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Monday, December 10, 2007

PAGING DOCTOR FIXIT..... 

Monday the 10th of December…….but it isn’t looking like Christmas. Rain began falling last night along with the temperatures and this morning I woke to thunder and lightening. December rain is always trouble….. in our area it begins freezing which initially begins with traffic accidents, people falling on the ice and of course worse than anything, the power lines.

I do hope we don’t get what we did a year ago. Folks everywhere in southern Missouri were without power for days….and Rocky’s sister and husband live in St. Louis where the power was off two different times. They were very inventive but when you are in your 80’s with no heat and no power it is a long time to be cold and eating cold food . They went through the outage twice and I know it couldn’t have been easy.

Also, my cousin Dale that many of you know from his blog, was alone without power and suffered through. He had a large tree fall on his shed and carport which in turn fell onto his pick-up. None of us knew at the time but I realized later the damage it did to Dale’s health. The owner of the mobile home village where Dale lived told me he had been sick quite a while. He was never one to broadcast his feelings or his health…..though 10-years younger than me we both grew up in the larger family where you just toughed it out. If you didn’t die you got over “it” and carried on.

When you’re raised like that it’s hard to take any symptom to the doctor. These days I think too many of us are over medicated anyway. I’ve noticed with Warren and Rocky both, the doctor’s attitude is more like……well, you’ve kind of lived out your best years and now we’re playing “catch up.” What reasoning is that when he has been your doctor all along? The trend now is, “be your own doctor…you know your body better than anyone…..when there is a change in your normal functions, come see me.”

I consider that to be contrary to the advice we hear by the health community. We are continually told to take “preventive” action on any small problem, lest it develop into something that can’t be treated. Well, there is plenty of food-for-thought with the medical community……doctors are expected to save the sick and it’s a classic case of electing who to save and who not. The insurance dilemma fires back by limiting hospital time, and therefore sending people home early because insurance doesn’t cover much and the doctors don’t want to work for nothing on a patient who can’t pay the difference.

Ok, so here is the simplified version according to me. Don’t spend a lot of time doing what you don’t love, love your family and forgive all past grievances, eat lots of chocolate…..use your “good” dishes everyday, don’t save your cologne for those special occasions……don’t think about anything that makes you sad. Focus on the good in the world, and there is a LOT of good if you look…….and stay close to God. Attitude is everything all through life.

Life is a mirror of King or peasant,
It shows all we think and do…..
So give the world the best that you have
And the best will come back to you. (Unknown author.)

Essentially Esther