Red Cells and White Cells and Platelets, Oh My!

BOX SCORE Element Current Std. Range Trend Hemoglobin 11.6 13-17 ^ Platelets 89 140-375 v ANC 1790 1800-8300 ^ Good care is hard to come by. But my medical team is on the ball. I was referred to orthopedics for a consultation about my frozen shoulder. When the ortho department called, they gave me an appointment for April 17th. They also put me on a cancellation list, in case something came up sooner. Well, thank the Lord, I got an email on Monday offering me an appointment for yesterday.  I saw a physician's assistant named Mike. He confirmed the diagnosis of frozen shoulder ( adhesive capsulitis) and suggested a cortisone injection to help relieve the inflammation. This won...

BOX SCORE Element Current Std. Range Trend Hemoglobin 11.4 13-17 ^ Platelets 125 140-375 ^ ANC 1250 1800-8300 v I can't believe how long it's been since I posted. This happens when my blood counts are up, and we have the opportunity to be out and about. In fact, my ANC has been above 1000 since January 19th. We have been able to attend church in person. We have gone out to eat...more than once. We have been able to visit with friends and family. Last weekend we had breakfast at the Original Pancake House (I know; there's one in your town, but it must be a fake cuz the one in Salem claims to be the original, and they couldn't put that on their sign if it weren't tr...

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7). I love it because, as our Pastor Ben preached last Sunday morning, it turned the world upside down. Ben's sermon covered the Beatitudes. The English word Beatitude is derived from the Latin beātitūdō , which can  be translated roughly "perfect happiness." The Gospel according to Matthew, like the rest of the New Testament, was written in Greek, so what we have in our English Bibles has been translated from Ancient Greek, and sometimes something may be lost in translation. The word translated "blessed" derives from the Greek word μακάριος (makarios) which means something like "supremely happy" or "to be congratulated." Sorry for the detour into linguistic nerdiness, but I want to help you understand what I am writing about today.  As Ben spoke about the Beatitudes this morning, he made the point that they are not a list of virtues. That is to say...