Sunday, September 2, 2012

#BlogElul 15: Health

Last year during Elul, I received this message from a friend:
Wishing you the sweetest, most joyous, healthiest and most undramatic of years to come....  I would offer a prayer that you be inscribed for a good year but I think you've already pushed God out of the way and written it in yourself! (It's okay; I have it on good authority that God likes being pushed around by the likes of you.)
He was referring to the lengths to which I’d gone during the last year and a half to remain healthy and free of a disease to which I have a genetic predisposition.

In 5771, I spent a total of six nights in the hospital, had two major surgeries—first this one, then this one, which was 12 hours long and included immediate reconstruction using my own abdominal tissue—and stayed at home recovering for weeks…and I wasn’t sick.

In 5772, I had a minor same-day procedure to tweak the results of one of the earlier surgeries and spent a week recovering at home.

In the earliest days of 5773 (just before Yom Kippur), I’ll have a minor, in-the-plastic-surgeon’s-office procedure to put the finishing touches on the most recent surgery.  Early in 2013, I’ll have follow-up laser treatments on some heavy-duty scarring caused by a wound and, if all goes well, I will be D.O.N.E.

Although I’m not sure that I “pushed God out of the way,” I definitely made some tough choices that, even as the whole ordeal fades into the rear view mirror, have left me with deep physical and emotional scars.

In 5773 may these scars continue to fade and may we all be inscribed for a year of health and blessing.

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