It has been some time since I gave readers an update on my health situation, and I feel I owe all of you such an update.
First the good news: While both are still present, my lower back pain and tinnitus have lessened. However, the pains in my neck, head and shoulder area have gotten considerably worse recently. This is likely due to my time spent on the computer as well as a problem resulting from my concussion/neck/head injury almost a year ago. I’ve also suffered from some major bouts of vertigo. The neck pain was so bad after one major injury in the 1980s that my neck muscles “froze” up entirely and could not move at all—I had to move my torso right and left to look to either side and the pain was excruciating. Time and physical therapies greatly alleviated that pain, but this pain has returned. This (plus the vertigo) obviously makes working at a computer very difficult. Living with constant physical pain plus the stress of divorce and two other major personal traumas in the last year have forced me to face the issue of whether I can continue to write at all. I’m discussing with my doctors the possible need to go into a retirement or semi-retirement from writing to help my body heal. There are books, articles and blog posts I want to write as so much is happening in the world that Christians/believers should know about, but my health situation is such that I may have to take an extended rest. I’d return to writing when God heals and restores me…which I hope would be soon. I’d love to be able to travel and speak again but my pain levels are such that that is completely out of the question for now. My PTSD pains (which are mental, emotional and spiritual) are about the same as before. I cannot relate how exhausting and draining it is to live in continual pain. I’ve been on so much hydrocodone for so many years that that narcotic pain reliever has little effect in my system. A referral to a pain clinic for more advanced pain-control measures is possible.
I’ll relate one other burden I’ve had to bear. After a surgeon injured me in 1996 (just weeks after my first book was released) in what was supposed to be a simple procedure (he did an unapproved and undiscussed surgery in my prostate area while I was anesthetized for a simple scope exam to see if I had kidney stones), I was put in extreme pain due to nerve damage. A Urologist who I consulted for a second opinion told me I had two terrible choices. I could have a “pudendal block” which would permanently end all sensation in my crotch region and likely leave me with the need to have an ostomy bag for my urine for the rest of my life, or I’d have to go on high doses of narcotic painkillers for years. Another doctor told me he expected I’d need at least a decade of narcotic painkillers while the nerve damage healed. As it turned out, I needed 14 years of such narcotics and I essentially “lost” those years of living and interacting in an undrugged and painfree manner with life in general and especially with my children as they grew up.
I greatly solicit the prayers of those who read my writings on this website and benefit from them. In the next few weeks, I need to make a decision on whether to continue writing. If God heals and restores my life significantly, I can continue to write. If not, I will have to at least go into semi-retirement from current writing efforts in an effort to recover my health. At any rate, my website will stay up as long as reader donations provide enough money to keep it on the internet.
I regret to inform those who have sent reader inquiries to me that all such inquiries were lost when my website was transferred to a different webhosting service. An audio message at my website was also lost. The audio message was retrieved, but the entire file of reader inquiries was permanently lost.
