I Hate Jello But I Love Starfish!

I must tell you--physically I feel pretty good. My weight is steady at 165, I take a walk early every morning, and I sleep pretty well. However, the healing process from all this is very, very slow. My throat really doesn't hurt due to the meds I'm on but it feels like it is always blocked--hard to explain. Swallowing anything remains difficult. Yesterday, my "doctor" was out of the house for a few minutes so I had the brilliant idea to swallow an extremely small pill--how tough could that be? Well, I almost choked to death. There I was running around the bathroom hitting myself on the back trying to dislodge (successfully, as it turned out) that damn pill--very frustrating and Dr. Diane was not pleased.

Jello--damn jello--I anticipated no problems here. It's jello! And everybody has room for jello but not me not now. It tastes like metal filings and get this, it takes me 45 minutes to an hour to eat a small container. It just doesn't go down easy. Here in lies my current major frustration. How am I going to learn to ingest food orally when I can hardly eat jello and even apple juice requires an effort on my part. I have to actually think when I swallow or I'll drool all over.

My current plan is no plan. So far, I had to cancel out on Cubs/Sox games, upcoming Cubs/Cardinals games, and tomorrow Diane is going to our nephew's wedding in Freeport and I'm staying home. This really bothers me as these are some of my favorite people. We have events scheduled in August and September, but they are on a wait and see basis until I am no longer dependent on PEG.

Many of you have contacted us about having faith and being patient. We do our best. Lately, heck, all the time, I have the opportunity to think about all this and finally the other day asked myself, "Why do you suppose this is happening to you at age 64 when you didn't have a worry in the world, life was good, and you couldn't be happier." I've really thought about this. I've come to this conclusion. I hope God has decided that he/she has a higher purpose for me to fulfill before I leave this life for the next one. (Hopefully, a long way off). Maybe my experience will serve as a wake-up call to others to take nothing for granted, to not put off until next year what can be done in the present.

It dawns on me that in my motivation speeches, I talk frequently about "making a difference." Maybe this is my time. I often tell the story about the little boy walking along the seashore who sees literally thousands of starfish struggling to get back to the ocean. He picks up one at a time and tosses them back into the sea. A grumpy old man looks at him and says, "why are you wasting your time? Can't you see there are thousands of them? What you're doing won't make a difference." The little boy turns to the man with a starfish in hand and just before he tosses it back, says "it makes a difference to this one, and this one, and this one." I must confess I borrow this story from George Herbert Walker Bush and it has stayed with me all these years. My hope is that someone who reads this will savour each day a little more, appreciate each sunrise/sunset, enjoy time with family, not be agitated by events one has no control over, and realize that life is short and unpredictable.