Reach Out and Touch Faith

"Your own personal Jesus

Someone to hear your prayers

Someone who cares

Your own personal Jesus

Someone to hear your prayers

Someone who's there" -Depeche Mode

Anti-NMDA-Receptor Encephalitis has so far robbed my son of a month of his life. Jason has over 30 days he will never remember. In this time of blank space, I sit here watching, a maternal centurion wrapped in battle armor of love, sharp intelligence and resolve completely determined to see him through this. I have no idea what I am doing, I have no idea what to do next. My own paranoia and emotions chipping away at my psyche Forcing me to live an anxiety riddled nightmare where every day my son is in a bed, completely incoherent and unable to wake up.

The good news is the swelling in his brain has gone down. We are approaching goal! 

The not so great news is that his "titer" in his spinal fluid has remained the same. In remedial teachings of this disease I was informed that once the swelling goes down Jason is back. The real deal is once the swelling goes down AND the antibodies in his brain begin to lower he will be back. The backward receptors in his brain are sort of like a plaque. They prevent him from functioning normally right now. They need to wash out of his brain and it takes time for that to happen.

The chemo is currently walking around in his body and turning things off in his immune system. Stopping the production of B cells will begin to dwindle the load in his blood which will pass the blood brain barrier and begin to perform a brain cleaning with industrial strength pine-sol.

This new information is disappointing and upsetting and I know that I should feel all these things like angry and sad and mad. But right now watching him sleep peacefully I am Just numb. I can't get excited anymore and I can't get upset. I just have to exist. If I can exist long enough to take Jason out of this I can worry about what has died inside me later. 

Right now I am going to trust that greater things than I are at work on Jason. Karma is reviewing all the good I have ever done or attempted to do and will bestow her justice on my son. God is going to hear my prayer and the chorus of prayers of countless others and not allow complication, and will heal and restore Jason to the person he was before October 18th.

I have to continue to reach out and touch faith.