Lost 2.5 pounds this week, for a total of 42 since Christmas. LoseIt says I'll reach my revised goal of 65 pounds on Thanksgiving Day.
I think LoseIt is a little optimistic. And more than a little ironic. Heh.
I've been feeling somewhat subdued (I always want to spell that "s-u-b-d-u-d-e") this weekend. I learned a couple weeks ago that one of my Amish neighbors is terminally ill with bladder cancer. Stage 4. She's young, not yet 40, and I've gotten to know her quite well since they've become part of our community.
I drove her and her husband to visit her family last fall. I've taken her on many shopping trips. I helped her get a doctor's appointment at our county's free health clinic, after many visits with two different chiropractors.
The Amish don't care much for modern medicine, preferring to take a more natural path to healing with vitamins and herbs. Unfortunately for my neighbor, she waited too long. She was told she had Lyme's disease, a much more plausible explanation for her symptoms. She is, after all, young, and she lives in the country, where being infected by a Lyme-disease-carrying tick seemed more likely to all who saw her.
Until it wasn't likely at all.
After spending a week in a modern hospital (which must have been a nightmare for her), she came home. There is no modern medical treatment available for her at this point. She wears a brace around her midsection and spends all of her time flat on her brittle and broken back. The community relaxed its rules a bit, allowing an inverter in her room to power a small electric fan to help keep her comfortable.
She told me she's at peace, but the members of her family and community haven't given up. They're giving her herbs and feeding her vegetables. They spritz her limbs with some kind of natural healing spray. I'm not going to discount these efforts. Who knows what might work, when combined with determination and faith?
Her name is Melissa. If you pray, could you add her name to your list?
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2 comments:
My Amish, here, do modern medicine. If one of them is in the hospital, you know it, because the family takes shifts staying at the hospital - like the waiting room is full-ish as they take turns in the patient's room. A van comes twice a day to take one shift home and bring the next set of relatives. At any given time, somewhere in the hospital, this takes place. I have never been to the hospital without seeing them. Some of their babies are born at home (with an English midwife which always amuses me), but many are born at the hospital.
Very sorry for you neighbor.
The day I got on the scale and hit goal was Thanksgiving day (or maybe week) 2009. That was my last 20 lbs (which took me 6 mos to lose). So it would be very nice to have a second member of the Thanksgiving Club.
Sorry to hear about your neighbor. It may be that there wouldn't have been anything to do about the cancer even if it was caught earlier. I hope her pain is not too severe. I would imagine that the community support has to bring comfort and peace, even if it can't bring healing.
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