Fearfully and wonderfully made......

I will give thanks to You,

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Wonderful are Your works,

And my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14

Thank you to those of you who have inquired about my appointment today.  I'll give a brief overview before I drop into bed.  It's been a long day.

My time with Dr. Matt was good, as it always is.  He is one of the best listeners I've met, my husband being THE best.  :-)  After giving him a verbal update on the past year since I last saw him, we talked about the different possibilities of what is going on.  He zeroed in on "genetic mutation" and we spent the rest of the appointment talking about that.  It's not something I am familiar with at all, other than having heard about it for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  It is a rising field in the world of medicine and those who are researching and teaching about it are working at raising awareness.  To date, it is the deepest level of medicine we have available to us, being that it works at the genetic, cellular level.

My understanding of it is very minimal, but what I'm gathering is that when genes mutate, the ability of the cells to communicate and fulfill their function is impaired resulting in the inability to detoxify properly, as well as other functions being altered, resulting in disease.  That's the minimalistic understanding I have at this point.  Different mutations affect different bodily functions from mental to cardiovascular to digestive, etc.

The testing for these mutations has historically been prohibitively expensive, which has limited the ability of many to pursue this area of medical help.  A woman who was doing research on genetic mutation married someone high up in the Google construct.  He gave her $10 million to help with her research, one of the results being that there is now testing available to the general public for $99.  Matt has recommended that I have the testing done and then he will evaluate the results and, if this is what is going on, start trying to put the puzzle pieces together to devise a treatment plan.  There is no wonder-drug treatment to fix the mutations, rather finding ways to help the cells do their jobs in spite of the mutations.

Again, my knowledge of this is extremely limited right now and I don't know if I've gotten this right at all, but I'll share here as I learn more.

It will be a couple of months before we have answers, being that the test results have to come back and then - if this is what we're dealing with - Matt says he'll need about 4 weeks to evaluate and figure out what to do.  Each individual is different and the combinations of mutations and the resultant issues and treatment options are many, and it will take him awhile to sort it all out.

Thank you so much for praying.  I feel as if the Lord did illuminate something for Matt today.  Now we will see if it is what is going on, or if it's one more thing to eliminate in our search.  As I contemplate the possibilities here, I am in awe of the fact that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.  Truly.

If you're interested in looking at any of this stuff, here are a couple of links:

Dr. Ben Lynch at mthfr.net

23andMe (testing) at  https://www.23andme.com/