Counting On

For those of you that know me or follow me on social media, you probably know that there have been two major dates that I've been counting down to and counting up from. Well, I'm here to tell you that the countDOWN is officially over! As of last Saturday, January 13th at about 1:30pm, I am now officially MRS. Courtney Williams. That's right! Zido and I walked down the aisle to the man of our dreams and walked back with a husband (and a dad!)

Our pictures should be ready in a few weeks, but until then, we received a few sneak peeks from the big day. Our photographer, Taylor Rose Photography, was an absolute and total Godsend. From the very first time we met her, we knew she was the perfect woman to capture our big day and some of the major days leading up to it with an engagement session AND a bridal session. Seriously, if you're getting married, check her out. She. Is. Amazing.

Now the thing to remember as an engaged couple is that no wedding is perfect. Ours had a song malfunction which made me walk down the aisle to silence, we had a unity cross that just did NOT want to get built, we had another song malfunction that made us not too sure when to leave the chapel, AND I got an alert that night which caused the reception to end about 30 minutes early! BUT, because of the imperfection, we had an absolutely perfect day that we shared with our friends and family. It was the ultimate day of displaying the love God has given us and celebrating the amazing journey we're now on.

Huge shoutout to Hitchcock Creative for the perfect invitations and programs!

Flats...because I can trip barefooted....

I cannot thank our friend, Danielle, and her service dog, Rollo, enough for creating the absolute most perfect bow tie and cufflinks for my main dog

Yeah...my husband's fun to look at... :)

The other major date that I've been counting UP from has been October 25, 2014 which was the day of my last episode. While our wedding was absolutely perfect and everything we could have dreamed of, it didn't come without some hardships. Only my parents, siblings, and Zack know about this, but I want to be sure that my followers can truly see what life with a service dog and a medical condition is like. At about 3pm on January 12th, my count-up restarted.

Weddings and wedding planning are by far one of the most stressful events someone can go through. Even though we had a year to plan and an incredibly supportive set of parents and friends who helped us every step of the way, there were still some stressers that just could not be avoided. Now, unfortunately, one of the only things we know for sure about my condition is that it's stress-induced. As I mentioned a while ago, happy stress, bad stress, and shock lead my body to overcompensate by just shutting down. The day before the wedding, there was a perfect storm of, to be quite honest, totally normal stresses that would make the average person just lay down for a bit and keep going. The other thing to note is that my way of handling the random disappointments or stresses of life is often times through crying. I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm sad, I cry when I'm confused and frustrated, I cry when Zido does something that's so cute I just can't handle it. Well, at this particular moment, I had already been upset at two events and was close to tears. When the third event happened very shortly after, it all turned. I was sitting on a bed with Zido and my sister and the buildup of everything quickly led me to hyperventilating. No, Zido didn't alert before this, but there was honestly nothing to really alert to. My body went from upset to catastrophic in a matter of seconds, but as soon as that shift happened, Zido was on it.

I was trying to catch a breath, but at the beginning of an episode my muscles start to stiffen. Your diaphragm is a muscle, so breathing becomes incredibly difficult. At this point, Zido had gotten in front of me, jumped up to his back legs and landed his front legs on my shoulders to force me to lay down before he began licking my face. For some reason, my hands, arms, feet, and legs become catatonic-like and are unable to be easily moved, but are incredibly painful. As my sister and parents began massaging each of the body parts, Zido went from laying on my abdomen, creating a kind of heated pressure blanket, to licking my face, to laying his head on the leg that was hurting the most. At one point, my family saw that both arms, both hands, and one leg were relaxed, however Zido would not get off of my right leg when they tried to call him. My parents looked and saw that he was laying on my ankle, which was still stiff and incredibly painful. Once they were able to get it to relax, Zido finally moved and came up to lay by me.

I was able to rest for a little bit, but still had to get to the church for our rehearsal. It was an incredibly disheartening moment for me because it was a smack in the face that this condition isn't going anywhere. It may have been 1,175 days since my last episode, but it's still there lurking. I've never wanted to be someone that looks for pity or who flaunts having a medical condition, but the reality is that this thing is sticking around.

HOWEVER,

the blessing of knowing that there is an army of support behind me and the most amazing service dog beside me gives me the hope of knowing that it's going to be okay. I may be back down to day 9 of being episode free, but hey, that's 9 days of health and freedom!

I want to thank everyone for all of the amazing love and support as I've stepped into this new role as a "wife" (seriously, what?) and I'm really looking forward to all of the adventures and stories that are to come. As always, feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or topic suggestions!

Love and blessings,
Zee and Me