Given that this whole blog is made up mostly of me not posting, I'll not apologise for it. This time, anyway, I have a good excuse - I spent three and a half weeks in hospital, from May 8th to June 1st. It was more heart surgery, second attempt (this time successful) to give me a working tricuspid valve. Things got a little bit complicated afterwards, as I had some fluid round my right lung which wouldn't go away, but they got on top of it eventually with the use of drains.
I will confess that I quite like hospital, in some ways. Life is stripped down to the bare essentials of eating, sleeping and hopefully not being in pain. In a sense, that is easy. It's not easy if you are in pain or unable to eat or sleep, but at least your options are simple and all the extraneous details which assault you in ordinary life are taken away. Now I'm out, and there's paperwork to be done again, and money to think about. No, it's wrong to think of these things as extraneous - they are necessary, but it is hard for me to muster the enthusiasm to properly tackle them.
But I find the big things easier to sort through than all the little things. I can think of Jesus on the cross when I have a drain between my ribs, and ask Him unite my own meagre suffering with His and try to be gracious about it*, but paperwork - paperwork! I'm just not very good at it and it makes me grumpy.
I suppose He was born in a stable far from home as a result of Augustus Caesar's insistence on paperwork. That probably means something. It probably means I should get my medical certificate in the post today and quit complaining.
*That's not to say I succeed in being gracious about it - pain often makes me grumpy too, but at least the discomfort usually conspires to keep me fairly quiet through such grumpiness. I am not, by any means, a saintly invalid.
I will confess that I quite like hospital, in some ways. Life is stripped down to the bare essentials of eating, sleeping and hopefully not being in pain. In a sense, that is easy. It's not easy if you are in pain or unable to eat or sleep, but at least your options are simple and all the extraneous details which assault you in ordinary life are taken away. Now I'm out, and there's paperwork to be done again, and money to think about. No, it's wrong to think of these things as extraneous - they are necessary, but it is hard for me to muster the enthusiasm to properly tackle them.
But I find the big things easier to sort through than all the little things. I can think of Jesus on the cross when I have a drain between my ribs, and ask Him unite my own meagre suffering with His and try to be gracious about it*, but paperwork - paperwork! I'm just not very good at it and it makes me grumpy.
I suppose He was born in a stable far from home as a result of Augustus Caesar's insistence on paperwork. That probably means something. It probably means I should get my medical certificate in the post today and quit complaining.
*That's not to say I succeed in being gracious about it - pain often makes me grumpy too, but at least the discomfort usually conspires to keep me fairly quiet through such grumpiness. I am not, by any means, a saintly invalid.
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