Aches and Praise Five Hundred & Seventy Four

September 9, 2022
 
 
Dear friends,  
 

After spending more than 20 hours in the emergency room of a hospital last weekend, I have a new appreciation for my wife, for doctors, and for all who work in health care. Since returning home on Monday, I have realized how important friendship is and how we all need others in many areas of our life.

What I had experienced earlier that day was a loss of memory of what was happening in our lives at the moment. Fearing that I may have had a stroke, Karen insisted that we go to the Royal Victoria Hospital to have them check me for anything going on in my brain.

They did a CT scan and everything looked normal. They are booking me for an MRI and an EEG at the Neuro in Montreal, in the next few weeks. They are wanting to make sure that there are no further issues in the brain. 

The family was concerned about mini strokes but they assured us that in talking to me about how things transpired and the tests they put me through, plus doing a memory test and checking my reflexes that there was no need to keep me at the hospital and that I have not experienced this. I have also had no seizures.

I’ve lost 30 pounds since Christmas and my GP is investigating the cause. There is no answer yet. The memory issues are still unexplained. I’ve experienced some memory lapses over the last few months but Sunday was acute. The things that I couldn’t recall on Sunday have come back to my mind.

Karen and I have been sitting down every morning and prioritizing what we will do that day. I’m taking time to rest right now. We are slowing the pace to a reasonable amount of responsibilities and activities. I thought I could do it all, but I hit a wall. Thank you for praying for me.

Last December, Karen and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary and thanked the Lord for the many, many blessings He has given us over the years. In the Bible, the number 40 is associated with testing. The following link provides some examples of this: https://www.womanofnoblecharacter.com/40-in-the-bible/. As the author points out, many trials which are recorded in the Bible ended in triumph.

I am grateful for Karen taking such good care of me and for sitting with me in the ER, while medical personnel attended to many people with various needs. We sat beside a friendly man who was born in Trinidad, which brought back memories of Alfred Ramcharan, a dedicated teacher in my high school who phoned his students the night before an exam to ask if we had any questions about the Mathematics material.

I am also grateful for the four amazing children that the Lord has given Karen and me and for our pastor and friends, who care deeply for us. In the busyness of life, we can easily forget how we need to focus on what is most important: the Word of God and people. Thank you for your prayers for me, for Karen, for our family, and for the ministry which the Lord has entrusted to us. I look forward to receiving your prayer requests.

Scripture for the weekend: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

Thought for the weekend: “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” – Thomas Carlyle (from Robert J. Morgan’s book “Mastering Life Before It’s Too Late”)

 

By His grace,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
Steve

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