Bless You Joel

For months now I've awakened each and every morning with my left ear completely deaf.

If my right ear is deep down in the pillow then I don't hear even the loudest of alarms or music.

So Wendy has had to jab me to get me to react.

Then usually after a few minutes, whatever congestion in my ear (wax?) will "drain" (?) and then I can hear again more or less in that ear.

This has gone on for months!  On days when it doesn't clear that well and I'm aware of hearing loss throughout the day I started to get more worried.

Should I go to the doctor?  The doctor will prescribe anti-biotics.  Is that a good thing? If it saves my ear from deafness it is.

Then Joel's father died.  He wasn't in the ministry that morning.  We heard his wife was having a garage sale.  So after our morning we stopped by at the sale.

This very active spiritual couple were grieving in their own way.  They couldn't really be around people right now.  The two that give so much and so thoroughly just needed to be left alone.

Kelley let us know that Joel was over at the gym they are starting up in Lemon Grove.  She said he'd appreciate it we stopped by, just the two of us.  She text' him that we were coming.

We drove over.

He showed us the Cross-Fit style gym.  We tossed a medicine ball.  (I thought medicine balls only existed in the cartoons like the Flintstones!)  He demonstrated an assisted squat using a large rubber band that you sort of "sit into".

Then we went to Sahara to get some food.

We talked about his departed Dad, the upcoming funeral, the old church Joel left, and family.

Toward the end of the meal I realized that this was my opportunity.

"Hey Joel, since I got you, I need some free health advice..."

After my explanation, he said his advice:

"Super Echinacea by Herb Pharm.  Rub it up in your gums on that side of your mouth.  It will go up into the ear area.  Man, it will numb you pretty good!"

He didn't tell me where to go find it, but we later went to his store Windmill Farms anyway.

Right he was... it was pretty tingly and numbing on the gums.

Well, about a week later...

This morning...

I woke up with a clear ear!  For the first time in months.

Bless you Joel!

And may Jehovah our God be blessed for the gift of stereophonic hearing.  That is taken for granted so much.  However, this morning I tossed another old cassette in the tape player as part of my project to archive old sounds and songs and voices to MP3.

For a moment I tested my ears by pulling the monitoring headphones away from one and then another.

How amazing that with one ear phone pressed against your head the sound is at the side.  But with both... the sound is in your head.

Trippy, man !!!!