Loyal readers of this blog know that my spouse has been dealing with serious issues related to long-term infections that he acquired from a tick bite. Three years ago today, he was officially diagnosed with the illness and began a long, torturous process of treatment, recovery, relapse, and now (we think) remission.<\/p>\n
When a guy has been sick for so long, and living with serious consequences of that illness, you can’t blame him for dwelling in the present or for adopting a “one day at a time” attitude, without want to think about the future.<\/p>\n
My spouse can’t walk without assistance, and he has constant pain in his joints from the permanent damage that those infections caused. So “just get through today” has been his ongoing mantra.<\/p>\n
Until yesterday, when…
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\n…he began to fantasize or dream of a future vacation (holiday) in Europe. For two hours, my spouse and I discussed where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do.<\/p>\n
He wants to visit Prague and ride the trams. I want to rent a Harley and ride with him as my passenger along the Amalfi Coast from Sorrento to Salerno.<\/p>\n
He wants to ride the trains from Frankfurt to Berlin to Prague to Italy — to the town where I studied during college — Bologna. He wants to visit a small town of his father’s birth in Umbria. I want to visit the town of my grandfather’s birth in Sicily. We both want to visit the volcano observatory on Mt. Etna (Sicily).<\/p>\n
And we both want to visit my twin brother and his wife at their villa near Rome.<\/p>\n
While all of these fantasy adventures may not quite come true, the point is that my spouse has made a major breakthrough in his thinking. He is seeing himself healthy, able-bodied, and interested in travel again. <\/p>\n
The diseases he had and the damage those diseases have caused made him restrict his thinking to a “woe-is-me, can’t do anything” frame of mind. <\/p>\n
Now, however, he is thinking more positively. <\/p>\n
I had faith that this would happen eventually. It has been hell during these past three years, but I celebrate, at least for a little while, a brighter moment of dreaming of a future free of the ravages of illness.<\/p>\n
Life is short: have faith in a positive future!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Loyal readers of this blog know that my spouse has been dealing with serious issues related to long-term infections that he acquired from a tick bite. Three years ago today, he was officially diagnosed with the illness and began a … Continue reading