Healthcare!!!

 

It makes me furious to have to choose between what will be a priority with my heath and what will have to wait. 

I am having an issue with my lower back.  I had it checked out a year or so ago and was told it is just age… Well when it acts up it sure feels like age!  Old age! 

Last fall I had one of the worst episodes (lack of a better term) with my back I had ever had.  I went to a ghost walk with a few friends and had to wait for about 30 minutes just standing around, for the walk to begin.  Well, my back began to really hurt and before the night was over I could barely walk.  I was sick over it… it did get better though.

Fast forward.  It’s back!  I’m not happy.  I can run and it doesn’t seem to be an issue.  I can’t lift weights…. I can’t stand for anything longer than a few minutes until it begins to hurt.  And not just hurt.   Hurt like sit down and don’t get back up.

So, I call my family doc.  Just give me a prescription and I will be ok… I’m sure….  Nope they want me to see a sports/med doc.  Which is who I saw once before.  Hmmmm… so if it doesn’t get better I will.  In the meantime my family doc wants me to come in for a yearly wellness visit.  I said yes but the more I thought about it I decided no.  I’m not throwing 50.00 to him just to see how I’m doing…..

If I’m shelling out $$ it will have to be for the squeakiest wheel and right now that it my back.  My family doc will not re-write my blood sugar strips or my pills for swimmy head without coming in.  So where do I spend my limited funds?

I will ponder this….

 

This weekend my precious granddaughter and I will volunteer at our local arts festival.  2 hours of standing (yeah exactly) and helping with kids.  It would have been/should have been fun but I’m dreading this.  But, perhaps this is what will truly show me whether or not this will resolve itself…

 

So, I’m a whining today.  Whaaaa!

 

I should stop and say I’m grateful to even have healthcare.    And I am.  Truly….

As Kids...

 

 

As kids we ran around a great neighborhood with 4 friends plus about 4 more that made a group that to this day still makes me laugh and smile in remembrance.  3 of the girls I am still in contact with even if it is not every day. 

We have all had tragedies.  Deaths, divorce….. loss……..

3 of my friends have lost a child, I lost my step son but somehow…. That just doesn’t seem the same.  Matter of fact, it isn’t.  loss is loss…. And forgive me for this but a mother’s loss, I believe, cannot come close to anything else.  Our children… ours…. We should not have to bury them.  Well I found out late yesterday that one of these precious woman who lost her young daughter to a car accident several years ago will now bury her second.   A few days ago her oldest and only daughter slumped over dead.  She is on a breathing machine as they harvest her organs.  That to me would be an awful thing to live through as well….. 

It seems, to me, there isn’t any good news coming around these days which just breaks my heart.  One of these woman I call my friend still has not only buried her youngest years ago but her middle child is sitting in a jail and although it is a a shoplifting charge… it masked a larger problem.  Drug abuse… it will kill her if she does not see… the… truth…..

 

So my heart breaks.  I say prayers for these families.  I catch my own breath thinking ‘what if’.. God.. where are you?  This precious daughter that is donating her organs, lying in state has 3 children; young children and no husband.   My childhood friend will be raising these kids…… God where are you?

 

I reflect on how wound up in fear I have become and over what?  Finances?  Relationships?  And then I hear this……..  Perspective….

 

I cry for my own family and what we go through and forget to acknowledge the good; and there is some.  I grieve for family choices and ask not to be consumed by their choices; stepping back to keep from being consumed as well.

 

Then I think of ‘T’.  His sweet smile, awesome laugh.  And I am filled with warmth and joy and while that doesn’t erase the fear, sadness of life, it brings me to a sweet place for a moment and remember that the circle of life sucks……so love as you can, where you can…. We truly do not get a second chance..

Adapt....ing

Change to adapt or adapt to change?

This thought crossed my mind today.  As we change, be it aging, weight loss, maybe some physical changes; how do we adapt?  Or do we?  Do we put up a fight or just relax and go with the flow?  Hmmmm.  So, this specifically is about the physical part of aging.  Let’s say I’m no longer as quick as I was or as bright… this is where I am right now.  My energy level has plummeted over the past couple of months.  I have fought so hard to sustain the level of activity that I have always had.  It was just dragging me down.  I finally said, STOP!  Address the unnatural (loss in activity level) with the natural (allowing myself some days off).  My desire to attend church and church functions is gone.  Finally over the weekend I just said enough!  I’m not 2.  Beating myself up about not wanting to go is useless waste of time…. I feel such relief.. It isn’t just that it is anything that keeps me bound by what my own measuring stick is…… you must!  You should!  Why aren’t you?  You better!  You’re going backwards! 

So, the point to this is how I am carefully addressing my changing needs and trying not to make this all negative…. Which, for me, is really hard.

So, physically maybe things are changing and I will adapt.  Emotionally things have changed and I have adapted.  Spiritually things continue to change and adapting to the positive side is essential. 

All I ask is peace and serenity through it all.

 

 

Watch out!

Watch out!

 

Last Thursday we had to send my sister to the hsp via ambulance again.  Same story, different days.  Ended up doing surgery to remove about a foot of her colon.  She is still recovering in the hsp.  God bless her!

**do not take your own health for granted!   I know I can/do.

I am leaving out all the happenings with that, not that it isn’t important.  It’s just too much going on.

On my way home from the hsp last Fri I get rear-ended.  Stop and go traffic but it still knocked me forward, sent stuff flying all over the car and banged up the rear end. 

**never take your journey as typical..  I know.. we all do..

On Saturday I am eating breakfast after delivering a stove to my daughter… when my phone is going nuts.  Hurry they are doing surgery on “r” at 10:30… hurry…. So, we finish eating and as we are headed back to town we are involved in a 3 car accident.  Yes, really.

**things can spin out of control right in front of you!   And they did.

Fortunately Ron was ok although he did go to the hsp via ambulance so I let my family know I’m going to the other hsp to be with him…

**can’t make this stuff up

My car has some minor damage…. His truck is totaled.

See!  This is why I am only putting in the highlights.  All since last Thursday.  Today is Tuesday.  It still seems like a blur.

Robin is still in the hospital… Maybe in a few days she will come home…

That is the most important part.  People.  Lives…. Humans……let’s not forget that!