Something of a Storm (All in Good Time Book 1) (7 page)

I honestly felt like I was losing my mind, and it wasn't just a result of no one being able to help me. My mind literally didn't work right. My cognitive skills were terrible, and I had trouble forming a chain of thoughts.

Lexi continued to go to work. She picked up extra shifts to help out with the dwindling funds. I was paranoid about everything. I was paranoid about running out of money, and I was paranoid about Lexi going to and from work alone. I was desperate to get better so I could get back to my responsibilities but was physically incapable of doing anything about it.

I checked in with Peter from time to time promising him that I would come back to the studio as soon as I could. He seemed content with me taking as long as I needed.

The symptoms came in waves, and while I was totally out of it most of the time, I had moments where my brain seemed to work okay. It was during one of those good waves that I walked to the store to get Lexi something for her 18
th
birthday.

I couldn’t believe the end of July had come already, but there she was, turning 18. She went out to dinner to celebrate with some friends from the restaurant, but I was still too sick to go. She had brought a few of her new friends by the apartment during the last couple of months, but I usually just stayed holed up in the bedroom while they hung out.

I was desperately sick of being sick. I was at my wits end and literally crying one morning when I got a call from a number I didn't recognize.

Chapter 10

Lexi was working a lunch shift, so I was home alone when the phone rang that morning. I almost didn't answer it, but decided to go ahead just in case it was a doctor's office saying they found the missing link and they knew what was wrong with me.

"Hello?" I said, trying to compose myself.

"Is this Laney?" a woman asked.

"Yes it is."

"Laney, this is Kate Martin from Our Savior's Church, remember me?"

My heart sank with disappointment. She was a really nice lady and everything, but I didn't feel much like making small talk.

"Yes ma'am, how are you?" I asked, trying my best to act cheerful and upbeat.

"I was about to ask you the same question," she said. "Peter Craig came by the church yesterday to check on the windows and I asked him about you. He said you'd still been sick."

"Yes ma'am," I said, feeling like I wanted to cry.

"You're not still sick from a few months ago, are you?"

"Yes, actually."

"You're kidding!"

"I wish I was," I said, deflated.

"Listen, baby, I have some errands to run over by your neighborhood in a little while. Do you mind if I come by to bring some food and maybe pray for you."

"Oh, no, you don't need to do that," I insisted.

I'd prayed to God relentlessly during the last two months. If He hadn't heard me by now, I didn't see how it could help for her to come try again.

"Why don't you let me do it?" she asked. "It would make me feel good." She paused, but continued before I could deny her again. "I'll pick up a Honeybaked Ham to keep in the fridge for sandwiches and some of those sides they make… you know mac and cheese and mashed potatoes and stuff. Does that sound okay?"

I really hated for her to do that, and hated more for her to come pray for me since she'd probably expect a miracle and I likely wasn't getting one, but the menu was enticing. I also knew Lexi would love to come home to a big ham in the fridge.

"I don't want you to have to do that," I said, even though I was slightly more open to it.

"I want to," she said. "I won't stay and visit very long if you're not up to having company. I'll just swing by and drop off some lunch."

I paused, thinking about how nice it would be to have food delivered. "If you're sure you don't mind," I said.

"I want to," she repeated. "I'll be there between noon and one. Is that okay?"

"It's great, thank you so much."

It was 12:30 when I heard Kate Martin's footsteps coming up the iron stairway that led to our apartment. I opened the door before she knocked. She had a bundle in her arms that was at least the size of a baby and two grocery bags were hanging from her arm.

"Oh my goodness, let me help you with some of this," I said, taking the ham out of her arms.

"All of it goes in the fridge," she said. "You can heat it as needed. The instructions are written on the packaging."

"Thank you so much for bringing all this," I said.

She followed me to the fridge, and after we put everything up, she followed me to the couch.

"I can't believe you're still sick," she said, cutting to the chase. "Was it the UTI?"

"No, that went away with the antibiotics. I'm really not sure why I'm sick. I thought it was a yeast infection for a while, but I think it was the antibiotics themselves that did it."

"Well you knew they were making you sick that day in the hospital, but I assumed it got better when they changed your prescription."

"It did, at least a little. It was bearable while I finished the course of Amoxicillin, but the week after I finished them, I started going downhill again. I haven’t been to work in two months. During the bearable moments, I get outside to walk around and keep up with chores around here, but I never know when a wave of it will hit me, so there's just no way I could go to work."

She sighed. "I'm so sorry to hear that," she said, sincerely. "What are your symptoms?"

I started to tell her, but decided it'd be easier to let her read for herself. I went to the bedroom where I picked up two pieces of paper. One was a calendar listing my symptoms and intensity day by day for the past two months and the other was a list of my symptoms in no certain order.

The calendar was difficult to read since I'd scribbled notes in every millimeter of every square, so I handed her the list of symptoms instead.

I watched as she read it.

brain fog

numbness in limbs especially right arm

nausea

tight chest

itchy eyes

waking up multiple times a night with the feeling of being electrocuted

insomnia

confusion

tight/painful jaw and ears

ears clogged and ringing

constipation

heart racing

cold sweats

restlessness

nightmares

headaches

severe anxiety

uncontrollable adrenaline

She inspected the list for a long minute and then looked back at me with a stunned expression.

"Sweetheart, I can't believe this," she said.

"I know," I said with tears in my eyes.

"Have you shown this to a doctor?" she asked.

I laughed. "Three or four."

"And what did they say?"

"They want to help me with the symptoms that are in their realm," I said. "The GI gave me something for the nausea and some IBS medicine for the constipation. Another doctor gave me Xanax for the anxiety and some anti-fungal stuff in case it was a yeast infection. Most of them quit taking me seriously the second I say anxiety. This internist I saw told me all my symptoms were "vague" and can all result from anxiety." I paused staring straight ahead. "I don't think any of them have a clue how severe it is. I've had an extensive ultrasound and a CT scan of my whole torso along with tons of blood work. I've been hooked up to that thing that monitors your heart rate several times." I let out a frustrated sigh. "Everything shows up normal. I can't make sense of it."

"Has it gotten any better over time, or is it still as intense as it was."

"It's a little better, I guess," I said, thinking back to the time when I literally couldn’t get out of bed.

I'd been to the store several times during the last couple of weeks, and had gone outside to get fresh air nearly every day for a while now.

"I'm not capable of making the trip yet, but I'm thinking I'll have to take Lexi back to Washington when I can," I said sadly.

"Back to your family."

"I wouldn't really call it that," I said. "But it's a cheaper existence, and we just can't afford to be here if I'm not working. I don't have insurance and the medical bills haven't even started rolling in yet."

She put her hand on my arm. "I hate to hear this," she said.

"Me too," I said. Tears of fear and frustration fell onto my cheeks. "I wake up at night feeling like my finger is in an electrical socket, and just pray that God will have mercy and take me away from this life." I let out another helpless sigh. "I've never been like that. I'm usually strong, and hopeful, and love my life. It's just that I always had these notions about death and it sucks learning that they're not true. I always thought that dying would be easy since we lived in modern times. I thought there were two options. I could die fast like a car crash or gunshot or something, or if it was something that took a long time like sickness, then modern medicine would just take my pain away and make it easy." I took in and let out a long breath as more tears streamed. "I never dreamed my body could hurt this much and no one would do anything about it." I looked at her. "Not only do they do nothing about it, but they act like I'm overreacting by being in the doctor's office in the first place. At least there's honor in dying of cancer. At least those people are considered brave. My body is quitting on me. It's in chaos, and doctors just treat me like I'm being anxious—like I can just calm my nerves and it'll all go away."

She reached out and took me into her arms and I went willingly. I was so tired of being sick that I'd begged for death on multiple occasions.

"I think it's gonna get better if you give it time, sweetheart," she said. "I thought you were so excited about moving here and trying to get started with stained glass."

"I was but that was back when my brain had the capacity to be creative." I used my pointer finger to tap my head a few times. "I can't think straight. I used to dream up window designs and sketch them out continually. I haven't even
thought
about glass for two months. I'm scared it did something permanent to my brain."

Her grip had loosened, but she still had an arm around me. She rubbed my shoulder in a comforting gesture. "I don't think that's true, sweetheart. I know it seems like a long time for you, but two months really isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. I don't want to see you give up everything. It could just be that it will take some time to get out of your system. God's with you through it all, sweetheart, and He loves you very much."

Another tear rolled down my cheek "God must have a crazy way of showing it," I said. "Because before this ever went down, I had other crappy stuff happen to me." I sighed, feeling helpless. "It's just too much to handle."

"What's the other thing?" she asked.

Before I knew what I was doing, I said, "My mother is a raging alcoholic, and I watched my little sister get raped at a truck stop on the way here."

She let out a little gasp and covered her mouth, but quickly composed herself. "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry for you. For both of you."

I breathed a little humorless laugh. "It was my job to make sure she stays safe—to make sure that never happened again, and this craziness in my body is preventing me from doing that. It was the one thing I needed to do and I can't even do it. Now she's forced to go to work alone and I'm trapped in here so sick that sometimes I forget how worried I should be."

"How's she doing?" Kate asked.

"Okay, I guess," I said. "She never talks about it."

"How's she doing with the responsibility of being the only one working?"

"She's really stepped up," I said. "I can see that she's changed and matured a lot, but then again, she doesn't really have a choice."

"Do you think that God could be using this time of you being sick to show the both of you that she is capable of making it on her own?"

My first instinct was to be offended by her question. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

"That's pretty extreme measures for God to go to just to teach us a lesson, don't you think?" I asked, thinking about the pain I'd been in for two months.

She gave me a caring smile. "I'm not saying that's what's going on here, sweetheart. But we don't always understand God's ways. All I know is that He is good, and that He can use even the worst of circumstances to bring good in our lives."

"I think these qualify as the worst circumstances," I said, smiling a little. I bit my lip shyly and shook my head. "I'm sorry I unloaded on you," I said. "I probably shouldn't have said that about people with cancer. I'm not usually a drama queen. In spite of how I sound right now, I really do try to be a positive person."

"I don't think you're being dramatic at all," she said. "You've been through a lot. I can imagine how frustrating it must be."

"Thank you for listening," I said. "It might sound weird, but it helps just to hear you say that I've been through a lot when I'm used to doctors treating me like I'm making stuff up."

"Well, I'm no doctor, but I can see in you're face that you're not making anything up. You've been through a lot."

I gave her a relieved smile. "I didn’t mean to come across as hopeless," I said, trying to backpedal a little bit. "You just caught me on a bad morning. It's already getting better than it was at one point, and I do have hope that I'll get past this one day."

"I truly believe that," she said.

She was only there for a few more minutes. She asked if she could pray for me, and I agreed.

Her prayer was short and sincere. She asked God to ultimately bring full healing to my body, but to bring me comfort and peace in the meantime. She prayed that this ordeal and my life in general be used for His glory. Tears rolled down my cheeks the whole time, and afterward I told her how thankful I was that she'd taken time out of her day to stop by and bring me food.

I walked her to the door thinking that after she left I'd go to the fridge and make myself a ham sandwich.

She'd already taken a step down the stairs and I was in the process of closing the door when she turned back and said, "Hey, do you mind if I tell Zack?"

I gave her a look that reflected my confusion. "I guess so," I said.

She didn't elaborate on what details she wanted to give him or why, and at that moment I was too confused and disoriented by the question to ask.