Closing in

The walls feel compressive today.  Yesterday, I brought video footage of Amelia's seizures (all kinds - the partials and the full-blown twitching, the recovery, and the onset) to her wonderful doctor at Mayo.  He has diagnosed her with four kinds based on the videos: simple partial, complex partial, secondarily generalized and absence seizures.  He skipped all the intermediate drug options and went straight to Depakote, an old, strong anti-seizure medication that is highly effective.  I am on my way out the door now to pick it up and give her a loading dose.  He hopes to see results within 24 hours to the tune of fewer seizures.  She is at the brink of status epilepticus - the only ray of hope currently being that the seizures have been short, though many.

I failed my comprehensive exam for my doctoral program yesterday.  I am doing okay with the news.  I get one more attempt.  I deserved to fail.  I hope to get enough feedback to pass when I try again within the next two months.

I am feeling awed, bruised and silent before Jehovah ("I will be who I will be"); Abir ("mighty One"); Shaphat ("Judge"); Kanna ("Jealous"); Eben ("Stone"); Hupsistos ("Highest"); Pantokrator ("Almighty") God. (from The Names of God) In the last year, I have seen less of love and mercy and more of stone-like, uncompromising, jealous persistence to use me and my circumstances for my own development and that of those around me.  It is easy to feel crushed between the well-beaten ground of the world's ways and the Stone that is the God who created me.