Halftime!

Greetings,

I am please to let all of you know that Christine and I have returned from our trip to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix.  We have come home with a treatment plan that has instilled hope in us.  It will involve a number of different approaches from tapering back meds to counseling with an approach to chronic pain management to excercise.  I will be paying close attention to my body and the messages that it is sending to me.  Overall, we were pleased with our trip.  The road to recovery will be difficult but I am confident.

Today, I want to share with you something that I believe I have shared before.  There is one thing that we learned at the clinic which is absolute...I can't remember anything.  So, if this post sounds amazingly familiar it could be due to the fact that you might have read it before.  Anyhow, here it goes.

Coming back from Mayo is an interesting experience.  One reason is that you are placed on a new track for recovery.  The other reason, for me at least, is that it gives you the sense of starting over.  The teast that I endured over those 10 days have showm me that there are just as many things are right with as wrong with me.  And in that realization comes hope.  Today is a new day for me.  Today is a new day to begin again.  I have experienced days like this before and ended up right back where I started before hope took hold of me.  The great thing about today is that I can take all of those days in the past where my hope had been dashed or my excitement curtailed and think of them for what they really are...the past.  For 10 days we heard about the damage that occurred because of my previous brain surgeries.  Believe me it gets very old hearing, "Your problem is that you have had three too many brain surgeries."  I agree wholeheartedly with that but, unfortunately, that knowledge gets me know where closer to recovery.  I can't change that fact all I can do is move froward from today doing things that I can do today...right now!

Andy Andrews, who I quote often, wrote in his book "The Traveler's Gift" about Gabriel the Archangel who tells the main character David Ponder that "Nothing is as unimportant than the score at halftime".  What a great philosophy!  Nothing is as unimportant than what has already happened because what has already happened can be changed, fixed, addressed, or reversed by what we do today!  All of my health issues that have plagued me in the past occurred in the first half!  In other words I have the second half to go.  It doesn't matter that I have three too many brain surgeries.  What matters is what am I going to do about it in the second half!

I have seen sports teams that have been massacred in the first half of games and come back onto the field or court and recover, some ending up even winning!  No, my life after the Mayo Clinic is not the ned of my story.  What I realized about my visit is that nothing is as unimportant than what happened yesterday.  I have today and today is a day to begin again.  Yes, I admit that I have been pounded pretty good in the first half but that half is over.  It is time for me to catch my breath, get a drink from the water of life and go back out there determined to change the score!

What about about you?  I am sure that all of us try and deal with the problems of our pasts.  Sometimes it is unavoidable.  But how many of refuse to get back in the game because the first half score seems insurmountable.  Let me assure you...it is NOT!  So, learn from the first half experience, adjust your thinking our your attitude and get come out in the second half ready to fight the good fight.  Remeber, nothing is as unimportant as the score at halftime.

I will be praying for you today as you set your sights towards the second half.  Get out there and kick some butt!!!!

Blessings,

Derek