PANDAS is dangerous both for the child and for the family. Thousands of families suffer with stories eerily similar to ours but without healing in the end. Because the can’t get diagnosed or access treatment. I won’t stand for it.

After 7 years searching, praying, begging for help to heal a very sick daughter, we finally narrowed her diagnosis down to PANDAS and we had to pay every single penny to heal her.

I checked my daughter into an inpatient psychiatric unit for the third and last time. I felt like something was different this time, something HAD to be. And the grief was as much as I can bear.

For the most severe cases of mental illness, there’s no way to live a stable life that a family unit can sustain. I describe 6 things to help parents unburden themselves, relinquish aspects of constant crisis that is out of their control.

As the years go by, our daughter doesn’t heal, rather she continues to deteriorate despite psychiatric interventions. But I can’t stop believing or hoping for God to bring a miracle. And to heal me.

I have never experienced a time in motherhood where my children, any of my children weren’t suffering from neuro-psychiatric disorders. And for years, I fought just to get in the door to get help.

The night before I turned 38, I found myself reflecting on a dizzying roller coaster of a year. I knew we had a lot of work to do to rebuild our lives after so much trauma. Only Jesus could have kept our family and our world intact.

Many years ago, I hiked up Mount Rainier with some girlfriends from my church. I fell in behind a seasoned Rainier Guide and mimicked his every move. All these years later, I recall those lessons learned in the middle of cancer treatment and fighting my daughter’s health with her PANDAS diagnosis.

My 3rd Round of Chemo happened to be scheduled on Good Friday. I couldn’t sleep the night before in anticipation and dread for what awaited me the next morning. But God is still good, even when things are seemingly bad.

Waiting. And some more to find out the next steps of my path through cancer treatment. And with treatment, more lessons learned.