To anyone still checking this blog for updates, I apologize. I am not better, but I don’t think I am worse. I’ve mentioned here before that the gradual course of this disease makes for tolerable living, but uninteresting reporting. Consequently, I plan to make this the final post on The Silver Lining. I have enjoyed having this outlet, but I think that any future posts will be to my “Share Time” blog; I don’t feel the need to separate my blog lives any more.
I will report that my upper right arm is almost completely healed. I don’t know what that was about, but it was over a year ago that it began to be aggravated and then in October 2009 I really hurt it on a fall. I am glad it got better.
I can also report that while my voice and vision aren’t really “better,” I have grown accustomed to the limitations so they do not seem as bad. I get tired of it, but you get used to it.
A good example of this is manual dexterity. A couple years ago I started asking for help doing the little buttons on my shirt cuffs. I would maybe try to do it myself three or four times and become exasperated. Today I rarely ask for help; not because my coordination is improved, but because my patience is. I mean, maybe there has been some healing but I think it is more due to acquired persistence. I may try the same button 15 times and I rarely become flustered enough to ask for help. I’ve learned various approaches to cuff-buttoning. And if #15 fails, I try #16.
Today in church we sang one of my favorite hymns, “Lord I Would Follow Thee.” As I mouthed the words, I was impressed that different lyrics of that hymn have stood out to me at different times in my life. Seven years ago while presiding over the Elder’s quorum, the words “I would be my brother’s keeper, I would learn the healer’s art” resonated with me. I so wanted to learn that art. I would be a healer. Would that I could follow the Lord’s example!
Five years ago when I went to New Orleans to help with the hurricane relief, I heard the words “Pause to help and lift another.” Then in the early day’s of my MS trial, the words “In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see” stood out. Not so much because I now had a burden that was largely invisible, but because it helped me to realize that many people have them. And they are worse than mine.
Today I was touched by the words “Finding strength beyond my own.” Yes! That is what I have experienced with my Sunday school assignment, and what I still crave from time to time. The fatigue can still really level me and I need to find strength beyond my own. I am confident that following Him is the only way to find it.
