Sometimes, I really need it, and sometimes, I'm too deep into my own sh*t to get it.
So I go read a cycling blog, which is not just a cycling blog. It's a blog written by a man who loves his wife beyond all measure. She has cancer. He is caring for her, and he's doing it with bravery and tenderness and love.
Go read: http://www.fatcyclist.com/
And keep the family in your prayers, 'k?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Things I realized the hard way this week
Things I realized the hard way this week:
1. Doctors don't know everything.
2. More of something isn't necessarily better.
My GP gave me a prescription for metformin, a medication that helps control blood sugar. She had me start at the low dose--500 mg once a day. A week later, I was to increase the dosage to 1000 mg. A week after that, the dose goes to 1,500 mg. A week after that increase, I'd top off at 2,000 mg a day.
That's a lot of medicine for someone who's in the early stages of diabetes. I asked my doc if I should check my blood sugar so I could see how the med was affecting it. "Nope," said she. "You'll be fine."
Hmmm. Well, I felt okay until I hit the 1,500 mg mark, and then my back started to hurt. It took a couple of days of pain and discomfort before it hit me: my kidneys were hurting. I knew that the med is metabolized through the kidneys, so I got on the phone with the doc's office. The alarm in the nurse's voice told me what I suspected: the dose was too high for my body to process. She told me to back down to 1,000 mg a day, and now I have to go in on Monday to have kidney function tests run.
Jimminy. If I've screwed up my kidneys, I'm going to be PISSED.
3. I'm not MBA material.
I started grad school again, this time to get an MBA in human resource management. I really don't want an MBA, but I've been told by folks at work that it will make me more 'competitive.'
Hmmm. Okay. Well, I'm on class number 2, and I'm ready to claw my own eyes out. It's not that the coursework is particularly difficult or boring. I just don't want an MBA. My heart isn't in it. And I don't really see the point in going after the MBA to get a promotion that I have slim chances of getting because (a) I don't have a willie, and (b) I don't have an engineering degree. The Good Ol' Boys' Network is alive and well in the federal gummint, and where I work, if you're not an engineer, you're pond scum. So why am I doing this?
If I'm going to put my finite amount of time and energy into another degree, I'd rather direct that energy towards something that sets me on fire: tech writing, literature, psychology, library science. I guess I'm really not that interested in competing with The Big Boys. Glad I realized this early in the program.
4. I really need to have more fun.
I've decided to buy myself a bicycle. I loved bike riding as a kid. It's an outdoor activity that won't kill my knees or my crabby back. Even though it will soon be hot and muggy here, I can generate a semi-decent breeze on a bike. That's my plan.
I'm researching local hiking trails. I found out that there are some nifty trails around our local beaches. It's good exercise, plus there's that fresh air factor.
5. There's nothing wrong with being lazy.
There were a couple of days this week when I felt like having myself committed. Between perimenopause symptoms, the damn depression, and the medication/kidney problems, I've been feeling like I was going to crawl out of my own skin. So instead of forcing myself to do the stiff-upper-lip, keep-on-keepin'-on thing, I've been sitting outside on our back deck for an hour or so each afternoon. A good book, birdsong, sunlight, soft breezes, and the occasional cursing of a feisty squirrel have done wonders for me. It's a shame it took me this long to figure out that pretending that I don't feel crappy doesn't do me any good. Sometimes you just need to slow down and chill.
Thank God Friday is around the corner. Can I get an amen from my sistahs? ;)
1. Doctors don't know everything.
2. More of something isn't necessarily better.
My GP gave me a prescription for metformin, a medication that helps control blood sugar. She had me start at the low dose--500 mg once a day. A week later, I was to increase the dosage to 1000 mg. A week after that, the dose goes to 1,500 mg. A week after that increase, I'd top off at 2,000 mg a day.
That's a lot of medicine for someone who's in the early stages of diabetes. I asked my doc if I should check my blood sugar so I could see how the med was affecting it. "Nope," said she. "You'll be fine."
Hmmm. Well, I felt okay until I hit the 1,500 mg mark, and then my back started to hurt. It took a couple of days of pain and discomfort before it hit me: my kidneys were hurting. I knew that the med is metabolized through the kidneys, so I got on the phone with the doc's office. The alarm in the nurse's voice told me what I suspected: the dose was too high for my body to process. She told me to back down to 1,000 mg a day, and now I have to go in on Monday to have kidney function tests run.
Jimminy. If I've screwed up my kidneys, I'm going to be PISSED.
3. I'm not MBA material.
I started grad school again, this time to get an MBA in human resource management. I really don't want an MBA, but I've been told by folks at work that it will make me more 'competitive.'
Hmmm. Okay. Well, I'm on class number 2, and I'm ready to claw my own eyes out. It's not that the coursework is particularly difficult or boring. I just don't want an MBA. My heart isn't in it. And I don't really see the point in going after the MBA to get a promotion that I have slim chances of getting because (a) I don't have a willie, and (b) I don't have an engineering degree. The Good Ol' Boys' Network is alive and well in the federal gummint, and where I work, if you're not an engineer, you're pond scum. So why am I doing this?
If I'm going to put my finite amount of time and energy into another degree, I'd rather direct that energy towards something that sets me on fire: tech writing, literature, psychology, library science. I guess I'm really not that interested in competing with The Big Boys. Glad I realized this early in the program.
4. I really need to have more fun.
I've decided to buy myself a bicycle. I loved bike riding as a kid. It's an outdoor activity that won't kill my knees or my crabby back. Even though it will soon be hot and muggy here, I can generate a semi-decent breeze on a bike. That's my plan.
I'm researching local hiking trails. I found out that there are some nifty trails around our local beaches. It's good exercise, plus there's that fresh air factor.
5. There's nothing wrong with being lazy.
There were a couple of days this week when I felt like having myself committed. Between perimenopause symptoms, the damn depression, and the medication/kidney problems, I've been feeling like I was going to crawl out of my own skin. So instead of forcing myself to do the stiff-upper-lip, keep-on-keepin'-on thing, I've been sitting outside on our back deck for an hour or so each afternoon. A good book, birdsong, sunlight, soft breezes, and the occasional cursing of a feisty squirrel have done wonders for me. It's a shame it took me this long to figure out that pretending that I don't feel crappy doesn't do me any good. Sometimes you just need to slow down and chill.
Thank God Friday is around the corner. Can I get an amen from my sistahs? ;)
Monday, May 5, 2008
Stumbling Again
My better half and I had a long discussion after Bible study yesterday, the kind of discussion that makes me thankful, for perhaps the millionth time, that we are married and that he's willing to listen to me.
One of the big questions I struggle with in terms of my faith is the reality of suffering. I believe God to be all powerful and all loving. So in believing that, I tend to believe that He should be able to step in, put down his Godly foot, and say, "Enough!" when the fecal matter starts hitting the oscillating apparatus, you know? Yet He doesn't do that, or at least, He doesn't do that in ways that I---puny mortal with bad eyesight---can see and understand. And then I start doubting. Not a good thing.
The issue of doubt is our current topic in Bible study. It's refreshing to find out that doubters can be Christians, and Christians can be doubters. The religion of my childhood and adolescence didn't allow for such struggles. You believed, or you were damned. Do not ask questions, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
I used the Holocaust as a prime example. Why didn't God step in and smack the living crap out of Hitler and his cohorts? One of the military chaplains at our church regularly pipes up and reminds me that we're all sinners, therefore, suffering exists. Ohhhhh-kayyyy, but there's suffering, and then there's the Holocaust. Are you sayin' that the Holocaust happened because of sin? Babies and little kids had their brains bashed in by soldiers because the little ankle-biters were sinners?
I don't buy that. I can't buy that. Saying we're sinners, therefore suffering exists, is too pat of an answer to cover the horrible things that have happened in the world. I realize evil exists. I realize that innocent victims are often in the wrong place at the wrong time. I get that. But can't God stop it, or at the very least, do something about it? And when it seems that He doesn't, what is a believer to do?
R brought up many good points in our discussion. We talked about free will and the existence of evil. We talked about the trials of the Jews since the Old Testament times. And he offered that maybe the Holocaust happened because we humans had to learn about our capability for horrific inhumanity. Maybe it had to happen so that we could be sure it would not happen again. But it wasn't punishment for our innate sinfulness, and it wasn't that God stood idly by and watched his Chosen people be methodically tortured and murdered. And as we talked, I realized that He was there in the midst of the dying and the suffering. He witnessed all of it, and He felt every living soul's agony, and He welcomed each departed soul into the paradise of His unending grace. That's what I need to believe. That's what I needed to learn. It's not God's job to stop the horrors that we do to one another. WE are responsible for that. We have the choice to do, to not do, to step in and stop the madness.
I took comfort in R's words and in his faith. His faith is as quiet as a stone, but it's as unshakable as a mountain.
I'm still moving forward in my journey, and yep, I'm still stumbling on the big rocks and the little ones, and getting turned around and wandering, confused and muttering, in circles every now and then. I don't think my sense of direction will ever improve.
And you know what? That's okay. I know how to ask for directions.
One of the big questions I struggle with in terms of my faith is the reality of suffering. I believe God to be all powerful and all loving. So in believing that, I tend to believe that He should be able to step in, put down his Godly foot, and say, "Enough!" when the fecal matter starts hitting the oscillating apparatus, you know? Yet He doesn't do that, or at least, He doesn't do that in ways that I---puny mortal with bad eyesight---can see and understand. And then I start doubting. Not a good thing.
The issue of doubt is our current topic in Bible study. It's refreshing to find out that doubters can be Christians, and Christians can be doubters. The religion of my childhood and adolescence didn't allow for such struggles. You believed, or you were damned. Do not ask questions, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
I used the Holocaust as a prime example. Why didn't God step in and smack the living crap out of Hitler and his cohorts? One of the military chaplains at our church regularly pipes up and reminds me that we're all sinners, therefore, suffering exists. Ohhhhh-kayyyy, but there's suffering, and then there's the Holocaust. Are you sayin' that the Holocaust happened because of sin? Babies and little kids had their brains bashed in by soldiers because the little ankle-biters were sinners?
I don't buy that. I can't buy that. Saying we're sinners, therefore suffering exists, is too pat of an answer to cover the horrible things that have happened in the world. I realize evil exists. I realize that innocent victims are often in the wrong place at the wrong time. I get that. But can't God stop it, or at the very least, do something about it? And when it seems that He doesn't, what is a believer to do?
R brought up many good points in our discussion. We talked about free will and the existence of evil. We talked about the trials of the Jews since the Old Testament times. And he offered that maybe the Holocaust happened because we humans had to learn about our capability for horrific inhumanity. Maybe it had to happen so that we could be sure it would not happen again. But it wasn't punishment for our innate sinfulness, and it wasn't that God stood idly by and watched his Chosen people be methodically tortured and murdered. And as we talked, I realized that He was there in the midst of the dying and the suffering. He witnessed all of it, and He felt every living soul's agony, and He welcomed each departed soul into the paradise of His unending grace. That's what I need to believe. That's what I needed to learn. It's not God's job to stop the horrors that we do to one another. WE are responsible for that. We have the choice to do, to not do, to step in and stop the madness.
I took comfort in R's words and in his faith. His faith is as quiet as a stone, but it's as unshakable as a mountain.
I'm still moving forward in my journey, and yep, I'm still stumbling on the big rocks and the little ones, and getting turned around and wandering, confused and muttering, in circles every now and then. I don't think my sense of direction will ever improve.
And you know what? That's okay. I know how to ask for directions.
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