane. My sister Chelsea helped me buck up a bit while making me laugh every day by referring to me as, “my parasite infested African zebra queen” in conversation. My boyfriend Jacob was there to listen and offer any help necessary 24/7. My teammates, who let me remind you (besides Lindsay and Emily) just started living with me this month, made this situation somehow funny, finding light and laughter so often, while still making sure I was okay and cared for at all times. Most importantly though, Lindsay: we were attached at the hip, not only because we were quarantined to one room, but also because if we were making it out, it was going to have to be together.
Our squad mentor, Kaylaynn. One night Lindsay and I emailed, texted, and FaceTimed Kaylaynn essentially saying PLEASE HELP US, while she was actually home for Christmas. Yet, it felt like after that, she got us back on track and we actually got better. What a woman.
And last, but in no way the least, BEING FULLY FUNDED. A ginormous thank you to everyone who donated/prayed and got me here, it is a huge weight lifted and definitely shows that God placed me here for a reason. Fourteen thousand nine hundred fifty one thank yous.
