Welcome to our journey

Dear family and friends,

We want to thank you for your prayer and encouragement for our family. The Lord has allowed us to face so many trials in the past months, but we are trusting Him to bring us through. Life is hard, but God is so good.

I want to share with you about Peg’s treatments for Lyme disease and ask for you to pray as we seek God’s wisdom and provision for her next step in her “Lyme journey”. Last year we met Crystal, a lady who had experienced a dramatic healing of her Lyme disease symptoms through Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBOT). Crystal’s testimony about her experience can be found on-line at http://www.hboinfo.com/crystal . Crystal is not necessarily “cured” of Lyme – she may just be in remission – but you can read about her amazing experience in the testimony. Peg recently met Crystal for lunch to talk about her experience, because we believe that HBOT could be beneficial for Peg. We have been praying for provision and wisdom to be able to start Peg with HBOT, as HBOT has been effective in helping many Lyme patients (but there are no guarantees). I have attached pictures of Peg and Crystal, and also of the hyperbaric chamber in Ventura.

The thing that I like about the HBOT therapy is that it makes sense to me how it works. Lyme disease comes from spiral-shaped bacteria (called spirochetes) which are transmitted from a tick bite (or sometimes from a mosquito bite). I think of the spirochetes as weeds that spread throughout the body via the bloodstream like weeds spread in your yard. They are damaged by antibiotics, but the antibiotics do damage to your body as well. With HBOT, the oxygen level in the body’s tissues is raised to a level where the Lyme spirochetes cannot survive, so it kills off the spirochetes without damaging the body.

For the past two years, Peg has had a steady improvement with her various treatments with Dr. Pomroy, a naturopath. She has come a long way in rebuilding her depleted immune system (after several years of antibiotics). Even so, she has good days and bad days. Life is a bit unpredictable when you don’t know if you’ll wake up feeling fine or feeling lousy. Of course, at the same time this has been going on, we have been reeling in our finances. We have been hoping for me to have a steady job so we could get back on our feet financially, so that, in turn, we could start the HBOT during the summer before school starts up again. I feel that this treatment is very important for Peg to start as soon as possible. With the chelation therapy IV’s Peg has had for the past 4 months, along with the protocol she has been following to clear out toxins, Dr. Pomroy feels that she is now strong enough to undergo the HBOT. It been a long, hard journey for Peg – she’s been battling Lyme disease for almost 20 years, and it took 12 frustrating years before she was accurately diagnosed. I am so very proud of her to just keep pressing on.

Now, with the “economic stimulus” money and some money from one of my sons, we have decided to step out in faith and begin the HBOT for Peg. We don’t have enough money to complete the treatments, but I believe God will provide for this as well as our household needs. For the treatments, we will have to drive to Ventura four or five days a week…it will be taxing on our schedule and expensive. We need miracles on several fronts, so please pray.

The HBOT treatment is an aggressive treatment. After the treatments begin, Peg will get a lot sicker again (this is called a Herxheimer reaction), and it may be some time before she will begin to feel better. As hard as it is to go through, the Herx is really a good thing, as it is an indication that the bacteria is being killed off.

We are praying for victory over Lyme disease in our household, and yet we realize that by now, it may have spread beyond just Peg. Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose, and it often lies dormant for years, but indications are that David and I both have been exposed to Lyme disease. We are doing what we can to keep our bodies healthy and our immune systems strong, so that Lyme cannot get a foothold. If Lyme symptoms persist, though, then we will need to follow Peggy in the various treatments.

You can understand how my heart aches for Peg and how I am hopeful that HBOT will turn things around for her. Again, please pray for God’s grace in this situation. We appreciate your words of encouragement and any other help you are able to give.

Moving forward in faith,
Larry