Note: Before I start this post, I’d like to offer special thanks to the many people who read my previous post about the 15th year since John Robert died. Your sympathies, prayers, and expressions really did warm my heart. I’m grateful. - JED
This has been an uncomfortable week, but I have been there before. My physical nemesis is what my friend Danny calls ‘the red leg’. I have a long history with cellulitis. Its arrival is mysterious to me and always catches me by surprise. But the symptoms of the onset are unmistakable. Even before the redness surrounds my lower left leg, I experience tremors, fever, and often … um … expelling anything within me from whichever exit it can find in a very forceful fashion. Sorry, that was as delicate a way to say that as I could come up with.
My first experience with it was as early as 2005 or early 2006. It was misdiagnosed and I experienced it over a long period of time, staying in a chair, and keeping the leg elevated. My doctor had me do two ultrasounds on the veins in my leg and, not finding anything, sent me to a vein specialist in Mobile, Alabama (we lived in Pascagoula, Mississippi at the time). He took one look at my leg and pronounced, “This is not a vein problem.” And he was done with me.
My friend Patti told me that her dad had cellulitis from time to time and antibiotics knocked it right out. I told my doctor at the time that story and he said, “Let’s give it a try.” Now I’m not so sure I was in capable hands… but that’s another story. We did try it and it worked.
Over the years I have sometimes had a cellulitis attack twice a year, sometimes it will skip a year. The past few years it has been so mild, it didn’t slow me down. But this time… whoa! It packed a punch. As I write this I’m at the end of day three. I’m on antibiotics and this morning received a Rocephin shot and I’m feeling much better, but the leg has a ways to go.
There are a lot of things I haven’t enjoyed this week. For one, trying to keep some of the things I do every week in place from home. I’m thankful for Doug White teaching my class for me Wednesday night. I do plan to be in place Sunday, whether I’m limping along or not.
I have been given some reminders that contain blessings.
I’m reminded of the wonderful caregiver my Maggy is and her attentiveness during this time.
I’m reminded of those that I pray for every day - and how my short-term illness is something they would gladly have in exchange for long-term struggle with severe health issues.
I’m reminded of the willingness of people to pray and to wish me well. Prayers are powerful. We always remember the answers are in the hands of a Great Physician much wiser than we, so we pray, he answers, in his time and way.
I’m reminded that the many interactions I have with people throughout the week - that sometimes come at inconvenient moments - are a source of joy and strength to me. More than I usually realize.
I’m reminded on this Memorial Day weekend, that what I’m experiencing is far less than those who gave their lives to serve and protect our country, and other countries who were fighting oppressive foes.
I’m reminded that life is short. I’ve been reading Garrison Keillor’s new book, Cheerfulness. Much of it is a reflection of turning 80 and facing it with a smile, and reality.
Eighty is not the end of the world but I can see it from here so I don’t have long-range goals—there’s just she and I, management and assistant, and the goals are survival and some degree of happiness, all the rest—synergy, networking, branding, having an impact, we’re over that, now it’s all about health and marble retention. Self-improvement is a lost cause. - Cheerfulness by Garrison Keillor
I recommend Keillor’s book for the mature reader. You won’t like everything he says, but you’ll smile your way through it. Unless you’re easily offended. Just when he has you smiling, he draws a tear. And you should subscribe to his Substack, of course. See below if you’d like to.
My mother believed in Christmas, the festival of generosity, of good cheer and a light heart in the face of darkness and adversity, and now she lay small and frail, drifting away in the downstairs bedroom of the house Dad had built seventy years before. It was more or less as she wished to go, gently, at home, among loved ones. I sang to her. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way and sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul. She was enclosed in a fine bronze casket and buried next to Dad in the Trott Brook cemetery just north of the Keillor farm where she fell in love with him, though I sort of wish she would’ve landed in the Pioneers Cemetery at Cedar Avenue and Lake Street in Minneapolis, not far from her childhood on Longfellow Avenue. - Cheerfulness by Garrison Keillor
I’m reminded to always be reading a good book. I don’t stick with bad ones. Four or five chapters in, if I’m asking myself why I’m reading it, I toss it.
Well, here’s to the red leg clearing up and getting back to life with a renewed appreciation for the capabilities of service. That’s what I’ve been thinking about today.
I am so very sorry you have had a rough week in more ways than one obviously! Praying and wishing the very best for you and your family! Take care my friend!
Prayers. Empathy and high hopes your back on your foot soon!