Evening folks and welcome to the Panhandle of Oklahoma. I don't know about where you are tonight but here it is cold, the wind is blowing and there's a bit of snow on the ground. Praise God for a warm house. If you'll give me a minute I'd like to ask you to pray for all those folks in Southern California who are in harms way because of the fires there. Also remember the fire fighters battling those fires.
Remember last week I told you about getting a blister on my stump, with good doctoring by Dr. Gayla (yes, my wife) my stump was healed and ready for my leg in less than a week. I think I will have a permanent red spot but the folks at Mahaffey say that is okay.
A couple of weeks ago I learned another hard lesson. One of many in this journey. If you keep your stump down for to long it can become bulbous and it will not fit in the prosthetic no matter how hard you push or stomp or how much you move the sleeve around. Boy talk about frustration, I have got my final leg, well final for now, but that's a story for another time. Anyway I had tried for over thirty minutes to get my leg on and then the next day I tried about the same amount of time. The third day I got up all excited to put on that new leg, oh yea let me show you this beauty. Being a child of the 60's I grew up withe the Gemini and Apollo space programs. I was in the third grade when we landed on the moon. And the there was the t.v. shows Lost In Space and Star Trek. I was hooked and have loved every thing to with our solar system and beyond. This love for the stars was passed to our daughter and our son Orden J.T. Because of my interest I have and in memory of our son I picked this star field, stars, and plants pattern for my leg.
Okay, now back to my story. I tried to put my leg on and it went right on with the first try, not. I tried and I tried, and I tried. I dropped my sleeve into my leg and it went in just fine, so I tried again. I tried without a sock no luck. I moved the pin all over the place on my stump, no luck. After an hour and a lot of frustration and a stump that was starting to hurt I called the good folks at Mahaffey. Jeff got on the phone with us and tried to talk us through the process and still no luck. Then Jeff said he would like to take a look at my stump so he face timed us, I mean you talk about above and beyond. Anyway after watching me and Gayla try about a dozen different thing he looked at my stump and said it looked pretty bulbous. He recommended putting my shrinkers back on and keeping it up, and so I did. The next day I tried and after about 10 minutes I was able to get my stump into my leg. So if you have a below the knee amputation watch that stump closely and try and keep up as much as possible it may mean wearing your leg that day or not.
This process has been and continues to be more involved then I thought it would be. I am ready to be walking normally, but right now it's halting and jerky steps with the cane or still some wheelchair time. Of course the walker offers greater mobility, but it takes both hands so I can't carry anything. But I plod on. And as I do I remember that no matter how bad the trials seem to be I am not alone, I have Gayla at my side. We have a loving family, church family, neighbors, and friends old and new praying for us. And I have a loving God who has come in the form of the Holy Spirit walking and guiding me daily. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you...But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 14:16-17, 16:13.
I pray you find some encouragement from this, and thanks again for dropping by,
A Panhandle Pastor
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