In this post you will read about the trivial minutiae that haunts my addled brain. This post is going to be long on words and also long on moderate personal revelation. I will probably break it into parts for two reasons, 1.) I’d actually like you to read it but would never expect you to wade through as many word as I’m about to type at one sitting, and 2.) I’m kind of interested in your reaction to the whole. So, here is part the first.

Four and a half years ago

I left Cleveland and the church and the career I truly expected to retire from. The reasons were many, and some of them were sort of ugly too. I came to Pottstown and another job in another church. I fulfilled all the expectations of the job but the church it was in did not evolve or change in any way, even as a partial result of the work I joined. I left the church’s employ in early 2006 and acquired a couple of other jobs: I retained part of the position at the church in return for continued housing. As you all know, my main source of income is the USPS and I also write articles for a local business to business publisher.

The shift in our income situation made it necessary for my wife to re-enter the workforce after a 10+ year absence. She is a bank teller.

All of this is stuff you need to know as background for what comes next.

 

Uncertain, as usual

In 1997, on my birthday in fact, my left hand felt all tingly. You know how it feels when your arm has fallen asleep and it gets to where it’s almost back to normal? That’s how my hand feels all the time. Yes, even now, though I’m so used to it I don’t even notice anymore. After weeks of agonizing about what was wrong with me, and feeling the same sort of tinglyness begin in my other arm, and visits to doctors, a chiropractor, a neurologist, and a physical therapist, I was convinced that I had MS. Finally in March, the neurologist showed me the area of signal pathology on my MRI at the C2 vertebrae: consistent with MS but only one lesion, so short of a diagnosis. I’ve never had any further symptoms and remain a medical enigma even now.

I don’t believe God gave me whatever it is that looks like MS on purpose, but it certainly has been a tool in his hands. It has taught me to live with uncertainty. I’m pretty good at it now.

 

Coming in part ii, why this year figures to be more uncertain than the previous five put together.

About these ads