It’s been a tough couple of months. As a cat rescuer/foster, I got my hardest litter (to date) on December 12. I named Jack Frost that night because I thought he was going to die. One of the many times I got up that night to make sure he was still breathing, I sat outside the crate where he and his two sisters were quarantined and cried and prayed. I begged God to please not let him die, to please not do that to me. It was a selfish prayer, but I was honest with Him: I told Him my heart just could not take that.
Jack Frost survived the night, but our journey into getting him well was only just beginning. The week of Christmas, he took a turn for the worse. I spent the week transporting him from vet care in the day to emergency vet hospital monitoring at night. That Friday, another foster and I got up early and drove him from Charleston, WV, to Columbus, Ohio. It was thought he had congestive heart failure, and we needed an echocardiogram. There wasn’t anyone in West Virginia who could both do the echo and read the results right away; it would take a week for results. I didn’t know if we had a week.
Jack Frost in the emergency hospital on 12/24. Jack coming home from Columbus on 12/27.
In Columbus, we learned Jack’s pneumonia was clearing up and his heart was fine. We had a great win – an answer to prayer – and then the next battle began: ringworm treatment. Did you know that treating ringworm in cats is at best a six-week plan? In our house, it impacted five kittens and revolved around two quarantine rooms, daily cleanings, lots of laundry, medicated baths and wipes, and a crazy oral medication schedule because all five kittens needed a different dose starting on different days. It’s no surprise my my chronic illness – IH – picked right then to flare up.
IH or Idiopathic Hypersomnia is a neurological disorder similar to Narcolepsy that has no cause, no cure and for me no treatments that ease symptoms.
I asked myself – and God – many times why me. The answer I always got was that there’s a purpose. I have no idea what the purpose is. Maybe it’s showing that even with IH I can still dig in and do important things. Maybe it’s giving me knowledge for animal care that will be necessary at a future time. Maybe those kittens need to get healthy because they are meant to go to a home where a family really, really needs loving pets. Or maybe it was so I would focus my eyes more on Jesus and less on everything else.
I am the disaster workforce engagement manager for American Red Cross – Central Appalachia Region.
I’ve been going through a “season” probably since Hurricane Helene hit in late September. I work in disaster response with the American Red Cross. The aftermath – and our response – took a major toll on me. I was working long hours, trying to do my part to meet the needs of help and hope for those impacted. I had foster kittens at home that needed to be adopted, which is the most stressful part of fostering for me. Our October vacation was almost derailed because Priceline is terrible. The holidays came out of nowhere, and then the sick kittens arrived. I had gone off my antidepressants and found in the midst of my misery that I did, in fact, need therapeutic drugs (and that’s okay). I feel like I can’t ever catch my breath. With IH, I only have so much I can give every day, and I have to choose what will have to wait – or never get done – versus what must be done no matter how I feel. And there is so much guilt and worthlessness that goes with that. It has felt like a continuous downpour of chaos.
But what I have found is that at my rock bottom these last several weeks, I have looked to God more. I have stopped and noticed the beautiful sunset and thanked Him. I have paid attention when I have seen encouraging memes or songs that randomly play on the car radio that seem to speak directly to me. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a God nod. There was one meme I saw a recently on Facebook – and have seen several times since – that says something along the lines of “God, don’t just let me endure through this difficult time. Don’t just get me through it. Use this to grow me, to refine me like gold in the fire.” If I’m going to go through this, I want to gain from it, and I want to gain what will help me serve Papa God better. I’m exhausted, but He gives me strength. He drives me to continue doing good, despite the IH flair up and the ringworm that seems like it will never go away.
Why am I sharing all of this? Because God has put on my heart to share it. There is someone somewhere out there who needs to read this. Someone who needs a friend who is also walking through the storm and trying to learn to trust Jesus and needs to see they aren’t the only one struggling.
Maybe there’s someone out there trying to be a humanitarian – whether with people or animals – and is discouraged. People are hard to love. Animals are hard to understand. But our purpose remains. And maybe that someone needs some encouragement to continuing fighting the good fight. Or needs some tips on how to treat ringworm in a litter of kittens from someone who has now struggled through it for seven weeks.
Maybe there’s someone out there dealing with a chronic illness and they need to hear that yeah, it sucks, but we can’t give up living. We have an invisible illness that people discount or criticize, and it hurts. We have to fight harder for every accomplishment. Maybe they need to know someone understands – someone sees them.
So here I am, kicking off this blog – the blog God has had on my heart for better part of a year that I have continued to drag my feet with launching – because even though things are hard in my world right now, God is for me. And He’s for you. And sometimes He puts a meme or a song or a blog post in front of us to give us peace, to give us knowledge, and to show us we aren’t alone in our struggles. If that’s you – if you’re the one intended to see this post – I’m Jenn. Let’s be friends. We can fight and overcome the challenges of this life and our chronic illnesses and the struggles of humanitarianism together.
Little Did She Know 