August 7 – “M&M’s”

Exactly one week away from my sixty-second birthday and here I am setting up all sorts of medical tests and treatments.  MRI is scheduled for Tuesday to verify the encroaching lumbar spinal stenosis.  I’ll stop at the Quest office in LaMarque on my way there for the blood tests to make sure there is no diabetes involved that could be the culprit in the neuropathy in my feet.  Monday begins water therapy to strengthen my core muscles to take some of the strain off of my back.  Not to be confused with water exercise on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  This new one is the substitute for physical therapy and meets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  It means I’ll be in a pool five days a week for four weeks.  I haven’t done that since I made Shark in swimming lessons at the Elks Lodge back when I was ten or so.  Oh, and come September I’ll have to add to that our ballroom dancing lessons.  We’re still waiting to hear back from the rheumatologist on the results of the kidney function tests we turned in.  No telling what medication alterations may come then.  In the meantime, I’m trying to find some physically exerting project to entertain at least every other day.  Mowing the grass, vacuuming our two area rugs, organizing shelves and cabinets in the garage and my office.  Anything that will make me physically tired and give my head somewhere concrete to place the blame for the ever-present nagging pain that is making it harder and harder to concentrate.  But … there are plenty of other folks who have it worse than I do.  Like Jennifer, one of our Seasiders.  She just had her ninth surgery on an ankle.  And now it is badly infected.  Again.  Gotta be beyond frustrating for her and her husband.  

Whew.  That’s enough about that.  How about a little biblical era geographical humor?  Riddle me this: What do they call all those little rivers feeding into the great Nile River in Egypt?  Give up?  JuveNiles, of course.

Colossians 1:15-17 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Father, thank you again for the M&M’s (miracles of medicine) that are currently giving me some relief.  Could you extend that relief and a full dose of healing up Jennifer’s way, too?  She needs it a lot more than I do right now.  Amen.