And so we try again

Back home from the hospital, flare 'semi-settled', I'm now on 20 mg of the devil's brew daily and still my joints are huge and hot before I even get out of bed. My weight is worse than ever, and I'm overwhelmed thinking about how long it will take to get back down to 10 and how my legs and feet are so stiff and painful I can barely walk now. Still reeling from the massive IV doses and Morphene and just the whole chaos of it all. But today I tried to start again. Saw Barbara, even though I missed 1/2 of my appointment due to the traffic. Got to have my monthly Remicade, no infections around to delay that. Then took a long nap with the bionicare on my right leg. Even had a plesant time with my daughter, I don't think I said anything wrong or hurtful and she smiled a lot. Good food in the fridge - real homade food from my Mother, what a blessing to have. Now I'll go find my kids and try to make sure they know I love them before they go to bed. Tomorrow I will keep trying.

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

Finally had to go to CLH last Friday and admintted to hospital to get the flare under control. So I got 180 MG daily via iv of Presnisone plus plenty of tranquilizers to keep me from going nuts, and lots of Morphene for the pain.

It was a real trip this time. Due to a mix-up on my meds, I ended up going into withdrawal on Friday night and turned into a raving lunatic. I made this huge scene and ripped out my iv and was trying to escape the hospital without any oxygen. They had to call security and there weare these doctors and nurses and everyone trying to 'talk me down'. Turns out it was ALL CHEMICAL, the ER intake had not passed along my meds info to the next department, etc, etc, and by Friday night I was in cold turkey withdrwawal from a half dozen meds that I HAVE to have on schedule, every day, on time. It gave me a real appreciation for what people who are detoxing must have to go through. But at least they know they are detoxing, and they are given support to help ease them through the detox process.

It was a real mess, but when I awoke about 3AM in my room, there was this sweet lady just sitting there next to me. Turns out, I had been assigned to have a constant "sitter" for the remainder of my stay. These "sitters" just came and went, quietly just being there with me. If I wanted to talk, we talked. If I didn't want to talk, they just quietly attended me. It turned out that every single one of them was a Christian or seeking Christ, and we always ended up having such special fellowship! It was truly amazing, the sharing that happened between me and my "sitters" over the weekend.

Looking back, there was clearly a purpose in this episode. I was visted by my family, 2 of the hospital chaplains, and my pastor and a friend from church. The chaplain visits were amazing. I've never had a hospital chaplain visit me before, but for some reason ??? I checked 'Yes' on the box requesting a chaplain visit.

The 2nd chaplain that came in did something so profound. We talked about my greif over the loss of my abililty to be a part of the Worship Team, and to use my career to bless people in the corporate world. (You see, that was always my reason to get up in the morning and to the 'corporate thing' - it was a cover for me to try to show Jesus to the people I worked with). This is something I have rarely talked about because it has been so painful - like I would want to know WHY would God take away my ability to minister FOR HIM? Like being spurned by a lover. Very painful. Well, this chaplain really 'got it'. And then he helped me understand some things, and left me with SUCH HOPE for the future! This verse has new meainng for me now:

Isaiah 53:5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

My pastor has told me over and over the same thing, but I just didn't 'get it' until this weekend as I sat in the hospital with this sweet spirited, gentle man from South Korea. He explained how even God (temporarily) turned his back on his only son on the cross, and that he HAD do to that in order for Jesus' sufering to be REAL. And in order for me to MINISTER to people, I have to truely WALK THE PATH myself. Then it becomes REAL and I can connect with hurting people and minister to them. I ended up leaving with such a sense of purpose and hope, and yes - gratitude for all of the sharing with my 'sitters' over the weekend.

Romans 8:28 (KJV)
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

I have a nw acceptance. I am walking this path for a reason. Whether I see the results in this life or the next, it doesn't matter. Each pain, each hurt, is in my path for a reason, that reason being MINISTRY to other hurting people that can't be done unless you've actually WALKED THE PATH.

Stubborn

This time the flare is being so stubborn. I've been taking the extra Prednisone for 3 days now, and I feel worse than before I started taking it. Not a good sign, I'm afraid. Joints worse, breathing worse, chest rattle worse. And the nightmares, God the nightmares. They just keep coming and coming and my mental state is on the fritz. I don't want to have to go to the hospital, but at least there I would get some support. Around here, it's just like 'lets ignore Mom for as long as we can and maybe she'll just go away". And if I dare to ASK for anything, you would think the world was coming to an end. So I just don't ask, and so I don't get what I need to get better. It really stinks. They all act like I'm such an imposition on their lives, and I know I must be. After all, how long should they be expected to put up with this? This was never in the bargain - for any of them. But here I am, sick and getting sicker - needy and getting needier and just praying to God to either make me well or take me home.

A Flare

I've been feeling it coming on, joints swelling, chest hurting, cough, rattle, it always seems to happen when I go below 10 MG on the demon drug. I've tried every day to mentally battle it, to keep swimming, to tell myself I would level off, that it would be different this time.

It was not to be so. Yesterday Dr. Leeper listened to my chest and said if I weren't already on so much Remicade and Methotrexate, he would put me up to 60 mg of Prednisione. We compromised at 20. He couldn't believe I had been swimming that same day. How? he asked. How can I not? was my answer. I have a life to live, kids to raise, THINGS TO DO.

After Dr. Leeper, Amanda and I went to little 5 points. She really loves going down there, and it gives me joy to see that. We went in a shop where a bird had flown in, and the shop keeper was trying to shoo it out with a broom type contraption. She didn't have any luck at that while we were in there. We looked at vintage clothes, crystals, incense, trinkets and toys, and just plain wierd stuff. We ate lunch at a place where the front wall is a huge garage door (like at a mechanic). The door was wide open and a nice breeze came in. We were right on the street and we could people watch while we ate. It was nice. Then I could walk no longer, so I took up residence in the window of a bakery and sipped Lemonade while Amanda walked around. A guy with a teal painted skull walked by a few times. Some girls with about 80% of their bodies tattooed came by, and there was this one guy trying to sell everyone newspapers. If you wouldn't buy one, he became borderline violent, so we stayed as far away from thim as we could.

Next, we drove north to my next appointmnet. We were early, and there was a Great Clips across the street, so I decide to get a quick hair trim before my 6:00 appointment. That was mistake. I think the black guy cutting my hair had never cut a white girls' hair before. He took F-O-R-E-V-E-R. He started a 5:10 and finished at 6:18. At 6:00 I tried to get up from the chair and leave, but he woulndn't let me. I still have no idea what he was doing, but whatever it was, he did it ONE HAIR AT A TIME. My head weighs at least 1 extra poound because of all the goop he kept putting in there. And I have such a simple haircut! All he had to do was follow the cut, trim it up, blow dry it and be done. It was the strangest experience in a hair salon I've ever had, like some perverse twilight zone version of "Just a routine trip to the hair salon", with a hideous cackling and off-key music playing in the background.

Finally, I did make it to my next appointment and then back home. It was a long day and I was tired. My O2 tank ran out just as we got into the Alpharetta City Limits. Today was a setback medically. Not only does the DEMON DRUG interrupt my sleep cycle, but it impacts WHO I AM, HOW I ACT, and worst of all HOW I THINK. And then it takes SO LONG to wean back down again.

I struggled with the decision. When I was preparing my morning meds last night, I put the 20mg in. Then I went back and took them out. Then back in, then back out. Then when I was struggling to lift one of my feet off the floor with both hands to put on a sock, I succumbed. I put the 20 mg back in, and in it stayed.

I have become so swollen that I can barely walk, dress, move even. My weight is way up, I think because I'm so swollen. Of course it will go up again when I start taking more Predninsione. It's like a vicious circus ride that never stops, only winds tighter and tighter, with less options at every turn, fewer paths of escape.

And then there was THE DREAM. THE DREAM I had the night before going to see Dr. Leeper. It was the most horrifying dream of my life. I was visited by DEATH, taunted by DEATH, mocked by DEATH, until I finally woke up in a cold sweat and had to take a shower, change my clothes, and the sheets. It shook me to the core of my soul, making me fearful of sleep. But I did pray, and I was spared another visitation last night. Well, to be honest I didn't sleep at all last night, so it's kind of deceptive to say I was spared the visitation. The truth is, I didn't sleep at all last night, so upset about the FLARE, the Prednisone, and the visitation from DEATH.

I put my bathing suit on at 3:00 this morning, with every intention of driving to swim at 5:30. But when 5:30 came around, I realized I was way too unstable to drive, so I didn't go. Michael said he'll take me tonight and I'm going to go. It's what I HAVE to do, Its ALL I CAN do to fight back, my tiny window of defiance against this disease from Hell.

So I put my suit back on, feeling nauseus like I was about to throw up everything I've ever eaten. I asked Michael to take me to get a salad before swimming, thinking that I just needed a nice glass of Iced Tea and some rabbit food. WRONG. I just got sicker at the restaurant. So we came back home, my entire salad with us in a to-go box. So despite 2 attempts, I didn't make it to the pool today. It's like windows that keep slamming shut, and I hate it. I will try again in the morning.

Today's WWII - The Stakes are High

THIS IS HISTORY THAT HAS BEEN LEFT OUT OF OUR TEXTBOOKS. MOST OF US ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THAT NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS GROSSLY AFFECTED BY WWII. MOST OF US DON'T REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, SHOES, GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES, AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 35 MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD. NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES. READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT HOW WE WOULD REACT TO BEING TAKEN OVER BY FOREIGNERS IN 2007.

This is an EXCELLENT essay. Well thought out and presented. I have taken the liberty of posting it here to my blog in an effort to help spread this crucial message and historical perspective.


Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk more than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and America for food and war materials. At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, which had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.

France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia. Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe. America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from Norway to Italy, except Russia in the East, was already under the Nazi heel.

America was certainly not prepared for war. America had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after W.W.I and throughout the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW2, army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. And a huge chunk of our navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England, that was actually the property of Belgium, given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact). Actually, Belgium surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could. Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its air force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later, and first turning his attention to Russia, at a time when England was on the verge of collapse, in the late summer of 1940.

Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany. Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone... 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers. Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. And the Nazis could possibly have won the war.

All of this is to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. And now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history. There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world.

The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. And that all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. This is their mantra.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not known yet which will win -- the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies. The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.

We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. And we can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing........in Iraq.

Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things.

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist. Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.

World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again ... a 27 year war.

World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. W.W.II cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $160 billion,which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost about 2,200 American lives, which is roughly 2/3 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11. But the cost of not fighting and winning W.W.II would have been unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.

This is not 60 minute TV shows, and 2 hour movies in which everything comes out okay.
The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.

The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an "England" in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. And now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless somebody prevents them.

We have four options:

1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is)

3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.

4. Or, we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and maybe most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.

If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.

The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.

Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.

Remember, perspective is every thing, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.

The Cold war lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million people, depending on which estimates you accept.

The US has taken more than 2,000 killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In W.W.II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years. Most of the individual battles of W.W.II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.

But the stakes are at least as high ... A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms ... or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).

It's difficult to understand why the American left does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.

"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's safe. Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most?

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.

Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.

A Matter of the Heart

Sometimes every word, every action, seems to come out wrong, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong tone, or maybe it's just received differently by the you than it was intended by me. The slightest flinch, cut of the eyes, smile on the lips, is somehow all twisted and perverted into a jagged edge that rips and tears at the fabric of our relationship.

Sometimes you love a person more than life itself, but being with them is like hearing fingernails on a blackboard, screeching and scraping and ripping your nails into dry dusty shards, finally leaving a chalky, scratched, and bloodstained board behind.

I feel your anger and contempt for me in every glance, I hear it in every word. I know I am detestible to you right now. I just don't know how it got to be that way.

Maybe its the phase of the moon, the phase of our lives, I just don't know. Maybe you just can't take the 'me' that I have become anymore, or the twists and turns that our lives have taken. It would be understandable, so much has been taken from you; so much asked of you. All I can say is that life isn't fair, and things are what they are. And I can say I'm truely sorry. For what I know I've done wrong and for the things I don't even know hurt you. My heart is pure for you even if my mind is sometimes cloudy, mixing up last week with last month, forgetting things that are important to you.

I can recall the easy going, comfortable place we used to share. When it didn't matter if we talked or not - silence was just as good as chatter. The secrets we shared, the times we laughed and did silly things just for the fun of it. When you trusted me and I saw love in your eyes.

What is the fermenting, boiling 'stuff' that is just beneath the surface all the time now, waiting to spurt out and plop all over both of us at the slightest disturbance? I hope and pray you can find a way to release this cancerous mass before it consumes the beauty that is inside you.

My love is too deep, too real, too strong to let go. I will ride it out. No matter what. Everything wavers except the heart - nothing else is true, and only death itself can quench it. If you can find a way to see into my heart, you'll know. You'll believe again. All the rest is just 'stuff'.

8 and counting

Dr. Butler lowered my Prednisone to 8 MG/daily on Thursday. It's been a tough go of it since then. Pain is up, Fatigue is up, taking more pain meds, and generally feeling bad. Today I didn't even get out of bed untl 4PM. The pain was so bad and I kept taking meds until I could finally stand to feel the air on my skin. Afater I finally got up, I had migraines and nausea for the rest of the day. So, I don't know about 8 MG, we may have pushed it too far for now. Might have to go back up to 9 or10 mg. I'm going to try my best to stick with this for at least 1 week before throwing in the towel. I had every intention of going swimming today too, but didn't make it. Today was my Methotrexate day too, and I took my injection late in the afternoon. So Sunday may be even more of a challenge than today. Oh well, going back to 8 or 10 mg for awhile won't be the end of the world. We can try to lower it again in a few months. Until then, I'm hanging in here.......