Blind-sided Recovery, Part One 

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 You mean it’s not May? Boy, am I out of touch. Last week, the bandages came off, one on the left pointer finger, another, a contact over the left eye healing from PRK surgery. If only my eye was healed. Then perhaps I would have seen my digit finger slip behind the car door as it slammed shut. Ouch!

Blindsided I yelled my predicament. My Maria and chauffeur hadn’t pressed the car key’s fob to lock. And she froze. My right hand fought shock to open the door. Out came my finger oozing red where the cuticle met the fingernail.

One reason for the laser surgery was to be rid of the bottle glass lens that my left eye needed to see two inches and beyond. The lens blocked peripheral vision on the left. Angels and family would intervene when I drifted left into people and cars.

An x-ray showed no fracture. The doctor thought I would lose the nail, but I could write once the throbbing and bleeding stopped.

If solutions were only that simple: resume life when the pain stops. Some think we can imagine peace to erase woes that we can channel the inner buddha to end suffering and find compassion. Some have the audacity to hope that charm can finesse an agenda for utopia. 

Others of which I am guilty, escape into diversions that fuel more woes.

So I struggle to finish this piece begun ten days ago. Now it truly is May. Blindsided by the lack of left vision, I stumble in a world of many humanist woes. He who overcomes this world takes my bruised hand to balance them on the keys below QWERTY...

CLIPD* tip: Green Tea & Skin Sympathy

In the mirror was a lady sun burned and wishing she could do what she told her family to do to be skin healthy:

• Apply SPF 30 sunscreen, 30 minutes before you know you'll be outdoors.
  
• Drink green tea. Antioxidant rich, Purdue researchers found it kept cancer cells at bay.
  
• Wear a wide-brimmed cotton or straw hat between 10 am to 4 pm. (Southern ways would have you remove it once indoors.)
  
• Use cooled, moist green tea bags to soothe off sunburn or puffy eyelids. Lie down, close eyelids and apply bags for 10-15 minutes.
  
• Dab green aloe vera gel or blue emu cream over mild sunburn to cool it down.
  
• Bathe in tea. Hang five, fragrant tea bags on the spigot and let the warm water flow. Relax in the fragrance. (more beauty ideas at Bigelow Tea)
  

*Cindy's Leanings In Personal Downsizing

THE FUZZY-EYED ONE THING

The nurse guided me into the theater for my first Lasik operation. I couldn't fix on her face, the machines, the doctor or his assistant, my eyes so fuzzy,so nearsighted. Nerves tingled. I tried to joke. But in my heart I secretly wanted ONE THING besides laser sharpened vision: a Jewish prayer spoken over me.

As a boy my eye doctor Sabbath walked on Squirrel Hill, where immigrants clustered on the plateau between the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers. When we lived nearby we often drove those streets of gentrified homes, boutiques, and a kosher market. There also stood synagogues with carved Hebrew scripts.

I could imagine Doc E, a young lad in his yarmulke, walking those streets. He told me friends passed him tracts and books, writings he read when no one was looking. He grew to read and study many tomes. On his office wall are the fruit of his studies a plethora of degrees in fine, black calligraphy. On another wall hung another item, scripts over a watercolor wash.

"That one has backward print," MBH, my beloved hubby teased.

We recognized the Hebrew, with English to indicate "a Jewish prayer." In the waiting room I also caught sight of an odd book, a Jewish Bible, in English with Yiddish-like words sprinkled about its pages. It contained the Pentateuch, Psalms, Proverbs, and the Prophets.But it also included books and letters I first read in college, writings that drew me to a rational and spiritual faith.

The very faith that rested on the doctor and his son who assisted him. MBH and I bonded with the son at the initial visit when he asked, "I sense something . . . are you believers?"

We learned the son was a great worship leader who knew to Whom he prayed.

Before my double eye operation, I silently begged God for a Jewish prayer. I told my family my wish. I just couldn't tell anyone in the office.

The last time someone prayed in hospital over me was back on the mission field. While a German Pediatrician breathed O2 into my firstborn, my beloved, a Nepali nurse, and Irish midwife stood near me. Hours of night labor ended in joy as my Aussie doctor laid hands on me to praise and pray.

Decades later, before double-eye surgery, joy welled again as Doc E and son laid hands on me. One of them prayed aloud,"Messiah Yeshua, ..."

During the post-operation visit, joy sparkled like 4th of July fireworks.

"Thanks for your prayer," I told Doc E and son. "Did my husband tell you to pray?"

"Nope. We always have a prayer before we go into surgery. We do it every morning with the first patient."

"Not this time," I beamed, "The first patient went in... before me."

God of wonders beyond all galaxies . . .

HOBBY LOBBY EASTER BLESSINGS

Two weeks ago we returned from the land of great friends, the land of Northern layoffs. A friend from another land of layoffs came this week to visit her daughter and grandkids near us. So I planned an Easter soiree with an egg hunt for them! I needed plastic eggs.

“Mom . . .are you going to Hobby Lobby?” Bud’s questions often led to Buddy answers. “Every time you go , you call Mrs. W!”

Of the ten trips to Hobby Lobby, I believe I only talked thrice with my Heart to Heart Friend. The first chat was under an hour; okay, maybe it was an hour. I walked up and down two, okay, maybe three 66% Off aisles, but I know I only bought one item, even though my kids stood arms crossed, snidely commenting, feet shifting . . . for an hour.

Though the Northern church arranged that we be friends, Mrs. W and I still connect often. This Holy Week the family received an Easter Card with her blessings.

Which brings me back to Hobby Lobby Easter blessings. For those not in the states, Hobby Lobby is an arts and crafts mega store, full of everything artsy plus home décor. The CEO operates his stores by the Good Book. Hobby Lobby employees have Sundays off and weekdays they get off early enough to spend evenings with their families. The workers seem happy, especially Uncle or “Tito Nacio.” 

Bud and I first connected with Uncle last year. When I overheard his Pinoy accent I rushed over to him and chatted about pancit, adobo, and other garlic delights. Bud would hunt him up every time we visited.

“Kumusta Ka?" Tito asked how I was. I would fumble “Mubuti naman” which I know my mom would correct to the high form, “Mubuti po naman,” or “Fine, sir.”

We should have bought our plastic eggs from him, instead of the folks at the market. But Providence had us return the eggs to that market where we saw Uncle typing on a computer. In an orange vest, a motorcycle helmet beside his feet, he was not at his second job.

We tried to chat happy with him because Hobby Lobby wasn’t closing. But fewer we learned would remain to do the same workload.

As we exited, Buddy shocked me. “Mom, didn’t he break your heart?”

My eyes popped. I fumbled, “Honey, Daddy’s my sweet heart. Uncle can’t break my heart...”

“I mean ‘sad,” it’s so sad,” he quickly corrected.

The land of layoff invades the South like Kudzu sucking the life of forests or the death angel killing the Egyptian first-born but saving those under the blood of lambs.

This Easter I pray joy for the sad, the jobless. I appeal to the Lamb who willingly laid down His life to bring us true joy.
Jesus died and rose to mend broken hearts and erase sad with Easter glad.
Allelujah!

CLIPD* tip: Dining Out

1. Find local mom and pop restaurants. They tend to be less expensive.
2. Eat out once a week on a off night. We try to do our date night on a Thursday.
3. Ask for water. I like it with a twist of lemon. It's still free.
4. Don't hurry. The longer you chew, the less you'll eat.
5. Eat out when the prices are lower-like happy hour or during lunchtime.
6. Buy dessert elsewhere, like a market bakery,where you may buy a whole pie for the price of two restaurant desserts. Then you can share it with the kids after your date night out.

*Cindy's Leanings In Personal Downsizing