London and More...

Well, as I promised I would tell you guys about my next three weeks. So as of now I am in London, England. (Well actually I'm on the plane at 1:00am your time)
Oh man, I have wanted to come to England and Europe since I was about 10. It is something I have always talked about.. If you have heard my talk about my future honeymoon, it was in my mind always backpacking Europe just like my parents.
My aunt lives here and her and my dad collaborated and decided it was a great time for me to come over. I wasn't about to argue with that either. My aunt has lots of my time planned out already, which I think will be kind of nice, I honestly am not picky. I'm just stoked to hang out with her and see many amazing places.
0309- Half an hour from landing and I am catching myself holding back a huge smile... I am getting so excited, I almost feel like it's a movie.. And that I can't be real--but soon enough it will be.
At this point I almost wish I could just be in my own plane and be able to turn up the music super loud and just have my own dance party.. Which is possibly one of my favorite things these days in my car on my own. : )
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Count it all joy, when you are faxed with trials of many kinds, because the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so you may be mature and complete not lacking in anything.
Looking back still I LOVE this verse. Every time I think about it something new comes up, "mature and not lacking in anything" I don't know about you but lately I have found each new 'problem' as a challenge and find myself looking for a lesson in that... I would also love to challenge you as well: When faced with something that sucks, find the joy, find a lesson, laugh through it. That has been my main way of getting through the terrible situations. My friends, family and I have had a few good laughs about my MonSter on more than one occasion. I also love when someone else teases me or throws something at me from left field and totally surprises me. I want my friends to be ok with it and be able to laugh with/at me.
I also want to say thank you for the responses I have gotten from my blog. Some of the messages and comments that I have gotten brings me great joy. When I was first diagnosed I remembered the blog my family started for Sam. I knew how much of an encouragement that blog was for other people. I wanted to be able to make something for other people in the future to read and be encouraged by. If there are or were lessons, tips, tricks, etc that I could learn and have others learn from them also without being in my shoes then that was my goal, is my goal still. I know it helped one person specifically with seeing how MS really affected someone on a daily basis, gave her a new understanding of MS. Even if it was just for that one person this whole process is worth it for me. Medically, earthy, without God healing me completely I will be stuck with this disease. (I do believe that God can heal me, but right now I still have the disease) I will have this disease for the rest of my life, which I have come to terms with. There are great drugs to look after the symptoms and stuff but no cure-yet. So if I am going to have this disease than why not make the best of it? I'm not saying I always think like that, but God is good, He is faithful and has taken care of me so well this past year especially. I know He will continue to so the same

Summer, Finally!

This summer I will be working at camp, as I may have said before, but I wanted to send out a support letter, but I also thought posting the letter on here and telling you a bit about my summer plans and different forms of support I would LOVE from you.

If you would like to support me in any way, please send me an email HERE and I will be able to send you some more information and I would also love to know who is supporting me so I am able to thank you and keep up personally updated on my summer. Thank you so much!

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Dear FRIENDS,

Summer is nearly here!  This past year has been very challenging for me at school and adjusting to living with a serious chronic illness.  Last September, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  MS is generally diagnosed in people my age and is a debilitating disease affecting myelin which acts as insulation surrounding nerves.  The worst symptoms of MS are fatigue, loss of vision, loss of feeling in my hands and legs and continued attacks which damage the nervous system throughout my body.  Every patient with MS responds differently to the disease but unfortunately my type is aggressive with very short periods of relapse.  I am participating in a drug trial at UBC which means I inject myself (painfully) with an interferon every other day.

MS has been a difficult adjustment and has caused me to think about my life very differently, in terms of school, my career, time management and much more. I have just finished my second year of nursing in Prince George at the College of New Caledonia. It was a busy year with classroom lectures, labs and clinical rotations at the hospital. It was wonderful to be working in the hospital at least two days a week. I absolutely loved working in the hospital; it was great to feel my career choice affirmed every time I was there.  But it was very hard.

I have been given a unique opportunity this summer. Echo Lake Bible Camp, a small camp in Northern BC near Vanderhoof, needs a camp photographer this summer. I will be capturing the great moments that camp provides for children through games, activities, skills and much more. I am excited about this chance  to spend my summer at camp with a great friend, making new friends, serving God and taking pictures.

I have learned that I cannot do life on my own.  I need help.  God has given me the strength and courage to face challenges in my life.   Please keep me in your prayers this summer.  Constant fatigue is something I struggle with on a daily basis. Also, would you pray that I won’t get any more attacks from MS this summer?  I am hoping to have minimal setbacks over the summer and next year and am praying that the new drug they are testing for MS will be available to me in 16 months time.

I also am going to nursing school at UNBC full time next year and I have saved up about half the money I require for 3rd year.  Would you consider supporting my work at camp this summer by donating to Echo Lake Bible Camp’s student bursary program?  I have chosen to serve God this summer at camp while I am strong enough to work with children and share my gifts with others.  I would appreciate your help so much as I serve the Lord at Echo Lake.

Thank you so much for taking to the time to consider helping me this summer.  Your prayers, support and financial help will make a world of difference in my life and in the lives of the children I touch this summer at camp.

Blessings,

Kate Goertzen                                                                                                                                 goertzen.kate@gmail.com

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Hope you guys have  great day!
On Thursday I will fill you in on what I am doing for the next three weeks!

~Kate

Count it all Joy

So I finally finished second year, passed with mostly B's, which totally surprised me. But wow, does it feel good to be done school. I feel like I can finally breathe a little bit and then this summer is going to be awesome! I am so excited for it--my best friend is coming home and we are working at camp together, I am going on a trip of a life time as of next week. I would honestly really like to say things are looking up, however EVERY time I have said that lately something seems to crash and burn within 24 hours.

Let me tell you about my trip down to Abbotsford a few days ago... So I was talking to a friend the day before and they were asking me how I was doing, I said great! School was done, I was catching up with people, going to Abbotsford and I was doing really good. I had been planning on driving down to Abbotsford the next day and surprising my family by showing up at their school a day early. I left at 7:00 that morning.

7:10--I got to the major intersection by the casino and remembered I forgot my camera under my bed so I quickly turned around and grabbed it. Phew, I thought to myself- that would've been bad to forget something like that. I looked around my room for what seemed like the 10th time that morning and nope, nothing forgot. Then left again.

8:00-- OH CRAP!! At this point I was 20mins from Quesnel and realized that I forgot my medications in the fridge at home. I quickly called my uncle to see if it was possible for him to mail them to my parents house that day. He said yes, and I continued to drive...3 messages and a voicemail later from my uncle again saying that it wasn't possible to mail them. And then another hour waiting to hear from my MS nurse to see if anything was possible than besides driving all the way back home.

9:00-- After, possibly shedding a few tears and feeling quite ticked again, I turned around and for the 2nd time that day driving my LEAST favorite part of the drive going to go pick up my medications.

10:30-- Finally, on the road....AGAIN! Oh well, what else could go wrong, she said to herself with a bit of a laugh...oh, if only she knew...haha

Williams Lake: As I drove through I thought to myself, if only nothing had gone wrong I would be in  Abbotsford by now. Oh well.

2:00-- 20km outside of Williams Lake engine light goes on. This then gives me flashbacks to when I was about 14 years old and we were on a road trip and something happened to our van and we were stuck for hours outside of 100 Mile House. I can't remember why, but we did. So I really didn't need that happen again. So I called my uncle, checked my owners manual and decided to turn around...yet again. This time with even more tears and becoming even more ticked.

2:30-- Found the Toyota dealer, went in and asked if someone could come look at my car... still trying to hold myself together the guy tells me that he probably won't be able to do anything for me until later this afternoon. Maybe it was the look on my face, trying to really hold back the tears and make sure my voice didn't quiver. But he left and came back 5 minutes later and said that someone would come check it out.

3:00-- They come back with my car and tell my the catalytic converter should be replaced, it is losing efficiency. But again, not something I wanted to hear--especially since I didn't even know what that was. And then he told me the price of a new one and fixing it. But by 3:30 I was on the road again and promised myself there was no stopping until Cache Creek.

6:00-- Cache Creek, time to gas up and then I thought 'Really, one more thing could go wrong today..' So I quickly hopped over to Kal Tire and asked them to torque my tires (I got them changed a few weeks ago).

8:30-- Finally arrived at my parents house. They were delightfully surprised and I was DEAD, tired, back was sore and everything else hurt.

Some lessons learned for the day... I was quickly reminded of one of my favorite verses of the year. James 1:2-3 "Count it all JOY when faced with trials of many kinds..." That was one thing that I kept coming back to that day and I have found that verse many many times this past year.


However, now it is officially summer for me and next week I will be leaving for a trip of a life time.. keep updated and I will let you know eventually what it is. I am stoked.

Anyways, I hope you are having a great day!

~Just a Girl

Beautiful, Worth It All...

Ah, man, encouraging words come in the most awesome of places. I have had a bit of a crazy emotional week (a little while ago). But I think it ending well, each day is becoming better and better. But I was telling a friend about it this afternoon and her words were just to pray about it and give it to God. Which was a reminder that I needed. I am learning to love the little reminders that yeah, I need prayer, I need God and I can't do life on my own. I need His guidance and hold to His promises in life, this isn't it--there is so much better for us, that God desires so much more for us than what we can even imagine. It really comes down to just that, I need to remind myself continually that there is more, there is best for me in so many areas of my life here on earth, but also when I die.

I was also talking to this girl and thinking about my summer plans and my trips and working at camp this summer, she was saying how it will be so good for me. It made me think about how crazy this year has been for me, seriously its been nuts! I mean, you guys have been reading my posts and have taken this journey with me.

Here I will give you some of the things I have learned since September:

1. I had to learn to lower my expectations for myself when it came to school. This one took me a while to learn. For the longest time I couldn't figure out in my head whether or not it was me, who was too lazy to study and thats why I couldn't get good enough marks. Or it was because I was too tired to be able to study because of my MS. It took months, and months for me to realize it didn't matter why I was too tired all the time, just that I was and that was all that mattered. It was then I had to learn how to deal with my fatigue. Too bad it took until my last exam week to come up with a compromise to my fatigue. I realized that I couldn't study in the evening for my first exam and I still had classes the day before, so I went to bed at 7:00 and then woke up at 5:30 and studied from 6-7:30am. It was great. I was still able to focus and study. I used that approach for the last few of my exams and it turned out quite well.

2. I have really learned I need my girlfriends. I love friends, period. But the few girls I have really gotten to know over the course of this year has been amazing. I have deepened good relationships and they have become great! I love the time spent with them, their encouraging words, thoughts and prayers I wouldn't trade anything for.

3. I have learned how to adjust. Adjust to living with fatigue, with out some of my long time friends, to school, exercise. This year has been a year of adjusting... maybe tweaking how I study or the hours of sleep I get throughout the night. Any and everyone has to adjust, some have to learn these lessons earlier in life. I was thinking about an eleven year old boy lately, he went through a hell of a time with cancer. But wow, I am floored every time I think about the amount of adjusting he had to go through. Three and a half years of treatment, the first seven months of it being the worst. But now, looking at him and thinking about what he went through brings me to tears.

4. I have learned that life is good, no, life is great! I am loving the constant, daily reminder of what life is about. Some of my favourite parts of my day is just driving on my own. Being in my car putting on some great music and thinking. It is also about loving people, loving God, seeing the greatness in creation. I have been working in the hospital a lot lately, I have seen so many sick people and watched them suffer in pain, I have seen some family members come and see their mothers on Mothers Day, some stayed for hours, some stayed for 10 minutes. To me it makes me see some peoples priorities and what they value. It makes me so thankful for my family and the values we have. That we value each others lives, to see the way my mom interacts with her dad is encouraging especially on the days he isn't doing well. But to love people is so important, no matter what.


I know there are so many other things I have learned and taken to heart lately, but at this point I can't seem to put them into words, also since it has taken almost a week to write this I will post.

I am so greatly looking forward to this summer and will tell you all about my summer plans soon. After my trip I am going to be working at Echo Lake Bible Camp with one of my best friends from high school. We were talking last night on Skype and I was getting so excited. It will be a great summer, away from Prince George, not in school or in the hospital. I will be hanging out with new people, kids, and doing what I love a ton! Wich I did not get to do enough of this last year--photography. I have 4 more days of clinical and year 2 of nursing then I am home free and recovering fully from it. Ah... just stoked!

Well I hope you guys are having a wonderful Monday afternoon.


~Just a Girl