Time to get healthy.

Hello everyone.... I pray you are all doing good. The Lord is working hard here in Honduras. Myself, and everyone at Proyecto Alcance are doing good. David is currently in New York, speaking at a number churches and sharing to many people about our project here and what the Lord is doing through us. I titled this blog, "Time to get Healthy", b/c when I came back here in April, I made the decision to make sure my physical health was better. I have lost a large amount of weight while I've been here, but good health is more than just losing weight. As of April, I was down to 225 lbs, at one point I had been as low as 210, but after a few trips to Pizza hut here and three weeks in the states, the weight went back up. I have to say that right now, I'm down to 205 and holding it off, hopefully that doesn't change when I make a trip to the states in two weeks. But I decided to go to the Doctor in April get some blood tests, especially for my uric acid level, since that causes my awful gout attacks, and to get checked for diabetes since it runs in the family. Well, for diabetes, I'm negative, that was a nice relief. But when I went to the doctor to get my test results, i asked him first how he was. He answered in his broken English, "I'm fine but you're not", laughing as he said it. That didn't make me feel so good before getting my results. It turned out that my uric acid level was two and half times the normal level. That explains the frequency of my gout attacks. But I knew ahead of time the results weren't going to be good, that's why I went, to figure out what I needed to do to get better. He put me on a medicine to lower my uric acid levels.

I figured I wouldn't be seeing the doctor until our next scheduled appointment, three months later. But I was wrong. As it was time to make my blood better, my stomach and digestive system had other plans. Or at least some little amoebas had other plans. No idea where I got them, but life stopped being fun for awhile. I'm going to try to save you all some nasty details, but I will say this..... When Imodium Extra Strength can't even but a speed bump in the way of what I couldn not feel coming, it's BAD, and it was like water. The only good position for me was sitting; standing or laying down... no good. But I tried to be a big boy and try to fight it out or hope it would pass. That was a bad idea, three days later at 1 am, I was making a trip to see me doctor.

Now let me tell you about a fun morning. For some reason, I decided to try to sleep, and when I woke, the feeling wasn't good. So after realizing I can't go on being scared to sleep, and after some housecleaning, I decided to the doctor I go. I didn't want to trouble David that late at night since I knew I wasn't going to work in the morning and he needed to wake up early. So as I when to start the truck to go to the doctor, the battery wouldn't crank. So I switched the first battery, no luck. After going through FIVE batteries and none of them starting the truck (now, I'm VERY dehydrated and WEAK, and batteries aren't light to carry around), I decided I was going to put everything back where I found it and walk the mile and half to the doctor. When I put the first battery back in the truck, I decided to give it one last try, fortunately the truck finally started. My doctor was at least half asleep when he listened to my problems, he gave a bunch of pills and sent me on my way. While explaining that the diaherra, if you can even call it that, wouldn't stop for a few more days. Fun, so I slept on the floor for a couple nights on a towel. Well, thank the Lord, all was better after about 4 days... for atleast the next week and a half. Then it all came back again. I didn't waste any time and when straight back to the doctor. This time he decided to listen to my stomach and told me I had a party in there. This wasn't cool, definitely since we had a medical missions team coming a couple days that I had plans to help the following week. Well, he gave meds to stop the party in my stomach and all was better in just a couple days. But while helping the medical team, I ended up catching a cold / flu from shaking the hands of all the sick people and not using Germ-X like everyone else. OMG, in the morning it felt like I could boil an egg on my head. Plus on top of that the cough, running nose, weakness, and body aches. The medical team gave me Tylenol and put back to work since they were super short on help. They gave me a chair and fan (which I later sold to another work station to use for 50 lempiras) and placed me at the station to give everyone worm medicine. Nothing like a station where I would have contact with 90% of the people there. The only meds I was given was Tylenol, I couldn't figure why they wouldn't give me anything else stronger. But the fever was gone a couple days and I started to feel stronger, but the cough and runny nose lasted for more than a week more and got really annoying. Definitely since, right after the group left, some people from William Jewell College and Guatemala came into town to meet with me and do some planning for their Village Partners Project. Which is a great project and I'll write about that in my next blog. So for 4 days I was with them, having to deal with my stinkin nose and cough. The day we went to Tela after a meeting to enjoy some time on the beach, my stomach when into knots and the pain was horrible. I tried everything to relieve the pain, even tried to vomit, but that didn't work. So while everyone else was on the beach enjoying great Italian food, I was in a hotel run rolling in pain. The pain did finally went away about 30 minutes before the group came to get me to go back to La Masica. The cold left me eventually, I think, I have a small cough again, but since I got sick, it seems many around have gotten sick also, including Dialis. She is fighting it right now. But I have to say, with being sick so much time, I haven't missed too much work, no more than five days in two months. I've had to fight through as much as I can, definitely with David being gone for a month to NY. I need to be healthy so I can fully serve the Lord, and I know with me taking steps to better my health, to better my ministry, the devil is doing all he can to bring me down. And that's one thing I'm not going to let happen. I know the Lord is with me to get me through this time and the Light is always shining bright. This is where the Lord wants me and I couldn't more joy in the Lord that I have now.

Until next... God Bless to all....
Tim