A Love Story, built on Pain, Strength, and Faith

Justin was just your average typical guy, working on his carpentry apprenticeship. He loved boating and motor biking.

Christa was a young lady who was working towards finishing up BIble School in New Zealand. Then something went wrong and she became very sick. After three months of dealing with symptoms of headaches, body pain, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, night sweats, night terrors, and a rapid heart beat of over 200 beats per minute, she was hospitalized for two weeks. She had several MRIs, blood tests, and even a spinal tap, but the tests didn't show what was wrong and she had no answers.

Christas parents flew out to New Zealand to fly home with her back to Canada. A couple months later she was trying to get into the Mayo clinic to try to get some answers. On this day she met Justin. They spent the day talking about everything. And a romance was born.

Christa had experienced a couple good months where it seemed like she might be improving. Justin and Christa planned to go back to New Zealand. Christa could continue her Bible School and Justin could work on some carpentry at the school. They had some good times, visiting the beach, dirt biking, spending good quality time with eachother.



Then, the symptoms started coming back. She started experiencing debilitating pain again, and suffered an ovarian cyst rupture. She started having to miss lectures and activities.

They decided it would be better to return home. They left New Zealand knowing they had met great friends, and had made some great memories they would remember forever.

Their days bounced between our great happy times and the scary times where her symptoms got really bad and would flare our of control.

On April 12th, 2008 Christa and Justin got engaged! They went to Calgary to ski and celebrate! That didn't go as planned when Justin fell after showing off for his new fiance. Justin suffered a seperated shoulder. But life went on and they continued to plan their big day.





They didn't know what was in store for them, as Christa continued to suffer terrible headaches and unexplained body pain. All they knew is they were in love and living life together and happy.

They continues their new life together. Christa's symptoms would come and go. Sometimes hour by hour. They noticed they were getting consistently worse. After many trips to the ER they still had no answers. How could she be so sick but nothing show up on tests?

Christa would lay in bed and scream from the pain at night. They would sleep in different rooms so Justin could sleep so he was able to still get up and go to work in the morning. But hearing his new bride screaming in pain was relentless. There were many times it got so bad, that Christa would pass out from the pain.

Justin would walk the halls at night trying to think of something to help his young bride. There has to be answers.

In November, 17 months after Christa first got sick, they moved into the in laws house so they could take shifts taking care of Christa.



Christa was so brave. On days she would feel good she would cook or make crafts for others. But the pain would always come back.

In Mid-November they finally had a Dr appointment that seemed like it may be hopeful. They drove to Vancouver to a specialist. But after waiting all that time, over a year, the top neurologist they waited to see, still had no answers. They saw more specialists, no one had answers. On the trip back from Vancouver, Christa's symptoms got really bad and Justin had to keep pulling over so she could throw up on the side of the road. And if that was bad enough an Elk ran out in front of them on the way home and they totalled their car.

When they got back, Justin decided he had to quit work being a carpenter. He had to stay home full time to take care of Christa, things had gotten so bad. Christa also quit her job teaching special needs kids and had to drop our of college. It had gotten so bad that Justin was having to carry her in and out of her class and she had started passing out in the hallway.


At this point they were really overwhelmed. They had to pretty much drop out of everything. Christa also suffered a miscarriage at this point.

Christa would rate her pain on a 1-10 scale. She never gave up. When her pain would go under a six, she would work on her little business she had making cards.


They came across a doctor in Calgary that treated people with symptoms like Christa's. So they gave it a shot. She was put on a bunch of meds. She got yet another MRI but results were inconclusive.

But things just kept getting worse.

She was still up screaming all night from unbearable pain. He'd stay up with her almost every night, he'd make her food at 4am or do whatever it was she needed. Many times she would throw up all night long. Despite so much unbearable suffering and pain they chose to stay in love. And every once in awhile Christa would have a good moment and they could spend enjoyable time together. There would be a couple surprise times where Christa would have some good days.

Justin started taking a real estate course. He needed some distraction.

Christa did not respond well to the treatment in Calvary and even went into full body paralysis. They decided to stop treatment and move back to Vernon. This was Christa's 22nd month of sickness. Christa was passing out from pain on an average of ten times a day.

In May of 2009, Christa's dad came across a magazine article that talked about Lyme Disease. Out of 75 symptoms associated with Lyme Disease, Christa had at last 60. They both were so exhausted. They waited on the Lyme test results. Finally they came in.


After 25 months of not having answers they thought they finally had one! They soon found out there was no help in Canada for Lyme Disease however. They traveled to Seattle to see a top specialist for Lyme. As Justin was driving Christa was next to him having seizures and passing out.

July 2009 Christa started antibiotics to start the fight against the spirochetes that were in her body that cause Lyme Disease. Things did not go easy. Christa was still up all night in severe pain. Justin sat with her night after night.

They were determined to stay in love through all of this and would find little ways to let eachother know how much they loved eachother. They would do little things like fill the refrigerator with love notes.


They made it to their one year anniversary!


February 2010 Christa starts to have some good days. She experiences about three weeks of low level pain. She enjoys cooking for her husband again and working on her crafts again. It has been over a year since she has had a break in pain levels. She continues her Lyme treatment.