Sometimes we surprise ourselves!

My husband and I love to go to bed early, with our books.  There is scarcely anything more enjoyable than a long evening with nothing to do but relax and read—especially when the body cries out for a rest.  Fatigue is an ever present friend for most of us who have chronic illness and/or pain, and [...]

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Loving each day!

The steroid shots in the facet joints didn’t help a bit.  Now what?  I reviewed the next option—nerve ablation—in the previous post.  If that is not successful, and perhaps in lieu of nerve ablation, we may try a surgically inserted pump which dispenses medication internally on a schedule. Meanwhile, I am loving each day.  Today has [...]

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Better than a “forum” . . .

I believe I’ve made my last foray into the Back Pain Forum which I’ve visited online in recent months.  Initially, this forum was a valuable information resource when I needed it—before and after spinal fusion surgery.  It was good to connect with others who had gone that route.  After all, one doesn’t attend a tea party or coffee [...]

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So very grateful!

Winter is moving in, ahead of the calendar date.  This is “business as usual” in Wisconsin.  We normally have several extra weeks of winter before the December solstice and way after the March equinox. Winter is beautiful.  Although I no longer “play outside” like I did for many decades, I still appreciate the winter landscape.  [...]

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Spry and Sprightly

The handsome gentleman pictured above is my dad, Ernst Longenecker.  The portrait was taken in the 1940s.  I think most everyone who knew him smiles over memories of this man.  He was an individual!  He was a mechanical engineer by degree, an industrial designer and manager, an inventor, a wonderful father, and a mellow story-teller.  Dad [...]

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Praise God for the “normal” things . . .

. . . waking in the morning to the sound of much needed rain, sharing a breakfast at our local “good old boy” restaurant, stopping at the library and leaving with 2 heavy sacks of books, celebrating the progression of summertime in our gardens, sitting in ”our row” in church with 10 great grandchildren—ages 6 and under, gently stepping back in [...]

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Entropy . . . the potential pitfall of illness and pain

“Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  Galatians 6:9 (NIV) The term entropy was coined in 1865 by Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius, 1822-1888, a German physicist and mathmatician who is considered to be one of the central founders of the [...]

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What the pain-free folks just don’t get . . .

It’s a funny thing, living with pain.  We live with it and life is ever more precious and enjoyable because of it.  Perhaps this sounds masochistic—but it’s not.  The human spirit loves a challenge, and continual challenge followed by the joy of occasional overcoming is heady business! The hearty, pain-free world can’t understand that living with [...]

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“Art” Therapy

Last evening I had a BDN.  That’s “Bad Disc Night”—not “disc” as in computers, boom boxes, or DVD players, but discs in the lumbar region of my body. Joe and I like to go to bed early with our books and George Winston.  George is not actually present in person in our home, but we have [...]

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The Best Therapy on Earth!

Our friends who head for southern regions in November and don’t come back north until May are missing a lot of beauty today! Before yesterday’s big snow, the wind was formidably cutting and damp.  It was an indoor day.  Today we have the friendly, balmy aftermath of a storm when the snow becomes protective insulation rather [...]

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