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train tracks. And then climbed all those stairs back up to the top of the trail.
I was the last one to the top, and suffice it to say that it was a few days before
I approached any kind of stairs without a moment’s pause.
On Sunday afternoon we hiked a trail to the Cascades waterfall. The falls were colossal at the other end of the trail, and the water at the bottom was still very cold, even though it was the end of the summer. When we got back, I was so hungry that I made a Peanut-Butter-Plum-Jelly-Banana-and-Honey Sandwich. I ate all of that, and then I put peanut butter on a flour tortilla and rolled it up-- that’s called a “Peanut Butterito”-- and ate that, too. We drove back home that evening, all agreed that it had been a smashing good time. Asthma World Turns... As it started to cool off in the fall, my asthma started acting up. I was taking my inhaler every couple of hours. I went to the doctor and got allergy medication and two different long acting inhalers, which i only had to take twice a day. Despite all the drugs, the asthma only seemed to persist and get stronger over the weeks. It even affected my sleep. I figured it was unavoidable, some organism in the air that would go away when it started freezing outside. The frosts came, and my asthma didn't go. I started to get very frustrated, even angry, at not being able to breathe easily. Finally, in an effort to stem my wheezing and coughing fits, my mother had our ventilation ducts cleaned out. My breathing problems faded away and disappeared in the course of a day or two. There had been a mold in our air conditioning system which could only grow in a warm, dry environment. While the air conditioner was running, the condenser dripped water into a collecting pan underneath and the mold couldn't grow. When we stopped using the air conditioner in the fall, the water in the pan dried up and the mold spread throughout the duct-work and stayed there, filling the house with allergens until it was discovered and exterminated. The Best of Times and the Wrist of Times
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I went to an Orthopedist, and during the course of the appointment i showed him
how i could "pop" or "crack" my wrist by moving it in a certain way. He held my
wrist in a funny way, and told me to try and pop it. I tried to and couldn't.
The doctor told me that every time i popped my wrist, i was running a tendon over
a wrist bone, like plucking a rubber band when it's pulled tight. This occasionally
happens during the course of normal movement all over the body, but if it happens
too much the tendon can start to fray. In the end, he told me to stop wearing the
brace, stop "popping" my wrist, and come back in a month to see if it felt better
or not. [My mother said it was like the old joke: "Hey doc, it hurts when i do
this," and the doctor replies, "Then don't do that!"]
It was only as i was walking out of the doctor's office that i realized how hard it would be to fill his prescription. Somehow or other, i had gotten into the habit of popping my wrist; i had been doing it dozens of times a day. Now when i wanted to stop, i found myself doing it anyway, absent-mindedly, and paying for it with the currency of pain. By sheer force of will, i gradually popped my wrist less often, until finally i stopped altogether. During this process, though, the temptation was tremendous-- the pain eased a bit, but a strange sensation of itching inside my wrist became more pronounced. I knew this was a sign of healing, but it felt like if i only popped my wrist, that it would feel better. Upon occasional experiment of this theory, though, it betrayed itself as a devilish lie, and i listened to that voice no more. The itching faded out after a few weeks. But now it is painful again, whenever i relax my grip for an extended period of time, like after work, for instance. Having mostly healed now, i think the tendon is very weak and must be strengthened again very carefully each day with normal usage. And the point is...? But I'm not sharing these minor struggles of mine with you to complain or throw a pity party, but to share with you what i have learned from them. (Strangely enough, the lesson is only just now complete as i seek to put it into words, and that is a lesson in itself.) Harmful behavior, or wrong behavior, or "sin" as some call it [Etymology lesson: "sin", which comes from the Old English word "synn", which means "wrongdoing, injury, or hostility"], is either acting in a wrong way or not acting in a right way, either knowingly or unknowingly. Make no mistake, even if you don't realize what you are doing wrong, if you are doing something wrong, you will be miserable. I’m not talking about sadness, which comes every once in a while no matter what you do, but despair: that moment when you feel like you have no hope, when |
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