Thankful for Feeling Normal

While there will be many things to give thanks for next Thursday when our family sits down for turkey dinner, for me heading the list will be feeling normal again.

One can only appreciate how wonderful that is after battling through a series of medical crises that turned our lives upside down this year.

First were the sore knees that popped up in the spring after I mowed the yard.

After the next mowing, I realized the pain was primarily in my left knee. It was noticeably swollen in comparison to the right.

Thus began my nightly ritual of putting an ice pack on it. After I mentioned the pain to our chiropractor, he suggested buying a compression sleeve and wearing it when I mowed.

Not only did that help, the pain finally started to subside.

Mysterious Malady

Still, early in this bout with knee pain I also noticed that I just didn’t feel right. It’s hard to explain feeling “out of sorts,” although a couple friends I mentioned it to nodded their heads at my remark.

Originally, I blamed it on my knee. But when that pain diminished, I still felt lousy. Bad enough that I finally went to a walk-in clinic, concerned that it might be the reappearance of heart problems.

When that visit didn’t produce any satisfactory results, I contacted my doctor’s office. They faxed an order for a chest X-ray and an EKG to the hospital.

Later that day, my doctor called to say everything looked normal. While that put my mind at ease, it still didn’t explain the lousy feelings.

However, that concern went on the back burner the next day when my wife, feeling bad for the third consecutive day, said she needed to get checked out.

In less than a half-hour, we were off to the emergency room, where we waited for five hours before they finally got her back to an exam room.

As she lay there, moaning and complaining about her feet feeling cold and then burning up, and the shot they gave her for pain doing nothing, I wondered if this was the end. I wasn’t ready for it.

Overcoming Trauma

Things were much better when I returned to the hospital the next morning. While at first the doctors thought she had been dehydrated, a kidney specialist identified the problem as a bad reaction to an antibiotic.

This was an antibiotic my wife started taking because the insurance company had refused to pay for the sinus procedure a specialist had recommended—one that they ultimately wound up paying for anyway.

What I didn’t realize was how badly the emotional and physical trauma of that week would affect me.

The late June vacation we had planned had to be postponed because of doctor’s visits. When we finally went in late August, I was still feeling drained. Fortunately, while visiting friends and family we did little sightseeing and got some much needed rest.

I also started feeling better after my doctor recommended a vitamin B complex and additional vitamin D. Or maybe it was as much the passage of time as the supplements that helped.

Whatever the reason, by the time October arrived I was feeling normal again. It’s something I won’t take for granted in the future.

Which begs the question: for what can you give God thanks? Now is a good time to tell Him.