Tag Archives: Family

whew…

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I was at my 14 year old son’s baseball game, City Tournament don’t you know, reading, waiting for it to start. All the players were running through their warmups, taking groundballs, playing soft-toss, the usual preliminaries…

I was jerked from my book world with the calling of my name. My son was walking towards me, holding his right hand with his left, gingerly… like when he was small & had an owie… I (calmly) ran over to him to see what was up – well, it turns out that what was up was he had taken a bad hop grounder off of the tip of his middle finger… and it was bleeding…

Upon closer examination & in conferring with one of his coaches, I could see that his fingernail was sitting at a 45 degree angle… & that there seemed to be something wrong with the end of his finger… but we couldn’t see it through the blood.

I’m solo at the game, glad I’m there, but now wrestling with the fact that now I have to parent, & to make tough decisions. No panic. Banish worry. Be calm. Pray for peace.

We have to go to the ER, just in case this is more than just a busted nail. Which hospital?

My mind raced… called our insurance carrier in the car… driving towards the nearest hospital with a hope that I wouldn’t have to pass it by & go somewhere else. Didn’t. Hoped for an empty waiting room. Yes.

Went through triage, (can’t see anything because of the blood,) & saw a doctor within 1 hour (a personal record for me & mine for ER trips.) X-rays. Answers.

The tip of the finger is broken off (open distal phalanx fracture) & bone is protruding from the fingertip, through the flesh. Dr. wants a game plan.

Clean it. Stitches. Reset. Split. More Xrays.

Everything went according to the game plan. Thank you Jesus.

Next up, due to the severity of the break, we’re off to a hand specialist to see if surgery will be required to repair the finger. Unknown.

Today, I sit at my desk, a card table in my room really, & ponder the thoughts that flood my mind, & fight for attention. The feeling of powerlessness that washes over me watching my son in pain, lots of pain. Worry about the unknown: will it heal right? WIll he need surgery? What will it cost?

I think back upon the ride over to the game, where we prayed for him for peace. Confidence. Strength. Thinking it was for the baseball game. Revisiting the hours in the ER where he recalled our prayer & laughed at the irony of how our evening ended up, & that the answers to prayer looked a lot different than him trying to hit a baseball.

Facing my own fears. Inadequacies. Powerlessness. But not living or acting out according to how I feel or how things seem to be… rather, trusting & choosing to trust that God is in control, & is near. Not that He’s ever far, but the sense of His being “WITH” us is tangible.

Surprises…

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There’s lots of things in the world that I don’t understand. I’ve just found another one.

Yesterday, a priority mail package arrived. Looked like something I’d get from Amazon if I’d ordered a book… but this was from ATT. Hmm. Wonder what they could be sending?

After opening the package, I discovered 3 things:

  • Turns out, due to a glitch in the ATT computer billing system, 1 member of our family has had their phone bill separated from the rest of the “ATT Family Plan”

  • This is I-Doey’s bill, covering his phone line. It is 262 pages long.

  • It has 14,114 reasons why we chose to go with the ‘unlimited texting’ plan. 14,114. Texts. 1 person. 1 month. Or, 470 per day.

    • Truly, right now, I have no response.

    Friday musings…

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    Sitting at the completely clear & clean kitchen counter, coffee nearby, preparing for blog-age is one of my favorite things. Esp. on Fridays, which is my day of rest…. I love it. Along with brown paper bags, wrapped up with string of course…

    I’m really, really looking forward to my first Aces game – hopefully 4/18… Preliminary weather report: High of 68F, low of 40. No rain, light wind.

    So say we all!

    Life is simpler without having to put up a pretense to try to impress others. It’s at least less work. I want to “be comfortable in my own skin,”… I think that’s how Bono put it…

    As background, I occasionally have blood sugar issues – when I don’t eat often enough, or don’t get enough protein, my blood sugar plummets, as does my outlook, mood, demeanor… you get the picture.

    On that note, kids are funny. And pretty quick learners too… we were having an interchange with theWeez about a particular series of choices she made that resulted in us needing to have a “Talk.” Obviously, didn’t fully appreciate how the “Talk” was going, & further, had issues with the method of Presentation that I had chosen. But rather than take it up a notch & try to argue, bluster, or complain, she just said:

    “When was the last time you ate? You should eat something, & then we can talk…”

    Nice.

    Easter is this Sunday… I’m looking forward to it – the story of redemption never gets old. And I never want to just go on ‘auto-pilot’ & mail it in either, just because its Easter. May I never lose the wonder…

    NOTE: No rocks were thrown during the writing of the following paragraphs…

    Easter, along with Christmas Eve, seem to be times where churches are more prone to troll for newbies using the “Be Our Guest” scene from the Beauty & the Beast Disney film… where we put our best on, place our best foot forward, with the best music, best speech, & best egg hunt for the kiddies. All in the space of 70 minutes… & just in time for the next best service.

    It seems to be more designed for a christian culture than for one of pre-christians… to attract christians from other churches to come & see. I ponder consumer-church… Hmmm…

    END NOTE

    I was asked out on a date, for tonight, by theBean. Don’t know where we’re going – it’s a surprise. I’m going to do my best to make myself extra pretty… :)

    monday musings…

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    Home after a great weekend spent in Portland with theBean’s cousin Christy & her husband Levi. And their little dog Winston. It turns out after 3 days together, we remembered to take 2 pictures. 2. Silly us. Hopefully, we can snag some of the pics that Levi & his family took when they came over for dinner on Saturday…

    Christy is 9 years younger than theBean & was the flower girl in our wedding… it rained (not unusual for Portland :) which was beautiful. I loved the steady but tolerable showers, the cloudy-overcastness, the glimmers of sun breaking through the clouds for seconds at a time. The food they cooked for us was incredible, & we hope to get several of the recipes to make our own…

    Both Levi & Christy work at Multnomah University, which is about 5 minutes walk from their house. As I’ve stated before, I absolutely love the higher ed environment, & my recent grad school pursuits were really fired up seeing the school & talking through all the ed. options that Levi will be exploring. Lucky.

    Words can’t really describe the impact of the weekend – catching up with Levi & Christy; watching theBean with her cousin, & finding how eerily similar they are. Like the same foods. Can’t breathe too well through their noses. Both think they’re pretty funny & laugh quite a bit. Have an interesting time pronouncing certain words, esp. words with an “S”. It was priceless.

    Makes me wonder about the power & wonder of knowing & being known… & the comfort & encouragement of seeing someone that is ‘like’ you… hmmm…

    Came home to sun. I love Reno. Clear blue skies. Light wind. Still manages to be freezing cold at night. I love it!

    4+ mile run with Brother today… the good news is that I’m still feeling it… hips, knees, ankles are doing well, which makes me happy. I’m working up to a regular schedule of 5 miles (3-4x/week) & hope to do a 10K one of these days.

    Reading through CS Lewis’ sci-fi trilogy... just finished the 1st one, & started Perelandra last night… Thursday, I start the finale……

    I enjoy the trilogy because the main character, E. Ransom, is based on JRR Tolkien… & at the same time is a completely unexceptional individual… whom nonetheless is chosen for an extraordinary series of missions, to battle evil incarnate with seemingly nothing but his wits & a growing spiritual sensitivity… good times.

    Finally caught the BSG finale. Meh.

    the good news is…

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    …this work week is only 3 days long, due to the impending Thanksgiving holiday. The bad news is… there’s still just as much to be done as is in a normal work week, but with 2 days less in which to accomplish it.

    So the only sane & right thing to do is… to downsize the work load for the week. In a marked departure from what I would have done just a few short years ago, I will intentionally do less, & aim to ‘walk life’ at a leisurely pace.

    Rather than try to pull off 3 marathon days in which everything I can think of doing is crammed into a 30 hour span, I will do what I can… prioritize & finish the “Have to’s;” delegate what can be delegated. Put off til next week the stuff that can wait.

    Then, I can enjoy the time off, be thankful for what God has provided for me, & truly BE present, emotionally, physically, & mentally for the food, football, family, & friends.

    And that is something that I can be truly thankful for.

    #1

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    Guess who’s 1 year old today?

    Yep. Ellie Grace.

    She’s walking. Talking. Driving. (At least sitting shotgun in the driveway.)

    And she gets SOOOO excited when the pastries bag shows up every morning, filling the office with “Nananananana” which obviously means, “Unk, I would like a blueberry scone, please.”

    Happy Birthday, Ellie G.

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    Mickey

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    My brother, Johnny, was something of an artist – & the thing that we all wanted him to draw for us was his “Mickey Mouse” – just Mickey’s head. He’d sign the bottom of the picture with a flourish… we had tons of them.

    Maybe it was because Disneyland is/was such a happy memory for all of us – one of our favorite places on earth to go together & spend time & build shared memories. Perhaps it was the Mickey Mouse pancakes that we ate at the River Belle Terrace… (which, by the way, my dad could make better & more of, for cheaper… :)

    When Johnny got sick, drawing Mickey was a miniature vacation, I think, for him & for us. Throughout the illness & treatment, Mickey (along with baseball cards,) remained a way to escape the reality of what was going on, if just for a few minutes.

    Here I am 18 years after his death, missing him. I regret that my 3 kids never got to know my brother personally… I am intentionally & purposefully trying to help them get to know Johnny & what he was like through stories, pictures, & the little things he liked & disliked.

    And one of the things he liked, was Mickey. And when Mickey Mouse is around, it doesn’t seem like my brother is so far away, & it gives me hope for the time when we’ll be reunited.

    Last Saturday, I got a Mickey tattoo on my left shoulder blade – because it reminds me of my brother, John Leavy Locke.

    I’ve got a good heart…

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    Over the last week, I’ve been undergoing tests on my heart, some of which I’ve written about HERE. Yesterday, I went in for my ‘evaluation’, where the good Dr. Nylk (rhymes with Milk) would interpret for me the results of all the tests I had last week, & let me know what, if anything, I’d need to do to follow up…

    After arriving & being ushered to the chilly examination room, I had the privilege of waiting an hour. I took the opportunity to reflect, send text messages to theBean, & to kick back with my eyes closed… Waiting has its perks.

    Dr. Nylk came in & started with, “Great news,” which I think is a nice way to start a ‘heart-test-result-evaluation’ if you ask me. The EKG is ‘perfect,’ (his word, that he used throughout the evaluation.) The echo-cardiogram is ‘perfect, as a heart should be.’ The thickness of the heart muscle is ‘perfect.’ The results of my lipid panel (cholesterol test) show that my LDL (bad) levels are well within acceptable limits at 97. My triglycerides came in at 88, also very good, & my HDL (good) levels were a whopping 85, which he said was incredible, as it is a real treat to get the HDL level on most people to 40.

    The evaluation bottom line: I don’t need to go back, & he doesn’t ever want to see me again.

    Hooray.

    Part of my reflection in the waiting room was about the process that I’ve been going through in getting my heart muscle evaluated… going through various tests, examinations, indignities, & pokes, then waiting to hear from someone with some good perspective, someone who could speak with authority as to the health of my heart. It reminded me how similar this process has been to my own journey on emotional health & well-being, my time at CSR, meetings with Chuck, re-evaluating priorities, values, & asking God to 139me. I may blog this in more depth…

    I’m glad to hear that my test results were ‘perfect’. I also underestimated what the effect of said results would be on my kids, esp. the Pasty Gangster. He held onto me for about 10 minutes & told me how happy he was that my heart was good. At one point, I tried to detach from his squeeze (he’s 6′, 180# of solid muscle & he was loving me TIGHT) & he said, “Dad. I’m not done.”

    I want the results of my spiritual heart exam to be good as well. For me, & for my kids, & for the kids they eventually have, because a bad heart can be & is often hereditary.

    Here’s to good hearts.

    Tuesday afternoon…

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    A couple weeks back, I found out that my brother Moe had been diagnosed with HCM – I wrote about it HERE. This week is test week for me… meaning Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday I get to undergo a barrage of tests, pokes, & prods to see if this potentially hereditary thickening of the myocardium of the heart is something that I have as well.

    Yesterday, I had the EKG, which is a way (invented by the Germans!) to monitor the electrical activity of the heart. Eileen attached 11 sticky pads to my chest, & then hooked me up, one electronic tentacle at a time, to the EKG machine. She turned it on & left it running for a good 10 seconds, then switched it off, & reversed the tentacle attachment process. Then, in a swift motion, (& with nary a warning, I might add) proceeded to remove the sticky pads from my chest. As I’m not a manscaper, this hurt. 11 times.

    Then it was on to the blood pressure check, ala the arm cuff. Only this time, it was taken on both arms, also by the aforementioned Eileen.

    The doctor came in about this time, & placed the icy cold (is there any other kind?) stethoscope on my chest, back, neck, etc. & asked me to breathe. And flex. Cool. Day 1 of the testing was then over, with another round of tests to be set up for ASAP. And no real interpretation of the results of the day, other than, “Doesn’t look bad.”

    Today was echo-cardiogram day, which is an ultrasound of the structure of the heart. For those of you who have had an ultrasound (like when you’re pregnant) you know exactly what comes next… the goop. Keith applied the goop, liberally I might add, to my chest, & spent the next half hour doing his best to make sure that there wasn’t anywhere on my chest, neck & stomach that didn’t get covered with the stuff. Nice. Thanks. But the good news is, when it was done, he gave me a paper towel, 1, one, paper towel to clean myself up. Let’s just say that I needed to go get a few more. Like 12.

    And, no interpretation of the results yet. That comes later; next Tuesday actually.

    Tomorrow I go in to LabCorp, after 12 hours of no food, (which obviously makes us Oh so Hungry…) to get blood drawn – to test my cholesterol, among other things. After that, I eat (of course) then I’m off, solo :(, to Danville for the Fall Pastors’ Conference, which goes until Friday.

    Good times.