Health Update Letter

Hey Church Family!

I wanted to just give everyone an update on how we’re doing and thank everyone for your love and care. This certainly turned out to be a providential time for me to step back, and I’m thankful that the other elders recognized that and encouraged me to do so.

On the medical side, I’ll give a thorough update below because I know it will interest some of you who have also been affected, or wondered about, COVID’s long-term impact. Feel free to skip that if it’s not your thing. The short story: this has been a very challenging last few weeks physically as I’ve had all the symptoms I struggled with in 2023 and 2024 return, and after several tests and finding a doctor that seems really good, I’ll be trying some new treatments.

We are so thankful for your prayers, and as a dad, I can’t say how grateful I am to those of you who have shown love and support to Sophie as she goes through her own health struggle as well. We love ya’ll very much. I often tell people I don’t know exactly why they have been brought into the valley they are in, and it certainly can feel like you’re being kept from doing what you long to do. However, it can’t actually stop us from the most important things we are called to do: live in faith. Walk in the Spirit. Glorify God. That’s what we want to be focused on each day in whatever comes.

Please pray for Sara, as she cares for Sophie and myself, taking us to appointments, researching, cheerleading, organizing all the bills, and so much more. Please pray for Zeke and Ellie as well, as this disrupts their lives. We’re very thankful for them though, and their love for their family!

We are praying for you too, each of you!

In Christ,

Kevin

In January 2023, when I first started showing severe symptoms (shortness of breath, daily migraines, memory loss, and exhaustion), there were a lot of tests (heart, lungs, brain), and my doctor’s appointments generally ended up with head scratching and suggestions to just eat healthy, lower stress, and exercise more. Nobody really knew what to do with these normal, healthy people who were suddenly exhibiting a host of debilitating symptoms and were given the generic name of Long COVID. Mine lasted at a pretty extreme degree for about 18 months and then tapered off until about six weeks ago, when our family got a virus, and it sent my body spiraling. Sophie’s as well, with her symptoms matching POTS.

This time around, though, I’ve noticed there’s a much greater awareness of the physical damage that COVID has caused for a lot of people. My primary care office has been very supportive, and the first pulmonologist we saw immediately affirmed that COVID definitely messed up my whole system. I was recommended to a pulmonologist who worked on the big Vanderbilt study of Long COVID patients, and he wanted to reassure me right off the bat that all my symptoms are consistent with what they have studied and seen and can be very debilitating to anyone.

So that’s encouraging! What is less encouraging is the fact that there’s still not a sure-fire way to address and treat it. I went to this doctor specifically for the asthma-like symptoms, which he is familiar with, and unfortunately traditional asthma treatments aren’t always effective for those who exhibit “COVID-induced reactive airway disease.” He explained that’s because they suspect the issues are actually at the cellular level due to COVID, and not with the lungs necessarily. He has a couple different treatments for me to try that have seen some success (the best one has had a 40% effectiveness rate among studied patients). So we will be trying several new things, added to what we’ve already been doing and attempting. But he was clear- it’s possible that nothing will work but time.

I’ve also gotten to engage with a lot of other people who have had similar experiences- some more severe and others less so, but there’s a general similarity to everyone’s story. After having a bout of COVID, either mild or severe, they began to start struggling with weird, frightening, and debilitating symptoms that I feel, anecdotally, can be categorized three ways: Lung issues, Neurological issues, and Heart issues. And most people seem to have symptoms in at least two of those categories. One constant issue, though, is the very thing I’m personally struggling to deal with- this is not something you can just “push through.” I’d experienced this myself, in trying to just power through a day when I had stuff I had to get done, and it ended up making me almost bedridden for multiple days. Or trying to exercise and getting very sick afterward. Many people, like myself, have the mindset of wanting to exercise, get stronger, build my strength and be strong, but it just doesn’t work that way. Learning to accept that and pace myself is very difficult, but it’s probably the most consistent thing I’ve heard in this experience.

So, all that to say, if you know someone who has Long COVID, give them a lot of grace and encouragement if you can. It’s a confusing and frightening place to be because no one really knows what is happening, only that it is happening and can be life-changing in a really challenging way. I jokingly told my parents the other night that they should be proud- their son and granddaughter are on the frontier of modern medical science!