I felt fine when I got up, threw my bag in the car and started out. I hadn't been on the road a half hour when my body went beserk. I think it was a reaction to yesterday's bug. First I felt a bit weak in the knees. Then my head hurt, then my side, then my throat, then my armpits. My glands all seemed to be in revolt. I was in a quandry as to whether to turn back or press on. I decided to see how it was once I reached Buffalo. If it was too much, I would just have to turn back and figure out how to deal with it all.
One thing I do know is where all the emergency rooms are located in the major (and a few minor) cities. How strange to be concerned with that, but my system is too unpredictable to guess about how far away the next help might be. Especially since I am alone and I can't just curl up in a ball somewhere and let someone else get me there. I used to just worry about where the next rest stop would be. Ah, well. Everyone has something.
By Buffalo, I was neither better nor worse, so I decided to keep going a bit further - perhaps to Pennslyvania and see what might transpire. I turned the air real cool and got iced drinks, thinking that would help the swelling go down (how silly, I know, but it did seem to help). Perhaps it was as much that I was staying hydrated as anything.
I put on a new CD of hymns that I had gotten for the hymnody class. What a wonderful CD it was! It's called HYMNS TRIUMPHANT - you can see it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Hymns-Triumphant-1-Lee-Holdridge/dp/B000063T4J/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1214451554&sr=1-1
At the bottom you can listen to samples. I highly recommend you get it (not you, Mom, I am sending you one!). At first, I was just too ill to sing along, but oh, how I listened and appreciated the familiar hymns and their great messages. Pretty soon I found myself covering people with prayers. The first CD works through the Lord's Prayer with hymns that portray each phrase. They start with Immortal, Invisible - a wonderful combination of the London Philharmonic and National Philharmonic Orchestras and the 100 voice Amen choir.
When they started "Praise to the Lord the Almighty" the words just reached out and touched my heart so much that I started to cry.
Praise to the Lord who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth
shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do
if with his love he befriend thee.
Well, now. If ever I needed sheltering, this was a good time. I just let the tears flow down my face and clear down into my lap. I pressed repeat and just kept listening and praying and hearing those words until I felt the storm pass. It was so helpful to feel his presence with me in the car, to know that he was taking care of me, that everything would be fine even if I completely fell apart and had to stop at some ER for help.
By now I had reached a third of the way there (Cleveland), and had pretty much passed the turning back point. In two more hours I would be half way. Those hymns were just what I needed. I plunked cold wet towels under my arms (felt like I had a sack of walnuts stuck under there) and turned up the volume.
The next hymn that set me off was Abide With Me.
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Well, those tears started again, and I thought about all the sad things I have had to deal with - the death of my son, a difficult marriage, cancer. I just laid them all at Jesus' feet. Then I started thinking about so many friends who have had a hard year and I began bathing them in prayer as well. I prayed for my sister who had a terrible divorce. I just cried over how much pain she went through. I prayed for my friends Bob and Beth who both lost their Moms this year, and I know how much hurt they had. I prayed for Shannon who's Mom just died of cancer, and my friend who just got diagnosed with cancer and the families of my colleagues (three of them) who died of cancer in the past year.
Well, I must have repeated that hymn a hundred times and just kept listening until I finally felt well enough to sing. The weak, yuckies were subsiding, and the coolness of the air conditioning was helping with the swollen puffies and the crying was helping with the "feeling sorry for me's" and suddenly I was an hour from Chicago. There had been only a few rainstorms and pretty smooth sailing. From Chicago I am just an hour and a half away. The traffic was a bit heavy, but that passed.
I gotta tell ya, if you're having a blue day, if you have hit a bump in the road that threw you, if you are battling something not fun, get the CD. Its a heart lifter for sure. I made that drive in a record 12.5 hours even with all the stops and construction. Tired, yes, swollen, yes, but by the grace of God, not under obligation to change my life due to a little bout of cancer. At least, not today.
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