...isn’t going very well. That would mostly be because I have pneumonia. Well, maybe have pneumonia. I am hoping to avoid the whole going to the hospital part - instead I am on an oral antibiotic, Levaquin, to be exact. One of the big-guns. I am not sure it is working. So I am thinking I am going to end up in the hospital anyway. It will be for the fourth or fifth time in the past year. It’s always the same story. I’ll get the shivers really bad - always in the middle of the night, and always on the weekend! And so it means dragging myself out of bed at 2:00 in the morning - freezing to death - and making another trip to the emergency room. And then it’s 3 to 5 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics. By the second day I am usually feeling better, so it ends up being a bit like a vacation. ...well, a very expensive vacation, if you don’t mind wearing a thin drafty gown, dragging an IV pole wherever you go, and peeing into a jug. Oh, and if you aren’t too bothered by the thought that you could die. The thing my doctor told me about the kind of infection I keep getting is that if the drugs work it is easy to treat.... but if they don’t, then it’s “bye-bye.” (He doesn’t quite put it that way!) It always feels a bit like dodging a bullet when they finally let me go home. So the last time I was in, I was especially worried. I couldn’t help thinking, “You’re not going to dodge the bullet every time!” But then as I was lying there in my bed, feeling anxious and afraid, thinking this might be the end - it was almost as if I heard God speaking to me... “Do you trust me?” "DUH! Of course I do!" "Then why are you anxious and afraid?" And that’s when I first got onto this whole trust thing. Either I trust God or I don’t. And if I trust Him, if I know that He loves me deeply, and that my life is entirely in His hands... ...what is there for me to be afraid of? What do you think? 1/26/09 © 2009 Paul Dallgas-Frey