Random Thought of the Day--Pain Tolerance

Yesterday my pinball machine of a brain hit on the topic of pain tolerance. I know a lot of people with a low pain threshold. I knew a girl years ago with a low tolerance for pain. When she was giving birth to her first baby, she actually started to get up from the delivery room bed because she was "done."  Of course, giving birth is not a low-pain activity for anyone.  I have a high threshold for pain, but I had a couple complications and I screamed at least once during delivery.  Which brings me to my point.

I think a lot of people assume that if someone has a high tolerance for pain, it means that they don't feel pain like most others. That is a ridiculous notion!  While there are people who do not feel pain (something rare and dangerous), most of us do.  The phrases "high tolerance" and "low tolerance" are exactly that.  Some people can feel the same pain, but their level of withstanding that pain is different.  I do have a high pain threshold, but if you hit me with a hammer, it is still going to hurt!

It may sound strange, but if I know the source of my pain, I can tolerate it better.  In 1984 I started having horrible pains and ended up in the hospital. For four days they did not know what was wrong with me.  In those four days, I had roughly 30 pain-killer shots. As soon as they found out that it was an ovarian cyst, my level of pain dropped drastically because it was no longer unknown.  Of course, I did have surgery to remove it, as I was not willing to put up with the pain just because I knew what it was!

Another thing that helps me with pain tolerance, when I am going through things like kidney stones, is knowing that as bad as I hurt, someone out there is in worse pain than I am, and is possibly dying. That doesn't make me feel good about being in pain, but it helps me focus on others and to pray for them as I pray for my pain to stop.

A little silliness to end with--I have always said that you can cut my arm off and it wouldn't hurt that much, but give me a paper cut and it hurts like the dickens!

*Sigh*

I hate that I keep waiting so long to write.  I will be home a little more now, so maybe I will be a little better about it.  Even if I am the only one who ever sees it (although I hope I'm not), I need to keep it up.  I enjoy sharing my thoughts with others.  Sometimes they are not very interesting, but once in awhile I think I say something that someone can use.  I'm off to make tacos right now, but hopefully I will think of something to write when supper is over.  :)

Mountaintop and Valley Experiences

We all have mountaintop and valley experiences. The mountaintop experiences (when things are going great for us) are definitely the best, but if it weren't for the valley experiences (when things are not going so well) we probably wouldn't appreciate the mountaintop experiences as much. When we are on top of the mountain we sometimes tend to forget why we are there. We suddenly think we climbed to the top of the mountain on our own, forgetting that God brought us there. It is when we are in the valleys that we remember God is the only one who can get us out.

This morning I had an interesting thought about this whole topic. I came to the realization that sometimes we fling ourselves off of the mountain. We are on top of the mountain, and things are going great, but we make some choices that are not very wise, and in essence, we throw ourselves from the mountain top and begin to tumble toward the valley. As I sit here in a valley, I now know that while I am not completely responsible for being here, I could have probably avoided this particular valley by making a few wiser choices.

Yikes, not happy with myself.

I can't believe how long I have gone without writing. I feel like I am never at home anymore (maybe because I'm not), but that's no excuse. I keep thinking of things I want to write about, but then I end up forgetting. I can't promise anything, but I will try to do better. :)

Our Christmas Tree Star

When I was 8 1/2 years old we moved from San Diego, California to Kansas City, Missouri. We were there a few months, and around the time I turned nine we moved to nearby Independence, Missouri. The moving company had added extra charges and fees to our bill and we were not able to get our furniture for a few months. We sat on wood orange crates and slept on mattresses on the floor.

When Christmas came, we could not afford much, but we had a tree and some inexpensive lights and ornaments. We had nothing to put on the top of the tree, so my dad made a star. It was nothing fancy. He cut a star out of heavy black construction paper. He cut a hole in the middle for a yellow light to go through. Finally he covered the black star with a pretty matte gold wrapping paper (not the bright shining foil wrap, but it had sparkle to it).

Over the years my mom's and dad's finances improved and we added lots of pretty ornaments, but since 1966 nothing else has ever topped my family's Christmas tree.

It's an Aardvark!

I am going to talk about some of my favorite Christmas memories in my next few blog posts.

One of my favorite Christmases involved an aardvark!

One year when my sister and I were in our early teens, I asked her (jokingly--I never really want to know) what she had gotten me for Christmas. She said, "It's an aardvark." For a few years after that, every birthday and Christmas one of us would ask the other what the other had gotten for her, and we would answer, "It's an aardvark." Then, when I was 17 or 18 and she was 15 or 16, I found a stuffed aardvark toy at Sears! Diana asked me again that year what I had gotten her, and I responded, "It's an aardvark." The look on Diana's face when she opened the gift and saw "Artie" the aardvark inside was priceless!

The Cat is Always Greener... er, Oh Something Like That!

Our dog Cubbie likes to go with me to check the mail. I keep him on a leash, as he gets very excited if not on it and jumps on me. Our cat Tony comes with us. Ever since Tony's brother Carlos died, Tony wants more attention from Cubbie. For some reason though, Cubbie usually ignores Tony on our walk to and from the mailbox. He is too busy looking at things elsewhere.

Today Cubbie could not be bothered with the cat who was right in his face (literally) because he noticed the two cats across the road. He gave all his attention to them, and if I had let him loose I am sure he would have run over there to chase them. Never mind that there was a cat right there, ready to play with him, he wanted to go play with the neighbor's cats.

Isn't that just like us sometimes? The old saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" (about horses) really does apply to a lot of people. We often cannot be satisfied with what we have. What other people have often looks so much better than what we have. Is it though? Sometimes maybe it is. Over all though, grass is grass, and what we have is perfectly fine. Better to enjoy what you have than to lose it while yearning for something you don't.