Well, I got the "okay, I'll let you go" from my pulmonologist today to return home. He told me to "rest and take things easy," and then added a kind of hesitant, "I hope you'll be okay...." When I asked him how much exercise he thought I could tolerate he said immediately, "NONE!....but you can walk...walking could be your walkway to life."
That's not what I wanted to hear; me who had plans of starting to exercise and to push the parameters of my limitations up and away. It wouldn't sound so bad, because one would think, "So WALK! You can build up and walk for miles!" I could. If my hips worked. I could. If I didn't have shaking knees and violent coughing after just going a short way down the hospital hall. It's a case of having bigger ambitions than I have ability to follow up. I can sit and fantasize about Yoga and cardio (even roller blading...might as well go all out in this fantasy!), and strength training....but when I am shoulder up to the unyielding obstacle of a body that is just hell bent on self-destructing, I confess that I am fighting to maintain any optimism at all. I have fought the urge today to whine. To concede to failure. To ask God, WHY??? He gave me this disease? I got home and S-L-O-W-L-Y unpacked and put things away. I made one trip down the stairs and didn't think I would survive the return trip.
And I have to confess that maybe optimism and determination may make for weak opponents to my poor health....scanty and insufficient powers to resist something bigger than myself. But I cannot cave yet. I will have to follow the doctor's orders. But I need to push the limits of my weakness. Go outside and walk....even if it's just to the road and back from my house. Refuse to just sit in my recliner all day, as I've been doing. Push BACK. and pray a whole lot. I've failed to see that this is my life at stake here. I've failed to recognize the severity of the situation....that I'm a breath away from not breathing anymore. I cannot just glide into that darkness without having fought to live a little longer....even though, if it were only my personal concerns at hand, that would be fine. But I have a family...friends....a church....and maybe God still has some work for me here to do....I cannot concede the battle til it has been fought with every last breath in me.
Where is that balance between acceptance and abiding in the path where God has placed me and also not quitting at life? It is a delicate line to tread....and it may be one in which I can only do what I can only do and then must just leave it at that. Perhaps to refrain from anger and bitterness is the bigger part of the battle. I don't know. I haven't walked this path before. I have striven with illnesses before, major ones, but there was never this sense of powerlessness and finality about them....I always knew I'd recover, and I always did....Even when I didn't want to... But now, I'm wanting to....and finding I may not. God always has something new for us....Even when it's not something we really think we want. I guess I'll have to put aside my own agenda and look under the covers for what he has tucked in there for me to discover....And knowing him, the discovery will be something sweet.
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