Consumption and Such

In the old days, it seems people quite often moved to a whole different area because of their health. In old books it was often consumption. I think it was pleurisy that took the young lady in "Mrs. Mike" to Alberta. I had ancestors with the famous Yoder lungs who moved to Colorado to breathe easier. And recently I spoke to an old friend of my dad's who told me about someone from Oklahoma who had suffered a heat stroke and so they moved to Oregon where it was cooler.

In all the above cases, they traded their old problems for a whole set of new ones. Like Mrs. Mike lost two children to diphtheria, and the one lady in Colorado was widowed but kept farming with her little children, a terribly hard life all around, and one day a neighboring farmer, who was Amish but obviously not Christian, came by with a wagon and a few robust sons and brazenly helped himself to a load of cow chips the kids had worked for days to gather.

Yesterday Steven of the robust health and I of the Yoder lungs came down with the same thing, a bad headache plus a sore throat and fever. Today he is his normal self and I once again feel like there's a boa constrictor around my chest that lets me breathe about 1/3 as much as normal.

When we were in Jamaica, I could breathe all I wanted, and I hardly ever coughed, which leads me to think maybe God is telling me to be like the ancient Yoder forebears and move to a different climate, specifically Jamaica, for my health's sake.

The big question is, what problems would I get in exchange?

Quote of the Day:
"Did you tell Dad you're falling for a Jamaican?"
--Steven, referring of course to little Aldaine at the orphanage