KNEE HIGHLIGHTS

Well, I hobbled into the orthopedic doctor's office and allowed them to shoot a few xray shots of my swollen knee. Upon the doctor's evaluation of the xrays, I was informed I should probably have the knee scoped again for the second time in four years. I asked if a scope repair would allow me to play tennis again and the doctor told me that I could play tennis, I just couldn't run. I guess I will be looking for opponents who find pleasure in hitting the ball back to me...right where I'm standing.
I know the crowd I'm currently playing with, are not those kind of players.

The doctor also delicately told me in a round about way, that it would be helpful if I lost a few pounds. So there you go. I need to get some surgery done on the knee and lose some weight.

I'm getting a second opinion on the need for weight loss.

BLOWOUT

Yesterday was not a good day for my left knee. It's been almost 4 years since that knee was scoped and cleaned up but yesterday it just blew out. It looks like another surgery is pending, but I'll find out more on Tuesday. I'm realizing once again how important the knee joint is. Each day, I take way too much for granted and when something like this happens, it brings me back to the realization of how "fearfully and wonderfully I've been made." (Psalm 139).

I hate pain.

Cruel And Excruciating Punishment?


The following is a quote from Gary Bauer this past week:

The U.S. Supreme Court indicated this week that it is deeply divided over a challenge to the way most states execute prisoners by lethal injection. It seems some of the justices are distressed by the procedure in which three drugs are administered in succession to knock out, paralyze and kill prisoners sentenced to death. "I’m terribly troubled by the fact that the second drug seems to cause all risk of excruciating pain," said Justice John Paul Stevens, who thinks this method of execution may violate the Constitution’s 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

I couldn’t help notice the rich irony here. Why is it that those judges most concerned with whether or not prisoners convicted of horrible crimes like murder and serial rape feel pain during an execution always tend to be the same judges who most adamantly defend the perceived right for abortionists to perform their ghastly deed? Science has established that babies inside the womb feel excruciating pain during an abortion after 24 weeks of gestation. That pain, moreover, can be even more intense than if it were performed on a child outside the womb, because pain inhibitory mechanisms (fibers which dampen and modulate the experience of pain) do not begin to develop until 32-34 weeks of gestation. All this would be comical if it weren’t so serious.



Photo: My grandson, Willem, who was not denied the right to life, for which I am grateful!