Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Let your Heart be Light
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Who Knows
Well, I end up in obscure places and wonder what's going on. On line at the cocoa beanery, I have my attention drawn to a man who is waving a book at me. "I wrote this book, do you read poetry? I wrote this book and sold 600 copies. Here, read this." I'm not in the middle of a city, I'm in Hershey at a relatively yuppy coffee shop. So I read. Touching. Heartwarming. " Very nice," I explain. I glanced at his bio on the back page and made my way to the line. (A cornell graduate? Is he retired? Is he okay?) Ordered a salad and cinnamon infused tea. Sat down.
It has been a wacky week. Over all it started well, with good physical signs. I could talk and eat the majority of the day. Then the craziness of a labored swallow and the need to drink extra water kicked in about Monday, okay a bit at Saturday brunch. I guess that is the beginning of the week. After a morning and afternoon of a few conversations, the last few evenings were terrible. I limited eating and barely talked during dinner. One word sentences, some of which sounded like I was holding my nose, and an occasional barely intelligible word.
So I have an ENT appointment on Friday and a call in to my neurologist. A few 2nd opinions for the beginning of the new year. I have lab work going to teat for a new-found antibody for Myasthenia Gravis.
Praying it all goes away or that I have a heading and an altitude soon. A consistent one. I can see why a blogging friend entitled her blog "Living with Chronic Illness: The Roller Coaster of MG." I don't even like roller coasters anymore.
As I type I am encouraged by the song overhead:
Joyful all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies.
With angelic host proclaim
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Seems so far away now but I know it is true.
Christmas will come whether we are ready or not. Aunt Donna in Texas just shared the with me. Good one.
Friday, December 12, 2014
The Whole Story since October
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it. Psalm 139:1-6
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Chariots
I love the solitary time to contemplate this, and the enlightenment that can only come from God giving me understanding and desire to contemplate it. I cannot waste time trusting in my little checked boxes or my cute resident who actually does thoroughly examine me. Trusting in the treatment and the purified air of the hospital. For these are excellent for my physical body but the real upright stance comes from trust in the orchestration of the Lord. For how would they have ever known to purify and love if it were not God who taught them in the first place.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Gift Giver
I was talking with a mom once about how our Naomi would not sleep when she was 11 months old. We had a hard time of it, trying to get her down to sleep. She wanted milk before bed, and other odds and ends until the time was whittled away from us. This kind mother said that sometimes parents feel like they have to "play God" to their children, giving them everything they ask for and catering to their every whim. If we do this we teach them they have no need for God. But if the child has had enough food and drink for the day, then asks for milk when it is really time for bed, it is better to direct them to ask God for patience for the morning, and ask the Holy Spirit for help trusting parents that it actually is bedtime. The kind mother was spot on with what we were doing, reminding me that a better gift is not milk, it is an avenue that leads to trusting in the Lord.
So I sit here at the med center, about to turn in for the night. My anxious heart has been tormenting me throughout the last month or so, climaxing at the last few days. I had serious fear. Fear of not being around for Christmas, and being the lady in the "Christmas Shoes" song. Far worse from my physical disease, I had an anxious heart absent from peace. Now, I know some scriptures, I read them and have verses memorized, especially the ones about fear and peace that transcends understanding. But I cannot give myself the peace. I have had beautiful prayers and petitions texted to me and read to me, and friends praying over me in person. But they cannot give me the peace, and many of them fell on an unbelieving mind that trickled away into doubt. But somehow, in this sterile hospital, the peace came throughout the afternoon. I know I was lifted up in prayer by many family and friends, and I know that this morning I felt heavy and this evening I feel lighter. How could I possibly explain the song in my heart while lapping the unit, the nurse who played christmas music while putting in my picc line, the scripture that played like a movie screen when I closed my eyes, and the exceedingly timlely apt words from family and friends. It cannot possibly be just friends and family sticking by. It has to be the Lord orchestrating this moment.
The Prince of Peace truly is an excellent and timely gift giver.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Unplugged
I was unplugged today. The telemetry came off, and Mike walked me down the halls of the hospital with my apprehensive posture. Babying my heart catheter and coddling my right arm iv line, I was somewhere between Red (from Shawshank Redemption) "institutionalized" even when getting out of jail; Nemo, sad about his tiny fin; and Rapunzel, feeling grass for the first time. There is a de-conditioning that envelopes you when you get admitted to the hospital, so putting on regular clothes was a step towards regaining humanity and starting to live again, and I was very grateful. Getting the 5 telemetry stickers off and unplugging, walking away in sneakers, sans the yellow hospital slipper-socks, was a sure bonus to my day and week.
The largest lesson I learned today was that my emotions, anxiety, thoughts, company, and food choices all grossly affect the rate at which my heart beats and my blood pressure. I got out of bed and brushed my teeth, powdered my nose for the day, and it crawled up to the 90's. My adorable and supportive friend Stephanie made pumpkin pie bars, and with each bite, my heart rate increased 10-15 bpm, then settled back down again to my normal 80 bpm. As I was tempted to bitterness and anger, it skyrocketed to 150 bpm! Nurses came running in and checking on me. It was such a silent contemplation of anger, that it was as if a microscope was on my thought process, and the LED screens on the unit projected my thoughts. It was bad enough that I was angry, but come on, "Get out of my head, you people!"
We are called to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. We are taught to forgive 7 x 70 times. The Word of God says that God "will remove our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west," and yet we skip along to beats of anger, discontentment, frustration and anxiety as if it will be a feast for our soul, clinging to them. We hide them in the pockets of our mind as if they don't effect anything. It not only feeds our soul garbage, but seems to deplete our physical health! It grates on us and tears us down. Who would have known that how we think of others and our circumstances is likely to drive us into a situation where, if we had been on telemetry, the bells would sound.
Well, today proved to me that these situations can negatively effects our whole body. If our body really is a temple of the Holy Spirit, our helper left to us by the Living God of the universe, and we are ticking along, habitually harboring offense, slander, no matter how silent, our physical heart is affected and could potentially tell all. Clearly, something that the Lord already knows! And, it makes me pause. How selfish am I? My goodness, where did my goodness go?
I was thoroughly embarrassed that I had to tell the nurses that I was just upset about something and "being emotional." After coming in 3 times for heightened vital signs, machines dinging and binging, and flashing bright lights to alarm everyone in the Neuroscience ICU that I am contemplating things that are not fruits of the Spirit, this opened the door for them to continually ask if I was "okay," and for me to realize how broken I am.
The tug between the flesh and the spirit are clearer to me now. I reflexively listened to the book of Ephesians and Philippians, frantically trying to get these thoughts away from me. I called and texted my best friends and continued down my little paths of thought. Thankfully, by resting and praying, Mike counseling me, I was guided to put to rest my anger and upset-ness. Not only because we are called to do it, but with the added long and short term negative effects on the body. Our only, one body given to us for this short time on earth to steward, care for, and use to the best of our ability. This baseline makes it a bit easier to tolerate having a heart catheter rubbing against my collarbone, and multiple day hospital stay. If it would have taken me a lifetime to learn these lessons without a hospital admission, I would much rather the hospital stay and be discharged having learned.
~Honey bunch is on his way to me, so I'm pretty sure my heart skipped a beat.