bittersweet blessings and the new year

i've been a bit neglectful of my blog over the holidays; i guess being at home i've taken a break from my regularly scheduled life. i have felt a bit off-kilter lately, probably owing to the fact that i just finished my last semester as an undergraduate and have the "real world" to face: an uncertain future including some sort of job, hopefully graduate school {praying to get in}, and little more time at home than i'd planned.

to throw a wrench in my already-uncertain future, i had to go and have another seizure. what, another? for those of you who don't know, about two and a half years ago {while i was serving as a missionary in uruguay} i had a few seizures and ended up going on anti-seizure medication. two and a half years later, i hadn't had any other problems, so i started working off the medication. i've been stepping down the dosage for several months, and i hovered at a quarter dose from what i started out on for the last couple months of school. then, on christmas day, i decided it was a good day to be medication-free. well, a couple days after that, i had a seizure. it was really unexpected, and scary, to wake up and have my mom and two of my sisters sitting on my bed telling me i had a seizure in my sleep.

so i'm faced with all sorts of decisions. do i go back on the medication? or do i try and deal with the issue without medicine. modern medicine trains doctors to medicate as a knee-jerk reflex, but since 70% of epilepsy cases {including mine} are linked to unknown causes, something tells me that it might be more beneficial to wait and see {and hope, and pray}. so for the time being, i'm going to do whatever i can to be and stay healthy, and hope for a solution that doesn't involve medication.

i made the decision to stay at home while i sort all this out, which makes sense considering the fact that here at home i have more resources to be healthy, more support, and i have my mum and dad! despite all that, it's hard to stay under the circumstances. i'd rather be staying for more happy and positive reasons, rather than retreating home to regroup and recover. but it's a blessing that i'm finished with my undergraduate degree, and i have a few months to prepare myself before i {hopefully} start grad school.

the old year went out with an unexpected twist, one that makes my new year start out on unexpected and unsure footing. i have no doubt that the lord is guiding me where he wants me to be, but my oh my, does he have an odd way of pointing my course. along with the usual new year's resolutions, i feel like i need an higher level of trust, and hope, and prayer. who knows what 2011 will bring? the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 has already left me reeling, so as of right now, it's anybody's game!