This is for one of my very best friends, Gillian Nichols. We were roommates in college, in each other's weddings, blah, blah, blah... She and her husband left this morning from Houston, where they live, to go the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. They will be there for about a week for her to get loads of tests done to see what's wrong with her.(Sorry if I get these details wrong Gillian...)
She's been having vision problems her entire life and has had NINE eye surgeries in the past few years. Her lenses keep falling out and she's having a wealth of other eye problems and pains. When she was pregnant with her now-four year old, she was on complete bed rest nearly the whole time because she had extreme endometriosis. Shortly after the baby was born, she had a full hysterectomy at age 26. Now she is having extreme pains in her hips to the point that she is in a wheelchair most of the time because she can't walk.
Somebody recently realized that there is a possibility that these problems are actually all related to some kind of tissue-connective problem. I'm not even going to pretend that I understand it. They were able to get into the Mayo Clinic for some way-smart doctors to try to diagnose her and get her better.
Gillian is amazing. Her faith through this entire ordeal has been completely unbelievable. I don't know how she does it! This past week, she sent out a list of prayer requests for their trip:

Would you be an intercessor for with me and join me in praying for one, some or all of these needs:
-Foremost*** For God's will to be done in our lives.
-That the Lord would use this condition/situation for HIS glory and that we can be good witnesses through this!
-That if it is in His plan, we get clear answers as to what my condition is, for the connective tissue disorder and for the new found edema in the hip bone marrow.
-That whatever info is found, we can translate that back home to Houston.
-That the Lord would provide a team of docs at home that can carry out our findings.
-That Leelah (their daughter) would not fret about us being gone for so long, but that she would have fun on her sleepovers and enjoy herself!
- a minor note: that the plane rides wouldn't be too painful as my pain has increased a lot and it hurts to sit for long
-And all the praise to Him for the way He has paved the path thus far, for the opportunity to be able to go to Mayo, for all the people that continue to be the hands and feet of Christ for our family!
-Praise for his future provision in all things.
God has blessed me through you all. I am so thankful for all of you in my life.
Thanks for your prayers. And please remember, I'm already healed!
love you all,
Gillian


Their church (2nd Baptist in Houston... you may have heard of it :)) has this awesome thing called a Prayer Pager. The person carries it with them, and anytime someone prays for them, they call the number and it pages the person to let them know they are being prayed for. If you could even pray for her one time this week and let her know, that would be awesome. Her prayer pager number is 713-200-0069. The prompt when you call tells you what to do.

If you care, (and are still with me) she has a blog that they will be updating all week with what's happening. She and her husband are hilarious and they are taping a video "doctormentary" that they will be posting each day. It should be funny.
They posted their first video tonight and it was great...



Thanks so much for interceding for my friend! It means so much to us both!

Posted in: friends, roommates on Monday, November 08, 2010 at at 10:43 PM