Thread: Sobering Events in Your Life

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Wow, Richard. Such a pile of things at once.
Sometimes, I feel that some of the old women/men are limped along to be a voice of reason and family. I see where you are coming from.
Moses had to live for hundreds of years to keep the people on the path. I hope it doen't take that long for me to accomplish that.

At the same time, I am always convinced that YOU will be the rock and ultimate example to your family. Bad times are truly trying. Most everyone can relate.
Blessings upon you and yours and staying with the Amidah will heal.

“Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days” (Job 12:12).

“I said, 'Let days speak, and many years teach wisdom. ' But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand” (Job 32:7-8).

An old blessing for you that is just as pertinent today as it was 3500 years ago.
"May the Lord bless you and keep you: May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you: May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

We all go through life dealing with the usual tragedies and events both good and bad every one of us experiences. It's a part of life. However under the surface there are folks, a lot of them who are dealt a very bad hand in the game of life and have such incredibly horrible lives it's beyond most of us even beginning to imagine.

In my case my older son is mentally impaired and requires pretty constant looking after as well as constant medical issues. My wife and are don't live normal lives because of this and that's just how it is. We deal with this "community" and it's grim.

So, I would say to all of you, be thankful you don't have to deal with things many others have to deal with. Richard, with his years of wisdom has said it all in the best way.

Something about that very old saying "There but for the grace of God go I".

Big, thank you for those kind words but you need to know that despite my years supposedly giving me wisdom I have no idea where the words come from when I write them. It is almost like automatic writing with a big chunk of subconscious thrown in. I do learn from my own (if not channeled from somewhere) words and can put on a convincing air of wisdom. In the back of it, I am still a 16-17 year old at heart. The only bit I have learned over the years is to laugh at my image in the mirror in the morning and look forward to what the world is going to give me as opposed to what I want out of the day.

That sounded pretty wise to me Richard. Poets, prophets and wise men alike recognize that the truly wise understand how little they actually know. "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice." PR 12:15

I think in my humble opinion that you should give yourself more credit and trust in your own heart and mind.

I nearly died in early October. I had a complication over a bout of diverticulitis. My body was at the highest level of infection before death. I went through an emergency, exploratory surgery in October and another last week. The whole thing has been quite humbling. I’ve learned a lot about pain. And I’ve gained a lot of respect and admiration for a great number of people. And I’ve learned a lot about how much other people in my life care for me. While pain, immobility, and dependence have been on the menu daily, gratitude has been biggest take away. The holidays will be ruined this year. My vacation time has been eaten up by this. And my bank account is being drained. But I’m very grateful to be here.

Wow! So sorry to hear that. I will add you to my prayer list. Try to keep up your morale.

Take care. Recovery is around the corner.

Wishing you a full recovery. Keep up the good fight you are almost there.

Bob

Hopefully they have figured it out this time and there won't be a third time!
It is an eye opening experience for sure when you become incapacitated and truly require help to move and simply exist, particularly if you are the type of person that is strong and more private in how you feel physically normally.
Speedy recovery and take solace from those around you.

This past August and September I had a high fever that same and went and came back again. At one point I was delirious from the temperature and my wife thought I was having a stroke. She drove me to emergency where they triaged me to the head of the line.

They:
- hooked me up to the full monitoring setup
- took two blood cultures
- an MRI
- a CT scan
- several blood tests

They couldn?t identify the cause of my fever, but were able to tell me that there was no evidence of a stroke of any kind and sent me home.

That night I passed out in the bathroom and was ambulanced back to emergency in the morning. My fever had not gone down at all and my blood pressure was dropping. Because the hospital already had me on file, I was put immediately into emergency care for more monitoring and tests. My blood test results from the previous day showed a dangerously low platelet count.

Over my two visits to emergency, I had been seen by a neurologist, an internist, an infectious disease specialist and several GPs. The conclusion was that I had picked up some sort of bacterial or viral infection and the fever and platelet counts were a result of my body trying to fight it off.

I was admitted to a ward as soon as a bed was available that day. Because they thought I might be contagious, I was placed in a private room with an infectious disease protocol for staff and visitors. I was in that room for 4 days receiving IV antibiotics 4 times a day and getting several blood samples taken a day.

When I was released from the hospital, I was put on a 10-day course of the antibiotic recommended for Lyme disease. It turns out that the blood cultures they had taken on my first visit to emergency had to be sent to a specialized infectious disease lab in another province and the results were not be available for 10 days. The diagnosis was anaplasmosis, a bacterial infection resulting from a tick bite. The infectious disease specialist, who had visited and interviewed me 3 times, had suspected that, but I was only the third case in Ontario.

I?m fine now and very grateful to the nurses, doctors, paramedics and technicians who helped me and to my wife and children who travelled long distances to be with me.

All this may be of interest, but it?s not the main reason I am sharing this experience.

My American relatives and friends tell me they always worry about the potentially devastating financial fallout from a serious illness or injury for them or a family member.

I am woefully uninformed about healthcare costs in the US, but I assume that the care and treatment I received could have bankrupted someone who did not have adequate health insurance there.

My total cost for the care I received was $0. My wife and I do have private extended health insurance that we pay for, but it was not needed.