This Battered Life

A few blogposts ago, I reported my long-due visit to the dentist. Well, this has turned out to be a sinus problem rather than a dental one. I am taking a daily antihistamine and using a sinus rinse quite frequently and the facial pain I have experienced all these months has wondrously disappeared. Being on oxygen for nine years must be very drying on the nasal passages.

But now there's this sore on the bridge of my nose (been there for weeks) and it just keeps getting worse. It couldn't be in a worse place--right where my nasal mask hits. The doctor suggested not using the bi-pap for awhile or changing masks (which I will be able to do this coming week, when Medicare will pay for another type of mask).

But doing without the bi-pap is just not an option for me. I have tried cutting down on its use and napping during the day without it, with just the oxygen feed, and for a couple of hours at night. But it feels like going into a boxing match without gloves or any protection. I wake up feeling pretty battered.

This has reminded me of waking up at the Resurrection when Jesus comes. We won't feel battered then. We'll wake up as refreshed as the day we were born. But even better. For gone will be all our human frailties, our petty health grievances. The Master Physician has a whole new body to give us--one that won't wear out or grow old. No more birth defects (like my scoliosis) or brain injuries from having tractors run over us (like my husband). Now that's one kind of waking up I won't mind a bit!

Our Blessed Hope

Some good news and some bad news on the Dean home healthcare front this week. First, we finally landed an appointment with the geriatric psychiatric clinic in Omaha on Valentine's Day. Someone cancelled, so we got their slot. Perhaps they decided to celebrate Valentine's Day instead. In any event, we'll take this opportunity to get another opinion about Dean's slipping health status and what medicines are appropriate for him at this time.

The not-so-good news though is that his platelet count is down. They want to check it again in two weeks. Keeping our fingers crossed on this one. Hoping it doesn't indicate anything too dire.

On a bright note, we had a family outing with Dean and the daughter and granddaughters this past week. It was quite a trip, just fifty miles away, but took us half a day to accomplish. It included a quick run into a lawyer's office for me to sign the tax forms for my parents' final years. Then we met a cousin at Burger King and visited with her for almost an hour. Followed by a quick visit to my parents' graves, where the girls left some "sturdy" plastic flowers. The only kind to survive these cold, wintry Nebraska days.

It seems our entire lives are sprinkled with good and bad news, aren't they? We should never expect this world, so tainted with sin, to be totally without cold, wintry days. But thankfully, the sun doesn't stay away forever. There is an eternal spring to look forward to. And the dimmer our lives become here, the brighter that Blessed Hope becomes.

Salting the Table

I was noticing tonight at supper how fast condiments have been disappearing in our house. After seeing how much soy sauce Dean poured on his rice and stir-fry vegetables, it wasn't hard to know who the culprit is. He saturates almost all his food with Tabasco, Frank's Red Hot Sauce, ketchup, or steak sauce. Either that or he salts and peppers it to death.

I don't know if he really intends to get that much flavorings and seasonings on his food. Maybe he's just slow about knowing when to stop pouring, or he doesn't see well enough to know when he's got enough on the food. I have noticed that the whole dining room table looks like it's been salted when he's done. But the main reason seems to be that he wants his food to taste the way he's trying to season it.

In the same vein, we can think of all kinds of reasons why we sin. But the main reason is most likely that we just want to. We like the pleasure it gives us. Let's not forget the price we pay for that pleasure though. Someone is paying for our indulgences, just like I'm having to buy more condiments and clean the whole table of spilled salt. And ultimately Dean will pay with loss of health. But more importantly, he's losing out on the real taste of the food. Life is just so much better, without our attempts to spice it up on our own.

Wardrobe Changes

There's one good thing about seasonal weather changes, and that's the wardrobe changes that it requires. At least in my part of the country--the good ol' Midwest. I especially love switching to the warm weather clothes in the spring because it means no more winter for awhile. But the changes for cooler weather are almost as welcome.

I've recently called my long jeans into service again. And the exciting part is how loose they fit around my middle. Summer is usually my time for dropping a few pounds, but this summer I have really made an effort to slim down and get fit. www.myfitnesspal.com has been a big help in providing an excellent online food and exercise diary. Check it out and see for yourself. It's a free account.

Another fitness tool to check out is called your Bible. It will help you be fit for heaven, a much worthier goal. And you guessed it, it's free. Don't wait for the weather to change though. Just like we see signs of winter approaching, we see signs of Christ's Coming already here. But it's not too late to start getting fit. Let your Bible be your guidebook for better spiritual health.

Goals

Excitement of my day was when my daughter shared her weight loss secret with me. We are now part of a community of losers! This website helps you count your calories, chart your exercise, and lets you know when you have reached your goals. She's been doing it for several weeks now with her cell phone and had good success.

It's quite a step up from the simple food diary I've used over the years, which was just a spiral notebook where I listed (manually with a pen, no less) everything I ate that day. That worked some, because I would be able to see what foods I should try to avoid the next day.

But this is so much more sophisticated and revealing that I'm anxious to give it a try and lose some of this middle section weight that is making it harder for me to breathe. So far, all my efforts to lose have been pretty worthless, except for preventing me from putting on further pounds.

I'm sure any weight loss program is more likely to succeed when you have firm and valid reasons for losing. Women used to talk about their dieting in terms of looking better in their summer swimsuits, but I'm hearing more and more people talk about doing it for their health. This is a great reason as well, but I think we must even go further than that. The first approach was vanity, but the second one is still focusing on self.

We do it to be able to take care of those we love and to be available for them for a longer time. But also to be available for God. Illness may still strike us down through no fault of our own and God still uses us, but sometimes God needs to work through a healthy person. Third John 2 says, "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers."

Evidently God has goals for us as well. We need to cooperate with His program.

www.myfitnesspal.com -- go there!