So here's the thing about getting older...you are are reminded sometimes delicately, sometimes not that you need to get "check ups" on certain things. You need to get mammograms, colonscopys, ears, eyes and well, in general your body checked on a periodic basis when you reach say 50 or so. I just came back from an eye exam. The doctor proclaimed that my eyes were in excellent condition (except for the tri-focals, which seems a contradiction in terms, but I digress). I'm supposed to go ever 2 years. So if I'm not having trouble with my eyes, why do I have to keep going back every two years? I'm sure he has a perfectly valid reason, maybe his kids aren't done college yet. Oh, that was unfair. I happen to know that all of his kids have graduated and are working at various and sundry jobs. But really. If every time I go to the doctor I'm told, everything looks good, why am I going back?
A couple of years ago a mammogram found a cyst in my breast. After much weeping, wailing and wringing of hands I was wheeled into pre-op only to have the junior surgeon poke a hole in said cyst and deflate it. I was extremely appreciative. But for the next two years I went ever 3 months to have my breasts examined. This was outof pocket money, not insurance covered. There was never another cyst, lump or suspicious whatevers. I know I am lucky and I'm not making light, honest. But for crying out loud--every three months, $95 to a doctor to tell me that everything is fine and good? I'm just not sure the preventative visit was worth it. So I stopped going every three months. I make an appointment after having a mammogram, but no follow ups after that. If nothing shows on the mammo, then nothing she does to me in the office is gonna make a difference. Trust me on this.
The eye doctor gave me a new presecription for my glasses. It's a slightly stronger one. Can I read without it? Absolutely! But this is where the doctors get you...if you don't go for a follow up...what if something is wrong? What if just this ONE TIME you don't go, that one disease is there the next time and it could have been taken care of sooner if you hadn't dissed the doctor's office. What if? What if?
So I guess I'll keep going back and getting looked at in the hopes that I'll be able to spit in the doctor's eye when I'm 80.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
If an ant, walking along in a forest
...falls over a log, do the rest of the ants just walk over him? The answer is probably yes. Or they may grab and eat him for not keeping in step. Or they may shove him out of the way, thereby making it impossible for him to ever rejoin the colony as if they can't smell the trail they can't get back. And why you may ask am I thinking of ants? They're all over my kitchen counter! Okay, not that many. But I came home to their meandering scurrying and while mashing them into the counter tops before cleaning the trail away with cleanser, I began to think about where they were coming in and how they managed to find the counter and YEE Gods! they were even on the stove top!
I was in a cleaning frenzy no longer thinking of their little antennae waving about trying to find each other. No ant was safe. I even started picking them up and feeding them to the fish! I know it was cruel, but the fish did look hungry and he hadn't eaten since this morning, so I thought, why not?
And so then after all that, I began to think of all the Nature shows I watched about ants and the above leapt into mind. So now you know.
I was in a cleaning frenzy no longer thinking of their little antennae waving about trying to find each other. No ant was safe. I even started picking them up and feeding them to the fish! I know it was cruel, but the fish did look hungry and he hadn't eaten since this morning, so I thought, why not?
And so then after all that, I began to think of all the Nature shows I watched about ants and the above leapt into mind. So now you know.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Thinking through Sundays
One of the best/worst things about Sundays is this: when attending church in the morning, if I haven't sent my inner editor off to buy coffee, we listen to the sermon with a jaded eye and critical ear. This Sunday the inner editor didn't want coffee and couldn't be enticed with doughnuts either, so it stayed with me throughout the service. It was a bad service to stay with me. It was critical of the fact that the organist was on vacation again, so the service was accompanied by the guitar-playing pastor, who has a lovely voice and is an accomplished player of the guitar, but when juggling the service around the music, well, it just seems like a bit much.
The real inner complaining came about though during the sermon. The gospel reading on which the sermon stood, had to do with a man who was deaf and Jesus healed him of both his deafness and speech impediment. And see I'm deaf. Okay, if I wasn't wearing the hearing aids I probably could have still heard most of the sermon. But see, I don't like it when the pastor who hears pretty well speaks to the masses about these healings and makes it sound so, well, euphemistic. See, the inner editor wanted to say out loud...the man in the reading wasn't not comprehending what Jesus was doing, he was physically not able to hear. He wasn't stupid or misguided, he COULDN'T HEAR. Preachers twist those words of the gospel so everyone can be included. But not everyone is included in the physically disabled world. Couldn't we have a sermon that says, look there are those in the world who are disabled, who can't hear, or see or speak and Jesus might have healed a very few, but there were and indeed still more others who aren't healed this way. What happens to them? How do we heal them? Do we keep do this interpretation of disability that essentially says we're all disabled when we aren't? I don't want to stand on the soapbox and beat this, but it's true. The man was unable to hear or speak because of his physical inability to do it. NOT because we are all unable to hear, but because HE couldn't hear. Do you see the distinction? Do I want people to see me or understand me only because of this disability? No. Do I want them to understand that it does place me in a different place because of it? I think sometimes the answer is yes. I am not in the same "hearing" place as you are. I believe I perceive things differently because of that disability. Don't encompass all with the blanket, "we all don't hear" because that just isn't true. It glosses over my pain and makes others not aware of it.
Am I wallowing in my inability to hear? Well, maybe sometimes i am. But I think in this case today, I am not. I want people to understand the uniqueness of the position people with disabilities are in. I want them to see that we are yes, all people of God, but we are all not the same. It's nice to encompass all in the love of God, but can we please not say that we are all "blind" or "deaf"? Because in the physical world we all live in, that just isn't true. I almost feel militaristic in my disability right now. I am standing up for my right to be recognized as not being whole in the purest sense. And that's where someone has to reach me. Not in my mind's eye but in my real out of focus vision. Not in my "listening" but in my ability to distinguish a b as in boy to a d as in David. If I were to share this with Pastor, would he feel I was being nit-picky? Maybe. But I do feel somewhat justified in my righteous indignation. I am deaf. Not healed, not yet, anyway. Can you tell me what Jesus is saying to me now, without spitting in my ear?
The real inner complaining came about though during the sermon. The gospel reading on which the sermon stood, had to do with a man who was deaf and Jesus healed him of both his deafness and speech impediment. And see I'm deaf. Okay, if I wasn't wearing the hearing aids I probably could have still heard most of the sermon. But see, I don't like it when the pastor who hears pretty well speaks to the masses about these healings and makes it sound so, well, euphemistic. See, the inner editor wanted to say out loud...the man in the reading wasn't not comprehending what Jesus was doing, he was physically not able to hear. He wasn't stupid or misguided, he COULDN'T HEAR. Preachers twist those words of the gospel so everyone can be included. But not everyone is included in the physically disabled world. Couldn't we have a sermon that says, look there are those in the world who are disabled, who can't hear, or see or speak and Jesus might have healed a very few, but there were and indeed still more others who aren't healed this way. What happens to them? How do we heal them? Do we keep do this interpretation of disability that essentially says we're all disabled when we aren't? I don't want to stand on the soapbox and beat this, but it's true. The man was unable to hear or speak because of his physical inability to do it. NOT because we are all unable to hear, but because HE couldn't hear. Do you see the distinction? Do I want people to see me or understand me only because of this disability? No. Do I want them to understand that it does place me in a different place because of it? I think sometimes the answer is yes. I am not in the same "hearing" place as you are. I believe I perceive things differently because of that disability. Don't encompass all with the blanket, "we all don't hear" because that just isn't true. It glosses over my pain and makes others not aware of it.
Am I wallowing in my inability to hear? Well, maybe sometimes i am. But I think in this case today, I am not. I want people to understand the uniqueness of the position people with disabilities are in. I want them to see that we are yes, all people of God, but we are all not the same. It's nice to encompass all in the love of God, but can we please not say that we are all "blind" or "deaf"? Because in the physical world we all live in, that just isn't true. I almost feel militaristic in my disability right now. I am standing up for my right to be recognized as not being whole in the purest sense. And that's where someone has to reach me. Not in my mind's eye but in my real out of focus vision. Not in my "listening" but in my ability to distinguish a b as in boy to a d as in David. If I were to share this with Pastor, would he feel I was being nit-picky? Maybe. But I do feel somewhat justified in my righteous indignation. I am deaf. Not healed, not yet, anyway. Can you tell me what Jesus is saying to me now, without spitting in my ear?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The past revisited
Okay, so I haven't done this for 7 years. What did I expect? Well, I expected to feel a little more in control (of course I would expect that, given me!). Then I expected to feel like I belonged...so much for that. Then I expected to be needed. These are universal themes for the likes of me. Unfortunately, they should not be employed at all times and in all situations. I didn't totally suck today. But I wasn't exactly on "my game" whatever the hell my game is supposed to be. It will get better. I know it will. However, I'm left to stare at the screen or the mirror and wonder a few things.
How did I get older and why isn't this second nature to me. See above first line.
None of the parents looked even remotely familiar. Again see above first line.
I probably should've/could've taken a refresher...no, make that taken a NEW course in the data base they are using. Never had to do the stuff before I had to do today. See first question three lines up.
Well, as Scarlett used to say, "tomorrow is another day." Or was that the Monkees? Whatever...
How did I get older and why isn't this second nature to me. See above first line.
None of the parents looked even remotely familiar. Again see above first line.
I probably should've/could've taken a refresher...no, make that taken a NEW course in the data base they are using. Never had to do the stuff before I had to do today. See first question three lines up.
Well, as Scarlett used to say, "tomorrow is another day." Or was that the Monkees? Whatever...
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