Self diagnosis, Pray for Grandpa

I missed church for both services Sunday because I had waited too long to go to the doctor. I had a mild fever Thursday night but did not seem too badly off on Friday evening at Chappell Hill. I was hurting with the normal pains of diverticulitis but thought the worst was over. Saturday night proved otherwise. My fever shot up to about 102 overnight and the pain was pretty intense. It was time to get help.

Mama and I go to the Urgent Care Clinic in Decatur because we do not have  a doctor nearer than Bowie and he does not see patients on Sunday morning - and because they are less difficult to work with and much less expensive than the emergency room. But like all medical personnel, they are skeptical of self diagnosis.

Megan, our attending health care provider (I am not sure of her certification or licensure status) was not overly thrilled about my understanding of what I needed her to do but as she asked her diagnostic questions and poked on me in a couple places, she came around to agreeing that I had a case of diverticulitis and prescribed accordingly; shot in the hip and all. When she got a feel for the level of pain I was in, she was genuinely caring.

I am better now but I realize I will have to be careful since I am not certain what triggered the incident; whether it was something I had eaten or something over which I had worried excessively. I am always impressed just how much happens in the subconscious while we seem to be overlooking the very things that are causing us such concern that our bodies suffer the consequences. (Sometimes silently. Sometimes for years.)

God is able to meet our every need so I try not to worry, especially over the things that I cannot influence, much less control. But this last round of pain may be telling me I am giving myself too much benefit of the doubt.

Between Monday and today Mama and I sold the rake to a kind elderly gentleman that traveled all the way from Turkey, TX to get it for his son who was recovering from back surgery. We had a fit loading the rake onto his utility trailer but we finally figured it out. I do not have Grandpa’s wealth of experience with either the front loader on the tractor or placing equipment in difficult accesses.

In the process we slightly bent his fender on the passenger side of the trailer and we completely tore up the wheels on the dolly of the rake. But he was thrilled to have it and we were thrilled to sell it. We will use that money to but two head of registered Red Angus heifers from my sister Sarah and her husband Fabian.

We also turned our cattle out onto the neighbors field so they can be bred by his bull. The bull paid us a little visit on Sunday morning so we took down the portion of fence he had already used as access to allow our heifers to mosey onto the large one hundred acer pasture. Our wild heifer was uncooperative and Mama would have shot her there and then if she had had a gun, but there were no animals hurt in the exodus from Mama Kim’s farm. We will fetch them back in a couple months.

Mama heads to Amarillo in the morning to take Grandpa to the hospital there for a heart oblation procedure. She, Grandma and Grandpa will be there Thursday and Friday nights. If all goes well they will be home Saturday afternoon.

Pray for Grandpa. He needs the healing this surgery is supposed to provide; and he is very hopeful of a good outcome.

Pray for Mama. She will need traveling mercies…and an extra measure of grace.