Angel's Trumpet

Our friend, whose wife has lupus, had a medical scare. She combined an over the counter drug with her other drugs and was within an hour of death. She had developed an e-coli based pneumonia in her lungs and it was winning. She spent a week in ICU and is now home.

She phoned. The news was scary but the good news is that this episode had opened her eyes. She had spent the last few years totally drugged and lying in bed all day and night. She demanded to be waited on. Her weight dramatically increased which had made everything more difficult.

She is now walking and staying out of bed. She was proud to tell me that she walked around her house 24 times yesterday. Her next goal is the mailbox and from there, she plans to eventually walk around the block. Baby steps. Such a positive change. I guess she has finally chosen to live well with a bad diagnosis.

Because of all my long phone calls yesterday – even Christien phoned from North Carolina and we chatted for a couple of hours – my portable phone went dead in the middle of the conversation with our friend’s wife.

I ran to our bedroom to plug in the FAX machine and grabbed that phone when she tried to reconnect. So there I sat, on the floor of our bedroom looking into the garden.

Last summer, we planted an Angel’s Trumpet plant just outside our bedroom window. We were thrilled when the first blooms became to expand to produce the most wonderful, huge trumpets. It was rather windy and I was delighted to watch the large bells appear to “ring” with the breeze.

It was just a reminder to me to appreciate the little things in life and that, even with the scary downward change in my health, life goes on. The seasons change. The earth abides.