project 365: 09.28-10.04.09

{09.28.09: Monday} on call...AGAIN. an abnormally mellow night of call--only a couple of deliveries & i even got to take a nap in the middle of the day. unreal.

{09.29.09: Tuesday} i've been sick. and being sick in dry weather for me means nose bleeds. this was the THIRD one in 3 days & happened when Gay & I were shopping. LOVELY. she was kind enough to beg the lady @ the gas station for a bag of ice so i could ice my sinuses. [tip: do NOT tip your head back...use ice, a pinching pressure, & give it a little time!]

{09.30.09: Wednesday} H1N1 (thank you swine flu) has officially invaded the hospitals. and for some reason, they decided that "duck masks" would be appropriate for a flu that came from pigs. surprisingly enough, these masks are SO COMFORTABLE. i stole a couple for future use.

{10.01.09: Thursday} greg & kerry's (very yummy!) rehearsal dinner. it was SO WONDERFUL to see old friends...and i was SO BUMMED jon missed it :)

{10.02.09: Friday} annndddd....they are MARRIED! woohoo! congrats greg & kerry for being the awesomest, funniest couple we know!!

{10.03.09: Saturday} my sisters drove into town...& we all made the 30-minute treck to the "Valley Mall" just for Forever 21. as chance would have it, we ran into these decked-out characters on our trip...weirdo's.

{10.04.09: Sunday} i drove back home. tayte slept. and snored. kind of a nice combination, huh?

project 365: 09.21-27.09

{09.21.09: monday} an early (5:30am) morning leaving Rusty & Gay's house for the hospital. i *thought* i was becoming a morning person...not so much.

{09.22.09: tuesday} the call room on the OB service. i was on call tuesday night (about 30 hours total) & was lucky enough to sleep almost through the entire night. it was a quiet night on the floor--quiet for me, at least!

{09.23.09: Wednesday} sunrise in the city--a view from the OB floor window. after a long night of sleep (with perspective--about 4 hours), i was ready to get back to the house & away from the hospital. not to mention the fact that i smelled. BAD.

{09.24.09: Thursday} i downloaded a new iphone app to edit photos. and i kind of love it. self-portrait (obviously).

(09.25.09: Friday} on call AGAIN on the OB service. a little less sleep...a few deliveries...and a donut in the morning. not too shabby, i'd say...

{09.26.09: Saturday} the "prairie", as Rusty & Gay refer to it. a sunny day in autumn...& harvested wheat fields. photo taken on my way back from a night of call @ the hospital.

{09.27.09: Sunday} they took me to Greenbluff :) YUM. and bought me a Huckleberry milkshake. double-YUM. and we picked pumpkins & rode a tractor & i realized: IT IS FALL already!

thrifty: the transformed carry-on.

i've been looking for a Caboodle...remember those?

and well, since i'm cheap, i wasn't about to spend the $18.99 it would take to get a new one. the truth is that i'd rather spend those $18 on coffee & ice cream. just sayin'.

so on a recent i-need-to-find-photo-props thrift store adventure, i came across this little guy.



for $1.60.

a bit less than $18.99, wouldn't you say?

the only problem was that this little guy was ugly.

and stained.

and had a gross sticker-covered-smells-like-a-moth-ball inside.


and so...i ripped the insides out.

{please don't mistake that statement with Halloween gore...this is clean, Internet}.



and i found some bright fabric in my stash...cut it to size...slimed the case with Decoupage glue...



and VOILA!!!




a cute! cheap! faux-Caboodle!

far, far from perfect...but it will do :)



it will find its home in the back of my car...storing water bottles, Tampax, granola bars, & chocolate...you know, just in case.

from the depths.

It is humid as he tip-toes out of bed on the third story of his farmhouse. Harvest moonlight casts shadows on the wall. Floor creaks as his bare feet walk across the wooden beams.

He kisses his wife & puts the envelope on his pillow—still warm from where his head lay, sleepless. Bare feet tip-toe out the bedroom door, away from the bed where they laid side-by-side for over thirty years. Bare feet scuttle down the hallway, past the smiling children in faded photographs. They creak down the stairways, past the Thanksgiving table & the Christmas Tree corner; feet pause, lungs breathe it in.

Pain catches his breath, head in hands for a brief rest.

He hasn’t been the same since the accident. The pain has taken over. And now he’s made his choice.

Cold, hard metal meets his hand. And bare feet carry him across the dirt to the bed of his rusty old 1967 Ford.

Harvest moon & expanse of stars light the country night sky. Crickets chirp & blades of grass sway with the gentle breeze.

Breath.

Small metal vessels loaded. Trigger cocked. Barrel to temple. Bare feet relaxed, pain free for the first time in months.

He closes his eyes, breathing in the last bit of late-summer refreshment.

INTERVENTION.

The bare feet, naked body in the familiar bed of 1967 decides that life is greater than pain. That love wins to selfishness, commitment to contentment.

Cold metal is left with rust. And bare feet carry him across the dirt again, inside the screened porch, passing Christmas Tree corner & Thanksgiving table on the way to the creaking stairway. Bare feet carry him through the hallway of smiling children in faded photographs & toward the bed where his wife slept soundly, harvest moonlight casting shadows on the wall.

He kisses his wife & feels her warmth, “I love you”.

And five months later I hear his story between tears & sobs & unadulterated gratitude. Old 1967 still sits in the dirt, a cold reminder of the life of pain that once consumed him.

“I have a golf game to get to,” he says with a smile, “I’m playing my best par in years.”

I nod & wish him luck, careful to notice the limp that follows him out the door.

Sometimes life gives us second chances. And because of the bigger choices, the harder road, the more difficult recovery, we often fail to take them. But some of us do take those second chances…& thrive in the alternative route God navigates for our lives.

Some of us are scarred.
Most of us are scared.
Several make full recoveries; others none at all.
A number of us choose to rise above from the beginning.
A few learn to fly after we fall.

Still others walk with a limp.

The point, though, isn’t how we recover…it’s that we are walking at all.

still smiling.

She smiled. And told me her back hurt.

When I asked about her medical history, salty tears dropped.

I was feeling particularly sorry for myself that day…Jon halfway across the world, the stress of boards hanging over my head, residency applications, worries about the future, time management, emails to send, phone calls to make…away from the comfort of my “own space”.

I sighed & tried to show compassion—failing miserably in the process.

Those tears dropped. Tissues soaked. And again, she smiled.

1995: her soul mate died unexpectedly.
1996: her oldest daughter was brutally raped.
1997: her home was robbed, everything of value stolen.
2002: her oldest brother died of brain cancer.
2005: her younger brother died of colon cancer.
2007: her first grandchild came into the world…& left too quickly.
2008: her younger daughter was diagnosed with an aggressive form of thyroid cancer at age 28.

And now, 2009. She is here…talking to me…telling me about the "no big deal" pain in her back. STILL SMILING.

God showed me compassion…and softened my hardened heart with grace.

Because the old adage is true: someone ALWAYS has it worse off than you.

thrifty: the ugly frame-turned-photo-prop

i saw a wall of frames once on Tara Whitney's blog. of course i can't find the picture now to show you how cute it was.

but i fell in love.

almost as much in love as i am with chai. but not quite.

since then, i've been on the hunt for frames. big frames. small frames.

ALL cheap frames.

and while i was on a hunt for chairs (which i found...coming later), i found this frame.

this VERY BIG FRAME.

for $3.

thank you American Legion yard sale...(by the way, American Legion yard sale, you smelled like moth balls...)

and i ripped out the ehem...ugly 70's painting.

sanded it down.

sprayed it.

let 'er dry.

and then used it.

and it turned out exactly as i'd envisioned it.

i love it when that happens.

...if only my butt would follow-suit.

hello, fall.

emergent.

I sit staring at the tocometer strips, bored. The little lines dash up & down. The mama in room 8 is doing well—baby responding to contractions. Room 2, fine. And room 4, in for observation, hasn’t made any changes over the last two hours.

The noise jolts me from daydreams. Flashing green on all monitor screens—FETAL BRADYCARDIA.

We see a steep deceleration of the fetal heart rate in room 6. And five nurses go running.

Organized chaos.

Scrubs on. Hands scrubbed. Hair net. Shoes covered. Gown in place. Hands shaking as I try to wiggle my fingers into the sterile gloves.

Serious.

Scalpel.
Skin.
Incision.
Subcutaneous fat.
Fascia.
Peritoneum.
Uterus.
Placenta.
Amniotic sac.
Fundal pressure.

BABY.

Mama didn’t see the blue baby squeezed out—a tube down her throat. Under general anesthesia in just enough time to save baby, rushed to the NICU.

And just five minutes before, we laughed when we broke her water—the polyhydramnios made a yellow amniotic river on the floor beneath our feet.

I visit the little one later. Microcephaly, just as the ultrasound indicated. IUGR, like the images said. Mental retardation, undoubtedly present.

And yet Mama insisted at a chance she’d be fine.

I thought her foolish, ignorant even. I thought her doubtful, untrusting of the “professionals”. I thought her childish, discounting the obvious truth.

But now? Now I think her HOPEFUL.

Hopeful for those 34 weeks while she grew inside her belly. Hopeful despite our downtrodden greetings. Hopeful amidst the sullen grins, the shaking heads, the “I’m sorry’s” & “You’ll love her the same’s”. Hopeful during the painful realization that her daughter would never grow in the normal sequence of development, hopeful at each pre-natal checkup, hopeful at each 4-D ultrasound.

Hopeful that something might change, that we were wrong the last time.

And maybe, just maybe, hopeful that God can heal to our standards, I think.

I stand staring at that Little One. That little tiny package, breathing & pink, who entered the world in scary circumstance. And now, out to face the world.

And those prior thoughts of Mama, the ignorance & foolishness come rushing back. This time, I’m accusing myself. Because I don’t want to look at that malformed baby. I don’t want to watch her shallow & broken breaths. I don’t want to stare at that too-small-head, those club feet. I can’t manage to interpret the non-axial lines of that EKG…and can’t swallow the guilt that comes with the relief that she isn’t mine.

BUT.

But she is someone’s. She’ll go home to grow up with her Mama. The HOPEFUL Mama who, from the very beginning, thought her to match the World’s Normal. The HOPEFUL Mama who, from the first sound of heartbeat chose to love what she did not know. The HOPEFUL Mama who, despite the prompts & the criticisms gave this child LIFE. The HOPEFUL Mama who defied modern medicine & trusted in Someone Greater.

The HOPEFUL Mama who was unbearably BRAVE, unceasingly LOVING, undoubtedly OPTIMISTIC.

The HOPEFUL Mama who accepted her assignment with Grace & embraced GOD’S STANDARDS instead of the World’s.

HOPE, let me be your student.

dear jon.