Up and Down

Betty's struggle with shingles is such an up and down thing. Her nights and mornings are still bad. Fortunately, she feels a little better in the afternoon and evening -- which means the pain is not constant during those times.

The miserable part of shingles, besides the unrelenting pain, is it's unpredictable. When she had her horse accident two years ago the doctor was able to tell her that her leg would heal in six weeks, she would need to wear the body brace for three months, and she would be fine in six months. So you could work through the pain and discomfort because you had an end date when things would be better and it all came true.

With shingles, all the doctor could say (and all the web sites as well) was that it varies -- some people get over the pain in a matter of weeks while for others it might be months or even years before it was completely gone. There is no way to know.

That kind of uncertainty has played mind games with us both. When she's going through a bad stretch we both worry, "is this how it's going to be for a long time?" And, when she feels better for period, it's hard to believe that's a good thing or just a minor respite in the midst of a longer term struggle.

I don't mean to sound so down, but it's been hard for both of us. Our lives have been put on hold. We're not able to work with and ride our horses (they're not too disappointed about that). We're not able to participate in our counseling ministry. We can't go to church. It's hard just to go out for an hour or two without worrying about the pain coming back.

Shoot, we're even missing getting to see "Avatar" on the big screen. :)

I have some posts already posted for Monday Videos and Friday Funnies and I will let them post as scheduled. I'll try to do a Sunday Reflection because that's important for me.

Beyond that, my posts may be pretty sporadic until we get past this as there's not much going on in our lives at the moment to post about.

Warmest regards to all of you who read this blog.

Dan

A Little Bit of Sunshine

Betty is still dealing with the shingles.  It looks like it may take several weeks or longer, but we’re still relying on God in the midst of it all.

One thing that always brings a smile to both of us is our granddaughter Juliet.  The video below was shot at the wedding of our nephew Patrick and Michelle just after Christmas.  In the latter third of the video she goes and grabs her Daddy’s finger to bring him out to the dance floor to dance with him.

I shot it with my cell phone so the quality is not that great, but it shows how much fun Juliet had.  This is only 4 minutes of about 20 – 30 minutes that she danced throughout the night.

Monday Video – Loop the Loop

If you have ever played with the little cars on the track that does a loop the loop, you’ll understand how difficult this project really is.  This video is a fascinating scientific experiment with a real element of danger.

Enjoy and hold your breath.

Sunday Reflection – The Jesus Prayer

Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ, Υιέ του Θεού, ελέησόν με τον αμαρτωλόν

In case you don’t read Greek, the above translates as:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

(I don't read Greek either. I found the above in a web site.)

This is the Jesus prayer. It’s origins go back to at least the fifth century (400 A.D.). Church historians believe that the prayer’s origin is most likely from the monastic Desert Fathers who settled in the Egyptian desert.

In the early years, the prayer was carried forth primarily by the Eastern churches, both Orthodox and Catholic. It has become more popular in the western churches in the 20th century as centering prayer became more known.

The Jesus prayer is composed of two statements. The first is one of faith, acknowledging the divine nature of Christ. The second one is the acknowledgement of one’s own sinfulness. Out of them the petition emerges to “have mercy.”

The Jesus prayer is considered to be the lesson taught by the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican in which the Pharisee demonstrates the wrong way to pray, “Thank you Lord that I am not like this Publican,” whereas the Publican prays correctly in humility saying, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:10-14)

A 19th century Russian writer described the prayer as one that helps us grow in three stages:

1. An oral prayer, the prayer of the lips, a simple recitation.
2. A focused prayer, the prayer of the mind, when the mind is focused on the words and their meaning.
3. The prayer of the heart itself, when the prayer is no longer something we say or do, but it becomes a prayer of who we are.

Betty and I were introduced to this prayer in the latter half of the 1980’s when we were under the guidance of a spiritual director. He suggested this prayer as a way to pray when we wanted to focus all of our being onto God.

Since then I use it several times a week. It’s especially helpful when my mind is in turmoil over something that’s bothering me, especially when I’m trying to go to sleep. It helps me to focus on the eternal, what’s truly important, and to let go of the temporal, what’s on my mind.

It’s also a good prayer as we start this new year to center on what’s life-giving.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

A Christmas to Remember

This truly was a Christmas to remember – both for good reasons and some not so good.

First, the good.

We visited with my sister Jane and her family in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  She just had surgery to remove a cyst from her spine and to fuse two of her vertebra.  After the pain of the surgery, she will feel much, much better as she has been having tremendous back and leg pain.

Then we went to Betty’s stepmother’s house.  Nita is one of the world’s greatest women.  This year was a little different – actually a lot different.  Our nephew, Patrick, was getting married to Michelle, a young woman from Singapore.

In fact, they had a Chinese wedding in Singapore last August and this would be their American wedding.

Several of Michelle’s relatives and friends flew over from Singapore for the wedding.  Here’s a picture of  (front) Madeline (friend), Yvonne (friend), Wah Lee (Michelle’s mom), Tina (aunt) (back) Joo (aunt), Eric (brother), and Michelle (the bride).

They were all a lot of fun.  Michelle, her brother Eric and friend Madeline all speak English very well.  However, the others would often just smile, nod their heads and laugh whenever everyone else laughed.

As part of their Southern experience we took Michelle’s mom and brother to a local Franklin, Tennessee restaurant that specializes in home style cooking – fried chicken, green beans, corn pudding, biscuits, etc.

Before the wedding, which was the Monday after Christmas, we picked up Wade, Marie and Juliet from the airport.  They wanted to go somewhere to eat to give Juliet some time to run off energy after the 3 hour flight, so we went to Opry Mills Shopping Center which has a carousel.  Juliet didn’t want to ride it because it was too fast, but she enjoyed watching it.

We also got our picture made with a shark.

Before the wedding service Patrick and Michelle did a traditional Chinese tea ceremony where they invited the older relatives to come up and they offered them tea to drink.  Our role was to give them some advice and a blessing. This is Michelle and Patrick doing the ceremony with Michelle’s mom.

The wedding went off well and Michelle was beautiful.

This is a picture of Michelle with Nita, Betty’s stepmother.

Of course, there was also wedding fun – first Betty playing with Juliet.

And, Juliet dancing on the dance floor.

Juliet even convinced her old Papa to come out and dance with her.  As I told someone, when it comes to my granddaughter, I have no pride.

We also had some quiet times with Juliet during our stay there.

Now for the not so good part of our Christmas trip.  While we were in Bowling Green visiting with my sister and her family, Betty experienced a pain in her left side.  We thought she had just bruised some muscles.

The pain kept getting worse so on Christmas Eve morning we visited with the doctor at the Williamson County Medical Center emergency room.  The X-rays were negative so he gave her some mild pain pills.

By the early morning hours of the day after Christmas, the pain, especially at night, was very bad.  Also, Betty was breaking out in a rash.

So, we headed back to the emergency room and it was quickly diagnosed as Shingles.

For those who may not know, as I didn’t, Shingles comes from the same virus that gives you Chicken Pox as a child.  Even though you get over the Chicken Pox, the virus does not go away.  It resides in the nerves along your spine.  Because of a trauma or low immunity, this virus can become active again in an adult resulting in the Shingles.

The rash went around her waist from her navel to her spine and the pain is a deep inside nerve pain.

The ER doctor gave her stronger pain medicine, an anti-viral medication, and some steroids to hopefully prevent longer term pain which can sometimes happen.

You can’t cure Shingles – all you can do is hope to contain it and pray it never comes back.  The pain is pretty severe, especially during the night and early morning hours which makes it difficult to sleep.  Fortunately, it subsides during the afternoon so there is some relief, but it has come back every night.  It’s a strange pattern.

We’re going to our family doctor on Monday for a further check.

There is a vaccination for adults against Shingles and I’m hoping to get one when we see our doctor.  Betty strongly encourages everyone to get this vaccination as Shingles is not a fun thing to deal with.

If you have an extra prayer, please say one for Betty for quick healing and the elimination of pain.

Saturday Voice -- Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

When I worked for P&G, I once looked at a set of data over a period of time and noticed something I thought was significant.  If I had gone forward with this data, the Company might have made a bad decision.

However, after some reflection, I decided to look at the same data over a longer period of time and, in that perspective, what I thought was significant wasn’t significant at all.

In my opinion, that’s what’s happening in the climate change debate.

Much of the debate is over the “hockey stick,” a set of data over a period of time that appears to show the climate is warming.  (There are questions about the reliability of this data, but for purposes of this discussion let’s assume it’s accurate.)

However, most reputable scientists might ask the question, “What does the data look like over a longer period of time?”  Seems like a fair question to me.

This video shows that longer time perspective using data from ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica.

There are a whole lot of agendas going on in this climate debate and it seems prudent to me not to rush this as we have rushed into other things recently.

Dan

Happy New Year

We returned from our trip late last night and today has been watching clothes and getting everything straightened out.

It was a crazy trip for several reasons and I’ll do a longer post with pictures tomorrow.

Have a blessed and safe New Year.

Dan & Betty

PS: This is the year when the monolith turns Jupiter into a new sun and new life appears on the Jupiter moon Europa.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out the movie “2010.”