American Fork Police are Awesome!/Pre-Authorization Granted for Needed Medication/Prize from Publisher's Clearing House/Under the Weather and (Possibly) Dragging My Feet

Had an experience today that I just had to blog about. When my wife and I went out shopping, we were extremely bothered to discover that several people were parking illegally (without permit or license plate) in handicapped parking. This bothers me because I need that kind of parking when I go shopping. It bothers Amy because for the last 10+ years of her mother's life, she was wheelchair bound and often had to park elsewhere when someone thoughtlessly parked illegally in handicapped parking. Within the period of half an hour, we saw five people illegally parking. So as we left the last store we needed to go to, I phoned the American Fork Police. I spoke to the dispatcher. She patiently listened to my concerns and promised she'd have an officer contact me soon. Within 5 minutes of that phone call, I got a call from one of the American Fork Police Officers. I explained the situation to him, told him we had left the location but had wanted to make them aware so this problem could be resolved in the future, and that we had little tolerance for these types of people. The man couldn't have been nicer. He responded that he understood my frustrations fully and shared them, that he had no tolerance for people who break the law by parking illegally. He promised me that he would talk to his officers in the near future and have them patrol the business district of American Fork and look for violators a lot more consistently in the future. He also said that if I ever ran into this problem again, I shouldn't hesitate to call the police so they could cite the violators next time. He concluded by adding that it would help if next time we called from the location the violation was taking place and could somehow keep the offending car there until the police arrived to cite them. He then wished me a good day and ended the call. I couldn't have been more pleased with how that interaction turned out. The only thing that would have made it better is if Amy & I had thought to jot down the license plate numbers for the violating cars so they could be issued a citation. We will for sure do that in the future. My admiration for the American Fork Police Department knows no bounds!

In other news, I received a letter on Wednesday from my insurance company granting me the prior authorization I needed to get started taking the new medication my neurologist wants me to try. We are currently trying to iron out how to get the prescription for it (she is located in Salt Lake, and hopefully they can FedEx it to me tomorrow which means I could pick it up and start using it on Saturday) and find out the information I need to be aware of before starting this new medication. But the most important thing is that we got the necessary authorization! The hope is that we might be able to eliminate or back down the dosage on some of the other medications I am taking with this new medication. So I will be anxious to see how it works for me. I almost forgot to mention that no one seems to know what is causing my increased nausea, so we may be making an appointment for me to see my neurosurgeon or his nurse in Salt Lake, just in case my shunt setting got altered somehow. I don't want to, because there's always a chance that seeing them may result in surgery, which we have neither the time nor the money nor the desire to get put through. But we will do whatever we have to.

I almost forgot to mention something kind of exciting. I have signed up with Publisher's Clearing House to win prizes from them. I keep responding to the correspondence they request and doing whatever they tell me to make me eligible for those prizes, but I haven't won anything. Or at least I hadn't won anything until late last night. I was using their search engine, PCH Search, and apparently I came at a time when they were awarding hourly prizes to winners. I don't know how I managed it, but I won a $5 Amazon.com gift card. At first I didn't know what to  use it for. Then I remembered I had a Kindle on my computer and that Kindle books would be far less expensive than regular books. After looking around, I was able to purchase two Kindle books with the gift card, both by Chris Heimerdinger. The first was Muckwhip's Guide to Capturing the Latter-day Soul and is kind of an LDS version of C. S. Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters", though Chris's devil, Muckwhip, apparently uses the faith and practices of a faithful LDS member against him in an effort to bring him down. I look forward to reading that. The second book I bought was one I'd read years ago and wasn't sure I'd ever buy a paperback copy of. It's "Eddie Fantastic" and tells of a boy who one day finds himself endowed with supernatural abilities.  I'm sure I will treasure having both books being part of my Kindle library, and I can recommend both as very good reads, though admittedly I am only basing my recommendation for Muckwhip on other people's reviews and not personal experience. It was good to win something from Publisher's Clearing House. I just wish I'd win one of their more substantially sized prizes. Then all our troubles would be over. I guess I'll keep responding as directed to the messages I'm sent and hope for the best.

Amy and I have been feeling under the weather again and have only felt like doing what absolutely has to be done. I feel kind of bad. We went shopping yesterday, and it was only late last night when I realized I was running low on some of the over the counter medication I have been taking for nausea. If I had known or remembered about that at the store, we could have just gotten it yesterday. As it was, we had to make a special trip today. Amy wasn't happy about that at first, and I don't blame her for that. I felt horrible asking her as sick as she was feeling to take me somewhere when all she wanted to do was use today as a day for complete rest. I will have to make it up to her somehow. Maybe buy her flowers or something. She will protest and say that's not necessary, but I owe her big time for what she did for me today.

And not just today. Amy has been an absolute sweetheart in loving and serving me our entire marriage, but especially lately. In the last two  weeks while I have been at Physical Therapy, she has sneakily used my absence to edit the Sacrament Meeting recording for me. She has watched me stumble through doing that week after week, and so while I was gone, she decided to do it for me. I don't know what I did or how I managed to deserve to get such a wonderful, selfless spouse. In so many ways, I am her complete opposite. And this is no difference. She often has to ask me, sometimes several times, to do things for her, and she does things for me all the time without me asking or saying a word. I feel like the luckiest man alive to have such a woman. At the same time, I am deeply ashamed that I am not responding in kind. As with most things in my life, I need to work on that.

Because of the way I've been feeling, I haven't felt much like applying for jobs or writing. I haven't even taken the initiative to try and go to the Deseret Industries with the recommendation our Bishop wrote for me and see if they have a paid position for me that would allow me to work as much as I can handle, bring in some money, and give me some job experience and on the job training. I don't know why I'm dragging my feet on this one. Every time I think about it, I freeze up, and I get an unsettling feeling. It's hard to tell whether this is the "stupor of thought" signifying a wrong choice or whether it is just my own fear keeping me from doing something the Lord would want me to do. I can't trust my own feelings. Amy's advice is to give the DI a try. She says the worst that can happen is that they turn me away saying they don't have anything that would fit my skills or that they could train me for. I've promised her that as soon as I apply for all the jobs Irwin (my employment counselor) has sent me, I will look into the DI, and I still intend to do so, in spite of my fears and misgivings. But I am still very worried about what my feelings mean and whether I can trust them or not. It's something I definitely need to work through, but I don't have the luxury of lots of time to do so. The longer I drag my feet, the longer we remain in our difficult situation. And Amy makes a valid point: I can't expect the Lord to bless me if I don't act on things for myself. Your prayers would be appreciated as I try to work through this jumble of thoughts. Thanks, friends!

Well, that's about it for this update. I hope you, my readers, are well, and that you are enjoying reading these updates as much as I enjoy writing them. Best wishes until I post again!