java soaked theological philosophy and associated blather from a spiritual nomad

Disclaimer

I am a man with a great love for my Lord, the church and her members, and for coffee, strong and black.
I also have a great love for writing.
Everything I say here is my own opinion. Why in the world would I hold someone else's opinion?

Showing posts with label slow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slow. Show all posts

Thursday, August 25, 2011

slowing down

Here is an article I wrote for MSFocus, a free magazine for MS sufferers.


SLOWING DOWN

I used to walk around four miles an hour. I drove fast, did everything fast. People even said I came in a room like a freight train.

But then Ella, my wife of twenty years at the time, contracted Multiple Sclerosis.

It was small at first. She sprained her ankle and wrapped it with an Ace bandage. When she took it off, she still felt the bandage. That was her first indication of something wrong.

From there it got worse. She never had the Relapsing and Remitting MS. Hers was Primary Progressive.

Little by little she got worse. And as she got worse, she got slower. And as she got slower, so did I.

She had more and more trouble walking and she began to have trouble knowing where her feet were.

It first became evident to me in the middle ‘90’s when we were walking through a furniture store in Kansas City. It was one of those weird stores that sold hyper modern furniture – couches shaped like lips, hat racks that looked like the Blues Brothers. It was also carpeted in a soft dove gray all over.

As we walked on the second floor, we came to a step hidden by the sameness of the carpet. She tripped and fell and sprained her ankle. I started to help her up and she leaped up, looked at me and giggled – just like she had done when she was 17.

I realized that the Tramadol she was taking had really affected her. but I also realized that she was fast becoming incapable of normal walking.

She began walking slower and more deliberately.

We have always held hands as we walked, but I noticed that our hand-holding had changed. It became more of a hand-clutching than a hand-holding. She was holding on to me for support.

I had gotten her a cane but I was handier.

As we went on, she became slower and slower.

After a couple of years, we got a wheelchair and I was the designated pusher. I found out that I had to go slower than usual again because I broke one pushing it quickly along a pot-holey street.

Occasionally I had to break loose and walk. I would leave her somewhere while I went to get something for her and would walk fast.

But little by little, we began slowing down. It became evident that she had trouble walking.

At first she just looked unsteady. Sooner or later came the lurch, what I called her zombie walk. We would laugh about it because the alternative was too unpleasant.

But soon it became apparent she was too unsteady to walk very far, even a few feet.

She got her disability in May of 2004 and her first scooter a week later.

The mobility of the scooter was pleasant to her. She could go places and have a good time without me having to push her.

The only problem was that the scooter weighed 150 pounds and, although designed to break down for storage, would have something happen to it each time we did.

So it came to me to be the designated lifter. Fortunately, I am a big guy and have always been pretty strong. I had already gotten a lot of practice lifting her off the ground in her frequent falls. And helping her when she sprained her ankle, as she did an awful lot. Either that or breaking bones, which she did a lot, too.

As I got older, though, I did find out the power of leverage. Rather than breaking the scooter down, I would lift the front end, put it in our minivan, then pick up the back end and scoot it in. I became, not only the human cane, the wheel chair pusher, the errand boy, but also the scooter scooter.

For the first twenty years of our marriage, she waited on me, cooked for me, did about everything she could do as a homemaker. For the next twenty, I have been her caregiver.

It started small but has grown to the point that she is in constant pain. Of course, since nothing has worked to stymie the pain (including a virtually worthless neuro-stimulator and a semi-tractor trailer load of drugs), she spends a lot of time in her recliner.

I have become the go-getter. Johnny, would you go get… And I do.

I mean, what else would I do? I love her. I have read so much about men who leave their wives when they contract a debilitating illness. I have even known a couple of women in that situation. I really don’t know if I could live with myself if I did that.

Now we are down the line with the second scooter (fortunately much lighter but unfortunately not nearly as good as the first – it is slower). We have had several wheelchairs and three mini-vans, a number of what she calls cripple-stickers (the handicap tags), and life is considerably slower. I even drive slower now.

So it means picking up a few heavy things. So it means getting up from a comfortable chair and going to get her meds or a glass of tea or wine. So it means being inconvenienced a little.

It is far better than being without her.

And besides, I have slowed down so much that it would be hard to start with somebody else. Don’t tell her I said that.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

keeping your mouth shut

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. (James 1:19)
One of the hardest lessons I learned in my life was when to keep my mouth shut. The things I think are not always good to share. And many people come to me for counseling, come, not because they want to hear what I have to say, but to talk it out themselves.

And besides, I always had a smart mouth, one quick on the draw. That was great for when I was on the radio as a disk jockey, but in general, it is not good.

There is not telling how many friends I alienated when I was young. If it had not been for the fact that I was so big and so strong, I would have been beaten up long ago.

And when you talk too much, you cannot hear others speak. You miss much of life that way.

James was the brother of Jesus and the senior pastor of the church at Jerusalem. He was in a position that he knew he had to be careful what he said.

Any pastor is, for that matter. I have been careful for a long time. Sometimes stuff slips out at a dumb time, but I am, after all, human. But, for the most part, I am careful.

Not long ago, someone got mad at me and spread some stories. He wrote the district and area superintendents and supervisors for the Foursquare church and tried his best to stir things up against me.

And he did. But what he said was false. And those who heard him and believed it believed a lie.

But I refused to defend myself because I would rather listen.

Listen long enough to someone and you hear amazing things. In fact, if you listen long enough, someone will generally tell you more than they intended to and will sometimes get mad at you. That is something that is strange to me, but at the same time, it happens too often.

People used to listen to me and think the same thing, I suppose. But most of mine was just smart remarks or misplaced pithy comments. Again, fine, I suppose, if you are on radio or are a comedian or something. But lousy for a preacher.

Most people get into arguments because they do not listen. Sometimes we are so quick to speak that we miss the point completely.

The same with being angry. That was a hard lesson to learn. I think I got a handle on it, but as the apostle Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 10:12, If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.

About the time you think you have it down, you have lost it, if you are not careful.