Ideas? Anyone?

Staying productive has its limits ...

It has been AGES since I have written. I apologize for that but hope that this brief post will help you understand why that has been and will encourage your input into a couple of projects I hope to pursue over the next while. If most of you are fired up about one but uninterested in the other, I’ll have some real clarity about which to pursue. If you’re evenly split between both of them, you’ll have to argue your point in the comments. There is only so much time.

So many ideas! Photo: Tobias "ToMar" Maier; Creative Commons License 3.0

Which gets me to my reason for why I’ve not been engaged with you. And it isn’t just watching the United States implode in real time, though that has taken a lot of our attention over the past few months. (Hard to believe how few those months have been to have had such incredible international impact. … But I digress …).¹

Let’s talk turkey

After three years of failing health, I was finally diagnosed just over a month ago with diastolic heart failure (HF).

Having a diagnosis is a good thing even when it isn’t a great diagnosis.

I’d come to grips with the likelihood that, without some sort of intervention, I’d be lucky to see out the year. Although I had classic HF symptoms, I had been told everything from the glaring truth, “You are getting old …” from my primary care physician, to “It’s not your heart, it must be your lungs …” from a cardiologist I was referred to after a visit to the ER. So I didn’t know what was wrong or when it would take me and was being pragmatic about it. I’d been working my way through the house, organizing and clearing out my things so as to not leave Scott with a mess if I dropped dead the next week. Don’t think of it as me being maudlin; think of it as me being a good Girl Guide! Always prepared!!

At one point, my primary care physician mused that I might have Chronic Fatigue (CF) but failed to explore my symptoms to see if she could come up with the diagnosis. That’s when, instead, she told me, with deep compassion, that I was getting old. I went home and looked up the symptoms (for the Chronic Fatigue; I am quite familiar with the symptoms of getting old). The CF symptoms mostly aligned with mine and I learned there are Long COVID, vaccine-related cases of CF, so promptly decided that must be my issue. I lived with that self-diagnosis for several months but continued to decline … And that wasn’t really a CF symptom.

Whitby pothole, 2024. Photo: gretta vosper

Finally, and purely because of an incidental conversation my partner had with a friend who had a relative who was recently diagnosed with diastolic heart failure, we had something to explore that made even more sense. Diastolic heart failure is a rising cause of HF, expected to soon exceed the number of those diagnosed with traditional systolic heart failure. It is related to the stiffening of the heart muscle and the failure of the left side to pump all the blood out and into the arteries. After my subsequent reading of several medical journal articles (googling every second medical term and every single acronym), and then the presentation to my cardiologist of the most recent and comprehensive article from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, I was prescribed medications usually used for traditional heart failure and told to see if they made any difference.

They did. I used the phrase “night and day” several times the following week. I can climb the stairs without losing my breath. I can carry the laundry hamper or a jug of water without losing my breath. I can go for a walk at a normal pace without losing my breath² and having to bend over with my hands on my knees to get it back again. All those things had been very difficult until I was put on the medications.

Still, the pharmaceutical intervention helps but doesn’t take away the main issue. I’m still very tired much of the time and have, maybe, three to four good hours a day. And, the chances of getting through the next couple of years alive are not exactly promising. While that makes every day shine a little more brightly, it’s time to talk legacy and that’s where you come in.

The Poll

Here are the ideas I’ve been exploring, only in the order I thought of them, not in the order of any preference I might have. Maybe I’ll even get to do both.

With or Without God

This idea involves recording much of my first book, With or Without God, and creating a podcasty sort of thing with the bits and pieces of those recordings. The whole book cannot be made into an audio book without HarperCollins’ permission and they’ve withheld it. But I am allowed to record it in segments or parts so this would be that.

Each episode would include a recording of me reading of a segment of the book and then a pre-recorded discussion of that segment in today’s terms; after all, the book is seventeen years old!! I could simply riff off the segment I have read or I could invite guests to be in conversation with me about it. I don’t think I could commit to anything live, however, so the episodes would likely be static with conversation moderated and taking place in the comments³.

OR……

My Heresy Trial

Toronto Conference would not allow observers at my hearing excepting the Chair of West Hill’s Board. It made no attempt to provide accountability to the wider church regarding my beliefs as I shared them at the hearing. However, my legal team was given permission to record the proceedings, which we did. Those audio files were later transcribed by a family friend, Deb Watrous.

This, too, could be made into a series of podcasts which, again, I could reflect on alone or with others, exploring a variety of responses that might have been made to the questions posed, the beliefs I shared, and what I might say differently seven years later. I would not have to read the transcript but could use actual clips from the hearing.

Your thoughts?

I so wish I had this microphone but my BlueYeti will suffice! Image: Rawpixel.com

So, what do you think? What would engage you? If you don’t think you’d even be interested in listening to something like this, let me know. If you think you might, but aren’t sure whether these are the best ideas, let me know what you think might be worth my doing. If you are excited about both ideas, you’ll have to give me your first choice and your second.

I’ll be recording pieces of With or Without God whether or not I choose to do that project so you have a bit of time to let me know your thoughts. I would, of course and for the now obvious reasons, appreciate getting them as soon as possible. Please share this with others you think might be interested in the concept. I’m no longer on social media, but encourage you to post this there if you think your friends or followers might be interested in the project enough to provide input.

Thank you so much for giving this your consideration. Our days are each precious but often we live them in a blithe ignorance of their temporality. I appreciate every minute you give to the reading and consideration of my thoughts and hope you engage in helping me decide how best to make them available.

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1. I did spend too many hours on the amazing new Bluesky social media platform. I was “Doomscrolling”, an apt term for spending a couple of hours a day reading of all the horrid things coming out of Trump’s gilded office or Musk’s drug-addled brain. But I’ve left the platform entirely realizing that I just didn’t have the time to engage and I wasn’t interested in being beaten up by even the few rude people when that happened. For the most part, it was great to see and read about all the amazing opposition to the attempted destruction of America, the things ordinary people are doing out there to ensure that democracy prevails. But too much time, girl! Get back into your own game!

2. I’d timed myself and learned I was only able to walk at a pace normal for an 85 year old. That wasn’t encouraging but it was proof that something was wrong.

3. The conversation would have to be moderated because if even one of them drew the attention of evangelicals, it could get ugly and it might become a magnet for haters. It is, however, unlikely that I will be able to monitor it consistently. That means that, right now, I’m not sure how that would happen.