Catholic Hermit: Be Patient, Hermit!

Yesterday afternoon once more went to the bike park where are pathways in hilly area.  Walked, huffing and puffing, but I know this is best for the building up of muscles and stamina, more so than walking on flat sidewalks.  Not even walking far--in hills one is pushed more than the flat terrain.

Yes, there are similarities and truths to this simple image and action, to our spiritual lives.  There are obvious comparisons, as well, to be made to a hermit's particular vocation.  How easy it is to rationalize and justify to ourselves, as hermits, that the easier is as good or better for us.  Taking upon ourselves suffering or trials as some notion of austerity gone awry is like pridefully thinking we can handle going into the off-path stubble and uneven ground which can cause a fall.  As is said:  Pride goeth before a fall.  

This morning I've remained in bed on the icy pad.  The pain level speaks of struggle today; but it is a struggle against fatigue and an added edge to pain.  I have tried cutting down on med dose, which sounds admirable but must be factored with what that additional pain does to the body, mind, and heart.

Turning to writing as distraction, this nothing Catholic hermit emailed a spiritual friend whose found herself being placed by the Lord in a new locale and situation, but with two elder siblings who have miserable health problems--Alzheimer's and post-cancer side effect of "chemo brain" which mimics aspects of dementia's forgetfulness.  So my friend, whose spouse passed away 9 months ago after years of illness and decline, is settling into more care-giving after a recent hip replacement, of which she is thankfully recovering and returning to activity.

My email was rambling, as they can tend to be when pain up and all that goes with chronic pain.  I turned to His Living Word--always a boost to the spirits and guidance for the soul!  I found much to ponder, such as the importance of patience.  I need patience in the on-going effects of long-term suffering, and patience in desiring release from this suffering that is of God's allowance and providence; God knows what He's doing and why, what is best for our souls in particular, is what He provides, and suffering that comes in our lives brings with it opportunities.

We have the opportunity to accept the cross or crosses.  We have the opportunity to bring glory to God in suffering what at times seems insufferable.  We have the opportunity to be patient in the seeking to progress faster than what the cross seemingly allows, for sometimes the cross may feel heavier to our finite bodies and our minds' and hearts' perceptions.  What we must try to remember is that our perceptions can be deceptive, for our souls can do far more intangibly in the Holy Spirit's infusions of theological virtues:  hope, faith, and love.

So when my attitude began to droop--the suffering getting to me--the reminder from within to try to push through, to move beyond the body, the discouraging thoughts, the tired feelings of the heart.  God reached in with what seems non-significant, temporal disruption.  The neighbor couple on another street, sent phone message wanting to know if I needed anything from the warehouse store.  I asked for large container of non-fat yogurt; been reading that probiotics can help the stomach and intestines.

When the couple arrived a couple hours later, their kindness and the woman's energy, seemed to bring some sunshine behind overcast, as well as as the good of patiently waiting for energy of body, mind, and heart.  The soul abiding in Christ will be given what energy God wills and allows for His perfect purposes, and part of our effort is to discern even the energy, and to discern with the Holy Spirit's gift of wisdom, as to resting or rising, activity or response, and all with patience in accepting God's will in the present moments, and with patience in ourselves--depending upon what is discerned of energy to do or be patient and joyful with the energy always present:  to be.

Then came a response from my added thank-you message to the couple after they'd dropped off the yogurt. (I always pay, of course, and praise God that I have the financial means now to appreciate trying whatever means to improve or at least not make worse from any not doing whatever within means potentially helpful, to assist the body God gave me.)  What the woman wrote surprised me, for I chastised myself after they'd left, that I had not somehow made myself be more "perky."

The woman phone texted that I am an inspiration.

Well, not today, really, is my honest assessment.  I will not pretend otherwise, for I'm remaining on the level path, so to speak, still flat on the bed, but trying to write this Third Sunday in Advent's "gaudete" thoughts, of which the joy is not visible in body and maybe not even in mind or emotions/heart, but there is yet joy in the soul.  God still gives me the rest of the day to keep striving in the theological and cardinal virtues, of which patience is prominent to the pondering with the Holy Spirit, in the silence of solitude.

And I responded to the neighbor's saying I am an inspiration, by saying am not so much in reality, today thus far, but that her saying so makes me desire to pull up and out of my impatience with self, impatience with the body not cooperating--or else it is impatience with the mind--or I suppose a weakness of the will to not enervate the body.  But all this impatience, when turned to being patient, allows a deep breath in, and out; patience is a gift from God and not a force of my will.  Gifts of God are of His will, to be appreciated as gift of His Triune Divine Nature, and utilized accordingly.

Be patient, hermit! You've had response from the loved family member--an answer about a gift specifics for a grandchild.  You've been given energy yesterday, and the gift from God to push through pain for the walk on more challenging and health-beneficial terrain, and energy to finish what seems mountainous of a task that is more a prayer for others in the doing than what it will mean otherwise as gift.  You still may have the energy of the Holy Spirit stirring my will to push through and try a walk today, or some other task besides remaining in bed.  

With and in whatever God wills, provides, and allows, be patient in all!  Be patient of others and of self. Above all, be patient through, with and in His Real Presence.  Pray for patience, and praise God as the gift is given for the taking and using and appreciating!  Allow the being patient in present moments permeate the body, mind, heart, and soul.

"Be patient, brothers and sisters [and hermit!] until the coming of the Lord.  See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.  You too must be patient.  Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.  Do not complain, brothers and sisters [and hermit!], about one another, that you may not be judged.  Behold the Judge is standing before the gates. Take as an example of hardship and patience, brothers and sisters [and hermit!], the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord"(James 5: 7-10).

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:  for patience!

Catholic Hermit: Another Adventure

Woke up yesterday with vertigo.  Ended up getting a ride to the major hospital to get brain scan, as needed to rule out not my brain bleeds leaking.  I never thought that was the case; but a produce table patron called her RN husband to come and advise, as she and another who saw me noticed I was not doing so well--vertigo and spacey feeling in head.

I attributed it all to my spinal column, especially the neck.  The shift in weather has thrown a major hindrance into my back and also head injury area.  As I consider "leaving pain", all the more there it was and needing to be addressed in a temporal manner.

The EMS guys were wonderful, as they insisted it best to return to the hospital that took the brain scans following the head injury.  I had been unable to return due to no means to get there for my follow up brain scan and neurosurgical consult.  The EMS guys pointed out if I went to an easier-access hospital for the scan it would need to be compared to the original brain scan. 

(I did need, of course, to know the status of the brain bleeds at some point and to be released to take the nsaid prescription medication that has helped my spine for years with inflammation amid the increasing arthritis build-up).

So off we went, and what a day it was in the ER of this huge medical center complex.  I'm too fatigued at the moment to write about what I heard and observed all about me, but I knew the Lord had a purpose in this dousing into fact and reality of the big world out there--beyond what I see, filtered, through this little window to the world, my laptop.

Ended up a type of vertigo and was taught via demonstrating with me as the object, means of balancing inner ear, by a doctor and the resident or intern doctors he was instructing in situ.  That seems, to me, the minor benefit of spending a long day there, surrounded by drug addicts (one cuffed on two limbs to her ER gurney and a policeman with her at all times) and homeless street persons, also drug addicts.  

Only toward evening did my "ER neighbors" switch out to a child with burns and an elderly man with wife accompanying.  He had hit his head a couple weeks prior but two days ago lost the ability to formulate words in any logical fashion.

Then while waiting for a taxi to get me as far as possible so a neighbor could pick me up without having to drive into the traffic-laden streets of mind-boggling metropolis, a street man who was hanging around the ER waiting area, was readying to expose himself and do an indecent sex act.  I went to the employee at the intake desk, and she said he'd done that the day before and she'd kicked him out....  But she gave him another chance today.

Lord, have mercy.  I pointed out there could be children and teen girls in the waiting area (and later, indeed, there were), and shouldn't a sexual predator be arrested and removed?  He was stalking me, for pity's sake, following me around, after he had approached with stating his desires and had I not stood up and walked away, was readying himself for indecent exposure.

Obviously, a very disturbed man, maybe or probably mentally ill, but...still...not right or good to be thus in public, among people with their physical ailments coming for help.  The employee said the police have worse things to deal with, and she'd call security.  I don't know if she did; a couple wandered through an hour or so later (cab was not aware of the FAX sent them by hospital to pick me up until another person waiting called the cab company and let me talk with them, as well).  

But the man then was deep into his cell phone.  Yes, a cell phone, although a shelter person; and I wondered why they did not check what he had on that phone that was of such interest, since he was known to the employee as having exposed himself and performed sexual act in public just the day prior.

Yet, the reality of so many homeless, mentally ill, drug addicted humanity would be a rather overwhelming task, especially when one officer was for his entire shift, sitting by an addict brought from jail for anxiety issues as she was "drying out" after being arrested.  At the end of his shift, a police woman arrived to take over the inmate watch.  She had been given various medications to try to calm her, yet all the while she wanted more of what not best to give her.  

But they did give enough of various levels of drugs to get the addicts somewhat calmed; one was admitted for hoped for help, and the other was going to be returned to jail upon release.  A third was still being treated for gashes and open wounds--some altercation on the streets.  He was asked what drugs he was on, and the young man had no qualms in stating, and the doctors took it in as daily matter-of-fact.

Well, it is daily, nightly, and matter-of-fact to the employees and the addicts.  A nurse told me this is typical and most of ER dealing with those who come in off the streets with drug needs or drug-related injuries and ailments.  Yet there were the few, such as my vertigo and brain bleed concern to be checked, the man with the head injury that evidently did not fare well even though he'd been to a couple other hospitals in the two weeks between his hitting and two days ago losing ability to verbalize in any logical word order.  The little girl also, was there with the burns from hot "play dough soup" she was somehow making with the use of a stove or some means powerful enough to pose a burn risk.  

In the ER waiting room were a few street people coming in wanting and needing (for addicts go through terrible bodily problems when they do not have their next "fix) drugs but many more were there with other injuries.  I was in but one small area of a vast ER, after all.  I heard some employee speak of gunshot victim coming in, and there would be the heart attacks, strokes, and car accident patients, the broken legs and arms, the high fevers, the seizures and whatever all else from all manner of the various ailments our human bodies can have.

Even the cab driver was a fascinating man from perhaps Lebanon or Egypt, and we had a marvelous conversation, as did the neighbor woman and I have when she picked me up in another world--quieter area in which to drive.

At least I got the follow up brain scan, needed, and the brain bleeds have gotten "a little bit smaller", the doctor said. I had no idea--thought they'd be gone by now.  But no, brain bleeds take quite a long time to heal, to be reabsorbed by the body.  Mine was described as going from front to back more along the mid-part of my head, the top but down in more, and not two distinct bleeds but rather more joined along the center between the two larger areas.  But I am able to take my anti-inflammatory prescription medicine again, praise God!

Of course, my issue is now all the more minor compared to what I was immersed in and with whom.  A couple nurses asked me how I was able to so well manage my pain, as they said these others are in pain of their own, as there are various types of pain for which people medicate with whatever means, or addicted as a form of pain in itself of wrong choices and stuck in a horrific mire.  But the nurses speaking to me about it, briefly, mused that I was able to manage my injury pain which worsens with age for physiological reasons,  and these others do not.  

I am blessed with education and have become rather an individual pain clinic, researching and reading and learning all manner of pain management techniques.  I take supplements and vitamins and use diet as means to help in any small way, am certified in clinical hypnotherapy, took doctoral coursework in psychology and most helped by the pharmacology courses, and keep up with what is new but also what is time-tried-and-true in medications.

But I also said, I am a contemplative, and I do my best to unite my sufferings with Christ on His cross.  Yet, I admitted that managing my pain is a major effort and life-work.  And I do not do that well, actually, and know it is only going to get worse, the pain, and I never know if I will be able to manage it or at some point, not.

I have been considering the thought I wrote previously, of "leaving pain" as an aspect of "leaving everything" to follow Jesus Christ.  Yesterday I did not leave pain but rather was immersed in it all the more not only with the added pain of my neck and back and the vertigo, but in being surrounded by magnitudes of human suffering in the ER which was as large in size and scope as are some total hospitals elsewhere.

Today is the day we Catholic Christians celebrate as the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  I'm turning my thoughts to her as best I can, although the unexpected adventure of yesterday and all the nuances of the various persons I encountered, are with me as if floating in and out of the silence of my now lovely and peaceful hermitage.

Need to start unloading mulch from truck and then get to bank.  Finances have reached a snafu with a check not arriving in the mail; and the Visa bill is due now.  I consider that with the vertigo still not gone fully for now, working in the gardens is close to the earth, and the earth is not going to be a hard-fall but rather soft, giving, and cushioned. God provides!  

And the exercise will surely help my body to loosen itself which can only be helpful to the inner ear balancing those little tiny things in it that the doctor described as like grains of sand, that can get out of balance and thus need body-head positioning strategies to get them back in balance.

All is rather amazing, in life, truly.

Catholic Hermit: Flying from the Stairway to Heaven

I've not fallen off the face of this earth, although certainly could have quite easily or so a neurosurgeon commented.  Lucky I was not paralyzed, miraculous no broken bones, fortunate not dead--some of the comments.  One nurse said I must have a powerful guardian angel to have guided me out to road and up a ways, not conscious of any of it.

So I was removing some risers to the stairs I'd installed in this old farmhouse hermitage. I had made an error in their lengths, and Craig who coaches me from lumberyard admitted that it really would be best to re-do those.  Yes, he is so right.  I was using pry bar to get them off and amazed at how easily they were prying off!  Got to the top step on the stairway that I had named "Stairway to Heaven,", and that riser was slightly harder so had to give a more powerful pull with the pry bar.  The pry bar slipped out from the riser unexpectedly (accidents are unexpected), and the force propelled me backwards in the air.

I was able to somehow turn my body forward and look down, hoping and praying in split seconds that I could get my foot down on a tread to help slow the airborne momentum.  That is the last I remember of what my adult kids pieced together with the help of someone who found me up on the road a ways, covered in blood.  I was knocked unconscious for up to 40 minutes, but also was somehow wandering in the house due to trail of blood and pool of blood where I must have been on floor for awhile.  

Still not sure what I smacked, but the EMT folks thought bones broken, and forehead was opened up to the skull and down into the eye socket.  (Yes, was also told at trauma center that I was fortunate to still have my eye.)

Anyway, it will be two weeks this Tuesday.  I was taken to a major trauma center for five states, and have two brain bleeds.  But they stabilized so am back in hermitage.  Daughter and grandson drove, son flew in from NYC; they did a couple or so days of work team and also tending me, until they had to leave and my shock, adrenalin and euphoria at seeing them wore off.  I wiped out fully for next many days.  So much a blur.  Other daughter flew out a couple nights ago--very late, so drove over yesterday morning.  

In the meantime my shoulder flared up terribly.  Hope it is not my SLAP tear surgery messed up.  Strange.  Could not manage the excruciating pain; EMT came again early in morning the other day, but enough pain meds and muscle relaxants helped me get a grip, and they checked other vitals.  I said daughter would be there soon, and they also said they can come back.  Keeping arm immobile, but wow, what horrible pain in that shoulder.  I took more pain medication than ever in that time period, and I'm not prone to ever call 911 myself.  

Today daughter was going to drive me to ER, but I got rational and we talked it over.  My body with the head injury still not up for being driven anywhere, and the ER would take MRI and say to get appointment with a shoulder orthopedic specialist and take Tylenol.  So I went into post-shoulder surgery mode of six years ago and am not moving my arm.  Only problem is at night when I sleep.  Also, of course, am on pain meds for head injury still.

Other daughter and husband and grandson might return in a week.  I had to take a bit to realize and accept that God is not choosing that I be able to finish the place due to finances running out.  I could wait for body to heal, but now with the shoulder making a major fuss, and time of essence, gotta just relinquish that aspect and let go and be grateful for help of any kind.

Even getting a ride to get stitches out in a week or so more is not easy to come by.  Then there will be another brain scan and follow up with neurosurgeon to see if brain bleeds have been absorbed by body.  I'm not learning about TBI's--traumatic brain injury--as don't want to anticipate anything--but others are reading and can tell me if what some of the aspects I am experiencing are that.

I tell you, I think in some ways God allowed this so that I'd be able to deeply relate with head injury victims.  I had been praying a lot about a great-nephew--young lad--who was plowed into two years ago at age 11 by a big teen on skateboard.  He has suffered terribly from residual TBI problems including seizures.  I now know even a bit of what that child has endured.  And, I also grasp more what so many soldiers and other accident victims, head gunshot wounds and various head injury victims experience.  

Helps me pray and have greater empathy and understanding.

I am most fortunate, of course.  Memory coming back rather well, we all think, and speech and writing back--speech being less so but amazingly unscathed.

There are other lessons from the Lord, and He is definitely guiding my transition from this place and efforts to what is next.  Not totally sure what, but I know He is allowing this to help guide me in His own inimitable way.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Appreciate any prayers you are willing to pray for all matters here to fall into place and to better endure the type of pain that is not anything I would grasp had I not experienced this.