Hi all!  Always happy to have your prayer support.  Last few days were a true challenge to manage through, physically speaking.  My speech has become "challenged" once again.  When I first wake up, my good speech pattern mostly will be present, not always though. I have resumed some rocking back and forth in my chair, but am able to ambulate okay.  I do sleep well in the afternoons making it more duable to talk, have good strength and such.  What I have found though, is when the day continues on OR I have to go to the store, I am physically challenged and my speech is more challenged.  I believe it is NOT due to seizures happening as not feel them but neurologically happening quite possibly related to lack of circulation of blood that carries the oxygen that hits my brain.  Also, in drinking my coffee or eating, I am losing the fluid of both out the right side of my mouth and onto me. Sometimes I also miss my mouth completely.  

Yesterday was off the charts of rocking in my chair or pew at church and my speech was rapidly declining. My friends sitting next to me became very worried.  I told them I am ok enough and did, with help, go up front to pray with an elder over personal needs. The elder, my friend, helped me back to my pew.  I was determined to do Basghetti (Spaghetti) on the corner of where I live just 5 mins walking normally to my home.  It is inexpensive there, a cheap meal, and determined to make it home on my own.  I did it but it was extreme challenging and if a nurse saw me or I saw myself as a caregiver, I would have said it was unsafe to actually do.  But, I was very determined to find my way home.  I did it with many stops using my cane to rest on but reached home.  After resting at the table for a few minutes, I made it upstairs and went to bed and slept after doing a call.  I did a lot of self-talk in walking home, (coaching myself). 

What I thought when I woke up was that my symptoms are truly of the Parkinson's disease as having been diagnosed with it, which was my "light-bulb" or "ah hah" moment.  The dots are connecting, but the symptoms are not a slow decline but much more pronounced over the past week and definitely this weekend.  I cannot tell you just how tired I am of the ups and downs I have been on physically and emotionally.  I am at a place I was in the early stages of my many maladies that have hit my body. I find myself being truly ready and welcoming of being with my Savior and out of this tent we call the body as Scripture describes.  At Sunday School, I did express my frustration of prayers for healing now at my age and the plague of ups and downs and what it takes to navigate through them physically and emotionally.  As a Christian, I know and Jesus has taught of the splendor of Heaven and the eternal city of the New Jerusalem and the joy of a new eternal body that is whole and healthy, made to live eternally, and I welcome that.  I do not at all fear dying and I leave my journey the rest of the way up to the Lord and in His good time when He does welcome me home.  

Slobbering at the table, or completely missing my mouth, rocking back and forth that is so much more pronounced and my lack of normal speech, walking well, is as I said at church, IS CRAMPING MY STYLE,  and long to be home now.  That doesn't mean though, I am not getting into trouble in my thought life.  I still short sheet beds, toilet paper homes and all kinds of mischief.  I always have to repent of the trouble in my mind, (ha ha ha) and God's joy and laughter is still abundant in my heart.  It's just the "stuff" my body is going through that's a pain.  So, that's my story and unfortunately am sticking with it.   

Patty Hayes