The best shape of my life

On my 45^th birthday, I made a decision…it was time to get in shape.  About 20 pounds overweight and recovering from heel surgery, I was tired of just feeling mediocre.  So when 2011 started and I was given the go-ahead to workout, I started with a vengeance.  Obsessed is what my kids called me.  I worked out almost every day for at least an hour, logging my time on a detailed spreadsheet. Mapmyrun.com became my favorite website, as I couldn’t bear to run the same path twice.  I changed my poor eating habits, the hardest of which to give up was my 10 pm bowl of cereal; 30 pounds later, I was shopping for new clothes.

Summertime brought my usual schedule of camps, missions’ trips, and the normal youth pastor duties.  I thrive on it.  After 20 such summers, I often joke that even at my age, I can run circles around the students.

I was in the best shape of my life, feeling on top of the world and blessed in every way.  I didn’t know that was all about to change.

The first strange symptoms started Labor Day weekend with feelings of fog and breaking into full sweats at random times.  My legs started to feel heavy; my brain was a few steps ahead of my body.  The first doctor thought it was anxiety, in spite of my effort to explain how “unstressed” I felt.  Muscles in my arms began to have constant tremors, which I could do nothing to stop.

Early November brought my 46^th birthday and a feeling that something was definitely wrong.  My tongue was thick and my words slurred.  A change of doctors and the tests began; after a few weeks, I was referred to a neurologist.  By this time, Dena & I were searching the internet and had read all about the “big 3” neurological diseases.  As we researched with dread, I realized that I was having every symptom under the ALS description.

Reading that and hearing it confirmed by a neurologist are two different things.  On November 29^th, I was told that I probably did have ALS, but we needed MRI’s to rule out tumors.  Something I had never prayed for began in earnest:  “Lord, let it be a tumor.”

6 days later, December 5th, brought the news we had feared:  The MRI’s were clear and the EMT confirmed that I had ALS.

As we wrap our brains around this news, we continually go back to the only thing we know for sure…the promises of Scripture.

2 Corinthians 4:16 “So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”