What I’m Willing to Share

I know that since I announced I would not be returning to the World Race Gap Year, people have had a lot of questions. While I totally understand the questions, I was (and still am) having a hard time deciding what was right to share. I feared that I was letting people down by not returning. I worried about what people would think of my decision. I felt bad because I thought I owed it to my followers to give them a definite answer while also struggling with not wanting to give all of my personal information out. 

People who know me know that I walk in a lot of vulnerability. It is a beautiful gift from Abba that I am so grateful for. 

But this. This leaving my best friends in another country with a “see you later” kind of goodbye only to find out that I would be seeing them much later than we anticipated. This season of hard questions with hard answers soaked in many, many tears and lots of confusion. This past month of goodbyes that came too early or never came at all, both on the Race and here at home. 

This is a whole new ballgame. 

With that being said, while my heart is still very broken and I still sit in a lot of confusion, I am going to do my best to answer the questions I’ve been asked over the past week. I will not be pouring my heart out, I will not be letting my emotions spill out over the page. I know that there is a time and place for that, and I am excited to see the beauty the Lord brings from it. Right now, though, is not the moment to share and I am choosing to guard my heart and rest in the Father until the proper time. 

So, why am I not returning to the field like originally anticipated? 

Basically, it came down to risk. 

To understand why I decided not to go back, you first need to understand that when I originally came off the field last month, I was very sick. I was in a lot of pain, was very nauseous a majority of the time, and I had lost a pretty significant amount of weight. Before I had even boarded the plane to come home, I had to talk to a doctor in Ecuador so she could make sure that it was even a safe idea for me to travel. 

You also need to understand that by the time I came home, I had been to the emergency room in Ecuador four different times. While health care in Ecuador was great and I had some amazing doctors/nurses, being in the hospital where you don’t speak the language was really scary for me. I would be given medicines and not always be sure what they were for. They would give me IVs and pump fluids into me but I never knew what exactly it was. Yes, my translators were amazing and did a great job, but personally not being able to communicate with my doctor was scary. 

I had my procedures done in the US a week after I got home, and a week later I was discussing the results from that and other tests I had done with my doctor. Based on the scopes and some of my labs, they concluded that during my time in Ecuador I’d had a massive stomach infection that wreaked havoc on the rest of my body. A few of my tests had come back abnormal, so I would have to repeat them. They were also concerned about the amount of weight I had lost. They put me on three different medications, and if I was still feeling sick in a few weeks then I would need more testing. I wasn’t cleared to return to the field for another 3-4 weeks. 

Then came the concern of what might happen if I tried to return to the field. My body was still in a vulnerable spot, trying to recover from a massive infection that kept me consistently sick for weeks. Would it be worth it to put myself at risk of getting a second infection? Did I want to risk getting seriously sick in another country again, be in another foreign hospital again, and be miles away from my family while crying in pain again? It was hard telling what the next few weeks would even hold, because I was still feeling sick. 

Needless to say, after a lot of prayer and talks with my family, the decision was made to keep me home. 

So there you have it. There’s the story that I am willing to share. There are more details and many more emotions that play into this decision, but I am saving those for another time. I should also note that for now I have deleted social media in order to continue healing, so if you would be willing to share this blog on those platforms I would greatly appreciate it. 

Love you all.