Did You Wake Up Healthy This Morning? Ok Then. (Thankful Thursday)

It's kind of a running joke around here that I have to be bleeding from my eyeballs before I'll actually go in and see a doctor.  Sometimes I'll complain about this or that and my husband or a friend will ask "well did you make an appointment?" and that's usually when I back away and my eyes glaze over and I shake my head "nu-uh." 

No doctors.  Me no like doctors.  Doctors scary.  Hospitals icky.  I fine. 

Perhaps I'm afraid of running into HIM.

Or perhaps not.  Because I LOVE him.

Anyway, I get really bad migraines anywhere from 0 to 4 times per month, and I've been out of my prescription migraine meds for over a year now.  Most people would make an appointment weeks or even months before they run out, but not I.  Somehow the suffering is justifiable if I do not have to go to the dreaded doctor.  Which is completely ridiculous, and I recognize that, but it's some sort of mental blockage in my brain. 

So last week, after I had three migraines within days of each other, Matthew finally got sick of hearing me complain and just made me an appointment himself with the doctor we'd been referred to by my stepdad.  Before he made the call, my only request was that the appointment be for some time the following week - so I would have time to come up with an excuse to not go mentally and emotionally prepare myself.  But what did Matthew do?  He made an appointment for the very next day. 

I shrieked and moaned and stamped my feet and said I refused to go, but he wouldn't have any of it.  He said I was going even if he had to tie me up and drag me there, and he would absolutely-not-reschedule-it because he knew it would only give me time to come up with a reason to cancel. Uggghhh. 

So I went.

And as I sat in the waiting room with my husband, I looked around and drank in my surroundings (being careful not to touch anything lest I contract streptococcus or something equally vile).  I always get a little nervous at the doctor, even if it's just for a silly routine appointment, and as I sat there dejectedly eyeing the room around me, I suddenly had a bit of an "ah-ha" humility moment. 

Here's where I get to the point.  So my stepfather, Edd, has cancer.  Cancer of a very bad and ugly kind, and doctors say his condition is chronic and he'll have to be on chemo for the rest of his life.   And as I sat there in that waiting room, staring at the same walls that Edd probably saw many times throughout his life, I became very, very humble.  There I was, heart beating a little faster than it should, nervous about seeing the doctor for my very non-life-threatening migraines.   And I realized how very much we healthy people take for granted every single moment of our lives.  Especially peace of mind.  The knowledge that there is very likely not a deadly disease ravaging our insides, threatening our very lives and stealing away our ability to wake up to wellness and a functionally performing body each morning. 

And I felt quietly overwhelmed by this realization.  And like I said, humbled.  And thankful for a body that is currently functioning as it should, even though I know that will likely not last forever. 

So that is what my Thankful Thursday is about this week.  Just health and life and hope.  It's hard to be mindful of your blessings every single moment, and it really is the truth that we often don't truly miss something until we no longer have it.  But on this Thursday, and every day, really, try to just be ever so grateful if your body is performing as it was intended to.  Take a mental inventory of your functions and faculties, and thank the Heavens for them all. 

Have a happy, thankful Thursday...

J

P.S. - If you're the praying type, will you pray for my stepdad, Edd?  Just pray that the cancer will be completely banished from his body.  I'd sure appreciate it. :)