Christmas, The Flu, and Emergen-C

Christmas morning.... everyone was struck down by the flu. I now have it. I wasn't feeling well since about 2pm yesterday, and them about 5ish I started throwing up. I was at work with the clients at the group home trying to help them celebrate Christmas. finally around 7 pm and after throwing up 3 or 4 times i called the manager and told her I needed to go home. so I did, and I suffered through the night, and now two of my roommates are sick.

I sincerely hope this is truly a 24 hour thing because it is miserable. I think I'm past the nausea and vomitting. oh, there was diarrhea, too... so bad that you sit on the toilet with a garbage can while it comes out both ends. I feel like I was hit by a truck. (not that I actually know what that feels like. its a graphic visual though, lol). I have no energy. My body aches. My tongue feels like cotton.

I have done absolutely nothing to keep myself hydrated. I know I'm supposed to, but at one point I rinsed my mouth out with water and decided to just have a small sip, like the size of a tea spoon to wet my tongue. it was a horrible idea. I started vomitting again right away. so I ditched that idea.

Apparently my body is trying to get rid of whatever attacked my body and its treating everything like the enemy germ. it honestly felt like I was helping my body to keep from putting anything in it.

I never dry heaved either. there was always bile, almost like the nausea only attacked me when something was in my stomach. so I puke up the bile and my body produces more and I feel nauseated again.

As foolish as it may sound, I let my body do its job and didn't try to keep hydrated. Im sure I won't dehydrate too much, and its really pointless to put my body through that agony because I honestly don't think much hydration is going on if I vomit as soon as I drink anyway.

so that being said. I am now in the process of slowly re-hydrating my body. I did not want plain water, and I know my body needs more than water anyway, but if feels foolish to try to put something solid in my body. it also feels foolish to load my body with sugars or caffiene. so what did I do? I pulled out some Emergen-C. Vitamins, antioxidants, electrolites.... that sounds like what my body needs.

But the only way I had ever been able to drink these things was to mix them with a sugary drink. since I can't do that to help with the flavor, I made it like a hot tea, and I can actually handle drinking it. infact, I think it kind of taste good heated up. amazing.

I am in awe of the human body. I know my symptoms were (and still are) quite miserable. but think about what its going on in your body.... it's a war to keep out or kill something that is trying to destroy you.

its not the virus and bacteria that cause your symptoms, the symptoms are your bodies defense against the insidious intruders. or so ive heard anyway.

I wonder what the flu virus would do to my body if my body didn't fight back.

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Waiting on Eternity?

Have you ever had your own mortality come back to slap you in the face?  I'm not saying it has slapped me in the face, but I was struck pretty hard with a realization.   Life feels like it's just going so incredibly fast.  I graduated high school almost 8 years ago!   It's not that I want to go back to high school, but I can't help but wonder where these past 8 years have gone. 

While I was still in college, I attended one of the musicals Bethel put on and I found myself sitting next to my voice teacher's wife and kids.  So of course, I said hello and had some fun talking with the kids, when one of them asked me how old I was.  So I told him, "I'm 21."  His response was "You're 21? !Wow, you're almost 100!"  It was really cute, and I still laugh about it, but today, this week, this month, this past year I have been so stuck on time and the time I have left.   I feel, now only 5 years later (5 years!?!?!, where does the time go?) like I am about to turn 100 years old.  

I don't mean that I feel old. I don't feel old. But time is so precious and short and I don't have the sense of immortality that most people feel growing up. I don't have the sense that I'm going to live forever and I do have the sense that time is going too fast.

And then I start thinking about it and I remember, God limited us to 120 years, but most people don't make it that long. It is a reason for celebration if a person makes it to 100 years, but the average life expectancy for a person in the United states is about 80 years (for males, a few years less).  Then factor in family health history... diabetes, heart disease, cancer... whatever and that number easily drops by another 10 to 15 years.

So now we are looking at living to be 65 years old when you die. But then factor in your current health to your families health history. Overweight?  Smoke or live with those who do?  Inactive lifestyle?  Dangerous lifestyle?  Overstressed?   Work a job that exposes you to disease, or could potentially harm you? If the other health risks weren't enough of a risk because of family health history, they are now multiplied.  By how much, I don't know. 

 But then let's look at this stuff and say that maybe none of it actually ends your life. How long will we live still feeling and being able bodied?  How long will we be able to take care of or provide for ourselves?  Will we always have function of our legs?  Our Bowels? Our minds? Will we be able to live a meaningful life? And if we don't, when do we start losing these abilities?

So what if I only have 50 active and healthy years?  I'm already half way through them.

Now these are only 'what if' and worse case scenarios. But it does paint a picture.   Before we know it we have reached the end of our days, whether they are 50 or 80 or 100 and beyond...




I don't want to spend the rest of my short time here simply waiting on eternity. 

the Missing Gospel

I watched the Passion of the Christ this afternoon. There was no particular reason other than I saw the movie sitting in a box and I felt like watching it.  I think it's an incredible portrayal of Jesus' last days.  It is a hard movie to watch. There comes a point when I start cringing and covering my eyes because it gets so graphic.  

While I was sitting here watching it, I realized that it has been a long time since I have read through the Gospels. I cant actually remember the last time I read through them. I might have been more recently, but the closest date I can give is sometime in 2008.  Isn't that sad? I've read plenty of other Scriptures besides the gospels, i've been through Proverbs numerous times, I'm working my way through Jeremiah, but other than that it has really been pretty scattered, and somewhat random.

While I've been finding wonderful truths in other parts of scripture, I feel like not going back to the gospels and reminding myself of the life of the man whom the whole of history is all about, is a fast way to lose perspective.

And isn't perspective so crucial?

I think I'm going to spend some time diving into the gospels again.

Well...

I wish Church wasn't so "tame".  Is that another word for boring?  Absolutely. But I mean so much more than church is boring, it has more to do with the heart of why church is boring to me. It's not that the speaker is boring or that the messages lack humor.  It's just that church is so safe, dull, unmoving, passive, lifeless, (here's a good one) impotent, uninspiring, dispassionate, and sadly... task oriented.

Why would I say such things about the church?   Just because that's how I feel about church right now with my current experiences and feelings.   But the truth is, the way I'm feeling about the church may not totally be how the church really is right now, and that what I'm percieving and putting on the church may simply be the state of my own spiritual being magnifying the issues concerning the church. 

Yes, I feel that way, too sometimes.

I'm restless and looking for adventure again.

In other news, a few weeks ago, my boss approached me and asked if I would be interested in trying out a one on one position that was opening up.  Even though I would have like the position, I think, I knew my PC co-worker, Victoria wanted the position, but wouldn't ask our boss for it because she didn't want to step on my toes since I'd been there longer.  So when my boss offered me the position, I told him Victoria was interested in it, and that if he was okay with her in the position, to let her have it instead, because I was interested in a line anyway, but I would be open if another one on one position opens up He gets an intrigued/thoughtful look on his face and says. "hmm, i'll wait for her to approach me."  So I went to Victoria and told her, "it's yours, go ask for it."

So then I was stuck doing PC by myself again. Ugh, it's miserable doing PC by myself.  But not too much later, my boss approaches me again and tells me another one on one position was opening up and to give thought to whether I was interested in it or not. I gave it thought, and more out of wanting to not do PC by myself than actually wanting the one on one position, I told him I was willing to give it a try.  So it was set up that I would be going to a one on one position and we were searching for two new PC people. 

Then on Friday, my boss asked me to come talk with him when I got a minute, so I finished up what I was doing and went and spoke with him. He told me that he had recieved an email from the one on one's staff who said for certain reasons they wanted this particular one on one to have male staff.  So my boss is looking now for male staff for that one on one, and I won't be taking the position.  But then my boss told me "you get your wish."   I was a little confused, but he explained that he was going to put me on a line because one of the line supervisors was getting burnt out and wanted to just do PC for a while.

I was shocked. I didn't really say much. My boss told me to say yay.  I did, but I think he was expecting me to be a little more enthusiastic than I was, lol.  I think I was just trying to register what was happening.  So, yeah.   I got my wish.  I'm going to be taking on a line. :-)

Before Time Runs Out

It doesn't feel like that long ago that... fill in the blank.

Time flies.

Instead of waiting for something to happen in life that will make me happy. I'm going to find joy where I am. I'm not going to put my life on hold waiting for the right circumstances to think, feel, be or do something because I think that too soon my life will be over and I will look back an have too many regrets. Turning another year older never bothers me so much as when I'm not living purposefully, and this past year, I have not lived very purposefully. It's time to change that.