Update:
It rather amazes me how much time it takes me just to do the basics. I made dinner last night and it took me over
three hours to accomplish. My wife could
have done it in an hour. Prior to my
amputation I could have done it in 1½ hours.
I find now that everything takes longer: getting dressed, getting ready
to leave the house, making my lunch, etc.
Then when I add about an hour of exercises a day, I start running out of
time. I have noticed that I am getting
quicker at some things. And once I am
back up on two legs, although that will add its own additional time with the
care and maintenance of my leg, I think many things will be done faster. At least I hope so—we’ll see.
So far all of my exercises have been done on my bed. I couldn’t get down on the floor and I needed
more of a padded support for my amputated leg.
Now I’ve added new exercises and refined others and found that I can’t
do them on a soft mattress. Trying to do
pushups is frustrating when your arms sink down so far that nothing seems to
happen. My hardwood floors are a bit
cold and unforgiving, so yesterday I went to Scheels and purchased a nice
padded exercise mat. Someone had given
me a gift card to Scheels at Christmas so it wasn’t much out of my pocket. At my last physical therapy appointment,
Randy showed me how to get down on the floor and get back up again safely, so
today I get to try it out on my new exercise mat. It is amazing to me to think that I have to
be taught how to get down to the floor safely; but having a leg amputated
changes a lot of things. Trying getting
down to the floor or back up again with only one leg—it is very strange after
50+ years of doing it with two. Eventually
these kind of things will become second nature to me—but right now I really
have to think about them and work it through in my mind before I try it.
I also had my buddy Dick, move my weight bench up from the basement to
my room so I could do my weight training on it.
I’ve been doing it on the edge of the bed. It is rather comical to watch me move back
and forth on the bed to get my right arm over the edge, then my left arm and so
on for every set of exercises. This will
help reduce a lot of movement and the bed wasn’t that supportive or level in
spots.
I made my first hospital pastoral visitation on Thursday since my
amputation. Wilford came and got me and
we visited a guy from church who is in the hospital. I am glad to say that he is doing well. I did most of my own pushing down the hallway. When my muscles started burning, I let
Wilford push me for a while to let them recover, and then I would start
wheeling myself again. I can go a much
longer distance than just a few weeks ago when I had no energy and no
strength.
I made dinner on Thursday so it was basically ready when Karen walked
in the door. We had a pot roast, cooked
carrots, and mock mashed potatoes. I’ve
cut most starches out of my diet trying to drop my weight. Mock mashed potatoes are made from cannellini
beans—tastes a lot like mashed potatoes that have been spiced up a bit. I also made a batch of Peanut Butter Bean
Cookies (no sugar or sweeteners, no grain floor). They are the closest thing to desert that I
get. I was worn out after all that
cooking.
Both Karen and I were exhausted, so she was in bed before 9 p.m. on
Thursday and I slid in between the sheets about 10:30 p.m.
Thought for the Day:
This photo comes from a Hallmark ‘Shoe Box’ birthday
card: The inside reads: "Avoid Complainers and Have a Happy
Birthday"
Good advice to us all. We may
not be miracle workers, but there will always be someone who nit-picks at
whatever you do. And you cannot please
everyone. Remember that when the world
starts to throw rotten vegetables at you.
Jesus told his disciples this in John
15:20-21 “Remember the words I spoke
to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they
will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One
who sent me.”
One way of dealing with the unwanted and unsolicited advice is to
totally shut it out. After all,
outsiders cannot possibly understand your life, what you do and how you are
motivated. They might have done it
differently; but that should be expected since they are different people with
different training and a different background.
We all have our own outlook on things, our beliefs about the way things
ought to be, and what we have personally experienced. So just ignoring all comments from outsiders
might be one approach. And part of the
time it might be the exactly right approach.
For instance, If I get an anonymous complaint letter—it goes right in
the trash unread. If that person won’t
stand behind their own comments, I don’t need to burden myself with their rant.
Another way of dealing with
comments and critiques is to accept them all and welcome them into your
life. I don’t necessarily recommend this
approach. It can be very destructive and
painful to go through life being the Velcro that everybody’s junk sticks
to. The problem with this approach is
that you take a lot of hits against you that aren’t really valid. All that negative focus can slow you down to
where you are afraid to do anything for fear of being criticized.
The third approach that I think
is the wisest is to listen to every complaint and criticism searching for the
kernel of truth that might be embedded within it. Your critics may not be spot on, but perhaps
they touched on something that you really should address. They may not have handled it well or spoken
with sensitivity; but did they get some of it right? The bottom line is only you can evaluate
whether or not someone’s criticism is valid.
It can be a painful process and you have to learn how to shake off all
the stuff that doesn’t actually apply to you.
However, outsiders can frequently see things about your life that you
haven’t even noticed yet. It is kind of
like the smoke detector that goes off.
The alarm alerts you to the fact that there may be a fire
somewhere. You’ll have to check around
and see if you can determine what set it off.
Was it a real fire hazard or just a false alarm?
Now something that is important
to realize is that you may not evaluate your life as clearly as you might
wish. We can become desensitized to
things so that we think everything is okay when it is not. For instance, if we are continually exposed to
something that is at first shocking, there comes a time where it doesn’t bother
us anymore. It has become “normal” to
see those things. Our conscience can
become seared or burnt out and so we cannot always trust our own
evaluation. To correct this tendency we
need to recalibrate our conscience so it points true. You have to use a source that doesn’t waiver
and doesn’t change. The only thing that
qualifies in our world is God and His word.
He doesn’t change. He declares something
wrong and something right and that is where they stay. To recalibrate our conscience, we need to be
soaking up God’s word—the words of scripture.
We have to build our relationship with Him so that it challenges what we
think and what we do and even who we are as people. If your religion isn’t challenging in this
way; it’s really not doing you any good.
The bottom line is that we may not like to hear what someone points out
to us and we quickly discount it; but if we read about it in the bible and God
convicts us of something—we better listen to that!
One last thought in this area,
because it is so easy to convince ourselves that God is on our side; having a
trusted, godly person who knows you and on whom you can rely to tell you the
truth is invaluable. This person may be
hard to find; but each one of us needs someone that we can turn to and get
solid, dependable, wise counsel. Someone
who knows how to speak the truth in love.
They are careful with words and sensitive to your feelings. Sometimes what they may say is painful; but
you know they care about you and only want the best for you. They won’t be perfect (because no one is) but
they should be someone you can look up to and who challenges you to be a better
person. They should be godly people who
know the word of God and have a strong personal relationship with God. When this person speaks, you should listen
carefully and closely evaluate what they tell you.
Just remember that Jesus had His
detractors. People were constantly
harping on something that He did or how He did it or what He said. Jesus was perfect and without sin and yet
people still found fault in Him (or thought that they did). So it shouldn’t surprise us when others
question or comment upon our lives. Some
should be ignored—they don’t know you as well as they think or they don’t
really understand the situation as clearly as they believe. Some should be listened to because they may
have accidentally stumbled onto something helpful. Others we should seek out their advice and
counsel. But always we should pay close
attention to what God says to us through His word and through prayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment