Exposure

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I just finished reading a novel entitled  Exposure, whose premise I found to be extremely thought provoking, as a parent of teenaged children.

Without giving away any important plot elements that are not mentioned on the cover of the book, the story revolves around a young teenaged couple who have fallen in love, and who have become sexually intimate. The young man is 18, the young woman is 17. They have kept their relationship a secret from the girl's very protective father. Failing to anticipate some of the potential repercussions the girl makes a foolish request: she asks the young man to send her a picture of himself, unclothed.
What follows is a firestorm of unforeseen consequences that affect not only the present and future lives  of the young couple, but also the lives of their parents and friends  as well.

As a parent of teenagers, I sensed a deep level of authenticity in this book, particularly in the voice of the mother of the young man, as she processes not only her worries and fears for her son, but also her feelings of self-doubt and recrimination in regard to the quality of her own parenting of that son. Teenagers in general very often believe in the myth of their own invincibility. To their way of viewing life, what happens to others will never touch them. They are wiser than the idiots who have suffered negative consequences in the tales their parents have "concocted" to try to scare them.

Indeed, scientists tell us that the prefrontal cortex , the part of the brain that allows humans to anticipate and predict negative consequences from our behavior does not fully develop until age 25.
"This brain region gives an individual the capacity to exercise “good judgment” when presented with difficult life situations. Brain research indicating that brain development is not complete until near the age of 25, refers specifically to the development of the prefrontal cortex."

(Now, anyone who parents a teenager knows this to be true intuitively, but it's always nice when actual scientific findings back up one's own anecdotal experience.)

For me, the book had a bit of a slow, overly romanticized start, but the plot picked up nicely toward the last third of the book, and I devoured the last section of it, eager to learn how the conflict would be resolved.

Particularly in light of the recent scandal in the news involving one of our own U.S. Congressmen, this book is extremely timely, and will give parents of teenagers plenty of food for thought in regard to conversations they may wish to have with their children in regard to social media in general, and the power and potentially life altering consequences of the images and information that we transmit through them. (There's plenty here for bloggers to think about us well!)

I received this book courtesy of SITSbook club. All opinions are my own. If you're interested in reading and discussing this amazingly relevant-to-what's-happening-today book, we'll be having a Twitter party book club, on July 14, from 8-9PM, CST, at #SITSbook club. The SITSgirls are a blogging network/support organization that I have really been enjoying participating in. Come join us!

Name It, Claim It?

Pin It I want to be clear on the front end of this post that I do NOT subscribe to the "name it, claim it" school of theology.

HOWEVER...

Since my little post a couple of days ago, where I put it out there into the universe that I believe in Divine Appointments, I have had no less than four of what I would consider to be prime examples of the very thing I was referring to: conversations where I felt the touch and the presence of divine grace: conversations that were meant to be.

It makes me wonder why I don't wake up every day with a sense of anticipation and expectation in regard to what God might have in store for me that day.

And, ever since my friend Anne sat on my futon (8 months ago) and said she wanted to win Invisalign braces - only to win them last week, I have been contemplating the potential power that there might be in speaking your heart's desire out loud.

(And while, I'm on this topic: I plan to go to Ireland some day, by the way.) :-D

Anyway: I'm on my vacation with my blogging buddy, and having a wonderful time, and we're starting our day by each posting a quick one (Dueling Blogjoes at the breakfast table!), but I thought I would ask a quick couple of questions:


Have you had a divine appointment lately?

and/or

Have you ever said something out loud, and had that very thing come to pass?

Can't wait to hear your thoughts!

Divine Appointments

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I've been reading the gospel of Luke, lately, because I find that if I don't put good stuff into my brain from time to time, the world can be an awfully dark place. I always pray before I start reading, asking the Holy Spirit to open my mind, and shine His light in there, and help take what my mind gains, and move it on that long journey of 12 inches or so down to my heart. I take scripture in little chunks, probably like a lot of you do, and ask myself 3 questions.

1) What does it say? (Literally - what are the facts, in other words.)

2) What does it mean? (Is this a literal passage? Was the writer trying to pass along a deeper meaning than just the aforestated facts?)

3) What does it mean to me? (Is there a truth here that applies to my life?)

That was a freebie. I just threw that in to let you know my process for reading scripture.

So, anyway, here's the passage I read today, and then I'll throw out a thought that asking those questions brought to mind.

It's from Luke, chapter 2. That's the chapter that we've all heard read a zillion times on the Charlie Brown Christmas special by Linus. That's found in the first part of the chapter. But my reading today comes a little bit further down in the chapter.

(It's interesting reading the story of Jesus through the eyes of Luke, because he tells it with a very specific purpose in mind. Luke was the physician who traveled with Paul, as Paul traveled, sharing the story about Jesus. And if you will remember, Paul is known as the apostle to the Gentiles. Whatever city he entered, Paul went first to the Jews to share the news about Jesus, the promised Messiah, but he also told the non-Jews, the Gentiles, as well. Which, as it turns out,  made a radical change in the course of Western Civilization as we know it. But I've meandered a bit from my point, which is, that Luke tells the story of Jesus being clear to point out that it was God's intention all along to bring salvation not just to the Jews through His Messiah, but to the entire world.)

Here's the passage I read today, from the second chapter of the gospel according to Luke:

²² When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"), ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”
 ²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷ Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
 ²⁹ “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
   you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
³⁰ For my eyes have seen your salvation,
 ³¹ which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
   and the glory of your people Israel.”
 ³³ The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, ³⁵ so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
 ³⁶ There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷ and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. ³⁸ Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
 ³⁹ When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.

So, having told you my method for studying scripture, here's how things kind of went down for me today:

1)What does it say?

I think it's pretty clear what the facts are: Jesus' parents were God fearing Jews who fulfilled the law. They took him to the temple to present him (and to fulfill the laws regarding purification) and while they were there, they ran into two old prophets, a man named Simeon, and a woman named Anna, who both prophesied that this was no ordinary child, and that God had a great purpose for him.


2)What does it mean?

I think you can see the author, Luke, the companion of Paul's intention pretty plainly here. One, he wants to recount the extraordinary incident that happened to Joseph and Mary as they were visiting the temple when Jesus was just a little baby, but also, he is making it clear that God's express purpose for His Messiah, from the get-go, was for Him to be the source of forgiveness and salvation for the WHOLE WORLD, and not just for the Jews.

3) What does it mean to me?

Well, I saw another lesson in this passage that I think had some implications and applications for my own life, and maybe, for your life as well. God's hand was all over this "chance encounter". According to verses 25-27,  Simeon had received a promise from God at some point in his life that he would not die before seeing God's long-promised Messiah, and he was led by the Spirit of God to be in the temple courts that day. There were any number of places in Jerusalem he could have been that day, but God wanted him exactly where he was, running into Joseph and Mary in a "coincidental" kind of way. And the same was true for the prophetess Anna, who, although it is said that she never left the temple, could have missed entirely her little meetup in the courtyard. But she didn't. God wanted Joseph and Mary to have this chance encounter. He wanted Mary to be able to recount it someday to Luke, and this passage even tells us that she treasured it in her heart through the years. God wanted Luke to hear it so he would write it down in that account of Jesus' life that God knew he was going to write some day. So that you could hear it, and I could hear it.

In fact, and I'm going to go out on a limb here, but bear with me, I think God just MIGHT have "chance" encounters for each one of us in our lives. Climbing further out on my limb, I'm going to say that sometimes, some of us are the Annas and Simeons, with a word that God wants us to deliver. A word of hope or of encouragement. And sometimes, we're the Joseph and the Mary, and God has worked it out so that we'll run into someone who has something really important to tell us, if we'll only open up our hearts and hear what that person has to say.

I'm fixing to go on a little vacation, to see my fellow Fun Girl, Anne. I'm wondering what divine appointments the Lord might have for me here today, before I leave, and in the airports, as I go, and in the places that Anne and I will visit together, and with the people I will meet while I'm there.

We sure have our own agendas, don't we? Picture from here

And I can't help but have a sense of wonder and expectation about what the Lord might have in store for me as I go.

Are you wondering what divine appointments God might have in store for you?

Don't be afraid to ask Him to give you eyes to see His hand at work.

Yes, He loves you that much. He's your Father, for heaven's sake. :-D He likes to do that kind of thing for His children!

Jewelry Giveaway! Seriously!

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 I have a girlfriend who makes gorgeous jewelry. I love her stuff so much that when Mother's Day rolled around earlier this year, I sent an email to my husband, the Big Bison, with a link to my friend Linda's shop. I told him exactly the kind of jewelry I wanted for Mother's Day: a bracelet with my kids birthstones on it. And because he is an exceptionally loving and tender and smart Bison, he got me just what I wanted. Wanna see? The aquamarine stone is for my son, and the pink topaz is for my daughter.

Click for a bigger bling factor.

But Linda makes LOTS of different kinds of jewelry, not just Mother's Day bracelets! And here's the best part:

WE'RE HOSTING A GIVEAWAY FOR LINDA'S SHOP OVER ON THE FUN GIRLS!!!! SERIOUSLY!!!

And if you win, you'll get a gift certificate with which you can pick out $25.00 worth of jewelry from either of Linda's etsy shops, Ocean Breeze, or Ocean Breeze Design.
So what are you waiting for? Click on over to the Fun Girls, now, and enter to win!!!

Happy Father's Day!

Pin It Happy Father's Day to the father of my children, and the man of my dreams.

Your heart has taken a licking but by God's grace, has kept on ticking!


Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for being my best friend.
Thank you for giving me two wonderful children.
Thank you for sharing with me our Wild Life in the Woods.
Thank you for always pointing me to True North.

I love you forever!

I entered a giveaway for Father's Day.

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And I thought you might want to enter, too.

Here's the link: 

Enter to Win the Ultimate Father's Day Gift from Human Touch ($599 Value!)

(but the giveaway ends on 6/30, so if you win, the payoff will be a little late)

The Deal Scoop is giving away a Robotic Massage Chair as well as a Foot and Calf Massager from Human Touch (US & Canada - Ends 6/30)

If you enter, tell them BoonieSooze sent you.

And when Daddy ain't using the chair, guess who will be???

(The kids. Duh.)

But a Mom can dream....

Fabulous Fresh Peach Pie

Pin It Or: How I Drove My Husband to a Heart Attack.

(Yes. I kid.)

Don't judge me.

I know you are.

Who could blame you? I judge myself!

The Transgression in Question: you know you can click to make this bigger, right?

Yesterday, at the follow-up appointment with the cardiac surgeon, after looking at my husband's diet, and all his health numbers, we were told that the one factor that worked most against my dear husband's health was his genetic heritage. Thanks, Dad! :-D (Merely a jest: we realize, of course, that they were passed onto him by HIS Dad, and so forth...) And, unfortunately, that's a factor that we simply can't control.

We were also told by the cardiac surgeon himself, that for the first four to six weeks, my husband could eat anything he wanted. What's most important is that patients recovering from cardiac surgery get the calories their bodies need to recover from that event, and their appetites tend to wane significantly following surgery. It's been four weeks today.

We're still legal.

And, we were told by the dietician that one treat once a month was perfectly allowable. I refuse to mention the barbecue dinner that we may or may not have indulged in.

Honestly, they really did tell us to start with one change at a time, to keep it doable.

And, oh, my goodness: it's summer. Peach Pie is almost sacred around here. I have won two pie contests and a ribbon from the State Fair for my pies. What is a skilled pie maker to do?

This recipe is not heart healthy. It has the baddest of the bad in it: vegetable shortening in the crust, and butter in the pie filling. Go ahead. Judge me. But if you do, I won't offer you a slice.

Think of this as the last hurrah of my pie recipes. And they are legion: just check out the recipe section! Strawberry, pecan, blueberry, apple, all of them, BLISS. But honestly, I probably only make 5 or 6 pies a year, so I think that even falls well within the dietician's guidelines of one cheat every 4-6 weeks.


We call it Pelican, or Peach Pelican. The origin of that term is lost in the mystery of our family lore. Translation: no one remembers how in the WORLD that name evolved, but we all sing a little song that goes to the tune of La Cucaracha: "A Peach-a Pel-i-can, A Peach-a Pelican, la la la la la la la, A Peach-a Pelican, A Peach-a Pelican, la la la la la la la". This is our celebratory pie song, or the song sung to prompt Mommy to get busy and make the pelican. And now, if you're weird enough, it can be yours.

So, here's the recipe that I got from the Southern Living Cookbook, my old standby for certain recipes, which apparently, has really gone up in value, after checking the Amazon link! It's been a faithful friend throughout my marriage, and I really, really recommend it. But you might want to look up the recipe under Pie. Rather than Pelican. I'm not really sure our moniker has caught on nationwide, yet.

I did change two ingredients from the original recipe. I have found that already ground nutmeg in cans or jars at the store can taste similar to cigarette ashes, so I insist on grating my own, fresh, and you should, too. You can buy whole nutmeg at most grocery stores now, and definitely at health food stores. I use my Microplane grater/zester to grate mine, and I love, love, love my Microplane grater. I also reduced the amount of sugar called for from 1 1/3c. to about 2/3 c. sugar. I found their version to be almost overpoweringly sweet. But you should always taste your peaches, and vary your amount according to how sweet they are. If your peaches are less ripe, you may want to add more sugar.

Fresh Peach Pie

6 cups peeled, sliced fresh peaches

2/3 cup sugar (adjust to sweetness of your peaches)

1/4 cup flour

1/2 t. freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 t. vanilla extract

3 T. butter

Pie crust pastry for a double crust pie (recipe follows)

Combine peaches, sugar, flour, and nutmeg in a saucepan; set aside until syrup forms. Bring mixture to a boil; reduce heat to low, and cook 10 minutes or until peaches are tender, stirring often. Remove from heat; add vanilla, and butter, blending well. 

Roll out pastry to 1/8" thickness on a lightly floured surface. Place pastry in a 9" pie plate; trim off excess pastry along edges Spoon peach filling into pastry shell. Roll remaining pastry to 1/8" thickness. Transfer to top of pie. Trim off excess pastry along edges. Fold edges under and flute. Cut slits in top of crust for steam to escape. Brush top of pastry with about 1t. of half and half, and sprinkle with about 1t. of sugar. Bate at 425º for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350º, and bake an additional 30 minutes, or until crust is browned.

See that slice in the background? It could be yours...

DOUBLE-CRUST PASTRY

2 c. all purpose flour
1 t. salt
2/3 c. plus 2 T. shortening (I use those sticks from Crisco - no mess measuring!)
4 to 5 T. cold water
(I use ICE water - and sometimes I only need 3 T. water, especially if it's humid.)

Combine flour and salt; cut in shortening with pastry blender (use two forks if you don't have a pastry blender) until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle cold water (1 T. at a time) evenly over surface; stir with a fork until dry ingredients are moistened. Shape into two discs and wrap each in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 1 hour.


If you are afraid of pie crusts, but have always wanted to try one, I have a pie crust tutorial over on The Fun Girls. 
Honestly: it's worth it, and YOU CAN DO IT!!!


"And lead us not into temptation...."
(Am I going to be in trouble for this someday?)

Turn Your Heart Toward Home

Pin It And so, dear friends who have hung in there with me on my own little Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, The Cardiac Event Edition®, I thank you. Today, I will indeed attempt to wrap up my sordid little tale, with a description of what it was like as we turned our hearts toward home.

Picture from here.

Just 72 hours after his heart surgery was done, my dear husband, The Big Bison, was released to go home from the hospital on Monday afternoon. I thought, and still think that was phenomenally fast, but, in fact, it turned out just fine.


 He went home still on oxygen, and that concerned me a great deal. I was on high alert for about a week, finding myself in charge of so much I felt completely incompetent to handle. Giving 8 medications to a man who'd previously taken none, some at morning, some at night, one twice a day, with names 8 syllables long and completely unfamiliar to me, was daunting. Being in charge of managing his oxygen situation, when I had no idea what his oxygen levels actually were, was frightening. Learning how to fill the oxygen tanks and put the regulator on the top of each tank, so that he could take walks while on oxygen was  confusing to my non-mechanical-focused-on-whether-or-not-my-husband-was-going-to-keel-over-dead brain. And then there was worrying about how long a walk should be, and whether or not he was overdoing it. Making sure he was weighed each morning, so that we knew he wasn't retaining fluid. Watching his wound for any signs of infection. Making sure he didn't let the shower water spray on the wound, nor pass out in the shower. Yup. The first week home was pretty awful. 

We have a water bed, and the first week home I was too scared to sleep in the bed with him, afraid I would roll over on him and into his wound. So we drug a twin mattress into his room and I slept on the floor at the foot of his bed. My friend said it reminded her of Ruth, sleeping at Boaz's feet. But I think I was a lot more terrified than Ruth. The oxygen machine was loud: like sleeping on the Death Star, across the room from Darth Vader's bunk. 


The first night, our power went off, and the oxygen machine SCREAMED three shrill beeps to let me know the power was off, so that I could hook up the emergency oxygen tank.(If you know me well, you know that I have a German Shepherd who freaks out at any high pitched beep, so that was an added bonus to this story.) You can imagine, then, what it's like for a traumatized, sleep-deprived woman who has finally momentarily given up watching her husband wince and groan in his sleep, and allowed the Sand Man to gently coax her eyes shut, even while she left the lamp on, just in case her husband might have a crisis in the night and she should be needed, to wake up to the pitch black of the Boonies and said alarm SHRIEKING its cries of alert, right beside her bed on the floor. Guess which one of us had to be pried off the ceiling, one fingernail at a time? (And yes, the electricity immediately came back on, thank God.)

Picture of me taken immediately upon my awakening from  power outage, from here.

 The second night home, the whole family and the two big dogs were all squished on top of each other in the little downstairs bathroom with the oxygen tank, waiting for the tornados to finish blowing through. Honestly, sometimes I wondered if we had a big sign on our spiritual backs that read, "Job's Family: KICK ME!" Could we not catch a break? 


But we DID make it through that week. Rough as it was, we did make it through. And in retrospect, we caught plenty of breaks, the biggest one being: my husband is alive! He was given the opportunity to get his ticker fixed. A lot of folks are not given that opportunity! So, truly, although I may not sound like it, I am thankful beyond words. (Just a little shell shocked.)

Bury My Knee At Wounded Heart

Pin It I have a feeling I"m going to have to explain my title to some of you younger folk, but when I thought of it this morning, I laughed out loud. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the title of a best-selling book about the plight of the Native American, that was written in 1970. To give you a little bit deeper of a reference, according to Wikipedia, "Wounded Knee, (a village on a reservation in South Dakota) was the location of last major confrontation between the U.S. Army and American Indians. Known formally as The Battle of Wounded Knee, where more than 150, largely unarmed, Sioux men, women, and children were massacred.")


But all my titles lately have referred to the heart, since I have been recounting the story of my dear husband, The Big Bison's heart attack and bypass surgery. When last I left you, Dr. Heart Surgeon and nurse Carmelita had informed me that my guy made it through surgery just swimmingly. Good news!!! I know we all love a happy ending, and it would be nice to tell you that he woke up all fixed and better, end of story. But that's really not the way that real life rolls, is it? So, in the interests of full disclosure, and just in case some of you have to face a similar situation someday, I thought it might be helpful to offer up a few more details.


See, before the surgery, he'd been tired, and of course he'd had some pain during the heart attack itself, but other than that, he was feeling pretty normal. The "wounded heart" reference came about because in order for my husband's heart to function properly, as it needed to, he needed new plumbing: his pipes were clogged. And re-routing plumbing inside your chest hurts like the dickens. And that is putting it oh, so mildly. My husband says it feels like having a gigantic mule kick you in the chest. So, before he could be "well",  they had to seriously and gravely wound him, first. (Spreading ribs, cutting flesh and muscle and cutting and cauterizing blood vessels rates as "wounding", in my book.)


The first 24 hours following surgery, he was kept in an area called The Critical Care Unit, where he received lots of focused attention. Even though his condition was most critical during that time, in some ways, it was easier on me when he was in CCU than later on in his recovery, because during his time there, his health was so much more completely out of my hands. The family wasn't allowed to stay the night. In fact, visits were limited to 15 and sometimes 30 minutes in length, 4 times a day. On the first visit to see him, the hospital prepares you that your loved one will look like Death On a Platter: he'll be hooked up to breathing tubes, and lines, and drainage tubes, and there will be machines everywhere. Now all that was true, but, honestly, his color looked better even on the first visit than it had before the surgery. I'm guessing that had something to do with more than one drop of blood at a time being able to squeeze through his newly routed Lateral Anterior Descending artery. 


One thing I learned pretty early in his hospitalization was how important it is to be kind to the nurses. Now, don't get me wrong: every bit of love I sent their way, I meant. But, let's face it: a nurse can play a critical role in a patient's hospital experience, and a nurse who likes you is a whole lot more likely to help you or go the extra mile for you when special needs arise. Being cooperative and kind to your nurse is just like being kind to a server in a restaurant. Only an idiot is rude to their server in a restaurant. Servers can spit in your food, or sabotage your meal in any number of ways.  A nurse's job is to attend to the patient's physical needs, but you can make their job a pleasure or a pain. So, why not help them have a nice day? Besides, you may really need their help at some other point in your day.


The nurses in CCU were awesome. I think it takes a special kind of personality and skill to be able to tolerate working with individuals who are in that much pain, but I guess they receive training that allows them to recognize the different level of "normal" that follows surgery, and then their goal becomes helping the patient progress along that continuum to get to the place where their level of care can be downgraded. Honestly, I don't know how they do it. They care for people who are in a tremendous amount of pain and suffering, but seem unruffled by it, and even find a way to be positive and encouraging to family members. I found it remarkable. 


Pain management plays a vital role in a patient's recovery, and the challenge following surgery is to not let the patient's pain get too far ahead of them, while at the same time, not over-medicating. It's a fine, tricky line to walk. And a couple of times, we DID let the pain get rolling too strong, and then it's harder to get it back under control. Those were scary, difficult moments. He literally was barely breathing, because it hurt so badly to move his chest to breathe. When pain is well-managed, recovery time is lessened, so there are even more reasons to attend to this carefully than the patient's comfort level.


On my first visit to the Critical Care Unit, the BB knew me, and squeezed my hand, even though he couldn't speak because the breathing tube was still in. On the second visit, a few hours later, they had him off the ventilator, and sitting up in a chair. Amazing! That was when he looked at me and said, "I'm plenty man, Baby". On the third visit, he was clutching his pillow: his coughing pillow, for splinting his recently unhinged rib cage together, while he did the very necessary work of coughing. What could hurt more after a surgery where they spread your ribs and cut your chest muscles than coughing? I don't know. And yet, it was the very thing that it was critical for him to do, because there was phlegm that had to be loosened up. If not, there was a serious possibility of him developing pneumonia. He was to work several times an hour on coughing, and blowing into a spirometer, which measures your the strength of the force with which you can exhale (while doubling as an instrument of torture, for someone who's just had their chest opened up). Extremely painful, but absolutely, critically necessary.


Before he was ready to be released from the critical care unit, they had to remove a lot of stuff from his chest that he was hooked up to. I thought, for curiosity's sake, you might enjoy getting a gander at all the stuff they removed from and took off my husband's chest. I believe somewhere amidst all that is something called a pulmonary artery catheter.

Isn't this kind of horrifying? 

Within 24 hours, he was moved to the regular cardiac unit telemetry floor, where he wore the gadget that was attached to all probes on his chest. There, I would have been allowed to spend the night, but elected not to, in order to be home with the kids. That was, for me, the hardest part of the experience up to that point. He was in tremendous pain, and it was up to me to keep an eye on things. We discovered after he got in the room that he had broken out into a horrible rash all over his torso and tail. To this day, we're still not sure if it was an allergic reaction to one of his medications, or a topical reaction to the laundry detergent used on the gowns and bed linens there at the hospital. But it was an angry, itchy rash, and it worried me a great deal. Poor guy looked like Job. 


So...back to my title: what's the "Bury My Knee" part? Well, if ever I needed to bend my knee down to the ground in my life, to keep it metaphorically planted in prayer-position,  (kind of like burying it under me), it's been during this last month of my life. Without God renewing my spirit through prayer through His Holy Spirit, without the gift of being able to watch skilled medical personnel treat my Bison, without the listening ears of friends who let me pour out my exhaustion and fear in my hardest, darkest moments, I don't know how I would have made it.

Operation Bison Heart

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The Bison of My Heart.

When Osama Bin Laden was finally taken out, they called it Operation Geronimo. So I wanted to come up with something catchy for today's post, and "Operation Bison Heart" was the best I could do. When last I left you, I had posed the question, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" and it was the morning of my husband's surgery. (And, my son had beaten his father in a peeing match. ;-D )

So, now, it was time to get this show on the road. The folks in charge of transport arrived outside the door to The Big Bison's hospital room, with the bed to roll him downstairs, and he climbed up on the table, so that they could wheel him off. Can't tell you, again, how surreal a moment that was. Part of me wanted to scream: "No! No! No!!!! Don't go! Don't let them hurt you!!! You'll be OK! Don't leave me!!!! What if..." and dissolve onto the floor in a puddle of lily-livered tears. But I KNEW we had been given the gift of a second chance: we had been given the opportunity to fix what was obviously busticated inside his chest, and it HAD to be done! So I put on my game face, and even managed a few brave remarks of cheer. I had to be brave for him. I had to be brave for the kids. There was not an option. And, he WAS in good hands, right? Everything we knew about the hospital and the doctor told us he was in excellent hands. So, chin up, pip pip and cheerio: the Brits are always great in a crisis, right? I've got some English blood flowing my veins, somewhere. Game on!

I stepped out in the hall, and spoke with one of the nurses who was seeing him downstairs to where he would be prepped for surgery. I will tell you right now that I am going to change a few choice details - like her name - to protect her identity, but she was a gift to us straight from God.   "Carmelita", who is a fellow sister in Christ, who attends a pretty happening church in town, told me she would be in charge of shaving him, before the surgery. Shaving him? Seriously? Yeah, baybay. Shaving him. Literally from chin to toe. Apparently, nasty little bacteria can hide in your hair, and it was Carmelita's job to go on a seek and destroy mission on the victim patient's body, shaving off the little offenders, to further diminish risk from infection. My honey was going to come back to me clean, shiny, and soft as a baby's behind. Well, alrighty then. Fun fact, huh?

Carmelita told me to get his glasses and his wedding ring, and in a warm, lighthearted reassuring way told me not to worry: they were going to take good care of him. I can't tell you how much those words of hers meant to me. She meant it! I could tell. And she had such a comforting manner. I clung to her words and attitude like she had thrown me a lifeguard's ring buoy in the middle of a churning sea. "OK," I said. "I'm banking on it." She smiled. I leaned down and kissed my guy one more time, and down that hall they went.

We (me, the kids, and a few friends and family) cleaned out the Bison's room of all his stuff, and transferred ourselves to the 1st floor family waiting area, which is a very nice, open area. One amazing service that St. Thomas offers is a phone: they give you your own cell phone, on which you will receive calls from the operating room. (This makes up for the lousy regular cell phone reception that my own phone got down there.)

My first call from the OR came shortly after we arrived in the family waiting area, and the nurse told me that he had arrived in the waiting area, had been shaved, had been given medication to help him relax, and that he was comfortable and doing fine. She told me that she would next be calling me as soon as the operation had begun, and every 45 minutes after that. The operation that he would be having, a minimally invasive Coronary Artery Bypass, was estimated to take somewhere between 4 and 5 hours. Really, I was extremely, pleasantly surprised that I would be receiving information throughout the surgery! She also promised to tell me if they needed to change the approach, and make the full incision from stem to stern on his sternum, if they got in there and found more that needed to be done than they initially expected. Cool!

The morning passed pleasantly, with our group of 8 folks swapping stories. I'm telling you, my husband knows some good people, who are consummate story tellers. Not only was no one bored, but the time passed with lots of laughter, with all of us (my kids included) very entertained, and most of all, I was distracted from the fear that was lurking. Honestly, the fear was like a wolf, quietly tap, tap, tapping on my door, and I knew, I KNEW I must not give him entry, or he'd eat me alive.

The next call came at 9:46, when Rachel, the nurse, informed me that the first incision had been made. I thanked her, hung up, informed our little group, and we prayed, and then, the story telling resumed. I resorted to posting updates on Facebook, since my using my cell phone required either a 10 minute hike to an area where it had reception, or stepping outside into the roar of the cicadas who were zooming around, drawn themselves to the din of the cement mixer just outside. Trying to talk on my phone out there was not really working for me. At 11:30ish came another call: things were going well, Rachel was just letting me know. All was going according to plan. "Excellent. Thank you, Rachel." I said.

Around 12:45ish, a bit sooner than my next phone call should have been due, the hospital cell phone rang. "Oh, no!" I thought. "This is too soon! Has something gone awry???" I grabbed the phone and answered it, and heard: "Congratulations!!! You may have just won a free trip to Disneyworld!!! To hear more about this exciting offer, press one!"

WHAT???

I got auto-dialed in the operating waiting room hospital cell phone??? My adrenaline had just shot to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, and it's a freaking pre-recorded telemarketer??? Oh, gosh, for about one minute, I wanted to go really chew somebody out, but then reason prevailed, and I reminded myself that doubtless this was completely out of the hospital's control, but, REALLY!!! Sheesh!!!

And then, after coming down off of THAT adrenaline rush, I heard my name being paged up at the waiting room desk: "Would Susan please come up to the information desk? "

Wait! Isn't Rachel supposed to call me and tell me that everything's hunky dory? Where's my call from Rachel? Oh, crap.

I sprint for the information desk, and the little 80-something year old volunteer-guy says, "The surgery is over. The doctor wants to talk to you now up in the family waiting room area." My heart was beating wildly in my throat, as I searched his face for some trace of ...SOMETHING. Reassurance, maybe? You know, like Carmelita and Rachel had given me?' He kept his face perfectly blank, and impassive, revealing nothing. I longed to see the hint of a smile, an encouraging nod,  but there was NOTHING. The man was perfectly expressionless. At this point, my own heartbeat was almost deafening me. I turned back to face my waiting friends and family, my knees feeling like they might give out. I looked at them, I looked at my children. All of them were examining my face, looking for me to give a thumbs up gesture. I had nothing to give them. I truly didn't know what to make of it. Was this standard operating procedure for any patient's family? Or was I receiving the no-news treatment reserved for the families of patients who died?  I had no idea, but I felt fear, again, trying to overtake me.

I came back to the group, and said, "They want to see us in the family waiting room upstairs." My husband's dear friend asked, "Who do you want to go with you?" My mind was numb. I couldn't think. My son jumped up and said, "I'll go with you, Mom. I want to go. I want to be there." Just thinking about this now makes me get all teary. I think it's the bravest thing he's ever done. It took the courage of a man to say that. Then, all I could think was, if I faint, I want someone there who can catch me. So, I asked my husband's friend to come along too, and then, belatedly thought, "Of course: his sister should be there, too." And so we called her to come up, too. When we walked into the room labeled "Family Waiting Room" I thought it looked just like an old dingy funeral parlor room. Yellowed walls, sad, saggy furniture, and fake plastic flowers on the donated end table. Was this the room where I would find out I was now a widow? God, I hoped not. Such a sad, depressing room. The surgeon came in, looking cool as a cucumber in his scrubs and bonnet. He took one look at my face, and said, "He's OK. He did fine. It went very, very well." He probably said some more important things, but it was all pretty much "blah, blah, blah, Ginger" to me. My husband had lived! Things had gone well! I was going to get to see him again! What else did I need to know???

I told the surgeon: "There were a lot of people praying for you this morning. Specifically, my husband and I prayed that you would have a day where you felt complete joy inside, the kind of joy that comes from knowing that you are doing what you were created to do, that you are fully utilizing all the skills that God has given you to use." He broke into a brilliant smile, and said, "That's the kind of joy we like to feel around here everyday. I try to make every day a day like that." And then, I asked if I might hug him, to which he responded, "Well, sure!"

And I veritably danced out of that ugly, dingy, depressing room. And there, in the hallway, was Carmelita! And she said, "Oh, yes, honey, your husband did JUST fine! Girl, you need to ask him about me cutting his man-sweater. He had more hair on his toes than he did on his chest!" And I said, "That's my guy! Smooth-chested as a seal!"

OK, my shoulders are again in knots, tears are rolling down my face, and God is good. I've gotta quit for now. Thank God for Carmelita, and Rachel, and Dr. T the surgeon, and all the other fine people at St. Thomas, even the sweet little 80 year old volunteer who was just delivering the news the way he was trained to do, no doubt.

And a pox upon Auto-Dial pre-recorded telephone calls that come to hospital cell phones. Amen.

Taking a Little Break from the Drama

Pin It

Drama image from here

It's been an intense few days of heart-pounding drama out here in the the Boonies, and I, for one, could stand a little break. So, I took one last night, because the Fun Girl side of me really needed to be indulged. I did a post for the Fun Girls on an Oil of Olay product I picked up at Costco a couple of months ago, that I really like! I think it's made a visible improvement in the overall appearance of my skin, and thought my readers might like to know about it as well! One click will take you over to the Fun Girls, where you can read all about it! Also, if you haven't yet subscribed to follow the Fun Girls, you really ought to put that into your blog reader.


Come to think of it, if you haven't subscribed yet to my blog, please do! I'm getting pretty close to having 200 followers on the Google follower device, so why don't you show me a little blogger love, and sign up there, or through Networked Blogs, which you'll see a link for further down the page, on the right.

Thanks for stopping by today! I still have at least one more wrap-up post in mind in regard to my dear husband, the Big Bison's heart attack: my biggest, tingle moment thought of the entire experience, as well as some helpful information that I was unaware of prior to this experience, that I think everyone ought to know about.

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

Pin It With apologies to the Bee Gees, of course!

I've looked back over the posts recounting my dear husband, the Big Bison's heart attack, and I don't want to give away how fast I am approaching senility, by telling the same stories, over and over again, so I am going to try to be careful NOT to do that. By the same token, I do realize that there will be readers who will stumble in to the story mid-stream, as it were, and I do want to be considerate to them.

If you're a new reader, you'll find Part 1 recounted in Heart Break, Part 2 of the saga is in Heart Broke, which leads us to today's offering, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?". And, well one might ask. Because it certainly didn't turn out to be as easy as we hoped. But on the other hand, it turned out to be much easier than we feared. Many of the details that I'm not going to go into today have already been told in "The Big Bison is on the Move", so that's available for your further perusal, if you can't get enough of the "drah - ma", as they say.

To pick up the thread where I left it dangling in Heart Broke, bypass surgery was what was required. We found out after the fact that my dear husband had been assigned an amazing surgeon, (the guy does heart transplants!) who is young enough to be cutting edge (pardon the pun) but old enough to totally know what he's doing. He told us he planned to do a minimally invasive procedure, whereby he would enter between the ribs right under the left nipple with a 3" incision, spread those ribs, and cut, slice, and dice to work cardiac magic, bringing the left mammary artery down to meet the left anterior descending artery, located on the front of the heart. Our response? Not cutting open the sternum? Not leaving a foot long scar? Not taking veins out of both legs? Not stopping the heart? Not going on a heart/lung bypass machine???  Sounds good!!! You go, doc!

(So the answer to the question of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?, in our case, was "minimally invasive cardiac bypass surgery", thank you very much.)

Sometime on Wednesday, as we all sat around waiting for my husband's blood to thicken up, which is a lot like waiting for paint to dry, or watching grass grow, but a lot more stressful, the whole family was sitting around in the hospital room. There was a dry erase whiteboard on the wall, which had a chart on it (wish I had a picture! but I'll try to recreate it as best I can. It went something like this:


I    /   O
        250
        200
        225


So, my dear son asks his father, "Dad, what's that for?"
To which the Big Bison replied: "Well, son, they are supposed to be recording how much fluid I take in (the "I" stands for Input) and they have asked me to record how much fluid I put out, in urine (the "O" stands for Output).
DS: "Well, what's the 250 for?"
BB: "Well, I have to pee in this jug, and it's graduated - marked with milliliters, and so the 250 means I peed 250 ml."

Now, my dear son is 17, and if you know anything about guys, and anything in particular about 17 year old guys, they are COMPETITIVE. Hence, my dear son's next remark:

DS: "Well, I could pee 300."

Snorting and giggling commences from the female portion/peanut gallery of the room.

BB: "Son, you do NOT want to get into a pissing match with me."

Talk about your mot juste. How often does one get to use that phrase with such a LITERAL exactitude of correctness? It was a moment of both metaphorical and literal magnificence.

You may remember that the surgery was called off (Thursday night) the night before the day it was to actually have occurred (Friday). We got the call at 9:30 in the evening, because "an emergency surgery had come up that would take the doctor all day to do". Bummer, especially because that meant putting off the surgery till 4 days later on Monday. Which would have meant four more days of tension, watching the cardiac paint dry.

But, then, surprise! At 6 AM the next morning (Friday), waking me out of a dead sleep, came the phone call that said, "Whoops! That surgery we told you about is OFF. Wanna go ahead?"

Huh???

(Quick! Wake up, out of that Ambien-induced sleep, Susan, and make a life or death decision in regard to your husband's life!!!)


 "YES!"

 So I drug my sleeping kids from their beds and WHISKED them off to the hospital, 35 minutes away, and when we got there to say "Bon Voyage!" to Daddy, my dear son had not even yet had time to go to the bathroom. Two minutes later, he exits his Daddy's bathroom, VICTORIOUSLY brandishing a plastic graduated urinal jug, holding 500 ml of his very own urine.

  Booyah!!! Take that, old man!!!

I had a few minutes to pray with my guy, alone, before his surgery, and I whispered my prayer in his ear, as we stood alone in his hospital room, holding each other, knowing that we ourselves were being held in the hands of the Almighty Creator of the Universe, who also happens to be our loving Father in heaven.

"Lord, take care of this man, who IS my heart. Take care of his heart, as he has so faithfully cared for mine, for 23 years of marriage. Keep that heart beating strong, and bring us back together soon, two hearts beating as one, you in us, and us in you."

A picture from my sister-in-law's iphone, right before they wheeled my heart out the door:

Heart Broke

Pin It So, when last I left you, I was flying down the interstate at upwards of 80 mph, praying out loud, while my dear husband, the Big Bison, was riding in the ambulance that was making a path for us. We were en route to the hospital, to get the BB's ticker checked out. If you will remember, in Heart Break, things had not come to a pretty pass while the BB was out doing his Abe Lincoln, Rail Splitter imitation, and his ride (the ambulance) had been summoned.

I just threw this in to show you what a ticking time bomb looks like.

We pulled up in front of the St. Thomas Hospital Emergency room, and may I say, I HEARTILY (pun intended) approve of St. Thomas, and every bit of care we received there. We were told that they are one of the top 5 heart hospitals in the nation, and based on OUR experience there, we can believe it. As I bolted from my car and up to the back of the ambulance at the Emergency Room door, I could hear a wonderfully reassuring sound: my husband's laughter, as he joked with the paramedics who were wheeling him inside. And folks, let me tell you, this is another important reason to call the ambulance rather than having someone drive you to the ER: when the paramedics wheel you in, you get priority. They are expecting you, and take you seriously. So even though his EKG and vital signs all looked good, we were taken immediately back to a private room where monitoring was begun, pronto.

By this time, the BB was feeling back to his old self, and pretty foolish for letting me call the ambulance. This was even more reassuring to me, and I began to really start to try to convince myself that maybe this really HAD been much ado about nothing. They took his blood and and did a chest X-ray, just to eliminate other things that might rule out a heart attack, and when his blood work came back normal, we heaved a sigh of relief, and began to make plans for going home. At this point, the ER doc came back, and told us that when one has a heart attack, enzymes show up in the blood that indicate that the heart has suffered damage. Since the BB's blood work came back clean, we thought we might be good to go home, but he cautioned us that :

1) the BB's symptoms (sweating, dizziness, pressure on his chest, pain in his left arm) were fairly classic heart attack symptoms and

2) those enzymes can take up to 9 hours to show up in the blood work, so he didn't encourage us to make any plans to leave. In fact, he wanted the BB to stay the night, and have a stress test the following morning.

We talked about just leaving anyway: the BB was sure he was fine! It was probably just low blood sugar from not eating! But the doctor encouraged us strongly to stay and see what the next set of blood work (in 3 hours) would show.

So, we called the kids, told them we were staying for the next set of blood work, but were STARVING, and would they please bring us some of that roast chicken that we had left cooking in the house?

We cooled our heels, convincing each other that this was NOTHING. Then, the kids showed up with the chicken, and we had dinner. (Well, he ate. I took one bite, and then my nerves said, "Enough of that!".) At 10:00 they came in and took the next blood draw. The kids were exhausted: it was late, and we had all been on a huge emotional ride that day. I was for sending them home. And then, the doctor came back in, and told us very kindly, and as gently as he could, that the enzymes were present at a low level, and that the BB had indeed experienced a mild heart attack. The stress test that HAD been scheduled for the morning was canceled: this was a definitive diagnosis. He was being moved to the fourth floor - THE CARDIAC FLOOR - MY BULLETPROOF HUSBAND WAS TO BE A PATIENT ON THE CARDIAC FLOOR.

And just as bad, if not worse, than hearing that news, was the look on each of my children's faces. We had all been joking and laughing before the doctor came in. It was all going to be nothing, wasn't it? Just another one of our wacky adventures? Well, no. Daddy wasn't invincible, or everlasting. I cannot tell you how awful it was, seeing that news sink into their little hearts.

It was 10:45, and the end of a long, terrible evening, and the kids needed to go home, and get some sleep. I wavered. Initially, I sent them on their way, and then the BB and I gazed tearfully into each other's eyes, had a brief conference on what in the HECK was the right thing to do in THIS situation, where I felt desperately needed in both places, and finally, we decided that I needed to make sure the kids were OK. I called them and told them to give me a minute to get to the car, and then follow me home. They would be out driving after curfew, anyway. I wanted to be nearby, in case anything happened.

The next morning, the BB was scheduled for an arteriogram. That's where the cardiologist sticks a camera up your femoral artery and shoots you full of dye, to see what's going on in your heart. Any blockages should show up, and then the cardiologist will decide to either (a) treat your situation with medicines, or (b) insert a stent to open the blood flow in the blood vessel that is blocked or (c) treat you with surgery, such as bypass surgery, where the blood flow is rerouted in your blood vessels, around blockages. We were pretty confident going in that since the BB's heart attack had been so minor, that this was likely a problem that could be treated with drugs, but in any case, if a stent was needed, that can be done during this procedure, so the likelihood that this procedure would address my Bison's problem was high.

Imagine my/our shock when the phone call came from the cardiologist, following the procedure, that said that the BB would require bypass surgery. SURGERY??? On my husband??? And again, the children were in his hospital room with me as I took that phone call, and again, I had to see the look on their faces as they processed the news. Good stinking grief. This was the third plummet of this roller coaster ride, and I was really not having any fun at all. I wanted to call a screeching halt to what was happening, but everything was so completely out of my control. This was it: my new reality. My young, healthy, strong, vigorous, 56 year old husband had been carted off in an ambulance, was a patient on the cardiac floor of the hospital, and now was waiting to get the blood thinner out of his system, in order to get him ready for bypass surgery. We found this out on Tuesday around lunchtime, and surgery was not scheduled to occur till Friday morning.

What followed was three days of sitting around in the hospital, waiting for his blood to do its thing. And then, came the full report from the cardiologist that absolutely stunned us: the great big artery on the front of his heart, the one they call the "widow maker", the left anterior descending artery had two blockages: one blocking 95% of the blood flow, and the second blocking 99% of the blood flow. Perhaps one more swing of that ax, and my husband might have been dead in the driveway, where he was chopping that wood. He was a ticking time bomb, and we had no idea whatsoever. None. Sure, he'd felt a bit tired lately. Yes, his complexion (in retrospect) had been a bit gray, but it never, ever crossed either one of our minds that he had heart issues.

Those three days passed fairly easily, even though the hospital was constantly monitoring his vital signs. We had so many visits from dear, dear friends, who brought us lunches from restaurants, and made us laugh, and shared our shock. Lots of prayers went up from that room. And so much laughter and love filled it that it spilled out the doors, and flowed down the halls. Ah! We were well loved on through visits and phone calls, wacky gifts and cards. And the snacks and meals that you delivered that the kids could take home and eat. I thought of a great new name for my church: Our Lady of Perpetual Casseroles. Gosh, they were good! Even when I was eating them every night around 10:00 or 11:00 when I finally got home from the hospital to check on the kids and the dogs. How great to come home to a meal prepared with love! Thank you, dear ones!

Well, in part 1, we had the actual Heart Break. In part 2, we found out the Heart Broke. I guess you'll have to stay tuned to hear the rest of the story....so far.