Hope for a Bright Future

He is ever so handsome.  He's also young enough to be my son!  How odd it is to become old.  For
the first around forty-five years of my life all of my clinicians were older than I was.  Now that has turned backwards.  It's VERY rare for me to go to any type of clinician that is my age or older.

This particular, extremely handsome, clinician is an oral surgeon.  He only removes teeth.  What a modern wonder it is to have this surgery.  My Grandma, my Mom's Mom had to have all of her teeth pulled when she was just 19.  There was no Novacaine, no Nitrous, and certainly no general anesthesia.  Her father held her down while each tooth was painfully extracted.

I write Western American historical fiction novels.  I enjoy doing research on the history of that remarkable era.  On the other hand, if I could have been born then instead of now...NO THANKS!  I hear so many people speaking negatively of the time in which we live.  I wish to remind them that we have a smart phone that is also a computer, camera, recorder, calendar, notes, and oh so many more functions.  We can reach out to loved ones across the world in seconds.

Medicine has come a very long way.  Instead of doing exploratory surgery to see why someone was ill, now we have diagnostics like x-ray, CT scans, MRI scans, and they can be used to create a 3D image of your anatomy.

When my family was in a horrific accident my husband broke five levels of his back.  He also broke all twelve ribs, his right arm, and he broke his shoulder.  He also suffered a punctured lung, and multiple other damaged internal organs.  The trauma team was able to find his broken back by doing a 3D CT scan of his ribs. Since the diagnostic was 3D, they were able to roll it around his body, and that's how they found the back damage.

If you have chronic pain, there is a computerized pain pump, or an electrical stimulator to ease some of that pain...at least to make it more bearable.  Diabetics have specialty pumps and machines to continually judge their blood sugar levels.  There are heart and lung transplants, as well as most other organs.  The medical world has exploded with new knowledge just in the last 10 years!

Our grandparents only had expectations of living into their 70s.  Now?  One hundred is a fair goal to shoot towards.  Think of that...that's ten decades of one day at a time.  Somebody out in the cyber world can do the math.  How many days do you live to reach one hundred years?  How many weeks, and months do you experience to live that long?

I have a one hundred and eighty degree view of spring's lyrical loveliness from our kitchen table.  I sit here looking at the intense green of renewal.  A squirrel who is very chubby scampers about the backyard in grass that is taller than he is.  Puffy wisps of clouds waft along in a sky of brilliant blue.

How do we find the positive, a focus on joy, in a life that often seems crowded with trouble?  It's not denying that trouble exists.  No, it's looking beyond those troubles.  It's seeing the beauty that IS in this world.  It's being grateful for renewal in nature, but more especially in ourselves.

Today, reach past your troubles.  Find beauty, for beauty can lead to joy.  If joy is beyond your reach, then squeeze hope out of the minutes as they pass.  There is ALWAYS hope that things will get better!