I made it, Thank You Lord

I’ve blogged several times about this week being the big test week for whether I was really ready to start keeping commitments, like board meetings, teaching, etc. This is Wednesday night and except for some discomfort in deciding whether to sit or stand, God was gracious and granted me the strength and stamina to teach the first night of the Creation Science course. Thanks go to Bob for helping haul my stuff around but I really want to thank my wife Delaine for dealing with a massive signup night. We had over ninety people in the class tonight. It went well; I received some good feedback afterwards and except for running out of time to finish everything, I am pleased.

Same sort of report for last Monday night when I had an executive committee meeting and then a regular board meeting for the Bellevue Foundation. When I was able to make it through both those events without calling in my backup plan (sneak out and go home early!) I knew I could make it through Wednesday night.

Just to put this in perspective, I just started using my treadmill (ten minutes) last Saturday to try to begin a little physical therapy and last week I was still so weak and nauseous that I could not have made any commitments. As a matter of fact it was not until Monday morning that the nausea finally subsided after a week of misery.

My back and neck muscles continue to strengthen (still use plenty of pain meds however), and my permanently numb fingers (from losing the sensory nerves) don’t even bug me that much anymore when typing.

Strange thing I noticed when out for a short walk yesterday and today (beautiful days), swinging my arms for a normal, slow gait made the muscles that do the swinging sore. Wow, that shows how many of shoulder and back muscles were affected by the surgery.

Thank you for your prayers and I am full of hope for getting back to a normal healthy lifestyle.

I have not said much about my other back problems I have suffered from in the past three years, but suffice it to say that they were still causing me much pain just prior to this last surgery on my neck. That’s after two prior surgeries (discectomy and spinal fusion on the lumbar spine) and almost three years of recovery time. In fact, it was that continued pain that had led me to the pain clinic where God intervened and caused the doctors there to look at my neck with a cervical MRI. Well some have suggested that there is a connection between my past pain and this tumor in my neck. Jury’s still out but interestingly I have not had one bit of low back pain since my most recent surgery on my neck. May be because of the additional pain meds, but I am very hopeful. The pain doc had suggested that the pain I was having was some sort of triggered pain whose cycle needed to be broken.

I am trusting the Lord and wouldn’t it be just like Him and to his glory to have answered all my prayers over the past three years in this way. The doctors could have been looking in all the wrong places but God showed them the right place to look.