Compassion of Complexity

The complexity of people is that they are never just good, nor bad, nor nice, nor mean; they are everything at once, yet seemingly never at the same time. Beliefs, however, are always at the core, and for the same reasons why they are hard to change, they are hard to expose. They have to be clawed out, cried for, or besieged, and a common irony is that they only succumb to their captors in the end. There is inherent compassion in viewing others with complexity; restated, we do not judge the flower for sitting in the dirt.

Mini Bike Hell

“Do you want Dallin to bring his other mini-bike for you to ride tomorrow?” My sister-in-law was asking me a perfectly reasonable question. Mini-bikes are the new rage among all the kids these days, so she was offering me an exceptional opportunity. I stuttered a hesitating response, however. This particular sister-in-law has gotten very good at putting me on the spot like this. For example, yesterday she spent excessive time preparing a simple meal known as “Hawaiian Haystacks.” I’m not sure that Hawaii lays any claim to this meal, which in the Glenwood household consists of pineapple, black olives, chow mein noodles, mandarin oranges, and shredded chicken and cheese with some sort of gravy poured on top. Look, I know that people love this meal. For me, it’s missing some key ingredients, and I think that rice, olives, and chicken gravy are not a great combination. But this particular sister-in-law took the time to ask me, point-blank, if I liked Hawaiian Haystacks. What was I supposed to say? She already prepped the meal, for crying out loud! So I told her I absolutely loved them (if I’m gonna lie, I might as well lay it on thick) and proceeded to fake eating some of it before pitching the remainder of my plate in the garbage. Okay, so back to the mini-bikes situation. Let’s be clear: I’m a young man in an old man’s body. I’ve got a broken tailbone that causes significant paint to the point of me using a literal wheelchair cushion when driving; I see a chiropractor a couple of times a month for low, mid, and upper back pain; my Left Nut is extremely sensitive to vibration or palpation ever since a mangled vasectomy (I don’t want to talk about it!); I could teach a class on actinic keratosis using my face as the prop; my hands and my feet all experience various but consistent levels of arthritis; and last but not least, I’m of course too fat to be riding the equivalent of a child’s dirt bike. But I said yes, and the next day I excitedly mounted the cheapest of the mini-bikes. I didn’t have a helmet on because my enthusiastic (and much younger) brothers-in-law instructed me that the “Biker Gang” all needed to wear hats backward for the photo shoot as we rolled down the road. I prepared for a round-the-block experience. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be an around-the-block joy ride turned into 31 miles of rugged mountain off-roading on these satanic contraptions; most of the journey was on washboard gravel that turned my face into a permanent grimace and curved my sacrum so much it probably punctured my bladder. Left Nut fell off early, savagely bouncing off in a fit of whiny rage. Right Nut was tougher, holding on for a few hours before conscientiously determining that this sort of life was not for him and ceremoniously rolling away, leaving my sans-testicles and only myself to blame. It’s an accepted fact that I will never sit again, and I’m sore in places that I’m pretty sure aren’t even supposed to have nerves. I spent some time with Calvin S., who has been one of my favorite people since we were eight. We did a tiny hike behind Mt. Timpanogos before returning to his house for me to reclaim my lost title of Master Foosballer for the following year. Yesterday, we went to the Last Remaining Lake. That’s not really what it’s called (Palisades), but it appears that every other lake in Utah is drier than a High Councilman’s sermon. From the start, I opted for the mandatory exploration trip, jogging up game trails to cross three high ridges until I could see the Manti temple in the distance. The rock formations looked like someone had taken a giant ice cream scoop to the mountain, and there was a funnel gulley with a suspiciously large number of dead deer corpses/skeletons. I’m pretty sure a mountain lion lives in the region.

In Disbelief (April 26th, 2021; May 23rd, 2021)

April 26, 2021 It is hard feeling like the most dishonest part of my life is directly related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I can be honest in my career field, with my patients, with my business dealings, with my children, and with my spouse in most areas. But I can’t be honest in my beliefs. Well, I can be honest. I simply choose not to. I choose to generally not discuss my doubts with my wife. I choose to mostly be silent regarding my near-absolute disbelief in truth claims from the church, formed over the past seven years of my own personal study and research. Ironically, I’m a talker, and yet I constantly close the lid on my personal litany of LDS misgivings. My wife is an amazing person but I acknowledge we are not in the same space. She has consistently vocalized that she does not believe in nor care about the problematic history of the church, and sometimes subconsciously stereotypes those who choose to distance themselves from the LDS faith. I recently asked her if it would matter to her if Joseph Smith turned out to not have been a prophet; she responded with a solid “No.” I admit that I am occasionally envious of her ability to not be bothered by church history. Ultimately, though, she is much more important to me than my views of the church. In other words, if this is her faith and it makes her happy, I have no desire to tear it down. I would attend with her and continue to live most of the LDS lifestyle for as long as necessary. I try to engage her in seeing a more charitable view of those who disengage from traditional Mormonism. I objectively share church history with her and bring up opposing views in a non-challenging format. My attempts to be patient have gradually shown progress, and I’ve seen her views soften and enlarge in myriad ways. She is very close with her family, a large group from a small town in central Utah. I love them as family, but acknowledge they embody some of the questionable rural Utah church culture that tends to fill me with revulsion and discomfort; my wife has gradually rejected more and more of those tendencies and has expressed satisfaction at doing so. After many years serving as YM/Sunday school/EQ president, I will no longer accept callings that would require emphatic devotion (i.e., bishopric, etc.). Some topics I indirectly decline to teach, focusing instead on Christlike attributes and embracing concepts of service and personal responsibility. Perhaps this sounds odd for some, but I still want to be allowed to fully participate while being authentic. I want to work with the youth or adults; I love to teach, love to serve, and want to help my children be involved while still allowing them to grow up with as much accurate information as possible. I don’t mind that leaders are imperfect, and I don’t mind disagreeing with some other members’ views. I suppose I want to belong to a church that doesn’t want to make me believe in anything besides God (still figuring out what that really means to me). I want to participate without fitting a mold. I want to be an example to others without being the expected example. I want my friendships and involvement to not be contingent on professing belief in something I can no longer believe. In short, I wish I could display my disbelief without the implication of disownment. May 23rd, 2021 Today, I accepted a new calling as Teachers Quorum Advisor; my son will be a teacher at the end of this year. I am trying to live more authentically, so this is what I emailed my bishop (also a good friend of mine, just a year younger than I) afterwards: "Dear *****, I met with [2nd counselor] today and accepted the calling offered. I would love to be an Advisor for the Teachers quorum and think that I have a lot of dedication, love, guidance, and experience to give to the youth. Before you sustain me, I'm going to clarify some things so that you know what to expect from me: 1. I don't teach or bear testimony of the historicity or truth claims of the church as my personal views; if I do address them, I do so as accurately as possible and present them as the positions taken by the LDS faith. 2. I do not participate in any teachings or traditions that I personally consider potentially harmful, damaging, or inconsistent with my understanding of Christ's gospel. 3. My leadership style is servant leadership with a high focus on individuals, mentorship, love, acceptance, kindness, forgiveness, personal responsibility, and actively seeking faith in Jesus Christ through meaningful social, spiritual, physical, and intellectual ways. If you are okay with this, then I very much look forward to being a part of the youth program once again! I completed the Youth Safety Training today and will wait to be sustained before joining the youth activities. Love, Ben" I hadn't shared my faith journey with the bishop yet. My wife read the email with pursed lips and a furrowed brow and didn't say a word about it afterwards. I don't exactly know what I'm looking for by sharing this....I am desperately trying to communicate that I want to serve, while also not pretending to have a devout conviction I no longer possess. I'm not sure it's possible to have my cake and eat it too. **UPDATE He responded with understanding and told me they were excited to have me. I am feeling really good about it.

Stone Vs. Ice (September 29th, 2021)

As I struggle towards some sense of mutual understanding between me and my spouse, it’s hard to not feel the weight of discouragement. There’s so much emotion, so much apprehension packed into every crack of this crumbling wall we’ve built between each other over the past few years. We’ve traversed the same road together, but my patience is tested as I gently encourage, again and again, that she go against the deeply-ingrained instructions to always watch the road, only watch the road, never lose sight of the road; I want her to lift up her head and enjoy at least some of the same view of the majestic landscape with me. I even want to leave the road sometimes but am worried that we would lose sight of each other. She, on the other hand, is convinced that any deviation from looking at the road could result in immediate and catastrophic consequences. One wouldn’t think that it would be so difficult to simply raise their eyes to meet the view. But it is. It causes heartache. There’s a level of jealousy in me as I wonder what it would be like to not have tears shed over what type of underwear your spouse is wearing, or whether they wondered out loud whether they should try coffee for the first time. The topic can’t be breached, as it causes too much distress for one or both of us. Fourteen years of a terrific marriage, a strong marriage. Happy kids. Good times. Kind words. Meaningful experiences. And yet….I feel a tremendous sense of fragility, reinforced by messages of “you aren’t the person I married” simply due to my sheer inability to ignore the fact that my house of religion no longer has walls, and I can’t continue to pretend that they still stand. Our relationship was solid, strong, and then the weather changed. The breeze is warm and beautiful and refreshing and I haven’t felt like this…ever? Until I realize that our relationship maybe wasn’t made of stone. It's ice, and it’s melting in this new context. I don’t know what’s within it. Is it iron? Is it flimsy? Will there be anything at all with the ice gone? The worst part is that I simply cannot control the weather. It’s here. It is what it is, and I just hope the ice is simply a thin outside layer of a strong foundation. But I’ve got neighbors whose foundations were all ice, and those relationships have dissolved into the ground to leave nothing but great piles of mud where a love mansion once stood. So I’m not waiting. I’m rebuilding as the ice melts. I’m doing everything I can to reinforce that we are more than ice, that we have real structure, that we will be fine in this new weather. We don’t have to go anywhere, we can stay right here and be different than the way we were, maybe even better than the way we were. And at the end of the day, I realize that to some degree I’m just speaking to myself. And therefore we walk together, along the life road, with my arm around her. She knows I’m looking around. It makes her nervous. Occasionally she’ll glance up, but the guilt is too strong so she’ll immediately bring her gaze back to the road. Sometimes she’ll look up at me for a change, and it seems like she is okay not viewing the road if she can focus on me and not the surrounding landscape. I look forward to learning how to be more together in this, with her, somehow. Thank you for having this safe space for me to try to express it all.

Cathedral (March 20, 2022)

Went to a cathedral yesterday with my son while visiting Washington DC. We sat in meditative silence while a tearful young woman and her loved one visited the candle area (forgive my ignorance, I do not know about Catholic traditions). After they left, my son and I approached the front and, in a gesture of respect, we copied their farewell and dropped to our knees for a moment and bowed our heads. I loved the beauty of the cathedral, the imagery that was there and the feeling of reverence. I loved that I, a Mormon stranger, could walk right in the door and feel that it was a place dedicated to some sort of holiness. I yearn for our temples to be open this way. I am no longer allowed there, after a lifetime of service that continues to this day, because I choose to not answer the TR questions out of personal objection to this game of "worthiness" that we play. It was beautiful, yesterday. Today the memory is tinted with regret that I feel as though my beautiful church seems to push exclusivity instead of invitation, obedience instead of discipleship.

Wetlands

I look out at the marshy wetlands of eastern Oregon. Golden colors mix with brown trees against a backdrop of various shades of green. A clear stream chases swaths of wildflowers that stretch their petals towards the blue and white sky. It’s so wild and seemingly disorganized, yet its very complexity gives it a depth that human construction can never achieve. The manicured lawns amidst sprawling homes, the predictable patterns of circles and squares and movement; nothing compares to the majesty of nature’s perfectly meshed chaos. The wild nod of the field reminds me that the escalating intricacy of my worldview is giving way to a beautiful array of life, though it is very different than the one I previously led. Perhaps the most troubling part: I don’t know where God is anymore. His presence left with the treatment of mental illness years ago, like marveling at the utter cleanliness of a glass door until one day you walk through it and realize there was no door at all. Was God ever even there? Without the comfort of my ecclesiastical structure, what remains of Him? I had based nearly my entire life on a single, overarching concept: God speaks to me through His Prophet. Now, all that remains is a voice in my head. It’s no better than another’s, but it’s mine. Somehow, I have to figure out moral authority for my own soul. I still listen to messages, but now I repeat them until they are mine. If I turn the words over until I feel they don’t fit, I discard them into my “potentially useful someday” mental barrel. If they repulse me and I feel they will do nothing but contaminate my spirit, I toss them into my mental bonfire.

I Can Only Imagine

Some seconds are longer than others. The moments slow, the alarms stretched. I breathe it all in, my eyes slowly scanning the tumble of equipment, monitors, tubes, lines, and materials draped around my patient. The ventilator alarms incessantly, screaming that the patient is dying. He’s already proned. His settings are already as high pressure as we can go without blowing out his lungs, with 100% supplemental oxygen. A dialysis machine runs in the background, circulating blood through thick red dialysis catheters but not able to remove the literal gallons of extra fluid that crowd his tissues. An assortment of intravenous drips crowd steel poles: insulin, sodium bicarb, vasopressin, norepinephrine, cisatracurium, fentanyl, propofol, sodium chloride, antibiotics, albumin, tube feeds. And the ventilator screams. Oxygen levels aren’t supposed to be this low, in the 70’s. They’re supposed to come back up. The family called. Just two weeks ago, they were laughing with their loved one. He was living a normal life, not knowing that he only had a matter of days before everything would spiral. The family tells us they believe in miracles, and they ask us to be heroes for him. They request azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine; they want ivermectin. They pray with me on the phone. They want to visit, but they tell me they aren’t vaccinated. The daughter asks me to play Christian music for him. I tell her I will do so, but deep down I am already scrambling to end the call as alarms arise from my other three patients’ rooms. All four of these patients are hypotensive today. All four are critical. All four will likely die. And I can barely move from room to room in time to respond to each moment, no matter how long the moment stretches. I forget the request for music to play in his room. I’m too harried, too occupied, too beat from the turbulent day, this hurricane of sickness drowning both nurses and patients. At three A.M., I wake and remember. Ironically, the patient is coding in the hospital while I’m awake thinking of the Christian music. So today, this song is dedicated to him. I hope someone hears it and remembers to thank the nurse who gives them that tiny injection; they might just be saving your life. I can only imagine, as I scan the room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_lrrq_opng

I GUESS THIS IS RIDDLE COUNTRY

SPRING BREAK: I GUESS THIS IS RIDDLE COUNTRY

I took Braeden on a much overdue camping trip with just the two of us. We built a very redneck covering for the end of our trailer, dubbing our camp “Wilty Grey” for the weekend.

Like all extremely cool fathers, I force him to make riddles with me throughout the trip. Don’t let him fool you though, he actually loved that part.

We saw a bunch of fresh bear and cougar tracks on a remote hike, and found the largest newt and frog populations we've ever seen. It’s possible that Braeden beat me in our competition to each count the most newts (don’t remind him though, I can’t remember what the prize was now and I don’t want to owe him forever).

When we got home, I took everybody on a couple of forced marches on the coast. I'm sure they secretly enjoyed those hikes despite pretending and loudly proclaiming every few minutes that it was too windy, cold, and exhausting and that it did not qualify as "fun"...

 

Ben’s Riddles

One by one, filing by….We’re in the road and in the sky.

You can cut me—without a knife;

You write above me, all your life.

What am I?

senil

I sound like a dog yet have no voice.

I’m friends with the moss yet am not moist.

I encircle and climb, I’m rough and I’m fine.

What am I?

krab

I’m big and I’m red, at the level of your head. My twists let a book be read.

What am I?

eugnot

I move a herd of cattle, or I’m a Sunday afternoon.

You’ll see me on a golf course, and sixteen’s just too soon.

It’s how they make you crazy and describes the pouring rain;

It’s that something-else inside you that makes you bear the pain.

What am I?

enivird/evird

I’m a way to get some exercise, but also cop a feel.

I make you feel like singing but can turn your friend 3^rd wheel.

The elders always disapprove, but they can’t do it anyway, so what am I and when have I made your life so merry?

gnicnad

I am there when it’s pried from your dead hands.

In years gone by, I controlled every people and land.

I’m in the heart of a monster and the depths of the ocean, and as the day ends I creep a little bit closer.

What am I?

dloc

I’m the punishment of ages, the quickest of them all.

I’m barely still connected by a thread so small.

I’m with your teenage children when their friends are staying over,

and I’m what never happens up since the advent of the cell phone.

What am I?

gnignah

Braeden’s Riddles

 

When you control me, I control you. I control beings, and what they say and do. I am found in the stores here and there, but most likely I’m everywhere. I come in different shapes and sizes, all different types but I’m always there when families are together.

noisivelet

I glimmer in the sun. I glow in the dark. I’m transparent as if I’m not there. I’m valuable in ways I can’t say. I’m found very rarely day by day.

 

I am part of the past, here and there, but I’m studied everywhere. I’m in the classroom every day, that is just what they say. What am I?

Proof that My Children Respect Me: Text Messages with Stephanie

Steph: Good thing I didn’t go to church. Temp is 99.4.

Ben: Told ya.

Steph: I know you did!

Ben: Someday you will listen to me. You will call me Genius Ben and make me customized enchiladas every day. It will be glorious for me.

Ben: Emerson is reading over my shoulder like a serial killer.

Steph: Hi Emerson

Ben: He says he feels fortunate to have such an incredibly powerful and stable genius father.

Steph: Ohhhhhh right

Ben: He also is hoping that he will someday be as breathtakingly handsome as his father is. He also says I smell nice and he can completely understand why you married me because I’m a “catch.” According to Emerson. He said all those things. Exactly.

Ben: Braeden says he is going to get rich and buy me a Lamborghini someday. 

 

COVID-19 ICU Care

New Orleans, Critical Care Unit, April 2020

Sat, Apr 18, 6:07 AM (4 days ago) I feel a little bit like a man chasing a crawfish, as I struggle to find the right words to share about this experience. Perhaps I should just plunge in, risking a little bit of injury in my attempt to navigate the muddy swirl that are my thoughts. A feeling in my chest had been building for weeks. Having been at the ICU bedside for too many deaths to count, I knew what kind of suffering was being endured by patients, families, and healthcare workers alike to deal with the decimation that COVID-19 was causing in many areas. One day I found myself chatting with my friend Jill in Cleveland, who had been working on the ICU with their 16 ventilated COVID patients. She had just found out she was pregnant, and was torn between her desire to reduce her pregnancy risk versus doing her job. It turned out that was the last straw for me. I emailed Barb and Michelle that day to volunteer for any critical care needs that might arise, including out of state. I am still qualified and capable of caring for these patients, and if it means that I can reduce the risk for someone like my friend Jill, then it should happen. I’ve also seen the incredible life-or-death difference qualified nurses will make with these types of patients, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to be there. So I went. New Orleans was obviously shut down, and the ICU seemed like a madhouse with all the IV pumps outside the rooms with extension tubing creating a pathway on the floor to the patients’ beds. The previous two weeks, the ICU census had been five times its normal; unfortunately, they were ill prepared to know how to manage these very sick patients, and the first few weeks they had a 70-90% mortality rate for COVID patients who were intubated, ranging from a 25 year old to over 90 years old. Very little contact with family members occurred, as visitors were not allowed. Clustering of care was to the extreme, and almost every patient in the ICU was there for COVID. Many of the nurses were out. That first night, I worked with a 31-year old who had been extremely ill at home for fourteen days; he said he just sat in his little isolation room by himself, questioning whether this would be his end. He felt like he was dying, like he couldn’t breathe, but with the local hospitals completely overwhelmed he had no wish to go in. Across the street, all COVID patients in the ICU were blanket DNRs no matter their ages, and nurses entered the room twice per shift due to a lack of PPE. Three of the patients in my hallway died within the first few hours of my arrival. More died the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. I took care of one to two patients at a time, on night shift; I told them that I had one purpose for being there, and it was to make them get better. After the rush of deaths, things started to improve. The residents were better at managing the patients. Traveling nurses from all over the country were brought there to help, most of them very experienced ICU nurses. The local staff were allowed to go home to rest, and those of us stepping in essentially winged it for the couple of weeks we were there. I experienced some consternation at the thought I could die like some of these souls. I planned everything out; if I started showing symptoms, I was immediately renting a car and driving to Utah where I could stage myself close to a hospital system I knew was prepared to effectively deal with COVID patients. Soon, however, those fears subsided. My patients improved little by little until extubation and transfer to the floor. Meals were donated by local restaurants to nurses across the city, so there was always plenty to eat even on night shift. I spent an evening jogging around the city, eventually ending up at the shuttered WWII National Museum. Outside, a memorial for the 88,000 airmen lost in the skies of WWII stands, representing a briefing of young pilots before a dangerous raid. Behind the pilots, the spirits of pilots already passed on stood and gave subtle guidance and comfort. I stood there at sunset, overcome with a feeling of gratitude for the bravery and goodness of mankind in times of distress. I stood at attention, bringing a slow salute to my brow in a moment of dedicated silence for the courage that so many have shown. These are the times that we muster up that piece within ourselves that craves meaning in the world around us; soon, we realize that we create that meaning ourselves, by reaching out and showing that we will make a difference for each other. So let’s make this the most meaningful time we have. ReplyReply allForward

Weep for the Loss

Today, as I helped remove the IV of a patient who we just shocked into a life sustaining heart rhythm, he grabbed the hands of me and my fellow nurse, breaking into a sob-punctuated prayer of thanks for the care he received.

It made me weep a little, too, clandestinely. I think of all the ones I have saved. I think of the ones that I have not really wanted to save but did so anyway, my heart torn between the prospect of making them suffer and making them live. I think of other hands I have held, while they lay dying, alone. Maybe the 17 year old who jumped off a bridge, who didn't feel like he had any reason to live. Maybe the 29 year old who hung himself, whose distraught wife I comforted as she screamed after finding him, cold and blue and wet from self urination. Maybe the 5 year old, as I translate for a room full of red-lidded eyes who yearn for an answer that their baby will grow up. I think of myself, tortured by thousands of dreams in which I push on my own baby's chest while waiting for their eyes to remove their glaze.

I don't know always why I weep. But today, it was wonderful to have a patient pray for me. Too often, the caregiver's pain is forgotten. Too often, we forget it ourselves. Too often, we don't pray for each other.

Tunnel Singing

Ah, the nostalgia. Those cool, crisp nights that spontaneously drew large groups of hopeful, young, clean-faced BYU college students to swell together singing the well-worn hymns of Zion in the small tunnels the criss-crossed underneath the sidewalks of campus. I remember always hoping that one of the beautiful girls would draw herself closer, sometimes pulling herself under a friendly but coquettish side-armed hug while we harmonized in the gathering twilight. I wasn't very forward, but I was always interested. 

I loved my time there at BYU, and I mean that in the very essence of the word, loved. I practically worshipped that campus, and hungrily devoured every bit of knowledge afforded to me. My places of employment at the BYU Creamery on 9th and with the campus custodial services led me to some of the college friendships that, to this day, I treasure the most. 

Those days are my past. The campus has transformed, the students evolved.

Meat Candy, Other Delights

Meat Candy

There was no excusing this. There was no logical format in which a justification could be derived. It was the year 2005, and I was living in Salvador Celi, Quito Ecuador. My roommate was Dimitri Villamar, who had never experienced the decadence of Sloppy Joe’s sandwiches.


I was prepared, with a handwritten recipe from North America that called for 1 lbs of hamburger and 2 tbs of brown sugar. Except the person who’d written the recipe had neglected to cross the “t”, making it read “2 lbs brown sugar.” I’m assuming that person was not me, because I’m mostly perfect and never forget to cross my letters.


I know. I know that this made zero sense, that the proportions were as off as bug spray. In my defense, I was basically drunk with exhaustion. This didn’t curb my enthusiasm for making the delicacy, which Villamar viewed suspiciously as I dumped the unheard-of amounts of brown sugar into the stewing meat.


“Won’t it be a little sweet?” He asked.


“Maybe….but that’s what ketchup is for.” I responded, adding half a bottle of ketchup.


I am not sure which is worse: that I actually prepared 1 lbs of hamburger with 2lbs of brown sugar, or that we ate most of it. I can still see Villamar’s face, scrunched up slightly as he said “It’s good, but still seems a little sweet to me.” The next day, the leftovers had caramelized into a brick of candied meat, and I was aghast when I realized my error. Villamar still brings it up, because he’s mean and wants me to feel dumb for the rest of my life for ONE COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE MISTAKE.


On another note, I’ve had a few patients this week who have left their special brands burned into my memory. One was a person whom I didn’t recognize, but he obviously recognized me from the ED and abruptly proceeded to nearly pull his shirt completely off in a very crowded cashier line so that I could look at the “stuff on [his] stomach” and tell him “what to do about it.” Next time, sir, you don’t need to show me and everybody else in line both of your hairy nipples if you have something that’s just near your umbilicus.


A second patient was just adamant that he didn’t have a blood pressure or pulse. I told him a beautiful tale about The Sword in the Stone, how a wizard once told a little boy to use his muscles; the boy insisted “but I don’t have any muscles!” to which the wizard responded, “Well, then how do you move about?!” I’m not sure I convinced the patient he wasn’t dead, but I did get him to eventually go home, so #winning.





It’s time for kid quotes!


Eliana: “Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he didn’t have any Dr. Pepper and he was a girl!” (Steph is obsessed with Diet Dr. Pepper)


Emerson: “Can we get Fortnight?”
    Steph: “No.”
       Emerson: “Jacob and Ethan have it. They also have their own tablets and games and everything else they want.”
            Steph: “Well, that’s them and their family, but not ours. Do you think having all the things you want and all that stuff makes you better or happier?”
                Emerson, dejectedly walking away: “I bet their lives are going better than mine!”


Eliana, concerned for Stephanie: “Mom, those are one-toed boots. You have 5 toes.”

I GUESS WE'LL HAVE TO BE HIPSTERS

I worked 3 night shifts this week. That translated into several hours of boredom, which resulted in me deciding that an expensive electronic scooter was the most responsible decision of my life right now. 

To be clear, I haven't bought it. I did, however, notify Stephanie that we are moving to a big city with cool subway stations that will require me to own an electric fold-up scooter to solve that previously under-appreciated "last mile problem." 

I don't have a "last mile problem." I have a 16-mile commute problem.  And it's not really a problem, since I have this beautiful paved bicycle path that goes the entire 8 miles from my house to my employment; I'm just a lazy person, so the bike ride gets UNBEARABLE when I'm all whiny and tired after a long shift in the ED. 

Because of my whiny disposition, I want another solution for the times during good weather when I'd like to ride the trail but don't want to expend gobs and gobs of energy slugging it up the hills on my bicycle. 

So that brings me to my solution, which is to buy the nerdiest folding scooter that will transport my 200+lb frame for the 8 mile trip. I guess this will make me a hipster. Cursed hipsters. 

"Educated" by Tara Westover

Words couldn't describe it, but she did. Her life, her experience, her feelings, her evolution, her pain; they were mine, too, their memories trapped in an obscured cage of my own making.

I don't know how to explain this resonance. I don't know how to explain why I spent hours on the verge of tears, nearly overwhelmed that someone else's existence, while different in many ways, could mirror mine in such an uncanny way. Tara Westover was an alternate doppelganger of my growing up; her memoir stirred countless visions of the battles I now relive only in smoky recollections as my mind gazes at the bleached bones of my formative years.

I wanted to gush to my siblings about this book. I wanted to demand they read it, corroborate the similarities, to validate me somehow. But it will not be; my own brother wrote an autobiography, one which he has repeatedly asked me to read, but which I cannot. He even sent me my own copy so that I wouldn't have to be troubled by the meager cost of purchasing it online. I haven't figured out why I've been unable to bring myself to read it; maybe because I don't want to soil my fragile memories with the perspective of another sibling, for fear that I will forget how it was for me, that I will rationalize away years of my own biased knowledge, only to be replaced with an alternate history that belonged to my brother.

I won't take the time today to describe the similarities; this would take me too long. Perhaps I'll have to buy a copy of the book and annotate in the margins where I identify aspects of my life.

Regardless, the book ends with her still in the midst of a struggle between her identity and her aspirations of identity. I wonder how hers will play out, as much as I wonder the same for myself. Here's to the years ahead.

Wrenching Maturity

              Sometimes I can’t tell if the ache inside me is purely nostalgia or if it’s an actual physical condition. It’s that moment when you look at your child and, instead of seeing just his limber frame buzzing by within his world of play, you feel the pang of a thousand missed moments lost in the swirl of time, swallowed by your job or other necessities of life that drag you away every day.

                I feel that about my faith, as well. I yearn to return to my simpler view, to a time when I could look you in the eye and make a statement of certainty unclouded by the thick lens of changed perspective and experience. The truth is, I’ve lost that piece of me somewhere; I don’t know if it leaked out in hospital halls that still echo in my mind with myriad scenarios of loss, anger, relief, and life, or if I’ve whittled away memories one flake at a time, until all that’s left is a lumpy mass of something, beautiful, even artistic, but much more abstract.

                And yet, I still feel hope. I still feel peace when I seek out God in my life. Prayer brings my intangible soul a little closer to its roots, though the words still seem to fall into the emptiness of space. I crave the occasion to make a difference, to help someone feel that they don’t have to close themselves up. I find myself with aspirations to obey God more, to do whatever is closest to the right thing.

                So is my testimony lost? Is it muddled? Or is this feeling just the part where I no longer float in the lazy river between youthfulness and age, but instead recognize that I can swim upstream, downstream, or even stop off at the bank and experience more than the view from the center?

An Emotional Man

So, I like art. I like dance. I like music. And when I see those things, I think about how terrific it would be if my own kids would end up being musical or athletic prodigies; and then I realize that it’s probably too late and I should have enrolled them at age 14 minutes for them to be able to catch up to the amazingly talented young performers of the world.

The problem is that most guys I know don’t appreciate these things (because they’re a bunch of heathens. You can tell them I said that). A musical? Forget it. An amazing dance routine that should bring tears to the eyes of every human being? Totally wasted on these fellows. A vivid paragraph that deftly defines the intricacies of human nature? Wasted ink. Me figure-skating a routine in a tan leotard? Probably worth thousands of dollars a ticket, but they refuse to see the value.

Braeden categorically denied liking a (favorite) song from “The Greatest Showman” to his friend last week, after the other kid had insisted that all musicals were terrible and how he would never watch them. Stephanie and I had a good talk with Braeden afterwards, and told him that he absolutely did NOT have to pretend to have or not have interests simply based on what his friends said. He was convinced, and spent the rest of the day repeatedly listening to the soundtrack. I was proud of him.

For sake of posterity, here are a few quotes from this week:

“Dad, when you were a kid, did they have vacuum cleaners?” -Braeden, after a couple of days of discussing the good ol’ days when we used rotary phones and the internet wasn’t a household thing.

“Does [the road sign] DIP mean Die In Peace?” Braeden, perfectly timed after his grandmother nearly drove us off the road.

“Did you eat your French toast, Eliana?” -Dad

                                “No.” -Eliana

                                “Why?” -Dad

                                “Because I didn’t like it. It was not good. It was not good for me, babies.” -Eliana

“I told you once! Go…to…bed! Cuz you not being nice!” -Eliana, to her mother

“Emergency, emergency! Sawed arm….now add some cream [to the arm]….and sugar.…yum yum yum! You had an emergency. Stay home, and you’ll feel better soon!” -Eliana, playing doctor.

“DADDY IS MY BEST FWEND! DADDY IS MY BEST FWEND!” Sing-song at the top of Eliana’s voice in the grocery store, for the duration of the visit.

On another note, I’m teaching my children well because Eliana came into our room the other day with the statement that she’d been picking her nose and eating it.

By the way, she was doing this thing every morning where she joyously yelled a greeting at the top of her voice approximately 1 second after awakening. There is a 1 in 5 chance that she yells my name. It might be my favorite thing to wake up to, EVER.

So, several months ago, I had this amazing idea about how we should use the extra money earned by my post-hurricane disaster work in Puerto Rico. First, I bought a generator. Then, I built a bathroom.

Well, I didn’t exactly build it. It was already there to begin with; it was just a terrible bathroom. I put on my muscle t-shirt, kissed my walnut biceps, and told myself “Here goes nothing” while sawing into the fiberglass shower enclosure. I tore out the separating wall, re-framed another wall, ripped out the flooring and carpet, relocated the shower plumbing and p-trap, fixed some sub-floor, took out the vanity and toilet, then died of exhaustion.

I revived myself a few weeks later and got to work, this time doing small projects with days lapsing in between, with my virtual tutor (YouTube) coaching my on how I was screwing everything up and needed to re-do it.

And we’re there! Shower is tiled with the enclosure installed, a faux beam has been made, vanity is in place, a new porcelain throne has water in it but not around it, pipe shelves groan under the weight of decorative towels, and there are only a couple of areas that Stephanie says look “terrible!” that need to be fixed.

Riddle of Age

A riddle’s a poem with a mystery tone;

A puzzle, a maze for our thoughts to get done.

Here’s one for your age, that we’ve finished and made:

New once, now not.

Though used is not the term for this lot.

The feeling’s the same as a brand-new game,

And the warranty’s good, though not quite the same.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

The majesty of mountains looms in my eyes,

with a lure like the lyrics of a ballad on high.

The grip of the current and the power of the tide,

The trees throwing shade on a sheltered hillside.

The peaceful outdoors always whispers my name,

Calling me forward through life’s tasks mundane.

Time used, not lost, is my quest for today.

The yearning gets longer with each passing delay.

I watch it slip by and it fills me with dread.

So today I will live,

And I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Literally Dying

Literally Dying

                I asked my boss today if I could get paid overtime, because last night I had vivid dreams that I was frantically working in a one of the I-feel-like-I’m-standing-under-a-waterfall situation of the ED. Picture my dream: The patient board scrolling with so many sick patients we’re in code black; I’m already six hours past the end of my shift, but can’t leave because there is too much to do. I am very dramatic in my dream, intermittently stopping dead in my tracks by the nursing station and yelling “If I don’t get a break soon, I will LITERALLY DIE!!” before going back to the drowning-effect of taking care of the patients. In real life, we are short on a number of medications due to severe national shortages and production delays; in my dream, my coworker Steve checked in for severe nausea and vomiting. I looked desperately through our Omnicell but we were out of all the ondansetron, except for in “raw form” which essentially meant I was scooping stir-fry out of the Omnicell with a spoon and serving it to Steve with several bay leaves on top, which I advised “I probably wouldn’t eat the bay leaves, if I were you.”

                Last Saturday, Matt Bricka and I took the boys up to Twin Lakes to see how the wilderness fared last year in the wildfires. I think we were probably the first up the trail in a while, since there weren’t any tracks through the snow on the road. I had to use my tow straps to yank Matt’s truck out of one area when he got mired in the snow, and we did have to park about 500 yards downhill from the trailhead due to snow impeding our access with the trucks.

                While we drove up there, Emerson piped up with some questions.

“How high in elevation are we?” He asked.

“About 4200 ft above sea level,” I responded.

He deliberated that for a moment, before inquiring “Well, how high aboveground level are we?”

I chuckled, and we discussed it for a few minutes before arriving to the conclusion that we were still 4200 ft above sea level. He did not take this news well. He proceeded to reprimand me:

“DAD! REMEMBER?! I’m afraid of heights!”

                The rest of the hike was fairly uneventful, until we attempted to cross over to the eastern lake. There was quite a bit of snow left over from winter, hollowed out around the spruce and fir trees, and the trail was difficulty to follow. Matt was in the lead, with Braeden and Emerson following; I was off to the left, searching for the continuation of the trail. We were very careful to instruct the boys to walk directly in Matt’s footprints, because of the post-holing risks of walking in the snow drifts covering the trees. Braeden listened closely to our instructions, then promptly veered a couple of feet to the right. The next thing we heard was Emerson yelling “Braeden fell! Braeden fell!”

                When I looked over, Braeden had essentially disappeared. As I approached, I could see an 18-in diameter hole in the snow; he’d fallen straight through two feet of snow, then falling another four or five feet down into the small river of glacier water beneath us. He was shocked speechless by the cold; the poor bedraggled kid then spent the next ten minutes trying to stop hyperventilating over his slightly-broken fingernail as he sloshed his wet boots back to an area where we could build a fire and take three hours to grill the water out of his clothing. The boys lived on a log the whole time, practicing their casting skills with a pinecone that I tied onto the end of the line.

                Frankly, it was the best fishing expedition I’ve ever been on with the boys. I didn’t have to constantly untangle lines, I got to do a bunch of survivalist stuff like help build a fire and chop pieces of wood with my axe.

                Driving home later, Emerson suddenly exclaimed “It’s a good thing I yelled, otherwise Braeden would still be down in that hole!”

                On another note, Emerson told a friend that all he and his brother do is “we mostly just play video games.” Braeden gave Stephanie a Mother’s Day card that read “I love you because you let me watch TV all day” and “I love you because you let me watch Kid’s YouTube.” Stephanie was very displeased, and told me she was never letting them watch TV again because “Apparently, that’s the ONLY thing they love about me….and it was just one dayof TV and YouTube!”

Face Wipes

My wife came in the other day to find me washing my face with the new, coconut-scented facial wipes that she had bought. I was impressed that they did such a good job, and scrubbed at my face like I was trying to get paint off a wall.

She just looked at me with her eyebrows raised, and asked, "What are you using to wash your face?"

"Your new face wipes, of course. They're coconut!" I responded enthusiastically.

She looked a little shocked, before saying, "Those aren't face wipes. They're vaginal wipes!" This was followed by a very rude reaction, as she proceeded to nearly collapse from hysterical and completely over-the-top laughing.

Well!

I wasn't terribly surprised to find this out, since my face had been seeming a little more, er, shiney lately. Perfect pH and all that. 

YouTube Is Fake

So, I've decided that for every minute of instructional YouTube video, I must reserve at least 5,000 hours for the task at hand. For example, installing a door takes about 3min 15 sec on the Tube, but in real life it takes a lot longer because you actually have to go out in the dark of night, cut down your own tree, create a saw-mill using your chainsaw and some leather strips you tore off your jacket, cut your own door, use a hand-lathe to make it beautiful, then hire 15 people to help you haul it into your house and hold it in place while you cut pieces out of the existing doorframe to make it fit, before finally ending up with ten hours of labor put into pasting that terrible "weather stripping" to keep the winter out.

Perhaps I exaggerate.

This is always my problem: they start the videos at some point well into the process, skipping the "simple" yet essential steps to get to the starting line (i.e. actually locating the engine part in question, how to demolish a perfectly good shower, which medication to take prior to starting bothersome activity in question, etc).

But I continue in my quest to be a DIY'er. So far this year, I've renovated my bathroom, cut some lumber, started several brush fires that immediately extinguished themselves because apparently gasoline is a terrible way to get large wet branches to burn, applied paint protection film on a new car, replaced shocks, sent those shocks back because they were the wrong ones, and returned several hundred dollars of equipment back to Amazon under perhaps questionable "Inaccurate Product Description" circumstances. But don't worry, Amazon, I actually ended up spending much more on your website by ordering the replacements of said products.

I took Braeden for a drive yesterday. We talked about our favorite memories; apparently, his first memory is of two-year old Emerson sitting naked on a bunch of Grandpa Oldroyd's towels, with Grandpa insisting that Emerson had "better not pee on those!". Braeden is getting so big, with so many wonderful qualities. I try to find time to actually converse with him; yesterday was fun, talking about camping, road, or other family trips we've taken and what he liked best about them. He said his favorite hike was about a year and a half ago, when we visited Table Rock in Medford. There were eagles, one of which we watched as it dove towards the ground with an eagle shriek that the kids mimicked for the next two weeks. Eliana refused to let us hold her on the hike, even though it was terribly muddy and she was basically only like three minutes old and could barely walk.

Braeden also mentioned how much he enjoyed the Thanksgiving 2017 cabin in Ochoco national forest, when we took the kids sledding in the wondrous depths of snow (about two inches, tops) with Grandmom and Grandad Busey.

It's strange, having those moments with your child. I'll make a joke and he'll laugh, and I find myself startled as I look up and recognize that my baby is maturing into somebody who gets sarcasm. That laugh is less of a giggly chortle, with the more resounding laugh of a big person. I'm glad the laugh is there, and hope it always is.

We bought a new car, a 2018 Toyota Highland Hybrid. We've named it Walnut (color is Toasted Walnut according to Toyota). When we were driving away from Wilsonville, Steph and I looked back and the boys were sitting on the very back row, hugging each other and sobbing with giant alligator tears that we were leaving Black Cherry Turbo behind (our excellent and beloved, but too-few-seats Kia Sorento). I had to do some drag-race style accelerations to get them excited about the new car.

Manatí, Puerto Rico, 2017. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, I was fortunate to be able to volunteer to be deployed for 14 days as a DEMPS worker through the VA coordination with NDMS and FEMA in outreach relief efforts.

I spent a weekend reading news articles and attempting to find some sort of accurate information reflecting the situation in Puerto Rico. Perhaps because of my research, I was not expecting the situation in which we found Puerto Rico, which was vastly different than most of the publicized, politicized, and inaccurate reports available to me in the US. 

We worked in a makeshift hospital in the Coliseo Bincito, an enormous covered stadium. The gym floor was littered with enough camp cots to house 250 patients, empty on my arrival and full by the time I left. Two tents, one for Red and another for Yellow/Green triaged patients, handled the 24-hr influx of outpatients that was at over 200 per day when I left.

The main area kept getting patients with scabies and bedbugs, and I was a little paranoid that I would get exposed to the infestations. I named a few different rats I kept seeing running amok amongst the stacks of MREs that constituted our food. There was no power or running water in the area, weeks after Hurricane Maria. Patients came in for everything, as the local hospitals were either closed or at maximum capacity. One of the FEMA operators told me they had gone into the local hospital and they measured the temperature as greater than 115 degrees inside on the medical-surgical ward; the ICUs were full again, following a massive death toll during the initial power outage when the hospitals realized their unmaintained generators did not work. 

I saw some interesting conditions, such as rat bites on people's feet from when they were sleeping. Also leptospirosis. Most memorably was an intracranial hemorrhage I recognized in a four-year-old girl. She had fallen to the concrete floor of the shelter where she and her siblings were staying with their single mother; the FEMA pediatrician had completely missed her massive focal deficits, stating the girl was just "tired." 

I had just come on the night shift as the charge nurse, and when I heard about this patient I decided to go take a look. The mother recounted the story to me (I was thanking God that I spoke Spanish, as we didn't have an interpreter available at the moment). As soon as I saw the girl, I realized something was off. She was four years old and yet couldn't communicate with me. I picked her up and set her on the floor; she immediately buckled on the right side. I lifted up one arm after the other, again with catastrophic unilateral weakness. 

I told the mother to wait and I alerted the military personnel that we needed a helicopter to get their child to the nearest neuro trauma center. The physician working my shift (a native Puerto Rican and amazing doctor) assessed the child and immediately agreed. 

The pediatrician was an arrogant, bullish woman who was livid that we had sent her patient out without consulting her (we couldn't find her). She refused to see that the child was critically ill. Personally, I have never been so angry in my entire life with any provider. 

It was a difficult couple of weeks, but certainly memorable. We finally got some degree of air conditioning after the first couple of days. Our rooms of cots were crowded, but I was able to use an extension cord to plug into a generator to power my CPAP so that I could sleep better (I had assumed I wouldn't be able to use it while I was there). ICE and DEA agents guarded our gated campus, but every day I was able to sneak off and jump the back fence, where I did long jogs to explore the local areas. It was like the city had been bombed by an angry, celestial force of nature. 

I kept some local newspapers. Maybe I will be able to scan them into the computer somehow?