Praises and Prayer Requests

Some of you know that I recently decided to quit my job. Although I only worked a few hours a week, my income greatly helped provide for our family.  I am applying for disability, which we know will be extremely difficult to get due to the nature of my condition and my age, but we are greatly relying on God's provision for our lives.  Just wanted to update and share a little about how the Lord has graciously provided some financially for us this weekend. 

• We had a yard sale and made several hundred dollars between my parents, my grandparents, and us
• I sold just a few pieces of old gold jewelry that I don't wear anymore and made $160!
• We were surprised when a family member gave us a very generous gift to help us out with all our expenses lately

Praise God! He is so kind. We know that there may be difficult days ahead, but we trust God will take care of us as He has promised in His word.

As for a general update on me. I am still in a lot of pain since the botox injections and sacrotuberous trigger point injection and it has been 4.5 weeks. Other than going to church (for an hour), going to PT, and a quick trip or two to the store I haven't left the house. I am having symptoms again that had been pretty controlled prior to the injections. I am hopeful that this "flare" will eventually go away, but I do worry sometimes that maybe I am worse for good. I am trying a variety of medications to help try to get the pain under control, but nothing is helping so far.

Prayer Requests:

• Pray that I will get back to my pre-injection pain level. It was not good, but at this point I would be thankful to have that pain compared to this pain.
• I am waiting for the doctor in Phoenix to call me back about what the next step is. I was under the impression that I would be offered surgery if the botox injections didn't work, but now it looks like I might be required to travel to Phoenix for 3 CT guided pudendal nerve blocks 6 weeks apart. There is no way we can afford to do this. So, if that is the case I will have to either go to another pudendal nerve specialist or accept my condition as is and try to manage the pain as best as possible. I feel I am awfully young to do the later, so we need a lot of wisdom. Pray for the doctor to have mercy on us and for God to just show us the way we should go.
• We received notice from our insurance company that they were not going to cover the botox injection (which would cost us about $3,000 out of pocket), but now it looks like insurance might pay for it. We don't want to get our hopes up too early though so please pray that God would work in this situation.
• Pray that I would find a good local primary doctor and get on a better pain management regimen because even if I was offered surgery (which only has about a 60% chance of improving my pain by at least 10%) it looks like it will be about a year before this doctor could work me into his schedule to perform the surgery. I cannot imagine living the next month like this, let alone the next year.
• Pray for God to give me peace and help me to trust Him as I fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12, 2 Timothy 4:7) It's so easy to get discouraged and to be discontent.