Perspective

I got to sleep in my own warm bed last night. I had spent the previous two in Omaha, NE, in a hotel near the University of Nebraska Medical Center with my Dad who was transferred there last Monday.  After a questionable and abnormal CT scan, it was decided Dad's gall bladder and liver needed a little more looking into. Words like cancer, abscess and surgery were strewn about and we had to get things in order.

Glad to say that we got a "better" report yesterday.  No cancer, no surgery - just more antibiotics for a long, long, time.  Granted, Dad is still "a very sick man", but after having to take a look at the cold harsh alternatives, we can't help but feel like we eecked out another miracle.

Spending any amount of time at a rather large hospital gives you new perspective. No matter how bad you think you may have it, you don't have to look very far to realize there is someone who has it much worse.  What about the little boy having breakfast with his Dad, his little face all puffed up in response to all the steroids he must have been taking.  And the little girl with the feeding tube and oxygen getting a stroller ride with her brother from her nurse. What sort of  "treatments" have these little lives already had to endure? And Dad's roommate Willie, who had not one visitor the whole time we were there.  None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. He just moaned and groaned his days away - all by himself.

You find yourself abundantly thankful for odd things.  Like cell phone technology, fax machines, and the Internet.  For phlebotomists with steady hands and good aim named Gabriel (how apropos). For a room at the end of the hallway with two recliners being "stored" there, just outside Dad's door.  It was Mom and I's own little waiting room. We were grateful for nurses named Taylor who had the youth and endurance to work a near 24 hour shift in the middle of our first big blizzard of the season. We were thankful for the sun shining in all its frigid parhelial excellence the day after a longer day and night of howling wind and white out conditions. Thankful for the timing of the surgical and GI residents meeting in the elevator having apparently ignored the "siempre discretus" sign who were talking about "this really nice gentleman with primary sclerosing cholangitis" and how the wife of said "really nice gentleman" happened to be riding along in the back corner.  We had more questions answered in that short elevator ride than in the first 24 hours there.

And in the counting and recounting of Dad's colorful and varied medical history to the first, second and third year resident and finally the attending physician, we also noted God's stellar track record of faithfulness and provision over the past 28 years. I am a firm believer in a good prayer chain. I am a firm believer in HIM. So is that "really nice gentleman with primary sclerosing cholangitis" who may actually get to come home today.  Thank you Lord.  Thanks for putting in all into perspective. 

Perfect Pairings 2 Corinthians 13:12

2 Corinthians 13:12

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

This would be the holy hug version.

There's more Perfect Pairings over at Baloney's. Check 'em out.

Downcast

Yesterday was my blog's one year birthday.  I was planning on writing a fun little post and maybe doing a little give-away of some sort.  If you read this blog and leave comments, you know your chances of winning would have been pretty good.  Like one in two, or at the most one in six.  Alas, this did not happen.

I have enjoyed my little blog over the past year.  Even if I had no faithful readers, or no sweet comment makers, I would still do it.   It has been a good blessing reminder, cheap therapy and a way to gather those memories I just don't want to forget, but know I would if left to my frantic mind. I like blogging.

So here I am blogging, sitting beside my Dad's hospital bed.  We have been here once already this fall. It all started with a diagnosis of H1N1. This sparked a flare-up with a chronic liver disease and septicemia, a long run with home IV antibiotics, with this all compounded by the end stages of Parkinson's disease.  Nothing is ever easy with Parkinson's.  I can't help but feel a little like David. My soul is downcast within me.

Since my Dad was forty four years old, his grasp on good health has always been a tenuous one.  What was thought to be a simple gallbladder flare-up turned out to be a diagnosis of primary sclerosing cholangitis, which means the bile ducts to Dad's liver are narrowing and hardening.  This can lead to infections and blockages and potentially a liver transplant.  Dad was on "The List" to receive one and actually got paged twice with a match, but he turned it down. Twice. At the time, he was feeling too good, had farming to do, and a family to raise. That is sort of the pendulum on which you swing with this disease.  When things are good, you're doing just fine.  When things are bad, well, it can be really bad.  Since the diagnosis of Parkinson's about 12 years back, he decided he no longer wanted to be an entry on "The List".  I can't say that I blame him.  Miracles that they are, organ transplants are still nothing to be taken lightly.

The first time my Dad was hospitalized, when I was 12 or 13 years old,  I  remember tentatively asking my Mom if Dad was going to die.  She honestly answered that she did not know.  From then on, that question has hovered in our house from time to time - always sneaking around and never quite leaving the premises. It became a room in our house with the door firmly shut, no one wanted to go there, but you would still press your face to the peephole to see if you could see anything inside. The only thing scarier than the known is the unknown, right?  What would it look like, how would it feel and when would we have to go in there?

In turn, I became a nurse, my older brother became a pharmacist, and Nate, the youngest keeps things balanced with his goofy humor and optimism.  Really, Dad has done remarkably well, all things considered.  We have a lot to be thankful for.  Dr. Zetterman, Dad's doctor, turned good friend, in Omaha always called Dad his miracle patient.  I think he is right.

So, here we are wondering.  Is it time? I only know that I will not have to go there by myself and for that I am grateful.  Like David, I need to finish the verse.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God. Psalm 42: 5-6

 

Did I mention this blog is good therapy?

How Lovely Are Your Branches...

We're lucky enough to have a small Christmas Tree Farm on the north side of town.  After the beautiful Thanksgiving weekend we had here, we were also lucky to find one tree standing on said Christmas tree farm.  Seemed like every car or truck I saw in town that weekend had a tree poking out of it somewhere. But find one, we did.

Here's the Captain, saw in hand, ready to take down that Charlie Brown tree looking mighty white pine we chose. Those girls cheered him on and appropriatly yelled their "Timber".

Then the nice farmer comes by with his tractor and flat bed with hay bales to sit on and gives a nice ride around the farm and back to the barn where they serve hot cocoa and shake out and trim up your tree for you while you wait. The girls loved the hayride.

Can you tell?

I think it's a new record for us.  We had our tree bought and up on the 30th of November.  November,
People.  Talk about shock and awe.

It's a little puny isn't it? The memories? Huge!

Pseudo-Words

Do you ever wonder about those little security "psuedo-words" you have to type in when you leave a comment on someone else's blog?  Sometimes they make me laugh and sometimes they make me look over my shoulder to see if someone is in the room with me, and sometimes they make me completely erase and revise the comment I was about to write.  Like some sort  of freaky prophetic sniglet.

I think my most memorable one was when I was accepting a pseudo-friend on Facebook and the security word was unfriend and the next day she was arrested for attempted homicide. Naaah, but isn't that sort of weird?  Usually these quasi-words just bear a vague resemblance to a word and they aren't the real thing. They really want to be a word, but instead get cast off into the gutter of blog comment world. Is unfriend a real word? I think it  probably is in this world after Facebook.

Can you define and use these "pseudo-words" in a sentence? ( These were all security words I have typed in over the past few weeks. Really.)

tivipro:  (noun) a person well adept at watching, operating, and channel surfing on TV. I am married to a tivipro. He is not a tiviamateur, he is a tivipro.

pangaser: (noun) painful and malodorous gas pangs you get after eating a large Thanksgiving meal.  My tivipro has pangasers.

wonsi: (noun) that irritating eyelash that gets stuck in "one's eye", leaving only one eye useable and the other watering profusely. No, I am not crying, I have a wonsi in my left eye.

throppe: (verb) the act of regurgitating a small amount of one's stomach contents into one's mouth only to have one swallow it again because there was no better options of ridding oneself of it.  After smelling the pangasers of her tivipro she thropped.

Well, you get the point.  Have you had any strange or funny word security situations?  Or is it just my weird and slightly paranoid self?