Previously: My Testimony of the ChurchRegular readers of this blog will be thrilled to learn that this post will be mercifully short, because I'm going to spend it mostly explaining why there will be no post this month. The reason is that frankly, at the moment I can't see well enough to write anything. In fact, you wanna hear something really tragic? I haven't even been able to watch TV for the past three days, my eyes are so bad. My daughter Amy, who is now grown with a family of her own, fondly remembers a lesson I often taught the children when they were young and clamoring for my attention: "Television is more important than family. Leave me alone."
So you can imagine how much I miss TV. I can't read, and I can't watch TV. My eyes can't focus on anything. Everything I try to look at swims before my eyes, which is why even now I am not writing this myself. I am dictating these words to Amy, who has kindly consented to type them out for me in spite of her own tragic upbringing.
So here is what happened: For some weeks I have not felt very well at all, and then a few days ago I got really sick. I mean incredibly sick. Sicker than I think I have ever been if you don't count those many miserable bouts of pneumonia related to my chronic asthma. This was different, and left me with some weird severe equilibrium imbalance that has me knocking sideways into walls and opening the bathroom door into my own face. It would be quite comical had I seen this happening to somebody else. My stumbling about has managed to provide Amy with a laugh or two, though she quickly changes her expression to a worried look of concern when she sees her mother watching. (Note from Amy: not true. I was very worried and did not see anything funny about it at all.)
Anyway, I was so helpless that I was unable to keep balanced enough in the kitchen to fix Connie's meals, so I called Amy and asked her to come over for a couple of days and look after us. You know how in the movies there's that effect where we see the room swimming from another person's point of view? I thought that was just in the movies, since I had never gone through anything like that myself. It turned out in this case to be exactly like that, and when I tried to walk from my bed to the bathroom it was like trying to make my way through that flying saucer shaped centrifugal force carnival ride while it's going full tilt.
Yesterday there was a small window of time in which I felt somewhat better so I sat at my desk intending to catch up with email. I read and responded to one email, then it all started swimming again and my eyes went out of focus. That is why I have Amy as my hands and eyes at the computer screen right now. I have been all but helpless for three days now, and both womenfolk have ganged up and persuaded me to go into the doctor and find out why I seem to be turning into Annette Funicello. So I will do that tomorrow.
In the meantime, August is rapidly dwindling and I have not yet posted the piece I intended to this month, and I wanted to write about it while the topic is still timely. With this imbalance thing, I don't know how soon I will get to it, and I don't know how much longer Amy will be in the mood to kowtow to my incessant requests, so we are taking this opportunity to refer you to some blogger friends who, it so happens, have already covered what I had intended to, so the best writing on the topic has already been done. I am not needed now, except to help spread the word. Many of my readers have written wondering what can be done to help move us to a more Zion society, and I think this is a worthy start, particularly for those of you currently residing on the Wasatch Front who might have some unneeded material goods to assist with. Here are those links:
Bare Record of Truth: Circle the Wagons
LDS Perfect Day: Participate in a Modern Day Circling of the Wagons
The Voice of One Passing Through
In the event anyone is interested in my dizzy little adventure, when my eyes are able to focus again, if I get any answers from my doctor I will mention the outcome in the comment section below, or have Amy write something there.
Anyway, weird, huh? Apparently the room does swirl around and around just like in the movies, and even when I'm lying on the bed with my eyes closed it often feels like I am spinning around on the edge of a whirlpool. I'll bet later I will wish I enjoyed that sensation more instead of letting it scare the hell out of me.
Oh, by the way, I usually keep up with comments daily, but have not been able to get to any of the comments on my other posts here for about a week. So if someone has asked me a question directly and not received a response, this is why. Ditto if you have sent me an email and not heard back.
Well, we're going to wrap this up. Amy is already starting to complain about how she would rather be watching TV than spending time with her father. Kids today. I don't know where she gets it.
