I am home. It is such a simple thought yet I cannot get it out of my head how close I was to falling apart just two days ago when the world felt too heavy to carry on. I thought I was well over that part. The falling apart. But then again I have realized now that healing is a roller coaster of falling apart and coming back together. This is the process that makes scars to prove that what you went through was meaningful. That my challenge is worth falling apart for. And that I am worth falling back together.

So now I have some newer scars. I am sure I will gather a few more before this is all over. But for now they are mostly around for me to learn from. To realize how deep a heart can sink only to rise to the surface again with guided hands.

My friends are my guided hands. You are the ones who have cheered me on from the sidelines when I have been unable to reciprocate to your own needs except in thought or prayer. So I am now with the hope that each one of my friends knows how much your support has meant to me. Because it has been you who have healed my scars every single time. And by now there are too many to mention. It is my hope that by the time I am better, I can give forward every prayer and blessing you have offered me.
Because of you, I have moved forward every day with the intention of expressing every emotion I have, in writing, with the hope it might help others facing a challenge of their own.
I have received hundreds of emails from friends and strangers expressing a gratitude for honesty. I don't think of it as honesty. I just feel that writing is my own personal therapy. If I don't write for God to hear my plight, then why wrote at all? I write for God to hear me. For Him to know I care that He is there. And for His will to be done and that I will carry whatever burden there is for me to load. So perhaps writing is my prayer. It is my gratitude for blessings I still have. And writing is my way to rise from boiling wasters to fill my lungs with air each day.
So I just want to thank you for reading my daily prayers and never judging how I speak to God. Or how I care what it is you think of me. I write because I care about why I am here. That it must somehow have meaning. And life is about two things. To love others because they are a part of this journey, and to care that your challenge is also a part of my own. I don't believe anything we go through is for us to bare alone. Or to learn from alone. My burdens and how I manage them are just as important to those I love and visa verse. I learn from loved ones, and others I may not know, about how life should be lived. All I ask is that God grants me the grace to care enough about how my challenge might create meaning in life every single day. If I have done that, then this is all worth every moment of every single day.

So far - my infusions have worked little miracles in my life. I no longer have tremors that shake me to my core. My hands no longer shake, and I no longer feel the threat of ALS lurking beneath my skin. The daily progression of immobility seems to have stalled to a simmer. I feel I can manage my immobility as it pauses now for me to now attempt physical therapy and the Multi-disciplinary pain program through Dr. Joshua Prager and UCLA.

On Wednesday I begin a full-time job as professional patient in the UCLA program. And I have hope. Hope because you each have donated to a cause that is turning me to the light. I am seeing changes in my body only possible because each of you have given to my challenge in one wY or another - if you knew me or not.
It is an honor to have been touched by angels with invisible wings. Thank you for launching my healing to whatever plateau I may land. I know with all of my heart I will land where God meant for me to be. And I will be - with all of my heart.

Thank you for making my ketamine infusions possible, and preparing me for this next step in healing in the full-time pain program. I promise to give it my all with you in my heart cheering me on because you believed in me enough to show that you care.

Thank you for being in my life. And may you too be wrapped in invisible wings.

Love,
Mic