Journals
Tuesday,Dec 29 2009, 11:04:12 AMcontinuation
Over the next several months, whenever I reached a turning point in the progression of the disease, a new obstacle, someone suddenly appeared with a solution. Every time I was confronted by a new hurdle, someone became hurdler. God does indeed work in mysterious ways sometimes. The more I think about it, though, the more ways don’t seem so mysterious because they have been so consistent, Shortly after a problem pops up, a person or a group of them with an answer will, too. My physical deterioration was extremely difficult for me because of the new limitations it imposed almost weekly. I had been riding my bicycle to the university for almost twenty years. It was devastating to me when I had to give it up. When I could no longer drive a car, students of mine Steve, Ram and Dan - volunteered their assistance to get me to and from the university. When hauling me in and out of a normal car became too awkward and I was pretty much confined to a wheelchair, Lew and Joyce offered to have their van converted to make it accessible for my use. When I began to lose my energy and stamina, colleagues at the university were able to find ways to lighten my teaching load. When I had trouble writing, Gretchen volunteered to be my right hand. And as my voice weakened, she came up with the alphabet chart that I still use for communicating. Gretchen’s husband Bruce became the Director of Player Personnel for my fantasy baseball team—bragging, we finished first in 1995 and 1998. Two prominent examples of the right people appearing unexpectedly on my horizon at the right time were my “computer gurus,” Jan and Diane. They were exceptional. As the ALS progressed and left me too weak to raise my hands to the keyboard, along came Jan. 1 hate to think of how many hours he must have put in on my behalf designing, from scratch, a program that would enable me to type with my eyebrows. He was never satisfied and was constantly working to improve his original creation. Every time he came up with a new version, he would spend a whole evening with me in my study having me test it and make suggestions. Then he would go home and work on it some more. We finally settled on version six or seven! Jan’s dedication, especially for someone who was volunteering his time, was just remarkable. His invention worked beautiful for three years until my weakening eyebrows made it too difficult for me to use. To say that I was discouraged would be a vast understatement. And then, voila, along came Diane, a specialist in adaptive computer equipment. She was the one who noticed my slight leg movement and then designed and installed a terrific system which utilizes that tiny movement. As a result, for the last six years I have been typing with my foot which, as a friend pointed out to me, is quite appropriate for a retired soccer coach. When I felt I needed some sort of creative outlet, a means of communicating what I had been reading and what was in my head about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Dave and Maria, the pastors at Northridge United Methodist Church, agreed to allow me to start writing regular articles for the church newsletter. The more than one hundred articles I have written over the past years have done absolute wonders for the self-esteem of a physically helpless and completely dependent person. It gave me the confidence and motivation to write my book, How Will They Know If I’m Dead? Transcending Disability and Terminal Illness.
Monday,Dec 14 2009, 09:37:56 AMI think U shud read this
Power of Choice: The Right to Live and the Right to Die Robert C. Horn III
It is amazing to me how rapidly one can plummet from the heights of the mountaintop to the depths of the valley. Or at least how fast I could. And did. It was virtually instantaneous. One moment life was glorious and the next it appeared to be over.
In the spring of 1988 I felt on top of the world. My life couldn’t have been much better. The academic year was a truly outstanding one for me. It began with the award of a sabbatical for the fall semester. I was doing research ...
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Wednesday,Aug 13 2008, 10:56:21 AMDress Temptation
Struggling to make ends meet on a first-call salary, the pastor was livid when he confronted his wife with the receipt for a $250 dress she had bought."How could you do this?!"
"I was outside the store looking at the dress in the window, and then I found myself trying it on," she explained. "It was like Satan was whispering in my ear, 'You look fabulous in that dress. Buy it!'"
"Well," the pastor replied, "You know how I deal with that kind of temptation. I say, 'Get behind me, Satan!'" ...
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Monday,Aug 11 2008, 02:00:21 PMLove
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weakness.
Love is content with the present, it hopes for the future, and it doesn’t brood over the past. It’s the day-in and day-out chronicle of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories and working toward common goals.
If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things that are ...
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Friday,Jul 18 2008, 08:21:14 AMWords of wisdom from Great Men
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Albert Einstein
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. ...
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