January 5, 2020 – Click here to listen
I’m in Miami awaiting a full battery of tests today including bone scan, advanced spinal X-rays, and MRI. My day starts very early and ends late in the afternoon. Then I will see one of the best spinal surgeons in the country on Wednesday for the verdict.
I have a cousin who has about ten years on me and he told me a few years back when you start getting some age piling up and your body begins to wear out you will have a choice. You can spend most of your life going from doctor to doctor for all your aches and pains or you can just “man up” and tough your way through it.
I’ve chosen to just tough my way through it until it is so serious that I cannot tough my way forward anymore and then I succumb. Case in point when the cervical section of my spine, (neck), had 3 ruptured discs and two bulging, I could not take the pain anymore and went under the knife and had five discs fused together complete with plates and screws. My doctor was amazed that I didn’t come in earlier.
I have endured pain in my lower back for over a decade and now my sciatic nerve is now giving me fits. So I’m going to get it surgically addressed and move on with my life, with one caveat. I’m going to try my utmost to make it until prime fishing season is over and done which is right now through mid-July. I don’t know if I can tough my way that long or not, but that would be my preference.
I was thinking of all the broken bones and surgeries I’ve had through the years and it’s a wonder I’m still alive and kicking. I’m paying a heavy price for the hellish lifestyle of my youth. I know I should be dead or in a prison somewhere but God decided to save me from myself, but that doesn’t mean He let me off with no ramifications. I suppose most of my ailments are not so subtle reminders of those days. Police stomping on my back, motorcycle wreck, two head-on collisions, three cars that rolled, vicious fights, all took their toll.
God forgives sin and, in my case saved my life on more than one occasion, but that doesn’t mean there would be no consequences. I broke my right femur in a car crash many years ago and a big weather change had me ruefully rubbing it and limping around just a few days ago. You can believe that I looked toward heaven and wondered if God was reminding me of the time, I was in very critical condition fighting for my life and getting seven blood transfusions due to driving while drunk.
I contracted hepatitis C at a very young age either from either those transfusions or using a dirty needle as an addict. and it went to stage four and I very nearly died from it and was miraculously cured a few years back by a breakthrough drug Harvoni.
So I don’t know if my current health concerns regarding my ailing back is another consequence of sin. I think it probably is. My right leg is now two inches shorter than the other due to bone removal when they repaired my femur and perhaps that got my back out of alignment. Or maybe it was just caused by arthritis brought on by the broken bones. Or maybe I’m just wearing out.
I know there are consequences for sin. It began for us with our forefathers Adam and Eve and look how far we have fallen. Just thinking about my rebellious behavior makes me appreciate God’s grace and the life I now have all the more.
Perhaps that is the point . . .
Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”