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Pencil Tip

MY CUTIE HURT HERSELF

On September 10, 2020, Anna unintentionally drove a pencil tip into her finger. She was using a mechanical pencil and had pushed out too much lead. The incident happened when she tried to push the excess back into the holder. I tried to remove it but only succeeded in taking out a tiny portion. I could feel the hard piece but it was lodged in a way that the tweezers couldn’t reach it. We flushed with water, treated with methylated spirit, and took a break.

It hurt every time she put pressure on it, especially when she tried to write. My husband talked about the possibility of an incision at a hospital to get it out. The thought of it made her more afraid and really sad. She had cried a lot already. It’s clear that parents have to tell their kids about the risks associated with this type of pencil and how to use it safely.

The Culprit

MEMORY LANE

Before we went to bed that night, I prayed for her, and asked God to remove the pencil tip from her hand and take all the pain away. I shared with her my experience with appendicitis some years back, the divine surgery that happened in my dream, how I woke up completely healed, and went to Church for thanksgiving instead of going to the hospital for my 6 A.M. surgical appointment. God healed me back then… and I told her God has the best medical team and their tools are amazing. You don’t feel the pain at all.

THE SOURCE

I asked her to say a prayer too before going to sleep. The next day, she woke up and went about her business. She later rushed into the office pressing that finger with her thumb to show us there was no pain. She was radiant and has been so happy since. It was a big relief for her and for me. I was really concerned and a bit upset that I couldn’t help her completely. You know they always come to you with expectation that you can solve every single problem they have, and most times you can. I’m so glad I could connect her to the source of all help.

Thank God for answered prayers.

WE ARE GRATEFUL!!!

More tales from Anna – Edge of the Frame

Memory Lane 1 – Asthma

Every now and then I take a walk down memory lane and count my blessings. This time I came upon an experience that I will never forget and will forever be grateful for. Different things remind me about it as I carry on with every day life – a cough, a whistling sound while someone is breathing, and so on. Yes, those are symptoms of asthma.

A few years into being Mr. & Mrs. we decided to move out of what had been our first home. It was a 2-bedroom flat located in a transition zone between a village somewhere in Lagos and the Lekki-Epe  express. Our first child was born while we lived in that house and everything was fine. He ate, slept, played and did everything babies do. He was a perfectly healthy child.

We found a newly completed house closer to work. It was nicely finished and having three rooms, it was just right because number two was on the way. We moved in and all was well until we started noticing those symptoms a few months after our second was born. After repeatedly visiting the hospital with the same symptoms, the doctor said ‘We have to call this what it is. Your children have asthma’. Until then, it had been termed bronchiolitis.

We really wondered. None of us had asthma or serious allergies so why did our kids have it? The following months saw us going to the hospital over and over again. I remember one occasion when we rushed our daughter to the hospital at night. The doctors took her from us very swiftly and the staff all gathered doing one thing here, one thing there. A while later, we went in to see her and she seemed calm. I asked the doctor if we could go home and he laughed. He said ‘Madam, it seems you don’t understand what happened here. This girl was literally drowning in her own fluid’. We were advised to stock up on critical supplies and get a nebulizer so we could manage the situation better at home.

Anytime these kids exerted themselves, they would cough and cough and cough. I can’t count the number of nights we spent watching them while they slept, anxious about the next breath. We were told there was a trigger and we had to find it but we had no clue what to search for. The frequency of our cleaning regimen had already been raised to an all time high, yet this continued. I wondered if they would ever have a normal life, you know, go out without an inhaler, drink cold water without repercussions, be able to participate in sporting activities, and so on.

We kept praying for a miracle and continued with the treatments. You would think we went shopping each time we returned from the clinic because of the volume of medication we took home. One day, I returned from a program in Church only to hear that my daughter had an episode while I was away but everything was under control. At this point, I sat on the arm of the chair closest to the door and said ‘God, we can’t continue like this. You said in your word that if we serve you, you’ll bless our bread and water and take sickness away from us. I can’t finish working for you and come home to a sick child. Please show me what the problem is’.

While I was praying, a thought settled in my mind – moulds. We all began to search the whole house and eventually found a colony of these fungi behind a box in the kids’ wardrobe. It was only then we realized there was a plumbing fault that allowed water from the adjoining bathroom to wet the wardrobe wall, and the box stored there provided a light shield – perfect environment for moulds to thrive – moisture, warmth & darkness. The kids were obviously allergic to the spores these moulds produced.

We proceeded to remediate the whole place and have the plumbing issue addressed. From then on, the kids progressively recovered and now they are perfectly healthy. No more hospital admissions, no more wheezing, no more inhalers or nebulizers. All praise and thanks to God who preserved them throughout that trying period and gave us insight into the root cause so we could address it. There are some problems money cannot solve.

Picture credit: citrix.com

1 over 7

It’s so important to ensure that you rest. Sometimes things just come up and you find yourself going from one task to the other, one meeting to the next, driven by whatever drives you. Then before you know it, you realize the weekend – or whatever time you were meant to use for rest and relaxation – is over and you have not rested.

It’s so easy to turn what should have been a restful day to a stressful day. Waking up with that list in your head is enough stress already and sometimes it feels like there are just too many things to do, simply because we have it all in our heads. When I observe that this is happening to me, I just pick up a pen and transfer all that tension to my journal. That’s part one of the stress reduction.

Part 2 – If I find that the list is really long, I arrange them in order of priority, cross off the ones that don’t need to be done, delegate some, move others that are not urgent to a later date, and develop my strategy for accomplishing the important and urgent ones.

But we can even go further and reassess the “importance” of some items on our list. Are they really that important? What would go wrong if we dumped, delegated or deferred them? Also, what’s their rating when compared to the importance of our REST? Or could it be you haven’t yet taken time to analyse the criticality of your rest?

Well, I have found that this is one analysis we need to be proactive about because if you neglect this, you may soon have your doctor reading you a list of things you should no longer do if you want to retain your planet earth residence permit (PERP) – I mean your body. Then the question comes to mind ‘how could I have jeopardized my vitality with all that activity?’

God worked for six days and rested on Day seven. Let’s assume you’re a super hero… okay… just try, at least one day a week. Seriously, REST!

Picture Credit: https://missboansi.com/2015/12/27/well-deserved-rest/

Tomorrow is Another Day

Tomorrow Is Another Day
When I said ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ this time, I didn’t quite feel the usual excitement. There were a few time consuming offsite activities planned for Saturday and some other things to sort out at home so the prospect of having a restful weekend was slim. If you’re one of those people who loves to finish identified tasks, you’ll understand that I was trying to figure out how to get all these things done by Saturday night and that was a door held open for Mr. Stress to stroll in.
These days, stress related illnesses are on the increase. You hear of all kinds of symptoms and at the end of the day, stress is identified as the main trigger. The most annoying part is the amount of medical examinations the patient has to endure to have other probable causes ruled out before they finally arrive at Stress. The process is resource draining and very uncomfortable, not to mention the part where you begin to feel less human and more like a lab-rat. Don’t let this happen to you.
You have to identify the things that cause stress in your day to day – they’re called stressors – and learn how to address each one. They range from good to bad – success on a project, a promotion at work, a wedding/marriage, the birth or a child, relocation, a very busy day, deadlines, gaining weight, a deal gone south, a problematic client, a challenging case, the death of a loved one… the list goes on. You shouldn’t allow it get to the point where it begins to affect your wellbeing.
On this particular occasion, I had to pull my TIAD card and remind myself that TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY! This card comes in handy whenever I’m stressing over stuff that could be handled later, you know, those activities that would not result in any terrible repercussion if left undone. And yes, it worked wonders. I thinned that to-do list down to the important stuff and completely enjoyed my Saturday. Now I feel good and ready for the week.
How about you?

Residence Permit

I remember my days on Campus. It was like being in a free world to some extent. There weren’t any serious rules to abide by so you could almost say we were free to do whatever we wanted. People buried themselves in diverse passions they only then had the liberty to – parties, business, music, fellowship, etc.
Sometimes we would carry on as if those things were more important than our studies, but as we neared the end of each semester, the awareness of our primary purpose in school would become more evident and in fellowship you would hear the secretary announce: ‘Welcome to the Fellowship of Christian Students… Remember, you must first be a student to be a member of this fellowship, so read your books and pass your exams. No matter how zealous you are, if you fail and are withdrawn, you cease to be a member of this fellowship…. God bless you all’.
I thought about this the other day and wondered at how it translates to life as a whole. We pursue several ambitions each day and sometimes we get lost in our pursuits and neglect our health and overall wellbeing. The interesting thing is this – if we are to continue being here for our families and other loved ones, if we’re to keep doing those things we love to do, if we’re to realize our dreams and enjoy the fruits of our labour, we must stay alive. That’s the only way our participation in activities on the earth can continue.
Every now and then, we should assess our lives as a whole and ensure we’re not neglecting our health by the way we carry on from day to day. Where we discover lapses, we should make the necessary adjustments to ensure we keep our bodies in good health. Our bodies are our PERP -Planet Earth Residence Permit.

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