Overdue Update

It's certainly been a busy month and we're a bit overdue with an update. We were in Minnesota and South Dakota at the end of July and I finally just uploaded some pictures to the online Photo Album. We had a fun time seeing everyone from all different sides of our families. One of our friends from the School of Worship in Colorado now lives and Sioux Falls, SD and she took some great family photos for us that are also in the Photo Album.

I don't think we've blogged yet about the medical issues we've been having with Aubri over the past year and a half, but I'd like to share now as we know more and really need support in prayer. Starting last year, close to Easter, Aubri began having hallucinations, dramatic mood swings, long lasting fits of rage, and many more things that were very abnormal for her. We started by assuming it was a spiritual attack and we had people praying over her continually for quite a while. The symptoms continued and we weren't sure what to do with it, but the closest thing we could find that lined up with her symptoms was bipolar. We went through over a year of psychiatrist appointments and prescribing meds to help reduce her drastic ups and downs. All along Sara and I were not satisfied with the road were heading down with her but we were also concerned about Aubri hurting herself and felt that the meds helped to minimize the severity of the symptoms.

Sara continued to research other possibilities online and ran across something that lined up 100% with what we were dealing with. It's a condition called PANDAS. It's an auto-immune disorder that starts with strep throat. The strep starts as usual, but lives long-term and works it's way to the stomach. After that it moves to the brain and causes all kinds of strange things. As we started thinking of the time line, it all made perfect sense. As we were leaving Colorado she had strep really bad. We treated it and she seemed to get over it eventually when we moved to Arizona, but then she had stomach issues for almost 4 months where she felt sick a lot and couldn't keep much down. We thought she might need a gluten free diet or something but then she seemed to get over that too and that's when all the mental strangeness kicked in.

The hopeful side of all of this is that PANDAS is curable. It will most likely take months of some heavy-duty probiotics and antibiotics to fight off something that been at work for so long. Thankfully we found a PANDAS specialist in Phoenix, so we are able to meet with someone that has successfully dealt with and treated it in other children. The reality is that since it's only been known of for the past 20 years or so many doctors are ignorant to it or just unwilling to acknowledge its existence yet. So far we haven't noticed any major improvements but we're only a week into the treatment.

Other than that things are going great with the church and our community in Flagstaff. Aubri's doing well at her new school and Sara is homeschooling the boys. Since Sara's not working part-time anymore I'm trying to figure out what to do for some side income. I've decided to to dust off my caricature gifting that I haven't used for over a decade. I'm still building up my portfolio so I can get listed on some national and regional entertainment sites. Here are some examples I've finished so far, yet I need a few more: http://www.artistsites.org/zacfitzsimmons/

Please be praying for a quick healing for Aubri so we can get back to somewhat of a normal life. We are much more hopeful now than when we thought we were dealing with bipolar. It's amazing how God has walked with us, comforted, and strengthened us through all of this. I thank Him in advance for Aubri's healing.