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?

Dried Out

Our dryer attempted retirement/went on strike/broke last week. Stephanie states she was on her period at the time, and coupled with the fact that "there has been ZERO CHOCOLATE in this house for WEEKS!!" (-Stephanie) made for a difficult several days for her (she's the laundry guru in our house).

I tried to buy a used dryer off of craigslist, but the only acceptable dryer for sale happened to be blue, which of course is not even an option because blue is the same color that blueberries are and it's not even summer anymore. However, I did accidentally talk to a dryer repair-man for as long as he would keep me on the phone, attempting to squeeze as much free consultation out of him as possible. The result was nothing concrete, just a newfound sense of "this can't be that hard to just fix myself" and "I love DIY appliance repair anyway."

Well, I went through the odious task of replacing two parts in the dryer in a real-life version of Battleship; unfortunately, I didn't get a hit and the dryer was still broken until last night, when I figured out how to do a strange something called a "continuity test" with that magical item we refer to as a "voltimeter." Turns out a fuse was blown, which interrupts power and the electricity monkeys can't swing around their cages and blah blah blah. I ordered the new part on Amazon and I hope it works tomorrow.

I forced my family to go camping on Friday night; this makes 16 nights of forced family camping this summer. To sum up this trip, Braeden enjoyed riding his new bicycle while Emerson made 14,000 attempts at riding his new hand-me-down bicycle without training wheels. To be completely fair, Emerson has rarely had the opportunity to ride with training wheels during his lifetime (we live on a large hill and our driveway is steeper than the side of the St. Louis Arch), even though he's 6 years old now and in my mind is long overdue for the ability to simply roll along a straight stretch without falling over. *sigh* Eliana loved riding her bicycle with training wheels, but is still completely oblivious to the connection between the handlebars and her trajectory.

At any rate, we spent good time together this weekend and I'm glad for it.

I AM A SAILOR

Yes, you read that correctly. Yesterday, I braved the depths of the high seas with only my biceps, pocket-bible, and a large boat that happened to have two diesel engines and a competent captain (though I'm sure I would have been great at it if the need had arisen).

While there, we saw something close to 47 Great Blue Whales that were actually hump-back whales (I wonder if their species is offended by that name). They were amazing. Braeden, Emerson, and I shared the glory of catching four shark-like fish (two lingcod and two sea bass) that I later filleted with a dull knife and lots of willpower.

We also caught lots of crabs. So now I have crabs.

Now I'm sorry for being crude.

Actually, not really.

Braeden and Emerson enjoyed our trip, especially the part where we rode our mountain bicycles on a slow-motion adventure down a paved path to the sea. Emerson still has his training wheels on his bicycle that was designed for someone half his height; as a result, he can only poke along at a rate similar to that of erosion on the edge of Alaska.

Regardless, we finally made it to the beach and we caught hundreds of sand crabs with a little net; these little crabs would later be inadvertently murdered by lack of oxygen in the lidded container where they were housed as bait.

Jerry's Concerns

Last night, I again had the intensely terrifying pleasure of working with the very in famous and very classy person we'll call Jerry. Jerry is a very old seasoned, well-experienced nurse who is ridiculously picky with very specific tastes and a tendency to harass everybody err on the side of perfection in his leadership style.

As soon as he walked back from triage nearing the end of a very busy day, he unloaded all of his commentary and advice that he'd been bottling in his bottling factory. I immediately started scribbling to record his concerns for the benefit of fellow staff members:

Jerry's Concerns

August 23rd, 2017

6-7:00pm

1. The candy is junk. Who put all this junk candy in [the community candy drawer]? Why does nobody ever fill this candy drawer except for Jerry? 

2. There are misspelled words in the rolladex (sp?). Specifically, "psychiatrist" is spelled "physiotrist." He says it was probably LaQuita. 

3. These pencils [here in the department] are all wrong. 

4. The staff schedule has catastrophic errors. 

5. Dr. Okasinski is slob and doesn't wear any socks and that's gross. 

6. Everyone else is hateful. 

7. This drawer is dangerous. 

8. Jerry's name is too far down the schedule; it should be listed alphabetically by last name. 

9. LaQuita is too bossy when she's in charge (LaQuita is not even here today). 

10. Jerry is scheduled to be charge nurse three times this month. 

11. Nobody thinks he does anything around here. 

12. 15-minute detailed schedule problems verbalization, too many issues to count. 

13. Items 1-6 actually occurred between 6:00-6:03pm. 

14. Jerry insists that the previous statement is incorrect; it was between 6:00-6:05pm. 

The list is now posted at the nurse's station. Jerry appreciated it enormously.

Look Down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t2MvIak8Sc

We need to look down. 

Look down to survive the waves. 

Look down to see those who may be on the ground. 

Look down to see others' dreams shattered, see the potential of your life flit next to you like a shadow until the sun sets. 

Look down at a city beneath your feet, as you pray for the proverbial Valjean to be imprisoned while you flaunt your freedom with self-righteousness. 

Look down with the change of the tide, recognizing that the irony of duty when viewed as the highest morale is a force as destructive as death itself. 

Look down the barrel of anger caused by hunger; look down at the love of your life as she deals with your distractions. 

Look down, and realize you too will always be a slave to something. 

Smokey

Oregon has basically turned into a large fire pit. Over 7,000 acres of charred landscape have been left smoking as the wildfires rage around Crater Lake, insensitively devastating our plans to enjoy the pristine park views.


Instead, we went to Tokatee Lake, where the boys practiced their paddling skills ("We know how to do it! We learned it from the Wii! We're Junior Paddlers!") while I was rudely marooned on sand bar after sand bar formed by the highest reaches of the North Umpqua river.


Rachel and Drue camped with us, which was a blast. Emerson attempted to boil his butt by spilling hot water. Braeden corralled all the kids and practiced his bossing skills. Eliana Kate found a new friend in Alex, and they spent most of the time running around yelling the same phrase over and over and over.


Stephanie basically fell madly in love with me again due to my incredible camping skills. I fell a little in love with myself for the same reasons.


The campground was terrific, although there seemed to be an understanding amongst several of our seedier neighbors that there was a no-pants, no-problem policy. Stephanie wouldn't let me walk around the campground with no pants though, so WHAT EVEN WAS THE POINT.

Motor-Boating, Baby

I'm not sure when my life got twisted into this beautiful piece of artistic redneck bliss, but I embrace it now. We returned home from the Land of Mordor (read: The Desert) sporting a beautiful 1964 5.5hp Johnson Sea Horse outboard on the back of our car (what can I say, I found a good deal at a yard sale).

Now it's back-to-work, back-to-the-grind, shoulder-to-the-wheel style. But let's not talk about that!

4th of July was fun, the most memorable part being the celebration of American Trout Terrorism through something called a "Fish Grab." This means that 3,000,000,298 children surround several man-made plastic ponds filled with trout, and on the word "Go!" they jump in and catch fish after fish after fish with their bare hands, eventually wearing down the terrified trout to an emotional nub resulting in certain death. I think Emerson caught a fish 20 times before he was finally able to hold onto one for longer than 3 seconds, and we ended up asking some people for their tin-foil BBQ garbage (but we asked in a classy way) so that we could wrap the fish with ice from my water bottle and cook them up for lunch when we got home.

This is real, people:

Note to self: after the 4th of July fireworks, don't try to get through airport security. Apparently, my shoes were giving off enormous evidence of explosive ordinance, so I ended up getting molested 19 times during the cavity search.

After the drawn-out and conspicuously suspicious process of being released from security in the tiny Mid-American airport, we arrived at our gate, where it was determined that our seats had become completely discombobulated due to an airport error. This resulted in an airport couple (whose sum age was probably over 150 years) parading us in front of all the other passengers with much circumstance, demanding volunteers to give up their seats so that one parent could be with the kids on the plane.

In closing, Eliana is refusing to get off of the couch because of a worrisome-looking brownie that was found on the floor; she is calling it a "poop-shark." Her assumption is somewhat flawed, but who can argue with this face?

Spouting About

I thought it was clever, the title, because we saw humpback whales last week from our amazing campsite on the beach in Olympic National Park. We got the campsite by accident, possibly because it was the very last one and I had inadvertently reserved our actual campsite on a random date in August.

Later, we meandered our way through the Hoh Rainforest; Braeden was shocked at the Hoh river, which he says is amazing because “it dries up so much faster [from my hands] than other rivers, like in a minute instead of an hour!” I decided that self-correction on the physics of this fallacy is something that he can address someday as a young adult, and just went with it.

The next day, we saw no such luck as the beach campsite. Instead, we drove into the middle of nowhere trying to find an off-the-beaten track campground that the locals use. We found it, along with two bear sightings within skin-crawling distance of our site. I was a good Boy Scout and snobbishly expounded my wisdom to my family while hanging up our garbage in a nearby tree (on the trunk, hooked to a piece of bark, within my reach….I’m not perfect).

Then we drove 9,000 miles through Washington state until we got back to the good part of the country, where we then drove another 9,000 miles through traffic crawling at 25mph because every festival for the last 10 years happened to be scheduled on THAT DAY in every coastal town in Oregon. But we went swimming at the beach, which was fun except my feet hurt so gosh-awful after about three seconds in the water, which is only in liquid form because the freezing point has been lowered by the salt content. But I caught a bunch of sand crabs during those 3-second intervals.

We got home and went to work the next day (okay, it was actually church) and then tried to create diabetic comas for ourselves by lying around and eating junk food until it was time to pack again for our sojourn to The East. I decided that camping was again in order, so I crammed everything we needed into our car and then attached a large bin to the hitch carrier.

Fast-forward to our trail to Reno, Nevada where the landscape gradually transformed from beautiful to tolerable to the Pits of Despair. You guys, even the lakes looked like sand!  Our campsite was located in the craggy cliffs of a rock formation right in the center of said Pits of Despair, where every single jackrabbit alive has relatives and mountain goats think that they are so gentrified they pay taxes. The nearest town was 10 miles away, strategically located within easy sniffing distance of the largest landfill imaginable (I feel like, out of literally thousands of acres of empty land, this was poor planning of population placement). Once inside our 1-minute popup tent, Emerson proceeded to tell us several stories about 5 people who bore remarkable resemblance to us, which stories all ended with the characters getting eaten by bears or attacked by a scary man with a hook who was “right outside the tent!” Stephanie and I were officially scared out of our wits by the end of it, even though he’s only 5 years old and his tales are nothing if not predictable.

The next day, we didn’t die from dehydration because (being the Boy Scout that I am, once again) I had brought a gallon of water; Stephanie said I was smart because of it, so I rode that high for as long as possible while we drove through Death Valley. We arrived to Last Vegas, the crispiest section of terrain in the United States. We discovered the Hoover Dam, next to the first national park ever founded (#whyhere) and found our hotel. It was 116 degrees outside and I was questioning Humanity’s reasoning of attempting to survive somewhere that looked like it had been inside of a giant broiler, but my questions were answered once I realized that Humanity needed a place where strippers could walk around mostly naked all of the time and not get cold.

I learned a few things: in Vegas, if she looks like an exotic princess, she’s probably an escort. Also, if she looks like an escort she’s probably an escort. Also, Stephanie does not like escorts, nor does she like people who forget to wear pants and shirts out in public (I’m still on the fence about that one). Stephanie, I’m kidding! Also, M&M’s can be sold by the pound at more than the price of fancy fudge in Bandon. Also, it’s too hot and Humanity is a moron for setting up a giant city here.

Regardless, we finally found an economically priced buffet, which was delicious until two hours later when three of us started having diarrhea and nausea and vomiting. I’ll tell you, nothing beats the excitement of having your kids and wife throwing up all night right before you are supposed to board a plane to cross the country; Emerson threw up twice while we were standing in line to check our baggage (with me loudly proclaiming to Stephanie “I wonder when he’ll get over that bad chicken he had last night!” for the benefit of understandably-apprehensive bystanders) and then had diarrhea in his pants before we got to our gate, 1 hour and 45 minutes after arriving. Also, I accidentally attempted to get a tiny keychain pocketknife through security, but their damn machines caught it and it got confiscated. At least I didn’t get confiscated, though, so in the end we won out.

Now, I’m on a plane and nobody is throwing up and Eliana is asleep and Stephanie keeps going back to the restrooms but she looks like she’s still a few hours out from kicking the bucket. Let’s wax poetic:

Some trips are doomed to be sickly and sorry,

Others are built off of somebody’s folly.

But all of the memories, the ones that don’t fade,

Are usually ‘cause of adventures we made.

Emerson’s looking a little bit green,

Eliana is yelling and causing a scene.
Braeden is glued to the window so far,

And Stephanie’s been feeling the plague from the start.

I’m on my laptop, typing this rhyme

So that someday we’ll remember this time.

Actually, this trip reminds me of the last time we all had the stomach bug. It happened to be four of the five of us, feverishly throwing up our immortal souls during a 9-hour drive through blizzarding conditions last Christmas. I’m beginning to think we have a spot of bad luck with these things….

An Eternity of Terminal Creeping

Yesterday went down as the most boring, most tedious, and most uncomfortable day in the history of people ever getting stuck in airports. I spent 19.5 hours traveling, 12 of which consisted of me staring at people walking by in the Atlanta airport while I exploited every seating arrangement possible between gates T1-T17. I didn't get arrested for it, but I did confer on myself The Creepiest Fidgeter award. I was in the airport for so long that my birth certificate actually changed itself to say "Tom Hanks" because the Universe starting blurring the lines between the movie The Terminal and my life. 



By the end of they day, I was too brain-damaged by the boredom to drive home from Eugene without making 97 wrong turns and then nearly missing my own driveway. I also suspect I had a dead-fish funk by the time I arrived, mostly because several cats gave me hungry looks as I drove by.




True to form as a thoughtful gift-giver, I brought Stephanie a t-shirt from the CDP that states "I Am Naked." It's magnificent, normally used for actors in the mass casualty event training, who apparently don't want to actually be naked when going through decontamination (if you had seen the volunteers, you would have not wanted them to be naked either).

Center for Disaster Preparedness

This week has been awesome. For one thing, I'm in Alabama, and have been able to jog past where every single scene from The Walking Dead was filmed (my assumption based off of the condition of the roads). Also, taxi drivers that smoke in their mini-van taxis with the windows up and admitting to having just "burnt one [marijuana joint]" right before picking up his passengers.

My primary instructor looks exactly like Willie Robertson. The other primary instructor is a real-life Mater from Cars. They both have personalities as big as their look-alikes, and have taught me many things including statements that I'm going to somehow fit into this blog entry. If you want to find pictures of them, look up Willie Robertson and Uncle Si.

We've been doing HERT (hospital emergency response training) including decontamination in Level C PPE. I sweat so bad in this Alabama heat it's like "a redneck trying to read" (-CDP Mater) and I end up literally POURING the sweat out of my rubber gloves into the trash can every time I take a break from the summer sauna.

Our group members have to help each other don/doff all their gear when we go in and out of our PPE; I have renamed it The Donner Party. This is what we look like when we get out of our PPE:
 

I met a terrific guy named Aymon who has had to pay multiple ransoms to free family members kidnapped by ISIS. On a final note, I also had an extensive discussion with a group of RNs from Grant's Pass about a coworker of theirs who has breast implants and doesn't wear a bra; I'm not sure how to provide better context for that discussion, so I'm just going to leave it there and hope you can cook something up with it. 

Stabber Girl

Eliana has earned herself the name "Stabber." This is because she stabbed Stephanie in the bottom with a surgical knife, right after Stephanie had gotten out of the shower.


There is no evidence to suggest that I was the one who inadvertently left the sterile blade in a reachable position for my two-year old to grab and activate.


At any rate, I stopped the bleeding (sorry, rug) and steri-stripped the laceration. Poor Steph had to sit weird for 3 days.


But Eli-babes is precious, even though she stabbed her mother; remind me to hold this over her head for the next 45 years. Also remind me to stop letting Eliana watch Hell on Wheels with us.




Look at that innocent face!

What Big Brothers Need

Braeden brought a book up to Stephanie and directed her to the Afterward for Parents section, which extensively discussed the psychological needs of an older sibling after a baby is born. He told her, "Mom, this is what I need. I didn't even know I needed all this!"


She wasn't sure what to say.

Remembering the Dismemberment

So, yesterday we had a guy in the ED who was dragging around his one-wheeled cart full of dismembered, scalped, and decapitated sex doll body parts wrapped in saran wrap and littered with wet lacy underwear and long socks. Honorable mention would be for the swastikas drawn all over the well-worn boobies, which confused me. Ashley (another RN) had the pleasure of dragging it clear across campus, only to have to drag it back when she couldn't find a place to store it. The body parts kept rolling out of the cart, and I'm not sure if anybody gave her weird looks about why she was transporting such...goods.


The humor award still goes to the poor blighter who came in after scalding his entire torso while making doughnuts shirtless; he did lots of things right to stop the burning, but that probably doesn't include slathering his entire upper body with yellow mustard to stop the pain. He thought the vinegar in the mustard would help, and maybe the vinegar would have, but he didn't think about the picante aspect of mustard. Ruth told him he smelled like a giant hot dog.


Also, I've decided to braid my beard. It's going to be amazing.

On Another Note....

I once compared the gospel of Jesus Christ during the time I was a missionary to a mother having a newborn child; the gospel affected how I viewed everything. It affected what I ate, when I slept, what I spent my time doing, how I was viewed by others, and caused many painfully sleepless nights with feelings of inadequacy during significant periods of personal growth. I remember with fondness, but acknowledge how difficult that time was for me and how it changed me, and not always in ways I would consider to be positive.

Since then, my relationship with the gospel has changed. My view of it has grown. I still love it, the same way I love my children as they get older, but the relationship is different somehow. It isn't as innocent, doesn't control me in the same way it once did. I view it as a living, breathing part of my life that still requires time, devotion, and a lot of patience. My son will always be my child, no matter what, and my faith will always be a part of my life, no matter how my relationship may evolve.

In the end, I am in a period of my life when I choose to have faith that there is more than the paltry number of years until our bodies fail us. All of the arguments, all of reasoning, and all of the doubts must eventually be addressed in this way for me: I either choose to embrace the vacuum of disbelief, or I welcome the opportunity to recognize the spiritual light in my life.

I read a discourse yesterday comparing personal revelation to light: sometimes it's bright, and sudden, and full; light that illuminates with a burst of electricity flowing from the center of a room. Usually, however, revelation is more like the dawn; it approaches slowly, with hints that it's coming, gradually opening up the details of the world. Some days the sun is beautiful, and warm, and obvious; other days, clouds interfere, and it is difficult to even discern when the sun has risen above the horizon.

It's been a lot of cloudy days. I can still see God in the life around me, but I need the sunny warmth of His obvious presence again, to boost me. I wonder how I can achieve that, or if it's even within my control.

My question for today is how can Jesus Christ have all-encompassing empathy for us, if he never sinned to the point of losing hope of redemption? I think of the alcoholic, who attempts for the hundredth time to free himself from his vice, and fails. I think of the person who leaves her last circle of friendship in ruins, hopelessly feeling the weight of self-inflicted loneliness.

Either way, maybe today I can show better understanding for somebody. Let's go with that.

I am trying to decide if it is necessary to build a casket in which to bury my old lawnmower motor, which by all evidence experienced an ascending aortic dissection from which was spewing geyser-worthy amounts of oil that should have been changed 642 times more than it actually was during the 9-year life span of the mower.


I probably won't build a casket. The mower only cost me $50 to begin with, and since I'm too cheap to even buy another used mower I've just bought an engine from Harbor Freight to jimmy-rig onto the old deck. This has proved to be more challenging than originally thought, though it's nothing a box-cutter and foil tape and Ebay parts couldn't remedy.


Except I haven't run the newly-built lawnmower yet, so it might explode.


On another note, my oldest son was writing notes to his friend in class that he can't wait to go swimming, "mostly because we'll be able to see Lexi in her swimming suit." I'm not sure how to talk to an 8-year old about why this concerns me.


Eliana turned 2 years old, which was both depressing and happy at the same time, and I am growing my beard out ever since I started watched Hell on Wheels because the main character has an amazing beard that looks like a lion's mane.


I received a certificate from the VA director for amazing customer service. I also was reported to the Oregon State Board of Nursing by a psychotic patient who basically is saying I tried to murder him by removing his IV. So there's that.

My tooth hurts. It kind of reminds of me of this patient my friend had who got terrible whiplash by attempting to pull a tooth by tying a giant frying pan to it and throwing the pan as hard as he could (the tooth didn't budge).


Except I can't go the dentist, because Blue Cross Blue Shield and GEHA have been secretly conspiring SPEFICALLY AGAINST ME to make sure I pay all of the fees that GEHA is supposed to pay for my dental visits. Thanks a lot, Trump. So basically, I am equivocally being tortured with frying pans by BCBS and GEHA.


Eliana has been obsessed with playing outside recently, but it's very traumatic for us to allow it because every time we make her come back INSIDE she has a complete mental, physical, and emotional collapse and makes Stephanie and me feel like we are going to have an automatically-triggered CPS investigation launched against us.


Emerson hides every time I come in the room. I'm not sure if this should worry me or not.


Braeden is old enough that he could start working soon in a factory if we lived in China, mostly because he does a better job than I do when he cleans the house and follows instructions.


Stephanie is amazing, but it's really difficult for me to get anything done because all she wants to do is make out when I'm at home, and I'm like "Honey we can't just make out all the time like dolphins in the ocean" and she's like "But whyyyyyyyyyy" and then we fight about it.


That's all for today.

I Should Probably Be Embarrassed

So I peed in front of a trail camera. It wasn't on purpose, well, actually I did pee on purpose but I didn't realize the trail camera existed at the time, even though I was only about 3 feet in front of it (waist level, unfortunately for whomever reviews the footage). Hey, when you're on a country trail jog and you've gotta go, you've gotta go. On another note, I did a public service because now (3 months later) there is a brand-spanking-new porta-potty at the trail entrance.

There are lots of other stories in which I should be embarrassed, because I'm really good at that sort of thing. But I digress at this time.

Been a long while since I've written anything here, I'm thinking of restarting my old habit of entering stuff. I enjoyed my trail jog yesterday, with the expanse of my Oregon world stretching itself as far as I could see, the North Umpqua river snaking along its shiny pathway towards the ocean. It was near the place where I went for a jog with Dad not long before he had his second (disabling) stroke. The trail is so steep I keep saying that I should start jogging with an AED in my pack. I'll include a photo:

The jog was completely invigorating, and sorely needed after weeks of a lot of work and very little personal relaxation. 

In other news, I installed a new head unit on my truck with a rear-view camera, as well as finishing a bunch of other home projects. The head unit should have been simple, but like most first-timers I successfully made it a bit of a long and redundant process until I got it right. 

Also, my first brush with doing a brush-fire. It was exciting and burned for like 3 days. 

I still can't figure out why my front yard is completely soggy all the time. It's a mystery.

Our microwave finally has the fan hooked up, after only a year of me getting around to it. I deserve a medal. 

We love the beach and exploring Oregon together...that's how we do. 

Wander. Explore. Discover.

A summary of the past week for me:

The sadness of watching a good friend walk away after saying goodbye in a parking garage, my throat threatening to close at the thought of never seeing them again.
The blankness I feel as I press the exit button to leave a workplace that had become something of a second home, full of people I love who sometimes drive me crazy but are always there.
Watching a formation march as its young members begin a journey at the same place in which mine ends.
The heaviness of the words in my mouth as I finally share with Stephanie my illogical, spiraled feelings of guilt, panic, pain, and anger that have cursed me at the most random moments of the day since March of 2014.
The wonder of seeing bales of cotton for the first time.
Frustration of a delay accessing a base.
Clumsiness attempting to sleep in a makeshift bed in the top of a cargo trailer.
Curiosity of how rows of green glass bottles were deposited, neck-first, in the miles of sand a hundred miles west of Salt Lake City.
Doubting the decision to push forward in a snowstorm.
Fear as my vision is robbed by thick, driving snow that threatens to push my truck and trailer to the side of the road.
Awe of the nighttime eruption of billowing clouds above a towering mountain that seems to scrape the tapestry that is millions of stars in a cold, western sky.
Confidence in preparation while placing extra tanks of gas in the pickup bed prior to embarking on hundreds of miles of undeveloped area.
Excitement when seeing a hot spring shooting steam into the sky at the top of a mountain plateau.
Gut-wrenching worry as that confidence is shattered by road closure, snow warning signs seen too far into the journey to turn back.
Sage advice from Dad.
Elation after surviving a hundred miles of icy mountain roads.
Surprise of discovering I've been driving with a flat trailer tire for potentially up to an hour.
Relief when said tire is easily changed.
Irrepressible smiling as my eyes are brought up constantly by giant trees that line the corridor of snow banks piled higher than a man, knowing that there are some things in my new life that I love already, things that represent peace of mind and wholeness of soul.
Closing the distance between me and my parents with a cell phone.
Thrilling sights that result in me constantly flashing photographs of landscapes through a spotty windshield.
Satisfaction at the spicy, greasy chicken tenders from KFC.
Gratitude from a friend for helping with a school assignment.
Apprehension of arriving to a new place.
Longing from a video of my Ellie-babes waving to me from Utah.
Laughter of a message about Emerson and Braeden shooting Lego lasers at Pa-Caw.
Love for my Stephanie, Braeden, Emerson, and Eliana. I miss you already!

A Moment

It's incredible how a room can seem to yawn, its walls becoming farther and farther away while surrounding voices dim and blur, leaving me a distant object in a vast expanse of what should be a normal public space, with normal human connection. If I stop, and grasp for the feeling in a moment, the weight drags me nearly down to a knee.

I don't really know how to make it stop. I want to call someone, but I can't explain. Maybe medications are the answer. Maybe this is what was that "worse before it's better" meant. What's that facial feedback theory? Paste it, and walk faster. Try to leave the weight in a pile on the floor, an invisible block with its indeterminate shape and even more mysterious content. Mention it in a faceless blog.

Why am I still thinking about this, still feeling about this? It's been a year and a half. I can still see him, bleeding right in front of me. I'm at his feet, and I have to step around a pool of blood. His eyes are dead, and they remind me of a dog I had that I watched get hit by a car; except one of the dog's eyes was smashed, and his are still intact. I can still feel the blank space when I looked at him, the skin lifted from his face and laid back down in a mottled, irregular, inhuman kind of way. I can still hear Jon calling me back from wherever I went, finally snatching my attention away and telling me to stop, just stop, that there was nothing more I could have done, that this was not my fault.

I don't really understand. I don't get it. I've seen many scenarios just as bad as this, been stressed, had them careening out of my control. I'm not sure why this one changed me, but I would really like to feel as though I'm me again. The me that doesn't stop in the grocery store, feeling suffocated. That me.

The Dividing Line

"This, I think, is the boundary line of adulthood. Not the crap they claim it is....You cross the boundary the first time you're changed forever. You cross it the first time you know you can never go back."  (A Thousand Pieces of You, Claudia Gray, p. 143)

In a way, life is kind of a like an improvised song. You start it out, not exactly sure in which direction you'll be taken. The notes define you, carving out an audible image of a hundred blurred moments of your life; maybe some of the moments have already happened, while some sit patiently in waiting. The song, choppy as it may sometimes get, reflects you.

Welcome to Vegas....Daddy's in trouble!

So we went to Las Vegas this weekend. I wanted to use a slot machine strictly for the purposes of life experiences, but Steph said no. Well, technically she said I could do whatever I wanted, but her tone was very suspect; she then proceeded to give me condescending looks and read quotes about how gambling leads people down to hell, and how she's never gambled, not once, and how she doesn't understand why I would ever want to gamble, etc. etc. You get the point. I did, too, so I didn't get end up experiencing that particular life experience.

After Stephanie spent about thirty minutes talking about gamblers who ended up selling their toddler children in order to play poker one last time, Braeden saw a Vegas advertisement billboard and piped up from the backseat: "Welcome to Vegas....Daddy's in trouble!" We decided that should be Vegas' new slogan.

We actually went to Vegas because it was (apparently) only an hour longer a drive than to Salt Lake, but in the right direction towards Texas, and Steph would be able to pick me up from the airport so I could drive her home. We hadn't really anticipated traffic jams delaying her an extra two hours, nor her family having to drive her down due to some health concerns preventing Steph from driving....but in the end, I got to see my in-laws and it was very enjoyable!

I am becoming quite technologically savvy with a new phone (Galaxy S III) that has transformed my previous phone exasperation into something akin to shock and awe for how much technology has advanced in the phone department over the last five years....I can actually call somebody without even touching the keys! All I have to do is have the contact info up, and then as I make the motion of bringing my phone to my ear...VOILA! It calls them!

Driving home, Braeden and Emerson thought it was hilarious to keep unbuckling themselves from their carseats at random intervals....I finally stopped the car, unbuckled Braeden, and unleashed a major spanking meant to sharpen his memory a bit. When I walked around and opened the opposite door next to Emerson, Emerson looked up at me and said, clear as a bell, "Uh-oh!" All of us laughed so hard that the lesson of not unbuckling oneself was as wasted as toilet paper down a toilet....but it was very funny.

I am now thoroughly enjoying hanging out with my goofy kids and hilarious wife again! I have SO much more fun when they're around....otherwise I have no one whom I can tease and bother.

How to Fix Dehydration In 8 Hours, Costing Only $1500: Welcome to a Teaching Hospital

0700

Chief Resident Doc: Well, aren't you going to hook up the Vigileo?

Me: What would be his indication for a Vigileo?

Doc: To see his preload since his intravascular space might be dry.

Me: Do you mean to see the stroke volume variance? (It's a predictor of fluid volume responsiveness in patients who are mechanically ventilated and not in a significant dysrhythmia)

Doc: Yes.

Me: But he's not intubated so the number is pretty much obsolete.

Doc: Yeah but it's still good to see it.

Me: Okay. If you want me to hook it up, no problem. Are you going to do an ultrasound to see his IVC?

Doc: Probably not.

Me: Okay.

I spend 20 minutes getting the equipment set up, calibrated, and functioning while trying to figure out how to make a positional arterial line provide a good waveform.

0900

ROUNDS

Attending: What's his fluid volume status?

Me: He's up 5 liters since yesterday but clinically looks very dry. He's tachycardic, systolic BP is running about 15 points below his baseline, and when he stands up his heart rate jumps by over 30 points and puts him into SVT accompanied by nausea and dizziness. Urine output last night was marginal and concentrated. I think his insensible loss during surgery yesterday evening might have been greater than estimated.

Attending: Why are we using a vigileo?

Me: The chief resident requested it to observe the SVV.

Attending: Did you know that we can't use those numbers because we're not controlling his tidal volumes?

Me: Yes.

Attending: You can unhook it. You can take out the arterial line, too. We're going to do an ultrasound (US) to view his IVC filling.

Me: Okay, will do.

1100-1300

LATER, AFTER US DETERMINES THE PATIENT IS MOST LIKELY DEHYDRATED

PA: Can you hook up the Cheetah?

Me: Yes. Why does he need the Cheetah?

PA: We want to see his SVI.

Me: I haven't unhooked the Vigileo yet, you can see it on that.

PA: Yes, but it's different.

Me: How is it different?

PA: It's calculated differently.

Me: (internal sigh) All right. I'll hook up the Cheetah.

PA: We're going to do a fluid volume challenge to see his responsiveness.

Me: Didn't you already determine that he was dehydrated using the US?

PA: Yes, but this is more accurate.

Me: More accurate than the ultrasound?

PA: Yes.

Me: Okay.

I spend another 20 minutes finding the machine, including all the wiring that never seems to be with it, and attaching it to the patient. The numbers are literally exactly the same as the Vigileo and correlate with postural changes of the patient (meaning when I raise his legs, his SVI significantly increases in both machines). PA does the same test without following the official bolus test protocol of the Cheetah's programming.

1300

PA: Let's give him some fluid. I think he's dry.

Me: I just nod.

Bringing the Bottom Up

Some lessons I just want to skip. How does one face the truth about himself...about how he thinks, how he acts, even how he feels, and then have the faith to make those changes before those changes force themselves into his life? It's like he's just a shell of the self he thought he was, now riddled with cracks and holes that threaten to eventually collapse. The problem is, he doesn't really know what's inside the shell...is it enough to mold a new self? Or does he have to start from scratch?

After years of insecurity cloaked in a very transparent coating of self-assuredness and boastful selfishness, I suddenly feel the desire to wreck everyone's expectations of me, simply so I can reset my relationships and have a new beginning in life. Maybe my goals in life no longer include higher education; maybe I don't want to be rich. Maybe I don't want to be a spiritual giant, or an athlete, or better in any way than anybody else. Maybe I don't even want to strive for those things. Maybe, just maybe, I want to be good at a few very simple, essential things; I want to get up in the morning and be satisfied with what I have become, with who I am. I want to be satisfied with the progress I can make without crushing the backs of those around me in my efforts to stomp my way to the top. Leadership takes a back seat to simply hoping that my peers will enjoy me working at their side. Excellence falls away to the sheer cliff of consistency, the persistence that keeps patients and people and problems from disaster. Degrees become papers on a wall, the background to the satisfaction of having learned or mastered some new concept or skill that day in a relevant part of my life. Perfection crumbles, leaving a framework on which I can use my mistakes to design the strongest aspects of myself. Praise becomes an opportunity to show appreciation, or give proper credit; to pay it forward, instead of greedily slurping up the results of chance, circumstance, and a little involvement.

So, I'm bringing the bottom up. Life is always long enough to fall in love with it, and if there's one thing that I know is worth it, it's falling in love.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

I just finished it. The writing style perplexed me at times, though unquestionably remarkable. Allow me to draw a parallel: Here in San Antonio, winter delves into the warmth of our natural climate, confusing the plants, leaving trees barren except for the rebellious branches that provide a shock of flowers against a brown backdrop. Grey is part of the air itself as fog seems to have made a temporary home here. This book is that shock of flowers among the barren branches of books, that distracting breakthrough of light after hours of fog weighing down the literature in monotonous repeats of paltry authors.

I don't feel like I read the book; rather, I feel like I started with a tentative nibble, unsure of my own taste, wary of the bitter jolt that I sometimes get when I am unable to comprehend the characters fully. The nibbling continued in brief episodes of time-filching, whenever I had a moment away from the distractions we constantly create for ourselves. Slowly, the nibbles transformed into a feast of delicacies, leaving the taste of The Book Thief's words in my mouth for hours after every reading.

Soon, I acquired a fondness for the writing style, and began to connect a little better with Death (The Book Thief's narrator) and our reluctant Nazis. This book bleeds the story of a poor, hungry, conflicted community that never survived the greatest work of peer pressure the world has ever known; a tale chronicled and immortalized by a girl spellbound by the haunting friendship formed with words painted on a basement wall; nightmares that bring her closer to a dead brother a new father; a boy whom she refuses to kiss; and despicable women who make all the difference.

The Book Thief. To use a hated, hackneyed phrase: it's a must-read.

Too Loud

The sounds grab at all of my senses, making me physically twitch at the incessant grip on my ears. Silence itself seems to struggle for oxygen, drowning in the constant varying of man-made noises of radio, television, cars, hospital alarms, sirens, loudspeakers, and conversation.

Holiness, it is said, speaks when there is silence. There is certainly reverence in being able to discern the breeze, or the magic of a distant insect's buzz, or the quiet rush of water's constant crashing against rocks in the frenzy of a small mountain stream.

I need some holiness. Life is too loud.  

Roles

                My eyes blurred and my concentration began to slowly fall away from the words of the neurosurgeon. The pain in the room was too great, rendering the area too sacred for flippant discussions about interventions that would not be performed. I couldn’t leave the room for care of my very sick patient, but I allowed for a lull in the bustle of a CCU so that the real victims of a horrific accident could grieve for a brief moment at the bedside. I do not try to comfort those people, for my watery condolences would end the fate of drizzle in the mouth of a seething volcano. Instead, I simply tell them “I’m sorry. I know this is a terrible thing to be going through.” I ask each of their names, and remember them, and they are now my patients in a different way, because at the beginning I will be the one to give gentle reminders to eat, or let them know it is okay to touch and talk to their loved ones, or encourage them when they decide to leave for a while to perform other essential family duties. I do that, and they leave knowing their loved one is still with caregiver and companion.

                Such is my role. 

It's a very rainy day, and the road is slick. Rivulets of water scurry down in their miniature pebble-lined creeks, crisscrossing the mountain path that we are driving up. I am afraid to stop for fear of the soil eroding beneath us, as directly to our left we look down hundreds (maybe thousands) of feet into the drizzled Utah valley below. 

I'm afraid to stop, but as we cross the ridge and look at the even sandier road that leads us steeply down the side of the mountain, I'm also afraid to proceed. Better that we should have never started this little outing. We slog ahead in our blue Pilot, using the lowest gear possible to help us stay on track. 

Now, instead of a wet mountain road, I see a hospital. I see a commander who expects me to prioritize my career ahead of everything else in life. I see a future riddled with deployment, politics, and expectations that I honestly do not care to meet. And there is no way back, nowhere to pull over and turn around, because the way back would be just as treacherous as moving forward; and the worst part? The worst part is that I feel like I am not being allowed to succeed how I normally would. Instead, I feel like I'm driving with my left foot, and steering only with my hands crossed.  Growth is meant to come when we are out of our comfort zone, but right now I think the comfort zone would be the only thing between me and potentially serious failure. 

All I can do is hope that the rain will stop, the clouds will clear, and the road will widen. 

Here's to the future.

Been awhile! I'm not even sure I was the one who posted the bit about our jon-boating (I think it may have been Stephanie; or perhaps I'm just beginning to talk like she does). At any rate, I've been keeping busy with all kinds of projects at home, getting ready to move next month, and keeping up with my classes that I have to complete before starting the trauma fellowship in August.

I've recently been reading a lot of teen fiction (I keep trying to find quality adult fiction but have so far failed; it's either been mind-numbing boredom or inappropriate drivel. Plus I don't get any of their adult references). Mostly it is the dystopian-type genre, which really appeals to me because I think we're all kind of headed for either total government control or an apocalyptic event; either way I am constantly trying to convince my wife of the need for things such as large guns, battle axes, and quality camping equipment (I'm not going down without a fight). Oh, and we also need to move to some forsaken community in the mountains where we can melt into the wilderness as soon as the world goes totally berserk. Really, this is all the fault of The Hunger Games series, which after devouring set me on a literary rampage resulting in the complete slaughter of at least six more books/series including Uglies, The Mortal Instruments, The Immortal Rules, Divergent, and a bunch of other sub-par literary endeavors that had me mildly entertained but totally unimpressed.

The End.

I hope to write more, sometime soon!

Jon Boating

Yesterday was such a beautiful day. We recently bought a Jon boat and so yesterday we went as a family in our new (new to us) boat.  We all had out life jackets on, and Emerson sat in his car seat in the boat while we all had a blast.  Braeden loved putting his feet and hands in the water and we actually caught two big fish.

I am really sad that I didn't get pictures.  We will be going out soon though so I will have to get some then. I did get a picture of the lake where we boated.  So beautiful.

My Son Will Be A Con-Man

My son has figured us out. Instead of saying, “No” when I tell him to do something, he says “Not yet.” Instead of admitting to Mommy that he drank all of the Diet Dr. Pepper in her cup, he says “Daddy took it.” Instead of sitting obediently with his back to the wall during timeouts, he says “Can I have a hug?” and does it in such a way that I can barely stand it if I don’t walk over and ruin his disciplinary moment with a hug and conversation about how wonderful he is.

I’m raising a manipulator, the type that is going to be a great success on and off the playing fields of life by charming or talking his way into everything good and out of everything bad.

Actually, I’m kinda proud of him. How many two-year olds seem to fully grasp the concept of avoiding conflict or punishment through passing the buck or re-focusing the attention? Don’t spoil it, I would like to think my little mischief-maker is extra-special.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out how to thwart him today. 

March 31st Post

There’s something inexplicably therapeutic about watching that black line move smoothly underneath you as you’re swimming a lap; maybe it’s just the satisfaction of knowing that you have your face in the water and have finally managed to coordinate breathing with large movements.

Anyway, that therapeutic feeling was replaced this morning with a weak left shoulder and a relatively large amount of unnecessary gasping. I finally realized that today just wasn’t the best day for swimming; I pulled myself out, feeling like I was supposed to apologize to the lifeguard for tricking him into thinking that I was actually going to get an effective workout today.

Since then, I’ve been  at the hospital where I am precepting a new nurse who is doing all of the work, leaving me with worrying about more important things in life such as stalking old friends on Facebook (you know, the kind that I want to know what they’re up to but have no intention of ever establishing communication with) or calling my wife to offer moral support after Braeden managed to practically flood the kitchen (he had a hayday with the refrigerator water dispenser for about ten minutes).

So, here’s to another productive day! I think Steph might be here now….she’s bringing me Taco Bell food….

Just FYI, kayaking in a lake is much more exhausting than it appears. You remember that paddler who effortlessly glides along in the movies at a clip that could outpace a fish? It’s fake. In reality, there’s a red-faced, stocky guy wearing an 8-mm wetsuit; the water’s way too cold for him to actually get wet (the wetsuit is supposed to save his life if he was to capsize, then lose the boat, then lose his life vest, then suddenly become incapable of swimming for more than the 5 minutes it would take to get to shore). Anyway, so this red-faced guy is heaving along, sweating bullets, trying to make sure that his fishing pole hasn’t suddenly freed itself from the fishing-pole-holder in the back of the 12-foot fishing kayak. The lake is a whole lot longer than it appeared from the cliffs, so that easy four-mile route that he’d planned on having done within an hour has suddenly become TWO hours, mostly due to the fact that enormous fish keep jumping clear out of the water next to him, distracting him. Consequently, he can’t seem to paddle in a very straight line.

At least he caught a fish (by the tail, incidentally, not because it actually bit anything), the biggest one he’s ever even seen in a lake in real life. Unfortunately, he dropped the dang thing literally as he was putting it in the boat, and flopped back into the water, breaking the hook off in the process. That’s okay, it was a carp anyway so I’m not sure how exciting it would have been to eat in the first place.

Well, of course I am that stocky guy , and that was my adventure on Friday. It was actually a blast, and I can hardly wait to tackle the river/lake again; this time, however, I think I will put in closer than two miles from the place where I want to start fishing, since it’s obviously no silly jaunt to get that far.

I’m into month #2 of my triathlon training, so it’s going to be getting a lot more intense soon! I am feeling good about it, though, and I think that it will be a good month to start losing some of this extra poundage that I’ve packed on over the holidays. I haven’t lost any yet, probably more due to the fact that (1) I can’t seem to eat less and (2) I think I must be building some muscle mass with all this exercise. Mostly #1, though.

Conference was awesome, as usual. I really miss those times as a kid/college student/missionary when I would listen to General Conference and be like, “That is awesome counsel for someday if I ever need that type of counsel.” Nowadays, it’s more like every talk addresses something that I need to be fixing in my life! But that’s ok, I love listening to the talks and feeling so uplifted by all of the messages. I commented to Stephanie the other day that there are so many people in the world who seem to bring out the worst, it is wonderful to be with or influenced by people who when they talk make you want to be a better person. 

Moustache March Madness finally came to an end, for me anyway. My prolonged stint of shaving-strike culminated with BYU’s loss to the Gators, and the next day I surprised my wife on her birthday by removing the terrible-looking growth on my face. I don’t regret it, obviously.

Braeden and I are in the process of finishing our deck in the backyard. My two-year-old is getting pretty adept at handing me screws; instead of intently watching my every move (with me reiterating that he get his head out of the way so I can drill), he now plays facing the opposite direction. When I say “screw, please!” he says “Got it!” and hands it to me from over his head, not even bothering to look. It’s hilarious.

I am training for an Olympic triathlon (1500 m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) for the end of June. I’m several weeks into my program and it’s pretty intense; I suffered my first injury (turned my ankle GETTING OUT OF THE CAR) yesterday, but hopefully in a couple of days I will feel good enough to run on it again. That’s ok, I need to focus a little more on the swimming anyway! The workouts are totaling about five to six hours a week so far, and will gradually increase over the next three months. It’s definitely the most intense and consistent working out that I have ever done!

I can’t wait for the warmer weather. I’m got plans to take Braeden and Steph camping (probably just Braeden a few times, too, to give his mommy a break); kayaking always will make the list, along with fishing; we are going to take a lot of exploratory drives, too, since Steph will be pregnant until September! I hope to start taking pictures again, too.

I just got a calling as the Young Men’s Secretary (assistant scoutmaster), which I am really excited about! I’ll have to figure out exactly what that entails, but either way I am stoked to finally have a calling again. Work is not taking up as much time as last year since we have more staffing so I’m not on call every week any more, and I am enjoying it more as I get to know my job better and accept new challenges such as precepting some of the new nurses that are coming on. I’m still banking on being able to switch to the UCC/ED soon, but it’s pretty sketchy trying to figure out when or if that is going to happen.

We find out in two weeks what we’re having! It’s good to know all of the OB docs so well (I work with them every day), even if all of them are good so I’m not concerned about who will be delivering our baby. We’re trying to get some vacation time in before the baby comes, but it’s not looking very promising yet. Mountain Home is a great place, though, and my schedule lets us have a few days off at a time so we get to spend some good time together!

Well, I know that this is a boring post, but I’ve had a really hard time lately trying to figure out what to write. Maybe if I start writing more often, I’ll start at least entertaining myself again (you know it’s bad when you bore yourself with what you write, haha!).

Sun's Out!

The sun came out today, scattering the fragments of a very long, drab spell that had locked up our little town of Mountain Home, Idaho.  The constant drizzle and dampness has been a stark contrast to the unending sunshine and dryness of last summer; it seems that this area experiences a seasonal split personality that tricks the resident into believing that the current state of the weather will never change.

                Well, with the sunlight finally breaking through the clouds I have decided that it is time for at least a small entry on this blog. Whoever reads this hasn’t really missed a whole lot, since most of the past six months has been swallowed up under the ravenous appetite of that two-headed monster, night shift work and sleep.

                We bought a house, an uncomplicated Idaho-style single story home with three bedrooms, a large kitchen, and beautiful family and living rooms.  So far, it has been our favorite part of living in Mtn. Home. We are so excited for the warmer weather to arrive and allow us to complete some of the fun projects around the house!

                I have been grappling with the prospect of possibly starting school again. I have applied to the Idaho State University’s grad program to start my Master’s of Science as a Family Nursing Practitioner. If I get in, I would start in May. We have yet to really get the spiritual go-ahead, but I am just moving forward in the best direction that I can figure out right now.

                Stephanie is as beautiful as ever, and has been a real support to me while I have stressed over my job and grown more accustomed to military life. She wears multiple mother/wife hats as entertainer, dancer, Thomas the Train fanatic, chef, babysitter, reluctant disciplinarian, diet advocate, and family glue. Braeden is the recipient of most of these things (she doesn’t feel very reluctant when disciplining me, for example, and it would shatter Braeden’s world if he learned the truth about how we really don’t care all that much for Thomas the Train).

                I have a remote-controlled helicopter that I got from my mom for Christmas. In danger of sounding like an eight-year-old, I will admit that I play with it on a daily basis and sometimes dream about owning more of them (bigger, very expensive ones of course!).

                Well, my eyelids are beginning to twitch as my cerebral lights commence their nightly automatic shut-off. It is 2 a.m. and I must change gears in order to find an activity that will maintain some semblance of wakefulness throughout the rest of my shift.  Apparently, I am still unable to feel normal at this time, even after working night shift for six months.

Crossfit?

I started doing Crossfit (crossfit.com) and it is absolutely kicking my trash. I think that I may have permanently damaged my hips in the last workout (just kidding, of course, but it still hurts every time I take a step or try to get up from a low seat). It's insane. I have realized, however, that I am in terrible shape. Here's to a new year of getting into the best shape of my life, hopefully!

Sorrow’s Echoes

“What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;

Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.”

-William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I couldn’t hear her very well. Maybe it was the wind, or my 19-year old cassette player set into the dusty dashboard of my Chevy. Maybe it was her tears.  Nevertheless, I understood what was going on, and I quietly told her to immediately call the ER and then call me back. No, it was okay; she didn’t have to look and she didn’t have to get up from the toilet if she didn’t want to.

          

          Everything I had said, all of the jokes I had made; all of the moments that I had stubbornly ignored; it all rushed soundlessly through my mind and settled into my chest. Well, all of the difficulty of recognizing the reality of a new life had suddenly dissipated, leaving me feeling like man standing alone, with his hands open and empty.

          The water was too red to really see what had settled at the bottom, but I knew it wasn’t clots. I had seen clots many times before. Forty-five minutes later, a quiet, grey-haired, soft-spoken doctor told us that she was diagnosed with a threatened miscarriage. It was minimally better than a confirmed miscarriage.

            

         Our formal dinner was no longer an option, but we decided to drop by the Gunfighter Club and find out whether or not we could get the food to go. I stepped inside, still in full uniform; no one was at the ballroom doors, and for some reason I felt really uncomfortable entering them into the room filled with quiet, well-dressed couples enjoying their dinner. I kept walking, drawn by the squeals of the children being watched by volunteers in the next room. I knew the volunteers.

            

         A1C Karley Karlson was there, and I briefly explained to her that my wife may have just miscarried and if she would mind finding someone I could ask about getting our food wrapped. She left me watching the little kids in her absence, and I joined in chasing them around the room. Actually, I only chased one of them around the room; he was so little, and reminded me of my own little son, the one who loves dancing and is obsessed with the word car.

            

           Karley directed me toward the back of the ballroom, where a woman waved to me. I approached her and she said that they were getting my food. I conversed for a moment, and when she asked how I was doing I answered and told her that it was pretty hard on my wife. Obviously trained in subtle tools of effective communication, she closely looked me in the eyes and repeated the question: Yes, it must be very difficult for my wife, but how was I doing?

            I guess I didn’t want to think about it. An invisible vice clasped around my throat, and I wasn’t able to answer her, and the gentleman who approached and introduced himself also didn’t get a response other than a nod. He then asked me a simple question, but I didn’t answer that either; instead, I just looked at him. He backed into a chair, perhaps realizing that I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

           It was a long two minutes before the vice loosened enough for me to shakily say “Well, I guess this is life sometimes.” She was quick to respond, “Yes, but it is one of the suckey parts of life.” My eyes were still too wet for me to focus properly, but I automatically refused to draw attention from other parts of the room by raising my hands to correct it. I was sad; sad for all of the times that I had felt frustrated by an inability to feel my connection to a pregnancy that had most likely just terminated, sad for the joke I had recently made about how pregnancy tended to make women “crazy,” sad for hardly ever talking to Steph about our coming baby, sad for so many things that can’t change now. How was I doing? How do I explain that to someone? You can’t explain sorrow, or guilt, or even the peace in a storm. Music may sometimes express it, and art depicts it, but words simply describe, leaving only the echoes to be heard by a choice few.

           When we arrived home, the water had settled and we could get a better look at what Stephanie had lost. It looked like a miniature version of something I see often, during the fourth stage of labor. I closed the toilet lid and put my arms around Stephanie, and we finally talked about how it may very well be a miscarriage. I told her that it looked like a miniature placenta, and that whatever it was it was tissue and not clots.

           We just stood there for a while, and Steph cried on my shoulder. I didn’t know what to do. I asked Steph if I should flush the contents, but she had no answer for me. What if our embryonic son or daughter, who would have been termed a fetus in just a few days, was in with that placenta? Of all the parts to this, this was the part that made me feel worse than ever before, in a way I can’t describe. I considered burying it, but that didn’t seem appropriate either. Finally, after the lid had been closed for a long time, I reached over from where I held Stephanie and I pushed the handle, just enough to hear water slowly filling the toilet bowl. It flushed softly, and I pulled Stephanie into the hallway with me as it did so.

            After that, the blood and clots increased tenfold, and we knew then that there was no possible way our tiny baby had survived. We just sat together on the couch, with the TV on and our thoughts elsewhere. I felt very close to Stephanie, which brought an enormous amount of peace. We just sat together through the whole evening, even when Steph soaked in the bathtub in an attempt to relieve the cramping. I was on the closed, padded toilet seat, and we talked quietly about lots of things.

           I don’t grieve very often in front of people. I have an inordinate difficulty in expressing my feelings, even though I seem to constantly attempt it. This afternoon was full of grief for our tiny family, but also gratitude. My boss had asked me to attend a company grade officer commander’s call to represent our unit, essentially approving me in leaving work two hours early so that I could also go to the formal Dinner for Two that was being sponsored by the Airman and Family Readiness Center. If it hadn’t been for these circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to answer my cell phone and wouldn’t have already been driving home when Stephanie called and needed help. I suppose it is one of Heavenly Father’s tender mercies that he lets us experience through times of sorrow.

            It’s like losing a loved one that you never knew. Except, normally we don’t love those we never know; in this case, the perplexity is loving them, and the not knowing them just makes it all the more difficult. Today we grieve, and tomorrow the world continues, though not quite like before.