O Death, Where is Your Sting?

O death, where is your victory? 

O death, where is your sting? 

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.                                                                                                                                                                                            1 Corinthians 15:55-57 (ESV)

My dad was critically ill in April, several days of which he spent on the ventilator due to pneumonia that had infiltrated over 90% of his lungs.  The infectious disease physician told us, “He has the captain of all pneumonia bacteria.  We have no idea how things will go.”  He walked into the emergency department with a fever of 103, oxygen saturations of 82% (and could not get them higher than 91% despite high flow oxygen) and blood pressure of 74/40, renal failure, and confusion.  Chest xray revealed severe multi-lobar pneumonia.  He was in severe septic shock.  Two days prior he was pushing two his grand-daughters on the swings at the third birthday party for his fifth grandchild.  He is still here and I know restored to better than before.  He has a new lease on life and is a changed man.

My parents on family vacation 3 months later

Delirium, ICU delirium for days and days.  He stayed awake for 72 hours straight TWICE over those two weeks as we watched every passing hour he would sink a little further into confusion.  The delirium clearly precipitated by insomnia.  He does not respond to “sedating” medications like the other 99.99%.  No amount of medication can bring him back to us and so we wait sleepless at his bedside for days praying for even 30 minutes of restorative rest.  He mumbles nonsense, makes up delusions that he will spend months convincing himself never happened.  At one point, I turned on white noise in hopes of limiting the bells/distractions in the ICU praying it would give him rest.   It did not work.  He started to reach his arm back, feel the wash of water from a hallucinated waterfall in his hospital room which he would then put his arm back in bed after shaking the imaginary dripping water off his hand.  He did this close to 300 times that night.  Ever present to help orient him over and over again, to calm him when he is tearfully yelling at “Israel follow the blue light!!”  As his children and wife there is no one else that can supplement our presence.  It is our circle and us alone that can help draw him from the depths, 24 hours a day.  The entire medical team helpless against his insomnia.  Every study you read tells you that after an experience like this (much less two very similar experiences in three years) that he will never be the same.  He has an increased risk of depression, suicide, mental slowing, permanent physical debility, and recurrence of a life threatening illness.

I wavered in my resolve and faith that he would ever sleep again or that his mind would ever come back to us.  He still recalls delusions with amazing realism and clarity to the point that we are checking to make he did not actually close the checking account as he thought during the zombie apocalypse. 

My dad has been through more than one man should in this life, he has overcome so much to bring him to where he is today.  He works diligently on his relationship with God, his wife (my mom), and his children and loves his grandchildren desperately.  In the midst of unexplainable hardship I am sure his faith has wavered as did mine when he was so sick.  God gave him an unbelievable gift.  My dad saw heaven.   Please don’t confuse this with one of his delusions or hallucinations which escalated as sleep slipped further and further out of grasp. 

The tube was removed from his airway at approximately 10:00am on a Sunday at the exact time that multiple congregations had joined in prayer for his healing.  He had just rested for the past 4 days in a coma-induced sleep.  My older brother and I watched expectantly for how he would act and feel.  He was doing great, confused about what had happened and where he was, tearful and scared but then he started to tell us…

My Dad:  I saw heaven.  I saw heaven.  I saw heaven.   It was so bright, so bright, so bright.  It was amazing, so amazing.  Everyone was there, Honey and Zion (pets we had loved and lost) they were leaping and jumping, leaping and jumping, leaping and jumping.

Me: What did you hear?

Dad:  I heard a chorus or angels singing Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, Glory, Glory, Hallelujah (raises both arms in the sky).

My brother: Were you scared? Or was it amazing?

Dad:  It was amazing, I was never ever scared.  It was so bright.  

Okay so like us, you are hopeful but skeptical at this point.  It all sounds pretty legit and he is not hallucinating or describing any other type of delusion and he has just gotten four entire days of sleep. 

A few minutes later looking my older brother genuinely surprised:

Dad: Son you are fat?

Me:  Dad that is not nice, you need to apologize.

Dad: Oh Son I am so sorry I said that. 

A few minutes later (looking at his legs and feet and moving them about to confirm they are his):

Dad: These are my legs?  But these are old man legs…

Watching a familiar TV news anchor a few minutes later: 

Dad:  He is so old, is he still alive?  I can’t believe he is still alive, he is so old and bald.

So to you this disjointed series of comments has no relevance but to me it confirmed that he saw heaven.  He saw a glorious world of resurrection bodies that are beautiful and perfect; people and angels whose only purpose is to glorify God.  There is no one overweight, no one old, no one bald.  He was pulled back from that glorious place and awoke in an ICU room and nothing was how it had been in heaven.

My brother: Did you ever doubt that there was a heaven?

In a whispered tone he replied.

Dad: Yes, but never again.  I saw heaven and it is real.

We all doubt and I bet that some will accuse me of wanting to believe in what he saw for my own selfish reassurance that God and heaven is real.  I cannot deny those claims because yes I do believe heaven is real as is God.  Not because of what he saw but because of what I saw.  I saw a man on the brink of death come back restored.  I saw answered prayers by the thousands.  People reached out to me that I had not spoken to in years to provide comfort and prayer; strangers in countries across the globe were praying for his restoration.  I heard the word that God gave my sister that would be home and whole in 7 days.  I couldn’t even utter those words as a possibility because to me they were too big to dream.  A few days later, I was begging God in prayer to know if his will for my father was to live or die as I truly did not know.  He was discharged to home 3 days later which was exactly 7 days after my sister received that word from God.  God comforted me through songs when I was too tired to pray.  “This is going to be a glorious unfolding, just you wait and see and you will be amazed.  You’ve just got to believe the story is so far from over so hold on to every promise God has made to us and watch his glorious unfolding.” Glorious Unfolding by Steven Curtis Chapman. 

My dad received the best gift he could ever receive… an opportunity to know with certainty that there is better than this broken and lost world and a fire instilled to pursue that future with every fiber of who he is.  I too was given an amazing gift; I know why all this happened.  My God is jealous for me.

Grandsons and Grandpa 

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Do Not Count Your Chickens Before They Are Free Range

We have chickens.  We had five and now we have four.  One of them was a bad bird, a real mean S.O.B.

When we picked out our little chicks we gave each of them names and then as they grew up, they each were given personalities.  Inky was by far the kindest and smartest, so patient to be squeezed just a little too tight by a two year old.  Bonnie and Dottie are the little old ladies of the group, the conversations I envision are quite caddy.  Diva(n) is nervous and the biggest, a stick to herself kind of gal who likes to preen.  Laughingly their names match their ridiculous made-up personalities.

Everybody loves a baby chick

Now that you have some background, I will tell you about our fifth chicken, Chicken Little (so named by SH1).  Chicken Little, later nick-named "Red" was always a personality struggle.  He liked to herd the other chickens and was always pushing them out in front of the bus so to speak (the bus being the damp hands of a two year old SH3 desperate for chicken affection).

SH3's favorite place to be

My husband (BH1) came to me with this chicken drama, so we made the move to the great outdoor coup to see if a bit more space and time was what the ladies needed to settle in.  Things went from bad to worse and Red started pulling feathers and making chickens bleed with merciless pecks for no reason.  My chicken ladies started acting like Red was the abusive partner, making sure she was in front of them and they always had her in their sights, segregating away from her in a group.  Poor sweet Inky took the brunt of Red's attacks; her feathers being pulled out and protecting her friends from the same fate.

Red was placed in solitary confinement, a fate not fair to a social animal and so after countless hours of reading on the futility of chicken rehabilitation, the decision was sadly made to dispose of Red.  Her death was quick and painless and not viewed by any SHs.  Red was dead.   I was nervous about what I would find when I got home from work.  Were the SHs going to be okay with this news?  Would I be expected to eat it?  I sure hope he doesn't expect me to eat it!

I was mainly worried how my sweet SH2, by far the most introverted and introspective of her sibling crew, would take the news.  BH1's education on the circle of life and expectations of being a member of our family clearly shone through when she calmly explained to me, "She was a mean chicken; Daddy said he had to kill her to stop hurting the other chickens."  Not hurting others.  She was right.  We don't hurt others.  A lesson that weighs heavily on this tender hearted SH2.  I wonder if she thought the punishment fit the crime.  

SH2 holding her favorite Inky

The chickens roam freely under the watchful eye of my husband for a few hours in the morning.  The dogs have recently viewed there movements with interested reservation.  I am loading SH1 into the car and BH1 alerts me to the fact that our Great Dane has just eaten a chicken and he was not sure if it was still alive.  He then jumps in the car to take SH1 to school.  I rush in the house to find a Great Dane and Mastiff with their heads hanging low in shame.  Bonnie and Dottie were over by the chicken coup clucking in hushed tones about the events that had just transpired.  My small human ladies were pressed against the sliding glass window nervously watching.  I saw a small commotion in the hedge and found Diva(n) and Inky huddled in terror.  Inky's chest was wet with dog drool.  I picked her up and let the small humans outside to help me calm them down.  We spoke softly to Inky and after a bit I set her down and watched her limp away, no longer scared.  New rule:  The dogs are not allowed outside when the chickens are roaming. 

We don't hurt living beings, but I couldn't help but be slightly troubled by the double standard we had created.  Red lost his life because he hurt the other chickens, the Great Dane did not.  You could say the dog was doing what was instinctual, but then again so was the chicken--he lived in the same home and had the same upbringing as the other four, no one made him a bad bird, he simply was.  How do you resolve this when the "natural order" of things breaks down?  Thankfully the kids didn't ask me any of those questions.  In the Bible, Solomon asked for wisdom above all things and his words weighed on my heart, 

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?                                                        I Kings 3:9 

We still have four chickens, three small humans and two dogs.  SH2 came over to me with a serious look on her face and told me, "Mom, I am not eating those chickens."  I sighed and scooped her up to whisper in her ear, "Me neither, baby, me neither."  

Please God give me a mind to govern this your great people.

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Is More Really Merrier? (AKA: Should we have a third child?)

“Should I have a third?”

My answer is always the same, “It depends; it is a game changer.”  I don’t regret a single minute of my world with SH3 in it—not one single minute.   She is by far my worst sleeper.  She wakes up early and yells at her sister until she wakes up too.  She strips her diaper off, clogs the toilet and poops on the floor.  She pushes a chair to the counter and in a bin of 100 washable pens finds the Sharpie and hides to ruin furniture, walls, and clothes in peace.  She eats dirt, play-dough, beads, anything really.  I have nightmares of her eating a button battery and my sleep deprived mind invents the unbelievably horrific sequelae that will ensue (honest truth—multiple nightmares).   We have to tell ourselves, BH1 and I, not to let her, SH1, or SH2 over hear us call her “trouble” or “the destroyer of fun” under our breath because that is likely not good for any child’s psyche.

Yes that is Desitin...head to toe purple tube Desitin

She gets to keep her pacifier far longer than we ever thought of letting the other two have one.  We tried potty training for a week and gave up until “she is ready”.   I have been known to look away when I see her hit her sibling in hopes that they won’t tattle and I won’t have to punish her.   Time out for her is mere seconds and certainly not the requisite two minutes her siblings would have sat.  She doesn’t have to sit in the high chair or wear a bib although she is the messiest eater.  We watch what she wants on TV because her cries for “Peep and The Big Wide World” are loudest.  She has this ridiculous ugly stuffed rabbit with plastic scratched off eyes that is lovingly called “Babbit” and we all take to searching the ends of the earth to find it when it goes missing.   Some part of me wants to say that she has clearly taken the fight out of me, but maybe that is good.  Maybe she took the fight out of me for all the fights that don’t need to be had.  I may be close to admitting that my two year old has taught me to pick my battles.

All Because Two People Fell In Love (and Wrote A Letter Together)

Every year since BH1 and I were married we have written a Christmas letter.  Honestly, the first few years before kids when I was in residency the content was a little sparse.  Yes, yes I know it is seemingly generic and ridiculous.  I too have gotten the letters extolling the virtues of "perfect" children wherein Johnny is playing 6 sports at a college level even though he is in the fifth grade and Susie is a straight A student with her heart set on Julliard at the age of 12.  Our letter is not that letter.  Sure we get a chance to brag about our kids (who wouldn't?), but ultimately it is our year in review.  Our chance to look back on the year, good and bad and reflect on all the (mis)adventures we had and how we grew spiritually, emotionally, and physically.   

Our "perfect" kids
Photo credit: Ben W Photographic

Hurry Up and Slow Down

Yes, my kids are in that super hilarious (*sarcasm*) phase in which "potty words" are really funny.  They are funny to drop at the dinner table, to substitute in Frozen song lyrics in the car ("Let it gooo, Let it gooo, the poopy never bothered me anyway"), to whisper loudly in an ear, to shout as you jump off the jungle gym, and everywhere in between.  Our canned line has been, "Potty words belong in the bathroom", and as expected they are wise to this and now upon entering the bathroom in any capacity they will sing song potty words the entire livelong day.  They are smart; they get it.  Poopy is funny.  What is not funny is that SH2 still has several pee accidents a day and now SH3 wants to start using the "big girl potty."

As minions, we are in this together

I Hiked 65,843 Steps and All I Got Was This Bible Verse

I hiked 65,843 steps in one day.  I never would have imagined that hiking all those steps was going to be one of the easier challenges I would face these past few weeks.

Yes, I climbed all the way up this and then a lot more.

Moving Heaven and Earth

I had previously mentioned wanting to move my parents closer to us so that we could help them more; help them enjoy the things they love about life.  We moved them.  It was a very long week (okay more like a month) of packing, de-cluttering, organizing, and stressing.

The day of “The Move” was long, hot and hard.  It takes a village and in this case it took approximately 15 people 14+ hours, but in the end they slept on clean sheets in a made bed in an unpacked house eight blissful minutes away from us.

They live close (like come-for-dinner-and-go-home-let’s-not-make-a-night-of-it close) and we recently had them over for dinner to celebrate escrow finally closing on the sale of their old home.  The kids and I made chocolate cake with white icing which is their favorite.  My mom helped with SH1’s homework and instructed me on how to re-wash the couch cushion covers.  My dad tirelessly played hide and seek with SH2 and SH3.  I made dinner and answered pages, accepted patients from other hospitals, and talked to residents via phone while my husband mowed the lawn.  It was all very pedestrian, perfectly pedestrian.

The same private waterfall we took a photo at 10 years ago
The only thing changed about it was us

It takes a village to raise 3 small humans, it take a village to get homework done with SH1 when SH2 and SH3 want to play and dinner has to get on the table but your physician wife doesn’t get home until 6:11pm and she has had a very long day too.  It takes a village to downsize 66 years of life into a 2 bedroom town home.  It takes a village to feed/shuttle/love/bathe 3 kids so my husband and I can go on a once in a lifetime 10 year anniversary vacation to Maui WITHOUT small humans.

We brought SH2 a coconut purse (because she is a “collector”) from Hawaii and she has not put it down.  

"This is my coconut purse, my Mom and Dad
brought it back for me from Huhwhyi.
Do you want to see what is inside?" 

She tells every.single.person she sees about where it is from and how she became the proud owner of such a treasure.  The coconut purse is breaking already; the lining is coming away from the coconut.  I know nothing will replace this coconut purse and I have decided to take a “come what may” approach to its eventual demise.  SH2 is growing up; they all are.  SH3 sleeps in a big girl bed and shares a room with her sister and SH1 has a bunk bed in a room of his own.  The nursery furniture was carted away by a sweet couple who are excited to start a new chapter in their lives. 

I am so glad that this all came at once, the move, the big girl bed, the vacation, the Ikea 100000 piece bunk bed, and the reconnection with the man I love.  If not, I would have cried on the floor of the empty nursery laying in the spot where SH3 ground Desitin into the carpet and wondered what was next.  

Two days before we sold this furniture I spent no less than 4 hours 
attempting to get Desitin out of the carpet/ottoman.

The smile on her face...grrrrrr

My village supports me.  My God sustains me.

For the first time in my life, “come what may” is not welcoming the other shoe to drop, but ushering in a new chapter wherein things are a little easier and I smile more.  I am in a really good place right now and I thought you should know.

Perfection in so many ways

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