HEALTH for Landon

While the public heartbeat of our family through our local church and counseling ministries has always been primarily about others, now and then I am learning that we must share when and where we have real, unshakeable need. I am discovering that the primary reason I am hesitant to let you know of a pressing need in our personal space is because I am, as one church leader in a similar season put it, “only used to connecting with the body of Christ through my strengths, not my weaknesses.” Even the otherwise self-supporting Apostle Paul models this vulnerable spirit by letting the Philippians know of and minister repeatedly to his need, “you sent once and again to my need” (Ph. 4:16). So as uncomfortable as it feels to let you in on our utter weakness and desperate need, here it goes…

Above is a “senior picture” of our dear son Landon taken last summer before what should have be the pinnacle of his formative years. But our gracious, all-wise God had other plans. Shortly after this photo session in the spring of 2024, his health, that was already compromised, began to seriously decline. But I am getting ahead of myself; let’s go back to the beginning.

Unbeknownst to us as his parents, Landon started feeling unexplained facial pain in the fall of his freshman year (2021). He bravely and quietly fought through this nerve pain as well as fatigue, brain fog, and general malaise until the middle of his sophomore year when he finally opened up to us about it. Along with this expression of what he has been silently suffering with for years, we had begun to notice his not feeling “right.” Due to physical and mental limitations, he had to grieve a lot of difficult things at his tender age. For example, he could no longer play his senior year of golf and basketball which is about much more than the ball going in the hole/through the hoop.

This self-disclosure from our son set us on a two year search for answers. We would repeatedly think we had them, wait expectantly, and then discover yet another dead end as to the cause. As more and more specialists were confused by Landon’s symptoms, we began to wage the personal war with hopelessness as we heard doctor after doctor say, “We have never seen anything like this before.” While it was a blessing to rule out many of the big, scary diagnoses, we continue to leave each appointment/test with more questions and less answers.

After four years of dealing with no relief, Landon began his courageous fight to not give up hope as a young high schooler, wanting to find God’s will, wanting to be able to dream of a future beyond this seemingly endless pain. We visited over 15 specialists to no avail while supporting him with a trained counselor. We tried every imaginable supplement, prescription medication, home remedy, and pain relief techniques including multiple injections into his face to no avail. Words cannot express how difficult it has been to watch your child suffer in pain every day with no effective treatment and no plausible explanation. Though not life-threatening, in one sense, like who stare down terminal illnesses, the painful, reducing effects upon our lives has been difficult to bear.

I have lost most of what I love and never really want to hang out with friends or make new ones. I always feel anxious throughout the day, and when I get home I am just depressed. I have lost my personality and everything is hard. It is hard just getting through the day because I feel like a ghost, just unseen and unimportant. It’s gotten me really down because it feels like forever since I was myself. I know these are the effects of long COVID now but for so long I thought I was going crazy. Please pray for me to have a chance to recover my God-given life and goals for after high school. (Landon Snode)

Through the thoughtful evaluation/blood work ordered by a functional doctor, we finally arrived at the long-awaited diagnosis of Long-COVID, functional neurological disorder, as well as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (a group of genetic disorders that affect connective tissue) in late 2024. In other words, the four years of unrelenting symptoms is a manifestation of the dysfunction in Landon’s autonomic nervous system that is genetic and triggered by repeated exposure to COVID. Finally some answers, but as you all likely know there are no easy solutions to such a diagnosis. Dark days plagued Landon (and us), as we feared we may never be free of this 24/7 pain.

In January 2025, the Lord miraculously led us to several families who have successfully navigated the exact same health challenges with their adolescent kids and the despair that predictably accompanies them. They confirmed that same discovery that traditional pain relief options have no effect on this category of illness. They too have suffered through feeling like they were “losing their child” in front of their eyes and nobody being able to help them.

Now the good news…these same families finally found hope and healing at Spero Clinic/Neurological Relief Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The results of its impact on them and families from all over the country and world have been significant and lasting. While they don’t “cure Covid,” these medical professionals do systematically address the impact of it upon sufferers…especially young people. We believe as followers of Jesus that God supernaturally brought these three families who have experienced the full restoration of their teenage sons into our lives at just the right moment. Finally, some hope for our son!

This clinic, with all of its effective, holistic treatments of the nervous system, is not covered by insurance and poses, in addition to all the money already spent with the well-meaning medical community, an overwhelming economic mountain to climb (Approximately $75,000). An amount that feels huge but we small in comparison to the same big God that has met similar-sized needs in our past including the adoption of our oldest son Ian and the planting of our local church. We are willing to do attempt-with His help-anything possible to see the restored, hope-filled, engaged son that we so miss. The other families spent on average four months at this clinic. This means, as logistically challenging as it is, that Heidi and I will take turns being with Landon through his therapeutic steps as we fight for his future. The plan, by God’s grace and with your partnership, is to see him finish up high school remotely, and after treatments resume his pursuit of God’s will for him in college, career, relationships, and service.

Despite the ups and downs of this long, grinding season, our family clings to the conviction that the God we profess and preach to others is the God of hope and healing for our little hurting family. Not just in abstract, theological sense but in relation to our son and his renewed future. While we don’t have all the answers, we are grateful that He does…answers that include miracles. Whether you are family, a friend, or a complete stranger who just happened upon our story, would you please join us on this journey of seeing Landon get back his health for the glory and honor of His Creator and Redeemer? No matter what level of restorative progress is reached, we know that God is going to redeem this situation. We cannot, by faith, wait to share what God does through this season He has chosen for us to bring Him glory and benefit other sufferers who will come after us!

These words by Jeffrey Weisner steady our hearts as I click to publish this post/launch this initiative that feels so “needy and high maintenance” to those we would prefer to bless than ask for a blessing:

“Everybody likes being a ‘burden-bearer’ but few like being burdensome—’Oh, I don’t want to be a burden!’ This is more a fruit of modern, self-sufficient individualism than mature Christianity. In truth, the joy of burden-bearing follows the freedom to be burdensome—of strong saints gladly bearing up the weak. And there’s no such thing as a never-weak saint. We all need our burdens borne at some point. A strong gospel culture in a church encourages not just joyful burden-bearing but humble burdensomeness as we confess our sins to one another, seek wise counsel when we are lacking, and make practical needs known when our strength and resources aren’t enough.”

With the full support of our local church and its leaders (a special thank you in advance for all our deacons and staff are going to absorb), we begin what will likely be four plus months of therapy in Arkansas the last week of February, 2025…so the need is great and urgent. We would join Paul in saying that we “don’t desire a gift but fruit that will abound to your account” (Ph. 4:17) through the transformed body and mind of our son in the days ahead. If you would like to give to fund this cause that is so dear to our hearts and home, please click on this throwback picture to more simple days of our grateful-you-would-get-to-know-his-story son: