Well, I've got great news - the hives are gone! They've been gone for about two weeks now, so it seems that it's not just a fluke. Oh, I get a few every couple of days or so, but that's nothing compared to a few hundred several times a day. I've even been able to begin eating the foods I wasn't able to eat before. Last time I went grocery shopping, I took a nice long walk down the produce aisle thanking God for the wonderful foods I can eat again, and the pure bliss of not being itchy or sleepy or both ALL the time.

Since my health insurance just started, I actually had my first appointment with the allergist the day after they were first beginning to get better (although I thought I was just having a particularly good day at the time.) The thing with hives is that they are just such a mystery to everyone, including doctors. It's a mystery why they start, and why they go away. It's not a mystery to me why they went away, though.

Just before they stopped, I was totally reaching the end of my rope. I had been trying to be brave all along and accept the fact that I may very well be dealing with this for years and years. I didn't really want to pray about it. Well, that's not true. I had been praying for strength to deal with the situation, but I never prayed that they would just go away. I kept saying that it was stupid of me to pray something like that, when there's so many people out there with problems so much worse than mine. But really, I think I was just afraid that I would pray for them to go away and nothing would happen. But one night I was, as I said, totally at the end of my rope. I was miserable and I didn't know what to do about it anymore. I didn't have any resources left in me to call on. So finally I asked God to just take them away, make them stop. I cried and prayed and cried and prayed for almost an hour.

Lo and behold, the next day they were better. The day after that I only had a few small ones to show the doctor. It was just too immediate of an effect for me to possibly convince myself that it was just a coincidence. I'm still going to get some allergy testing from the doctor, and we may yet find out what caused it in the first place. But I know what made it stop.

God has again showed me that He's really up there, and that I should trust Him more than I trust me. I think this picture I took fits pretty well.