Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Hanging on by my fingernails

Feeling grumpy and tired. Recovering from a root canal yesterday and preparing to have another infected tooth extracted next week. After weeks of endless doctor visits and various tests and feeling really sick a lot I'm struggling to be thankful. Been feeling sad about that. Not just because I'm supposed to be giving a talk on "giving thanks in everything" in a couple of months! But because I felt like I was losing my ability to trust God and be thankful. I keep asking God to help me trust Him and be thankful despite everything. But I feel like I'm hanging on to a cliff by my fingernails sometimes. Even just finding one thing to be thankful for has been a herculean effort.

It does help when I make the effort though. Sometimes I can only think of one thing, but even just one thing can help lift my spirits and then sometimes I think of others.

Had an MRI of my brain a week or so ago. Even with my special very powerful pink earplugs that I brought from home it was very loud. My first thought was panic--My earplugs aren't working! Help something must be wrong!! Then the thought, "just think how bad it would be without them" came to mind. I had a mental smile--not a real one since I didn't want to move or they would have to start the whole thing over again. Started thanking God for my ear plugs. Then I noticed that the sounds changed at times (and yes, got much louder too!) and even paused occasionally for a few seconds. At least I could be thankful for the less loud times and the breaks. And I was thankful that I could see the opening quite well. Eventually it ended. I was so thankful for that!!

It was certainly not a fun experience! I hope I never need another one. But I got through with my sanity intact.

A few other things I'm thankful for:

1. I was able to get the root canal done on #31 before the other tooth (#14) gets pulled next week.
2. The crack the Endodontist found in tooth #31 is not vertical and doesn't go into the root.
3. She said the crown will likely hold it together, so maybe getting the crown on it last Fall wasn't a mistake after all (despite all the problems I've had with it since then!)
4. I've been taking the antibiotic Keflex for almost a month now and I'm still tolerating it.
5. For the yummy pumpkin banana smoothies I made today. I froze them for next week. Also made avocado smoothies recently and froze those too. They sound weird but are quite good.