My Big Toe

    Frustration sets in when you are laid up and cannot walk. Two days ago I woke up with gout in my big toe, by the next afternoon it had spread to my ankle. I can't have this in my life right now!!!! I have too much to do!!! Where did this come from? Everything I read online and also speaking to my doctor helped me to realize I am on the right track. My new eating lifestyle is just causing toxins to be released into my body, that toxin just happens to be uric acid and has settled in the joint of my big toe. How can I turn this around for something good? Well I am thankful for my husband and children that are willing to serve and help around the house. I am thankful for my mother-in-law that brings me things like Cherries and cherry juice concentrate (which is great for healing gout).

   What can I learn or share with you about my lessons learned from gout? I know it sounds so stupid to think about finding a lesson in gout but I think I have it. Sharp, piercing, needle like crystal's forming in the joints causing extreme pain in whatever joint they form in. Then I realize that this uric acid came from inside of me, being released from where it was stored in the weight I am losing. I go and do something good for myself only to seem like it is getting worse. I am not giving up!!! This is the time to grit my teeth and bear through it.

    Do you ever have pain in your life when you feel like you are doing everything right? Sometimes that pain is caused from things that were in us whether recent or long ago. Limiting beliefs that when once we make changes start to manifest themselves in our lives. Too often we give up and tend to go back to our limiting beliefs. Well, God tells you in Rom.8:37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. The bible also tells us in this same chapter that if God is for us who can be against us? Amidst the pain don't give up!!! Keep believing!! Keep doing what you know is good for you and you will conquer it!!

    I hope something as ridiculous as me and my big toe will help you and the ("Sharp, piercing, needle like crystal's" that you might be experiencing in your life), be a great illustration to press on and don't give up. Eventually they will break apart and you will move ahead in life once again one "step" at a time.

A Reason to Celebrate 13 years!!!

It is amazing how one phone call can literally change your life forever. Sitting in the movies on June 5, 1999 getting ready to watch October Sky when the phone call came. Not realizing that we ( Me & Hubby) should answer it we chose to ignore it. Not once but twice!! The third call came and we guessed someone was trying to get ahold of us. Not even 5 minutes into our movie and we get interrupted. Although this interruption is the kind you want to get you when you have been hooking up to a dialysis machine for the last 18 months. My hubby came back into the theater after taking the call and says "Life link called and they have a kidney for you". Leaving the theater I called Life link and heard these wonderful words "it is a perfect match, you won the lottery on this one. The only way you get a match this good is if somebody is living related to you". I hung up the phone and knew this is it!!! I guess they say third times the charm, this was the third time. I had been called twice several months before and those did not work out ( that is for another blog).

Off I went to receive the gift that would free me from hooking up to a machine every night. On June 6th 1999 I received a kidney transplant. Every year has been a celebration of life since.Today marks my 13th celebration of life. Each year I celebrate, I thank God for the gift I was given. Then my focus changes to not only thankfulness for my gift but also thankfulness for the family that decided to give that gift amidst their loss and tragedy. My gift came from the family of an 18 year old boy who died from a gunshot wound to the head. What a sacrificial gift for them as a family to change the lives of others when they had just experienced a tragedy.

  I encourage everyone to become an organ donor. Because you never know whose life you will affect.Take the time daily to celebrate life because you never know what others might be going through. They might be struggling physically because they have to hook up to a dialysis machine everyday. Or they might have just lost their son tragically. Take the time to celebrate everyone around you. You never know how long you will have them.