Hope

Christmas has always been a time for hope.
What is hope? How do you define hope?
How often do you use the word hope?

I HOPE I get that book I want for Christmas.
It's called Braiding Sweetgrass.
It's one of those books that's so good you can hardly bear to read it. I checked it out from our library after being put on the waiting list for 4 weeks and then read only a small part of it. But I got busy with Christmas preparations and gift buying and didn't pick it back up again until it was 5 days past due. I couldn't renew it because someone else wants to check it out. This is the sort of book that must be savored. No rushing through this thing, so I put my name on the wait list again. Hopefully I get it for a christmas gift and then I can highlight and underline all of the great quotes.

I HOPE it snows soon.
We had a Blizzard that dropped a foot of snow a couple of weeks back.
Since then nothing. The snow is all melted and it's just mind-numbing cold outside.
I'd rather have snow than this bitter cold.

I HOPE her leg heals.
My granddaughter developed an infection on her ankle from a cut. We don't know where or how she cut herself. But after a week we noticed a dramatic change in the color of her skin and in the amount of swelling surrounding her ankle. They diagnosed her with MRSA.
She is 5 years old. They gave her oral antibiotics which didn't work. And her leg developed cellulitis.
So they lanced the wound, drained it and started her on a different antibiotic. This one worked.
I was so relieved. They were thinking about admitting her to the hospital to start IV antibiotics.
I don't mind telling you ladies that I was scared...so very scared for this beautiful granddaughter of mine. I had a pretty stern talk with God and told Him He had better start listening to and answering the prayers of this family.

I HOPE I don't have to do that again.
On Sunday I felt a tiny bit of chest pain. Like a pin prick. No big deal. Then it did it again.
And again and again. Recently I have developed high blood pressure, and started a new medication, so I thought maybe I should check my blood pressure, just to see if my numbers were up.
Boy were they up!
The first reading was 165/94. I stared at those numbers like I had never seen a number before.
So I took it again. 189/106.
Then I took it with the other arm...191/108.
Since my husband works at the fire department, we drove down there to manually check my numbers since I use a blood pressure machine at home.
My husband checked it with the manual cuff and got 189/111.
He then asked one of the medics to hook me up to the actual ambulance to check my pressure.
The ambulance said my blood pressure was 227/127.
So they strapped me in and away we went to the hospital with lights and sirens blaring.
My anxiety went through the roof!
I was in the emergency room for four hours being monitored for a heart attack and a stroke.
In the end, it turned out that I just needed to up my blood pressure medications a bit and learn to
calm.the.fuck.down.    Anxiety is not for the feint of heart I can tell you.
I HOPE I learn to control my anxiety a lot better in the coming weeks.
I've started doing Yoga and also I've started to watch and listen to Meditation videos on Youtube,
so I HOPE that helps me as well.

My definition of the word HOPE always seems to be asking for something, or wanting something.

How about you? What's your definition of HOPE?

I HOPE and pray that all of you have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!
(just incase I don't post again between now and then)

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly