GREAT news!!!

Kerissa • August 16, 2013

God is sooo good!  When I got home from my G.I. appointment this afternoon, I went to check my email, and there it was……….right at the top of my inbox—an email from the lab in Massachusetts!!!

Can you guess what that means?

It means appealing is finally over after 6 and a 1/2 weeks, and our insurance has agreed to cover the whole cost of the exome sequencing!!!!!  Ahhhhh!  I can’t stop smilin’! =)  Praise the Lord—all glory goes to Him!!

This lab has been amazing.  If you ever need genetic testing of your DNA, I highly recommend Courtagen!  They’ve been so efficient and compassionate, and they never gave up!  I’m truly blessed to get testing through them.

Sooo, here’s counting down 6 weeks again, but this time, for real.  Now that this is working out, I don’t need a muscle biopsy.  But September will still be a busy month!  I have another 1-hour EMG scheduled, my sleep study, hopefully the spinal tap, and I’ll get the sequencing results, too.

Do you want some more good news?  After waiting over 2 months, my wheelchair will be delivered on Thursday the 22nd!  We get to stay at the beach the following week, and I’m so thankful I’ll have my chair by then.

I’ll be taking a blogging break for a couple weeks but will start it up again the first week of September.  That week I have 4 doctors appointments! :

Praying the rest of your August is blessed!

Until next time!

P.S. At my neuro appointment this past Tuesday, my neurologist told me she’d love to write a letter of recommendation for me to go to med school.  Don’t know what the future holds, but if that dream comes true, that’d be amazingggg!

October prayer request

By Kerissa Lee • October 19, 2025
Dear friends, At the beginning of October, I started taking a new medication for the autoimmune disease. I thought I was tolerating it just fine, but after several days passed, I began experiencing nausea, loss of appetite, weakness all over, and increased pain. 🙁 It’s like I’m experiencing another “mito crash.” I found out that this specific lupus medication affects mitochondria. That is, it causes an overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This, in turn, causes cell damage and oxidative stress. I sure wish the rheumatologists would have known about this before prescribing. But I have to remember that Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndrome is rare, and they’re not “mito experts.” Anyways, the last time I felt like this was back in May.. I’m so grateful to God that I haven’t needed to be hospitalized from this, but at the same time, I’m also sad that this happened at all, especially because I had such a nice stretch of stable health. I’d really appreciate your prayers, that this muscle weakness can resolve soon, and that this increased pain all over will get back to my baseline. Every time I have a “mito crash,” it feels like I’m fighting the flu which always sucks. The pain has been hard to bear. And whenever I’m in the thick of it, it’s difficult to remember that this too will eventually pass. 😢 Pray that I will endure and follow Jesus’ example like this passage from Hebrews 12:1-2– “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross...” Thank you all so much for praying for me. ❤️

Thank you! (+ a prayer request)

By Kerissa Lee • October 4, 2025
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." James 1:2-3

Praises & Prayer Requests

By Kerissa Lee • September 3, 2025
"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23