New Mountain to Climb...VERY SLOWLY?

I am terrified!  Let me try a different approach.  I am HORRIFIED!  Not quite right.  I AM SCARED TO PIECES!

Last week I wrote many posts on Miracles.  THIS WEEK...drumroll, I found out that not only are my knees a little bad, the actual joint on both has been shifted sideways.  The cartilage is GONE on part of my knee, and the lower leg bone and knee joint have become way too familiar with each other!!

This explains why my knee collapses when I stand, or walk.  It means I need my knee replaced.  I just watched my beloved sister go through a double knee replacement and that is where I am going.  In her words, "It's HELL!"  This from my sweet, non-swearing sister.

Healing is supposed to take three months...oh how I hope that is true.  Let's see there was my foot surgery that was supposed to take SIX WEEKS, and instead took SIX MONTHS.  Or my tonsillectomy at the age of 32 that was supposed to be a non-deal, and took ONE MONTH to heal.  In other words I don't heal very well. 

Knee replacements have come a long way in my lifetime.  When my sweetie needed his knee replaced they told him that it would only last 15 years so he would need to have it replaced multiple times in his life!  Now the possible life of a new knee is THIRTY YEARS....double what it was just 20 years ago.  (Yes 20 is a JUST when you are at least halfway to ONE HUNDRED)

I AM fearful of pain...I have lived with the chronic variety for 20 years now (there's that 20 years things again) and I have learned that living with chronic pain does NOT mean that the longer you live with it the better you cope.  To the contrary, it's like listening to a drip of water, over and over for years, and years...just sitting and listening to that drip of water.  No other activity, just DRIP, DRIP, DRIP....over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over and over, and over, and over, and over...(times the rest of your life!)  If you think that you could handle that...no problem, right?  Well psychology has a word for that belief, DELUSIONAL!

So once again I am there....that frightening, annoying place where chronic pain meets with ACUTE pain control.  My coping structures are all scurrying to get in place...but quite honestly I feel like one giant fear generated WHITE KNUCKLE!  (You remember in the romance novel....the hero or shero is clenching their hands together so tightly for whatever reason that they develop the dreaded WHITE KNUCKLES?)

My beloved daughter said, "WHY US?  Why are WE faced with medical crisis over, and over, and over, and over, again?  We ALL ask this question at some point or another.  There IS no answer to that question. 

I try to ask another question of myself.  (Sometimes that is harder than others).  Not why but HOW?  HOW gives me a positive action to move with instead of asking a question that has NO ANSWER.  HOW do we face this difficulty, challenge, struggle, trauma? 

With each new challenge that life hands me I throw a LARGE, indeed HUGE pity party.  I DO set a time limit on that party.  If the party bleeds over into the next day...and the day after that...etc. etc. it changes from a pity party to WALLOWING!  Wallowing is ever so dangerous.  It can lead to nothing positive and everything negative.

So...I'm terrified, but I am going to work hard today to change my fear into faith.  I would welcome, be VERY grateful, move that into THRILLED, to hear from others how they cope with challenge, and difficulty.  If we network maybe we can all be stronger.  After all, if you take one stick, and try to break it, depending on the strength of that one stick you can most likely break it quite easily.  Now add another stick, and then another, and then another, and soon you couldn't snap the bundle of sticks if you were Arnold Schwartsenegger  (can YOU spell his name?) in his prime!  Strength comes in unity...strength comes in love...strength comes in faith.  Please bless me with your examples of faith under challenge.