Why Fight ?

Two weeks ago, you may recall I had a respiratory infection which ended up, as was predictable, snowballing into a much bigger problem with asthma.  I went to see my pulmonologist who put me on a 12 day taper of prednisone and then an antibiotic and a strong cough medicine.  I went home and did the regimen....but even though I kept having hopeful thoughts that maybe I was improving, it became apparent that, as I approached the end of the taper, I was just not getting significantly better.  So yesterday with some pushing by my husband and my parents,  I went to the ER and was admitted. 

So here I am, the steroid Queen...sucking down albuterol and shooting up the BEAST of a drug that will destroy my body in multiple ways....but will maybe once again save my life.  I have had some black, bleak thoughts, mostly involving the loss of my control over my intake of food as this drug makes you so ravenous you will eat anything in your path NO MATTER HOW FAT IT MAKES YOU.  You are so hungry --even right after finishing a meal-- that it literally hurts.  I recently lost 32 pounds. ..and about 5 chins. The swelling in my cheeks and neck  and abdomen was SLOWLY receding...after a "mere" ten months following my last encounter with this despised drug.

Numerous times I have been tempted to quit fighting it.  To eat what I want....not to struggle to lose weight or to regain muscle strength.  WHY FIGHT? it's a losing battle.  I will get down to a size 16 and then more asthma and back up through the plus sizes I go.  But then I have to take myself by the ear and stand in front of a mirror and ask myself.  "Do you know what you would look like if you had not lost those 50+ 70+70+32 pounds that you had lost in between respiratory events? I would weigh 222 pounds more than I do now.  And that is more than double my weight.  With my PsA and muscle weakness and bad joints, I would most likely be bed-bound...then come bed sores, infections, MUCH pain, Diabetes, and heart disease.  And more asthma.  So, I ask you: DO I HAVE ANY CHOICE?  It would mean giving up on myself entirely and dying soon.....and having zero quality of life.  Or do I keep fighting...running so fast on this treadmill and not getting anywhere...but I am maintaining.  I am refusing to give up ground....except the ground that is inevitably lost to these diseases regardless of our efforts.

Two different people today told me on a forum and in an email that I am a strong woman and they know I will continue to fight.  I don't feel strong.   But if I am not strong, then I am stubborn and sometimes that works just as well.  I do not really have any kind of commitment to prolonging my life.   I am so looking forward to seeing the face of my Y'shua and living in the places he has been preparing for me....I would not want anyone to be sad at my funeral...because it is truly a commencement party.  But --I learned the hard way....my life is not mine to take.  God refused to let me die despite a fail-safe plan and attempt.  I hated it then.  I was so angry at him for keeping me on this suffering globe for another minute...but since then it has given me, upon much reflection, a kind of awe.  God has something more for me.  This blog.  My book. my new friends with whom I share the light and love of my God.  I don't know all the ins and outs. I know  I am not spending nearly enough time in prayer and i know that prayer is a heavy calling on my life.

I look forward to the day in heaven when God will introduce me to the people whose lives I have touched ...through my words, both written and spoken....through my financial gifts...through example (both good and bad) and especially those whose lives I have impacted in prayer.  That will be the greatest joy I could imagine.  And do you know? The majority of those things have been accomplished in the years since that fateful day behind locked doors in a hotel where I'd gone in secret...and did my best to end my miserable existence.  If I had succeeded in "offing" myself....I would not have that deliriously happy thing to look forward to in heaven.  I will have truly arrived "As through a fire, saved, but with nothing"  That's called "heaven by the skin of your teeth."  and it's not what I want.  And through the grace and love of my wonderful Yahweh, it is not what I will have.