Challenging times.

Kerissa • March 23, 2020

Dear friends,

Just wanted to post a little update.  On Tuesday, I had another DEXA bone scan to check up on the osteopenia, and then I saw my endocrinologist right afterwards.  Sadly, I have more bone loss in my hips.  And because of my hypoparathyroidism (caused by the mitochondrial disease), I’m not able to absorb calcium and vitamin D which is vital for bones.  In other words, the parathyroid gland is what activates vitamin D so that it can be used by the body.  So she ordered a bunch of labs again to check my parathyroid (PTH) level, activated vitamin D level (which is a different test from the normal vitamin D test), and more.

We got the results back, and sadly, my doctor emailed me and said I have to start a bone injection that needs to be done every 6 months.  There are side effects with this injection, so I’d appreciate prayer that it won’t cause the possible “bad” effects like infection or jaw necrosis..  Thankfully, she has never had a patient experience the jaw bone death..  I also have to take an activated vitamin D medication called Calcitriol and keep taking 1200 mg of liquid calcium.  I did and still do take some naturopathic “homeopathic” medicine for this hypoparathyroidism issue, but unfortunately, it’s not helping, so that’s why we have to resort to this bone injection….  Since I’m only 27, my doctor wants to do as much as possible so that the osteopenia doesn’t progress to osteoporosis..

In addition, those 2 appointments this past Tuesday were my last for a while…. OHSU has cancelled all doctor/physical therapy appointments for the next 6 weeks.  My physical therapist will be doing some phone appointments with me, and OHSU is also working on the possibility of doing doctor appointments through telemedicine (video).  Not 100% sure on that yet..

You may be wondering what I’ve been doing now that I don’t have numerous appointments every week! Well, I’ve been able to read a lot of books (I do get nystagmus/oscillopsia (shaking of the eyes) unfortunately if I read too much at a time, so I have to pace myself), play the online Scrabble game app with my siblings, hand letter encouraging verses/quotes/lyrics, watch movies with my family, and start opening up an online shop to sell my lettering art on little things like magnets and vinyl stickers!☺

Also hope to resume my Punkpost job of hand lettering customers’ messages in cards sometime next week…  Punkpost has been pretty busy lately because people are sending more snail mail due to social distancing!  If you’ve never sent a card through Punkpost, your first card is free if you download the app on your phone!

 

Anyways, in the midst of this chaotic and uncertain time across the whole world, I’ve been reminded every day that the Lord is still on His throne.  Isn’t that so comforting?❤ He is sovereign and in control of big things like galaxies, planets, the ocean……and He is sovereign over the tiniest of things like molecules, bacteria, and viruses (COVID-19 included)..

Yes, this novel Coronavirus is so very scary.  And out of all the thousands of genetic disorders and diseases that could be listed, I was surprised to see that the CDC website specifically added mitochondrial disorders to the “ underlying medical conditions that may increase the risk of serious COVID-19 for individuals of any age ” chart below.  I guess even they know how much mitochondrial disease affects…

*Just a little side note: for those who may be new to my blog and have never heard of mito, mitochondrial disorders can affect all the organs of the body because organs need ATP (energy) to function properly (and mitochondria are the organelles that make energy).  That’s why I have dysautonomia, terrible chronic pain, fatigue, neurological, endocrine, kidney, gastrointestinal, muscle, eye, and bladder issues, have a central line in my chest for daily IV fluids with magnesium, potassium, and carnitine, a jejunostomy tube in my abdomen for medications, and have to use an adaptive-servo ventilator at night for my central/obstructive sleep apnea and weak lungs.  I also have a mast cell disorder, Wilson’s Disease, and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which my doctors aren’t sure if they’re a result of mito or separate from it..*

But you know what?  My life is and always has been in God’s loving hands.  We are all in God’s hands.  And the Coronavirus can’t and will never be able to change that.  Psalm 31:14-15a says, “But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’  My times are in your hand.”  Friends, our days are numbered.  And I pray that we (and people all over the world) are humbling ourselves before the Lord, realizing that we are finite, and remembering that this world is not our home.❤

I saw the movie I Still Believe before all the theaters closed, and wow, it was so powerful and moving…I cried buckets.. I highly recommend seeing it!  What a powerful testimony of God’s grace in Jeremy Camp’s life in the midst of his 21 year old wife’s death to ovarian cancer.  Instead of being bitter and angry at God for his wife’s death, he chose to walk by faith and BELIEVE in the Lord’s faithfulness…His truth…His holy word.  I especially love this line from his song: “Even when I don’t see, I still believe.” What a beautiful example that we can all learn from during this pandemic!

I wanted to end this post with a poem that I read from Streams in the Desert.  I hope it encourages and uplifts you during this challenging time!  Know that Jesus loves you unconditionally!  Let’s walk by faith, and we will get through this together!❤

Another surgery 😞

By Kerissa Lee • July 25, 2026
Hi, friends, I thought I wouldn’t be posting for a while since I’ve been doing really well, but I’ve hit a bump in the road again and would appreciate your prayers. 💚 This past Tuesday the 21st, after nearly 12 years living with it, I had my jejunostomy tube removed completely. I thought it was going to be a simple process and that the stoma (hole) would close quickly within 30 minutes like they said. That didn’t happen, though, as the stoma started draining a ton! I couldn’t even leave the lobby and had to go back up to the clinic on the 8th floor to have an ostomy bag placed to collect all the small intestinal digestive juices that continually drained. Unfortunately, I’m experiencing a very rare complication called an enterocutaneous fistula. 🥺 I’m disappointed this is happening, but I’m not exactly surprised since my whole medical case with Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndrome has been rare from the very beginning.. I also don’t heal well due to connective tissue problems from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (case in point: my port site issues back in May when I had to have a new one surgically placed on the other side of my chest).. 😞 The clinic told me to keep emptying the ostomy bag and monitor the output. It wasn’t a fun 2 days. This whole process has definitely made me so grateful to God that I’ve never needed something like an ileostomy! TMI, but I lost almost a whole pound of fluid because so much was gushing/spurting out of the stoma every time I ate or drank. Losing so many electrolytes, I started experiencing symptoms of dehydration—weakness, high heart rate, and headaches. So yesterday, I had to go back and see the surgery resident who basically placed another j-tube (it was so painful again!). 😭 This is a temporary “plug,” and I’m bummed to say that I have to go to the operating room to have the jejunostomy tract taken down and the fistula repaired. This surgery will be happening as early as next week (it depends on my surgeon’s schedule).. She said it will be complex, especially because adhesions (scar tissue) form when a person has multiple abdominal surgeries.. I lost count what number this surgery/procedure will be, but I do know I’ve had more than 20! 😞 I know God is with me wherever I go and will supply me with the strength to endure yet another surgery like he always does. But, I’m still sad that I have to have more incisions added to my body. I shared the lyrics to this song before on an old blog post (the song is called It Is Well With My Soul by Matt Redman), but it immediately came to mind again when I was thinking of scars. As the song below said, it’s a reminder to me that my scars can be a testimony to others of God’s grace in my life and how he has brought me through every single pain and sorrow. In the Bible, I’ve always thought it’s so neat that Jesus still had his scars after he rose from the dead—he had a new body, and yet, his scars were still visible. ❤️ Our scars are a sign of grace in our lives Oh Father, how You brought us through When deep were the wounds And dark was the night The promise of Your love, You proved Now every battle still to come Let this be our song It is well (it is well) With my soul (with my soul) It is well, it is well with my soul

The end of an era ❤️

By Kerissa Lee • July 16, 2026
Dear friends, I shared in my last post how excited I was that my j-tube was going to be switched back to the low-profile version at an appointment on June 23rd. Well, that sadly didn’t happen because my surgeon wasn’t comfortable with how much pain, swelling, and bleeding I was still experiencing. It’s a long story and hard to understand unless you’re very familiar with j-tubes, but basically, she said switching wouldn’t be a good idea, and we could try again in a few months. Unfortunately, things have only gotten worse, and no matter how many times I adjust this j-tube, the balloon for some reason keeps getting lodged into my abdominal muscle—it causes horrible pain, and not even my pain medication helps! I almost went to the ED the other day…that’s how bad the pain has been. 🥺 After thinking and praying about it a lot, I finally decided to ask my surgeon if I could have my j-tube completely removed since she still can’t find the cause of why the balloon keeps getting stuck. It’s been nearly 12 years using one, so this is a big deal! I just feel like the tract is somehow failing since the surgery was so long ago. Unfortunately, it can’t be done until the last week of July since it’s a policy of the surgery clinic to not use the tube for 2 whole weeks before completely removing (don’t know the exact day of removal yet). I can’t believe it’s almost the end of an era! The Lord has been so faithful and given me strength to endure over a decade of having a constant tube sticking out of my abdomen. Some days were truly so rough—remember I had that huge abdominal abscess back in 2023 and had to have bedside abdominal surgery and drains placed in the ED? I couldn’t have done this without God’s help. 🥹 You might be wondering, “What happens if I get worse again or have more mitochondrial flares?” Thankfully, I still have my port, so if I was hospitalized many times again, I would be given IV medications and infusions. And, if I did possibly need a tube again, I could have a g-tube placed in my stomach which is a much smaller surgery than a j-tube placed in the small intestine. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it! In other news, I’ve been continuing to do so very well mitochondrial-wise, and God has been gracious and merciful! I feel undeserving of this huge gift of health when so many others I know are struggling (please keep praying for my uncle who’s been in the ICU since March)!! 😢😔 Aside from all these tube issues, life lately has been so full, but in the best way. I was able to study and complete the training to receive my Pediatric First Aid/CPR/AED certification! I’ve been applying to different nanny jobs and even had my first interview last week! It would simply be amazing if it would work out to have a part-time nanny job for 1-2 days per week when I don’t babysit my foster nephew. Speaking of my sweet foster nephew, he recently turned 1!! He had a “One-in-the-Sun” 1st birthday party which was super cute and special! It’s been so neat to see God’s hand on his life from birth til now.. Considering he was in the hospital for a whole month after he was born, he’s truly come soo far, and life is very sweet with him in it! 🥹💙 On top of all that, I was finally able to take the DMV driver’s test, and guess what?! I PASSED!!! 🥰 So so happy and thankful I was able to complete this simple rite-of-passage that many people half my age often take for granted. I constantly think how huge of a gift it is to simply be physically well enough to drive around town. 🥹 After reading this, you might think I'm all healed! And while I am feeling so much better than before, I just wanted to share that I still do experience mitochondrial symptoms every day: spasticity (it often wakes me up during the night because my back muscles tighten/spasm a lot), central vertigo, minipolymyoclonus which causes muscle jerking and tremors in my hands, chronic pain, insomnia, and many other things. But, I'm so thankful to God for different medications I'm on to help these ongoing issues. There are good days and bad days, but I just look back and see how much worse I used to be! I don't know how long this stable period will last, but I continually thank and praise God for it! 🥹 

June update (with happy news!)

By Kerissa Lee • June 17, 2026
Hello, friends, I just wanted to share a blog update and thank you all so much for your prayers these last several weeks. ❤️ They help me to persevere! I previously posted that the interventional radiology team said my old port needs to be removed because of the site being too exposed from skin breakdown. Well, on May 19th, I had a virtual appointment with the IR nurse practitioner. To my great disappointment, she didn’t want me to get a new port and said I need a central line instead. I tried explaining to her that all my previous central lines always got infected and caused sepsis, but she still wouldn’t budge. 😞 I left that appointment and cried. I kept reciting Romans 8:28 (“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose”). I knew that God was in control, but I was still so sad.. The next day was my port removal surgery and central line placement. Many of you already know this from FB/IG, but I wanted to re-share the following here on my blog as well! When I met the attending physician who was going to do the surgery, I told him my whole story and asked if he could please consider placing a new port instead of a central line. And do you want to hear something soo amazing?! He nonchalantly said, “I can place a port!” I was so shocked! 🥹 I immediately felt God’s mercy and kindness in sovereignly arranging this specific doctor to be the one to care for me. Both surgeries were back to back, and everything was much more difficult than he was expecting! In his chart notes, he stated that it took “more than twice the usual time, an unusually large amount of materials, and required a very high level of technical expertise and skill.” It was a great challenge removing my old port because of scar tissue and because it was so embedded to my chest wall. 😥 He had to yank, pull, and manipulate a ton—all of that caused a huge bruise to form over my chest. When he used fluoroscopy (moving x-ray), he also saw on x-ray that there’s a 7 mm cylindrical foreign body in my chest (pictured below). He assumes it’s a retained port fragment from an old port surgery that happened years ago. We’re just going to leave it there.. 😟 I was awake the whole time because none of the sedation meds worked! I’ve unfortunately had more than 20+ surgeries/procedures, so my body has become immune to certain sedation meds. The team recommends that I have much stronger anesthesia next time.. So thankful that the Lord helped me through this painful process! In other news, I finally get to have this temporary, bulky j-tube replaced with a low-profile one on the 23rd! My GI surgeon was hoping that the temporary tube would give the site a break and help heal all the inflammation (which was caused by buried bumper syndrome when the balloon got stuck in the abdominal wall 2 months ago). And I think that did the trick because the site is no longer leaking a ton! 🥲 Praying that switching back to the low-profile tube doesn’t cause an uptick in pain/leaking.. Last week, I had a bit of a scare when blood started coming out of the j-tube stoma (hole) for several days. We don’t exactly know what caused the bleeding, but thankfully, it stopped! If it does happen again, the GI nurse practitioner ordered an abdominal ultrasound.. If you made it this far, I’d so appreciate continued prayers for my sleep. Still experiencing bad insomnia as a side effect from an important medication that I need. It’s so hard when I can’t fall asleep until after 5:30-6:30 AM every single day. 😔 I don’t know what else to do except take each day as it comes and lean on the Lord for endurance. 💚 Aside from this, still so grateful to God that I’m doing really well mitochondrial-wise! For those who may not remember, my naturopathic doctor at the OHSU pain center started me on 2 very strong antioxidants last year: liposomal glutathione and n-acetyl cysteine. When I started taking both regularly for several months, the neck weakness resolved and the overall muscle fatigue improved a lot. By God’s grace, I’ve physically been very stable which is a huge answer to prayer!! 🥹 P.S. It’s taken me a while to share this, but a few months ago, I added 11 new card designs to my shop. Here are some of my faves. ☺️ I’ve sadly run into another unfortunate predicament with the e-commerce site I sell on, but I’ll try to share that story another time.. 😕