Last Wednesday, August 12th, during a routine ultrasound, the technician discovered that my stomach has shifted to my left side under my rib cage and is retaining fluid, so after she called the ordering physician, he sent me to ER. The attending doctor admitted me to the hospital but my primary card doctor discharged me the next day. Because of my complicated my condition, I am safer at home on my specialty wound mattress than in the hospital.

Then, yesterday, I received crushing news from two of my specialists. A culture taken in the hospital revealed that I have a somewhat drug-resistant, life-threatening infection known as pseudomonas. Also, a pressure wound at the base of my spine that I have battled with since 2003 deepened after spending nearly nine hours on an ER gurney last Wednesday.

So, I have to see with my gastroenterologist, wound doctor, and urologist next week.

My wound doctor fears that I will develop osteomyelitis (an infection in my spinal cord), again. I spent nine months in a nursing home in 2004 with this infection and received over 200 IV and oral antibiotics before the doctors could get it under control.

It remains dormant in your body until a crisis causes it to flare up and requires IV antibiotic infusions for six weeks. For me, that means an extended hospital stay.

That said, I view this as an uninvited bump in my long, winding road. A friend of mine put it this way: “I always assume you’re a bemused spectator to this circus of insanity – blaming anyone is pointless.”

He is right. Blame is pointless. I tend to blame myself more than I do others, including my abusers. How odd is that? Anyhow, it is not as if God was unaware of these curve balls thrown my way. I certainly never understand why a loving God allows suffering . . . Most likely, I never will.

Choices. I have mulled over these latest developments. Will I ever walk again? No. So how bad could it be. I will update in a couple of weeks after I see my doctors.

A war rages on inside my mind: logic vs. emotion, reality vs. dreams. Another dear friend warned me not to live in the assumption that the life I dreamed of has ended. It has not. I am simply at another crossroads and must deal with it.

My friends help keep me grounded and out of the well of wallow. I found these encouraging words one morning a few years ago in an offline Yahoo message:

“You have made so much of so little and gathered so much happiness from a well of sadness. It keeps you going and makes your life worth living in your own opinion. Those who know you and love you think you are worth more than it is possible to describe. So lean on those who love you and those who disappear in your time of need are not worth knowing.”

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face…we must do that which we think we cannot.” Eleanor Roosevelt