The Value of Your Health

Not meant to be some "preaching to the uninitiated", but let me tell you--your health is VALUABLE--as valuable as the money you DON'T have to spend on hospital stays, doctor bills and prescription drugs. All of which

SUCK AWAY ALL YOUR FUN MONEY!

So take good care to maintain your health for as long as you possibly can, because the alternative

SUCKS AWAY ALL YOUR FUN MONEY!

That, or it sucks away your ability to have any fun with your fun money.

How have I come to know this?

Well, I have a cousin with ALS--I hear she's in hospice and doing Very Poorly. She is only 40 years old. I can't believe it. She's going downhill so fast. It's hard to watch. It's hard to hear about it. She will live long enough to see her son old enough to be on his own, but far too soon, she will be gone for this world. Her mother is simply undone about it. It would be so nice if my aunt's son and wife would come back to Michigan, as they live so far away, and they have a grandson, that would give my aunt some "future focus". At this time, she is basically walling off the entire world in her grief.

Children aren't supposed to die before their parents, you see?

And ALS is this really SUCKY disease. It robs you of all your muscle tone (since it is a form of Muscular Dystrophy), and basically kills you, leaving your brain intact, so that you KNOW when you're dying--and it's usually that you just stop breathing--because you can't breathe anymore--and you die grasping (and gasping) for another last breath to keep you alive. It's a horrible HORRIBLE way to die.

The only thing that can keep you from dissolving into a raving lunatic, is God's Grace. A dash of resoluteness to get you through it, and a hope that there's something better waiting for you on the other side of life that no one lives through, leaving everyone else here selfishly mourning the loss.

And then yesterday, I spent the entire day (pretty much) in the hospital with my sister in law. She had a kidney biopsy yesterday. A very painful recovery, from what I hear, and she was aware, but not so much yesterday, trying to find a comfortable position to lie in. The incision is at her waist, on her back, making lying on her back a difficult thing. Plus the pain medication gives her the jitters and makes it difficult to relax. Then you've got the indignity of those hospital robes--ridiculous things that for sure have a purpose in life, and make "checking things out" a lot easier for the doctors and nurses, but many times don't cover up the body well enough to say so. She's going to be in the hospital, recovering from a biopsy for at least 2 days--it will take about 2 weeks to get the full results of the biopsy.

No, friends, it takes a lot more than an hour to make a diagnosis. This isn't HOUSE, you understand.

And all this pain control costs SKADS of dollars to the patient. Even WITH insurance.

So
If you're healthy now, GREAT! Good for You! Do everything you can to maintain it as long as you can. Don't do drugs. Don't smoke. Don't drink. Don't put anything into your body that has any sort of chemical in it or on it. The fact is, you're going to die ANYWAY, but perhaps you can, barring problems with your own DNA, resist dying TOO SOON.

If you have to take medication. TAKE IT PER DOCTOR'S ORDERS. Don't self-medicate. You are not a doctor, and while "this much" might get you by, there might come a time when it doesn't and you have to take more. ALWAYS DISCUSS WITH YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE YOU SELF-MEDICATE.

And for goodness sakes, don't take MORE than you need to--this amounts to self-medicating (see above), and can cause all sorts of other problems (like Kidney or Liver Failure). Keep yourself safe. Your doctor knows more than you do about such things.

If you're watching someone else deteriorate--pray for that person. It doesn't matter if you believe in such things or not--over even if THEY believe in such things or not. The person who is ill, even if they say "you don't need to do that", will still appreciate the effort and the care you exhibit deep down--that just goes without saying.

I do believe in life after dying. I'm not so sure anymore what it's like. Things have happened--and it's been a little weird. I don't make a big deal out of it...but there have been comforting words.

Keep your fun money in your pocket...or save it for YARN!