And Now, I Digress...

So, after spending nearly twelve hours in a hospital emergency room with my sister yesterday, I am counting my blessings.

She was having chest pains which only turned out to be pneumonia and when the doctor (with some crazy-ass eyebrows!) finally came to tell us the diagnosis, I realized how jaded we have become about medical conditions.

I remember, many years ago, my mother was in the hospital and a family in the next curtain was sobbing and wailing after finding out their father was in congestive heart failure. Diuretics and bed rest and he'd, most likely be good as new. It's not like he had a stroke or end stage cancer. I couldn't understand what they were so worked up about. I mean, what's a little heart failure in the grand scheme of things, right?

There have been so many terrible illnesses and diagnoses in my life and in my family that I have turned cynical and over-informed. Most people, upon hearing that their sister has pneumonia, would not express relief as one of their reactions! Would they?

What about the poor dude next to us yesterday? This guy's situation was absolutely pathetic. I felt so bad for him. I wanted to hug the guy and I couldn't even see him behind the curtain that divided us. His wife came home drunk at 4 in the morning and started pounding on him. Then she proceeded to bite his ear off. The cops were already on their way and they arrived just as he was trying to retrieve said ear "piece" from his hopefully, soon-to-be ex-wife's mouth and they thought he was assaulting her! The only family member he could get in touch with was his sister who has stage four cancer! And this poor schmuck, when the nurses asked if he would press charges, said he didn't want his kids to see their mother get arrested!

I mean, COME ON!  

There's a story that goes around the Internet and the gist of it is: if God came to you and said you could trade in all your troubles for someone else's and you picked the person you thought had the most charmed life, you'd discover some deep dark thing about them and you'd want your own life back. Or something like that.

I think that, in my forties, I have been more pragmatic in my philosophies on the ways of fate. God or life or the powers that be have handed me this life and, like it or not, I'm stuck with it. There's no point in wishing I had someone else's life because, well, I don't!

OK, sometimes, I admit, I wouldn't mind being Oprah or Barbara Walters, or British royalty. (Living British royalty!)

I have the kind of life where pneumonia is a silver lining of sorts. And I don't think that's such a bad thing.

Now, being jaded does not mean that I don't freak out when I get a raspy, nearly inaudible call from my sister at six in the morning croaking the words "chest pains" into the phone. And it also doesn't mean that I don't over think what the problem could be. It also doesn't mean that I am not worried sick even though the hospital sent her home with a bunch of meds and instructions to call her doctor on Monday.

Medical emergencies always tend to leave me on the edge of my seat and not in a good way.

They also make me re-assess how I take care of myself. Today, at church, part of the reading was the old "your body is a temple" passage. After yesterday, I realized that, if it's true, I'm in big trouble.

Watching my sister struggle to breathe and seeing her on that gurney all day made me think that I am not taking care of myself the way I should. The weight is one thing. But my stress level and not exercising and not going to the doctor for check ups is not helping my health or the length of my life one, tiny bit!

There was also a part of the service that was about listening to God. I pray regularly. I'm not an overly religious person, but I have always been on a journey to find my faith. Lately, I have had some success in that department. I still have my issues and am conflicted at some of the teachings but, as a whole, I am a Catholic Christian. So, the story about Samuel hearing God calling his name, spoke to me. He didn't recognize that it was God. He needed Eli to tell him that he had to listen...to tell God he is listening.

So I pray. I pray for the good health of my loved ones even though they are already not in good health. I pray for guidance. I pray that I will be open to hear what God has in store for me. I pray that there's no one parked in the spot in front of my apartment.

I will pray for my sister and that poor man who lost part of his ear. I will pray for my client's daughter who just had a miscarriage. I will pray for all the people this past week who had tragedy touch their lives. And I will pray that my sister will be breathing easier tomorrow.

And I will pray for the ability to listen. I will try to listen so I can hear what God wants from me. And I will try to hear and act on what God says. And I will listen so I can have empathy for the human condition and I will listen to my body telling me it's time.