Wednesday (5/2/2018)

Thought for the Day: 

I was telling a friend that since my amputation back in 2013, with all medications I’ve taken, getting a little older, etc., I just don’t feel as sharp mentally as I used to be.  I’ve got to say that the good news is since I started out life being so very incredibly intelligent (Ha! Ha!) that I am still pretty smart, even after losing some of my mental acuity.  (Ha! Ha!)

That’s not saying that I don’t have my moments!  Like the time that I locked my keys in my truck twice on the same day.  It’s bad enough to call OnStar once to admit that you locked your keys in the vehicle; but you’ve entered a whole new level of embarrassment when you call back within a couple of hours saying that you’ve done it again!!!!  Especially after promising yourself that you’ll never do that again!

At the end of each day, I wash my silicone liner. It’s like a giant tube sock that goes against my skin when wearing my prosthesis.  It gets pretty sweaty, stinky, and slimy so it gets washed inside and out each day.  Yesterday, I was thinking about other things as I washed it and forgot to empty the water out of the inside into the sink before I started to dry it off.  Instead, I waited until it was over my lap to turn it upside down and all the water came pouring out drenching my lap and the floor.  Oh my!  All I can do is laugh at myself!

“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.” John C. Maxwell

I don’t remember much from my High School Literature class; but I do remember this quote from Lord Byron, “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ‘tis that I may not weep.”  Yep!  It is much better to laugh at myself than to get upset and cry about it.

Having a sense of humor is very helpful as an amputee.  You’ve got to find the humor in situations that otherwise would bring you down.  I found that my short residual limb (that’s the amputated leg) often ends up in the same leg hole as my other leg when putting on my pants.  I often catch myself trying to use my left foot (it’s amputated) to push my shoe off of my right foot when I’m really tired.  I go through the motions and then wonder why my right shoe isn’t coming off until I look down and see! 

I often have bouts of insomnia due to pain or discomfort.  The other night, I was up for an hour in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep.  So at 4 a.m. I got out of bed and loaded the dishwasher.  The next day after it ran, I found one of the Tupperware containers loaded in the dishwasher with its lid still on.  The outside was sparkly clean, the inside—not so much!  Maybe I wasn’t as awake as I thought I was.  Ha! Ha!

“We cannot choose how many years we will live, but we can choose how much life those years will have. We cannot control the beauty of our face, but we can control the expression on it. We cannot control life's difficult moments but we can choose to make life less difficult. We cannot control the negative atmosphere of the world, but we can control the atmosphere of our minds. Too often we try to choose and control things we cannot. Too seldom we choose to control what we can ... our attitude.”  John C. Maxwell

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22 ESV

No matter what you face today, your attitude can make all the difference in how it affects you.  Laugh a little, shrug your shoulders, and move on with life.  Don’t beat yourself up.  Just strive to enjoy life and live it as best you can.  Stuff is going to happen; that’s just a part of life. 

I’ve come to accept that I am part goof-ball and I do silly, stupid things at times.  So what?  It’s a part of who I am.  And I like who I am.  I make me laugh!  And I bet that if you lighten up, you’ll find that your life is pretty funny too!

Tuesday (5/1/2018)

Thought for the Day:

In my area it’s been warm, dry and, windy over the last couple of days.  There was a big grass fire nearby yesterday that nine local fire departments and the DNR battled.  It’s amazing how quickly dozens of acres of grass and woodlands can be burned up.  Last report said that 80 acres and one house was destroyed.  One minute it was fine and a moment later, it was gone. 

It is the same way with our lives.  One minute we seem to have our whole life ahead of us, and in what seems like a blink of the eye, our health and vitality are gone and we are knocking on death’s door.  Let’s face it, there is no guarantee that you’ll last to a ripe old age before you die.  Our lives are transitory—comparatively short, and quickly come to an end.  The bible compares us to grass

“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”     Isaiah 40:6b-8 ESV

As a retired pastor, I’ve performed dozens of funeral services for both church members and for those with no church affiliation (but the family wanted some sort of service for their loved one).  As hard as death is, I found that the grieving process was substantially easier on those who had a Christian faith.

For a non-believing person, death is final.  It is a totally irrevocable separation between us and our deceased loved one.  But for a person of the Christian faith, death is just a transition from this mortal life to life eternal in the presence of God.  Christians don’t have all the details, but we believe that death isn’t the end and our separation isn’t final.  That knowledge tempers our grief.  It helps make it bearable.  It gives us hope.

I’m currently reading “Everlasting Life” by David D. Swanson.  Swanson proposes that the reason why death is so difficult for us to handle (especially untimely or sudden deaths) is that we inherently know something is wrong.  He says that when faced with death, “Our hearts cry out, ‘This can’t be right.  This cannot be what the living, loving God intended my life to be!’”  Swanson is correct.  This isn’t how God created the world to be.   God created the world and it was “good;” but death later entered this world through our own fault.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” Romans 5:12 NIV

So when we see a helpless child die, a young mother suffer, a man cut down in his prime, or loved ones grieving for those who are gone—whenever we see death, it is wrong and not the way it is supposed to be.

And yet God did not leave us to face the consequences of our actions without some hope.  He gave us a means to overcome death until He finally destroys it for all time.  As believers, while we will still face physical death, there is hope because God has promised that this death isn’t final. There is a resurrection of the dead and life eternal. 1 Corinthians 15 and many others passages affirm this truth.

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep (dead), that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” 1Thessalonians 4:13 ESV

That hope comes through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As a Christian and retired pastor, I make no apology for what I believe.  I merely share what is on my heart and what I have come to believe as the truth, and what makes sense to me.  The subject of human suffering (including death, dying, long-term illnesses, and sudden deaths) is something that cannot be covered easily or quickly (so my short words here could never explain everything).  My prayer for all those who are grieving is that you might find some comfort and solace in the arms of the Almighty.

Friday (4/27/2018)

Thought for the Day:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”    

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

This passage says that the comfort we receive from God when we are undergoing difficulties can be passed on to others undergoing similar situations.  That’s one of benefits that we gain from our difficulties.  I recognize that no affliction is actually good; but it can enable us to have a positive effect on others because “we’ve been there--done that.”  We may not have any words of wisdom to share or acts of kindness that we perform; however, just being there for the other person can be a powerful ministry to them (called a “ministry of presence”).  It demonstrates that you care, and although no two situations are exactly the same, you have at least an idea of what the other person is going through.  That means so much to someone who is scared, uncertain, lonely, or hurting. 

Here are two examples of how I’ve seen idea working out in my life.  You probably have your own examples of “passing on what you’ve received” as well.

Example #1: As an amputee, I belong to several Face Book groups for amputees.  When it comes to understanding the issues that amputees face, there is no one better than a fellow amputee.  You see this especially when someone joins the group who has recently become an amputee.  They don’t know what to expect or how things work.  It takes a while just to understand all the terms and abbreviations that are used for amputees and their prosthetic limbs.  It’s great to see someone who has even just a little experience as an amputee sharing their story and encouraging a more recent amputee.  Becoming an amputee can be a scary experience; but having someone who is living the “Amp Life” come along side you can be very beneficial.  It gives those in distress a glimmer of hope that there is “life after amputation;” and it can be a rich full life as well.  The recent amputee learns that, “Others have gone down this path before me and survived; and I am not alone.”

Example #2: I’m trained to lead Stress Debriefings for emergency services personnel who are working through things after responding to a difficult call.  There is a team of trained volunteers who do stress debriefings to help firefighters, police officers, emergency medical personnel, and dispatchers.  Our emergency services workers face incidents on a regular basis that most of us could never imagine—nor would we want to.  Stress takes its toll on these men and women, and the debriefing team works to help them get through it a little easier and faster than they would on their own.  Each debriefing team has someone who leads the group through the process (like me); but the most helpful members of our team are usually the peer support members.  These are people who are either past or present emergency service workers themselves who are trained in stress management.  The police officers, firefighters, EMS, or dispatchers who need the debriefing usually listen to these peer support team members the most closely.  That’s because these volunteers have done the job and have had many similar experiences.  When they talk about how to deal with stress of a difficult call, people listen, because “they’ve been there—done that.”

So the process goes like this… You undergo difficult situation of some kind.  You received God’s comfort and strength to get you through it.  Maybe that comfort came through your personal faith, the words of scripture, or the intervention of some other person or organization.  Now when you see someone else going through similar difficulty, you have the opportunity to be an agent of God bringing comfort, encouragement, and hope to someone in need.

Don’t be afraid to volunteer or get involved, whether that is in some organized fashion or just occasionally when you see a need arise. We aren’t meant to stand alone.  We are a team, a family, a brotherhood.  What you’ve received—pass on to others.

Thursday (4/26/2018)

Thought for the Day:

Back in 2013-2015, I had trouble with my eyes, which made much printed material difficult or impossible for me to read.  I needed a magnifying glass and bright light to read, unless I used my Kindle Fire where I could increase the font size to whatever size was comfortable.  My eyesight has since improved, but I still find it more comfortable to read on my Kindle, in fact, I do almost all my reading on it now.  It puts much less strain on my eyes than printed material.

I haven’t been as consistent in bible reading as I want to be lately.  Last night I decided that I would read my bible the first thing after breakfast.  So after breakfast, I got out my Kindle as I had planned; but every time I tried to open the bible, it would automatically shut down.  I tried several things on my own to fix the problem which made no difference.  I did discover that I had the same issue with a couple of other books on my device as well.  This was apparently a bigger problem than I first thought.  I poured through the Help section on my Kindle and found that it was misnamed. Ha! Ha!  I even went on-line but didn’t find anything that made a difference.  I finally hit the Mayday button on my Kindle to get Tech Support.  I was led through number of attempts to correct the problem—reloading the book from the Cloud, emptying the Cache, etc. (don’t ask me what those things really mean)—but it didn’t help.

Finally my Tech Advisor suggested that I do a Factory Reset.  Everything on my Kindle Fire would be erased.  All the Books that I had purchased were saved in the Cloud and those would be easily accessible to download again.  I’d lose some Apps, but nothing that I couldn’t re-install.

So I did it.  I hit the Factory Reset button and wiped it all out…

It took some time to erase everything and then for the Kindle to start back up again; but it worked!  After about two hours of fooling around, I could finally open the bible on the Kindle and read it again.  And as a side benefit, it cleaned out a lot of programs and apps that I was thinking of getting rid of anyway, freeing up a bunch of memory. 

As I was working on the Kindle, it struck me how easy it is to get distracted and derailed when attempting to something good to do, like reading your bible, exercising, play with the kids, or whatever.  This morning, I even reached a point where I decided to grab my bible out of the cabinet and read it while I waiting for the Kindle to start working.  Of course, I had only read a few lines in my good, old, leather bound bible before I noticed that Kindle was finally repaired and I could now use it.

Huh! Funny how easy it is to get sidetracked from doing the most important things, even after you’ve made a commitment to yourself that you will do them.  Despite the ever present temptation to check your Face Book feed, your emails, or watch your favorite TV program; we’ve got to set as our first priority to do the things that feed and enrich our souls.  I’ve found that it is best for me to do the most important things (like bible reading) earlier in the day, before doing too much else; otherwise I get distracted or something last minute comes up.  It’s all too easy to find out at the end of the day that you just never got around to doing the thing that you said was so important.

You might have to give up something else to get it done; but if it really is a priority, then put it first in your life.  And make it happen!  And I know from past personal experience that as I make that daily decision and actually do what I decided, it gets easier to do it over time.  Make a decision, and keep making it happen each day.  Soon it will become a habit which can have a major impact on your life.

Wednesday (4/25/2018):

Update:

As kids, we often imagine what we will be when we grow up.  Will I be a police officer, a solder, or a firefighter? And we might also imagine who we will marry and what our life will be like as we grow older.  How many kids will I have?  Where will I live?  But in all of my thinking about the future, I never once dreamed that I would become an amputee.

Up until my below-the-knee amputation in December 2013, I rarely went to the doctors.  Now in the last four and a half years, I’ve been in the hospital for 26 days and have had 378 medical appointments of various types (yes, I’ve kept count of them). That’s an average of one appointment every four days!  Wow!  Hospitalized with sepsis, it affected my body on a number of levels besides the amputation.  I have a number of on-going issues with my eyes.  I’ve have heart issues, kidney issues, nerve issues, etc., besides the “normal” amputee issues with prosthetic legs and residual limbs.

Yep!  My life has not ended up exactly as I had imagined!  Honestly, some days are harder than others.  Some days I’m more apathetic and less optimistic.  It seems like I’m making good forward progress and then hit a series of speed bumps and road blocks, bringing my journey to a grinding halt.  Some days I am definitely in stop and go traffic on the highway of life.  And yet, life is still good!  For all the changes that have happened, I still enjoy life.  I’ve got a supportive wife, a loving family, and good friends.  With some limitations, I’m still able to get out and do some of the things that I enjoy. 

One of the most difficult things for me has been the uncertainty.  It’s hard to make plans because a problem develops that cancels everything.  I just never quite know what tomorrow, or next week, or next month, will bring.

Thought for the Day:

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." (2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV)

Life can be very discouraging if all we do is focus upon the physical.  Illness, accidents, and aging all have their effect upon us.  If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it probably will someday.  And what can we do about it?  We can eat well, exercise, and make healthy lifestyle choices; but eventually it will catch up to us.  And then we have to adapt to our “new normal.”   While fighting to maintain whatever we can for as long as we can, eventually we have to accept and embrace our new reality.  That can be a mental bummer and very discouraging.  So how can we fight this downward mental spiral?  We work at renewing our mind.  We have to find and do things that energize us and give us a sense of purpose.

For me I’ve found that starts with my faith in God.  Bible reading and prayer are foundational to not letting life drag me down.  Reading other good inspirational material helps too!  Find a way to serve others.  Purposefully be involved in the lives of others.  Do things that recharge your spiritual and emotional batteries.

Don’t allow life to wear you down without a fight!  Do what you can do to be renewed!

Tuesday (3/27/2018)

Update:

After taking a shower, I was in my wheelchair drying off my right foot. I was wondering why I only ever had to brush off the bottom of my right foot before putting my sock on--and my left foot never needed to be brushed off (lint, sand, etc.).

Then it hit me! Oh Yeah! The left foot was amputated 4 1/2 years ago. WELL, THAT EXPLAINS A LOT!!! Ha Ha Ha!

It's amazing to me that the mental map of our body stays intact, even after radical changes.

Saturday (2/210/2018)

Update:

I spent about three hours working on my prosthesis this afternoon. I had a leak in the vacuum system and got a replacement sleeve (the most obvious problem) in the mail. AND that didn't fix the problem.

I texted my prosthetist, Rob Pinkston. He's outside of Cincinnati and I'm in West-Central Wisconsin. He walked me through some diagnosis steps and then several potential repairs. The bottom line is my vacuum pump needs some work and needs to be sent in. (the thing that looks like a hockey puck--that alone is a $4,000 piece of my prosthesis).

Fortunately, I had the exact pump on my old prosthesis, so I disassembled it (my blue socket) and reinstalled it on my current socket (black socket). It took several tries but I finally got it working!!!!

I'm very grateful for Rob taking part of his Saturday afternoon to help me long distance!

And I'm very happy to get my prosthesis working correctly again. As I've jokingly told people that an elevated vacuum prosthesis sucks when it is working--and it sucks worse when it is not. :-)