Post Op Day 5

Here is the latest update on Scott.  It is an e-mail I received from Joanne which she said I could post here:

Dear People Who Are So Blessing our Lives–

It’s an amazing short journey that Scott and I have been on so far with this cancer thing, but we’ve seen God’s hand on, and in, each step of the way.  What an incredible experience; very humbling seeing God’s grace poured out on us through continuing offers of places to stay up in Denver (I’ve found that I like coming home to my own home, where there’s a sense of normalcy), offers of every kind from driving me up there, to hugs of comfort, to getting a few groceries when I need them, along with continued assurances of prayer, even through the nights, at times.  We are so grateful and this has been such a practical way of showing love, that it’s given me an example of how I want to show His compassion to others in the future.  Again, may God bless each of you who has taken time in whatever way to bless and encourage us, and bring us before our precious God!  Tears fill my eyes in thankfulness and appreciation.

Dr McCarter came by yesterday afternoon to tell Scott and I the results of a further nuclear scan that was done yesterday morning, and to also share the final results of the pathology done on the lymph nodes (about 20) in the surrounding area of the pancreatic tumor.  The nuclear scan did show that the bile from the liver was finally flowing into the bowel. Yea!!!  Praise God!  Scott’s bilirubin count had also dropped down to 14, so that’s a much better direction.  Dr. McC thought that there might have been a small infection in that area, that he’s been treating with a 7 day course of antibiotics, though it was undetectable by any other signs, i.e., fever or whatevcer.  He also said that Scott was pretty much on course for when everybody’s body starts “moving anything” again, post-op.  Anyway, that’s good.  Dr McC also had the epidural removed yesterday morning, so Scott had to switch over to the pain-button.  I made a few quick phone calls on the way up yesterday asking for prayer that Scott (who almost never takes any medication, and then, only if it’s really bad, i.e. a head-ache or whatever) would be more willing to be his own advocate, and ask for what he needs before he’s desperate.  He was in a lot of discomfort yesterday with the bloating situation, again caused by the needed gas for the surgery, and in using the pain-button, ended up feeling pretty light-headed.  Hard to know how much you need when you don’t usually take anything!  When I talked to him last night after getting home he said they’d switched his pain med to one we know has worked for him in the past, a non-narcotic (which will also help with other problems of things moving in his system) called Toradol, so that’s good! 

Back to the lymph nodes.  It turns out that there were 5 other lymph nodes right next to the original tumor that had cancer in them, including that small one that had already been noted.  But (you never want to hear that word), there were also 4 lymph nodes that were outside that area that were cancerous.  So, we’ve moved into another category.  In human terms, Scott’s now considered a “high-risk for return”.  For those that understand the cancer staging stuff, he’s at T1 (for tumor) N1 (for lymph nodes), M0 (that’s a zero for non-metastasized), or Stage 2b.  Doctor McCarter pointed out that Scott is not in Stage 3 or 4, in which there wouldn’t be any other options using treatments or “trials”, as far as pancreatic cancer goes.  He then went on to give us 5 different options, the last two of which he recommended we think about.  One of those is a trial (being run in Denver, among other locations) using a chemo drug called “Gemzar” (or Gemcitabine) + a pancreatic vaccine.  This one is fairly well-tolerated, meaning you don’t get super sick.  The 2nd recommendation was for an unconventional trial that’s between phases 2&3 (ok, this is all new info/terminology for me, so I doubt that I’m going to get it all right in trying to convey what was told to us).  It includes radiation + Interferon 5FU + Sysplatin ( I should have called my sister Jan who’s in her 9th year of “fighting” metastasized breast cancer–she would know all about this stuff).  This “trial” is a very tough one, one  that Dr Mc Carter described as “beating you up”.   He said that 50% of the people in it have ended up in the hospital, 3/4′s have quit, but that if you can endure, there’s a very high percentage (50%) of having your life extended beyond 5 years (I believe I got that right), which he said is remarkable.

We asked Dr Mc Carter which of those two options he’d choose, if it were him, and he said he didn’t know.  But no trials can start before Scott’s had time to heal from this surgery, as they don’t even consider entering you in a trial from 4 weeks post-op to 8 weeks post-op, so he said we had time to think about it.  Well, as you can imagine, I’d started crying by the time all of this was told to us.  As Dr McCarter started to leave, he came over and gave me a hug.  (I’d asked him if I could give him a hug after he’d come and told us that the surgery had gone well on Monday–he let me!  BTW [by the way], I’d also told him and all the O.R. nurses, anesthesiologists, etc, that we had a lot of people praying for them throughout surgery, and they were very appreciative).  So, Scott and I hugged a bit ourselves, as we could, and I cried, and then we eventually came back to the place of remembering:  this came as no surprise to God!  He’s obviously been watching over us and guiding our path from too much hamburger until now!  And we’re confident that He’s not through with us yet.   He still knows the numbers of each of our days!  So, He has once again granted and blessed us with HIS peace, which is beyond our understanding.  We reminded each other of what we sensed the Lord telling us when we were prayed for, the day before Scott’s biopsy (which turned out to be 1 week before surgery): God gave me a picture of Jesus standing with His hand on each of our shoulders, (we are not alone, HE is with us, and is standing and walking with us) and Scott, he heard “I’ve given you the Spirit of Life, in Christ Jesus”!  You know, it doesn’t get much better than that, does it!!!  

So, we are good.

~ Joanne, for Scott, too

Move Over Colby!

(Sorry, Colby, you’ve been replaced!)

I have a new favorite “Survivor” player!

Do you watch “Survivor”?  Did you watch it last night?

Yau-Man is AWESOME!  What a devious and delightful character he is!  I can’t wait to see if his fake immunitiy idol is found and how things play out if it is!  BRILLIANT!

Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!

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Post Op Day 4

It is widely rumored that laughter is the best medicine.  Perhaps it is the second best medicine.  Second best to love.  Scott was feeling pretty lousy today.  Until Joanne showed up.  That seemed to make alot of his lousy much better.  Just being in the same room made him, and Joanne, feel much less awful.

And his intestines are rumbling!  That means they’ve awakened from their slumber.  Excellent news.

Scott’s bilirubin has continued to rise for the past few days.  They are looking for a cause for that.  The lab test was repeated today to see if it has risen further or not.  I haven’t heard the result of that, or of the latest nuclear medicine scan which was ordered to see if they could find any blockage which might be causing the rise.  More on that when I hear more myself.

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Post Op Day 3

Talked to Joanne earlier today.  I’m not surprised to find out that Scott’s not feeling so great.  I have a lot of experience taking care of patients who have had major surgery.  Day three is almost always tough.  I don’t really have a good explanation, but people tend to feel lousy both physically and emotionally.

Anesthesia, especially long anesthesia times, causes your intestines to slow down, even stop.  Add to that having a surgeon mucking around in your guts makes them just go “bleh”.  And, to make things even worse, it’s hard to get up after surgery like that.  You have pain, and you often are very dizzy and faint.  Moving, being upright, standing, and walking encourages motility, encourages your intestines to “go” (called peristalsis).  Finally, if all that isn’t enough, pain medicines also slow your gut down.  By day three, you’re starting to feel all that gas which is being made and is stuck inside.  (Scott has a feeding tube which is putting nutrients directly into his intestines.  And it’s not really moving, so that’s kind of nauseating, too.)

That’s one of the big physical things that makes day three icky.  I don’t know if this is all that is going on with Scott, or not.  There may be more.

And there’s an emotional component which I have absolutely no comprehension of that strikes people on day three.  I don’t know how Scott is doing emotionally.

One of the things that makes a nurse go “woo hoo!!!” is a “yes” answer to this question:  “Have you passed any gas yet?”  Nurses appreciate such “gross” things, don’t we???

At the very least, pray that Scott passes gas soon…

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“The Winter Side of the Storm”

This is a term I’ve never heard before.  Off and on this afternoon, I have been enjoying snow showers!  Nothing has accumulated, but I don’t care.  I just love the snow.

I watched the news when I got home from work today and the weatherman (meteorologist?) said this snow was on “the winter side of the storm”.  “The spring side of the storm” came through here earlier and brought us rain (I also love a good rainstorm). 

If April showers bring May flowers, what do almost-April snows bring?

I am delighted to have another visit from winter before spring fully springs.  Everything is on the verge of going green here.  There is an herbaceous haze wherever you look.  After the winter we’ve had, I’m expecting a glorious spring!

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Where’s The Customer Service???

I have direct deposit.  I don’t like direct deposit.  But signing up for it got me a better deal on my checking account.  Whatever.  I had a check bounce about a nanosecond before my paycheck was deposited two weeks ago.  Of course it was an automatic bounce, so I took the notice in to my bank this afternoon to see if I could get the THIRTY THREE DOLLAR PENALTY (crickey!) reimbursed to me.  I needed cash anyway and I needed to transfer money from my savings into my checking account.

I hadn’t planned on hitting the bank on the way home from work, so I didn’t have my check book and I don’t have any of my account numbers memorized.  The teller seemed a bit miffed that she had to look up my account numbers for me.  And then, since she was the BRANCH MANAGER I figured I’d talk to her about the bounced check charge.  She snipped that she’d take care of it.  I said “Thanks so much!  You are so nice.”

Without ever making eye contact with me at any point during any of the transactions we were making, she then said “NO.  I’m not.  I’m in a VERY BAD mood.”  And HOWDY, she meant BAD.  She finished posting the money to my account and handed me a receipt.  I nearly got frostbite!

I thanked her and I told her that I hoped her day gets better.  (And not sarcastically, either, though I REALLY wanted to!  LOL!)

Am I getting old or something?  I find myself wondering whatever happened to customer service and work ethic.  It might be disingenuous, but even when I don’t feel like it, I at least FAKE nice and kind at my jobs. 

I’d write a letter to the bank, but since she’s the manager, she’d probably round file it and blackball all my accounts. 

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Post Op Day 1

And Scott is doing well.  I collected his and Joanne’s son after work and we went up to see him at the hospital in Denver.  He looks tired, but amazingly well.  Still yellow.  (Note to self:  investigate how long jaundice can be expected to last).  Being a nurse I of course had to take a look around to see what all was happening on his monitors and what was in all the little bags hanging on the IV pole, and make sure all the IVs and equipment looked in order.  I had resist the urge to ask to see bandages and drains though, afterall, I was his visitor and not his nurse!    Being a nurse doesn’t stop when you leave your own job.  The staff seems competent, and they are all extremely pleasant.  He appears to be in good hands. 

Thanks for your continuing prayers.

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Thank God For Hamburger

While I was in California two weeks ago, a friend of mine here in Colorado was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  Pancreatic cancer is particularly virulent, AND, (I didn’t know this three weeks ago) refractory when it comes to chemotherapy and radiation therapy.  The only real treatment and hope for a cure is surgery.  Huge surgery.

Over the years, Scott has adopted a dietary lifestyle which nearly eliminated all fats.  He is very active and very healthy.  His wife (and my friend) Joanne had gotten the bug to do some cooking with hamburger.  She’d made meatloaf, meatloaf sandwiches, spaghetti and meatballs, etc.  And, being the dutiful and loving husband that he is, Scott ate and ate of the burger based delicacies (even though he doesn’t like hamburger…now that’s love!).  And he started to not feel so good.

After a few days of increasing abdominal pain/pressure and other gut related issues, he went to the doctor.  And there you have it.  Pancreatic cancer.  The tumor was blocking the bile and pancreatic ducts.  The digestive juices and liver enzymes were unable to pass into the digestive tract and all the fat in the digestive system was just swimming around and that doesn’t feel so great.  Within a few more days he had become jaundiced as well and was on the fast track for definitive treatment.

Today was the definitive treatment.  It’s called a Whipple procedure.  Read about it.  I won’t go into the specifics, but they take lots of stuff out in order to get all the places that cancer could possibly get to.  It’s the only hope for a cure.  And the surgeon said that Scott’s scenario was just about as good as it could get.  It was caught pretty early and Scott is extremely healthy.  Like all of us would do in the same situation, Joanne and Scott did their internet homework on pancreatic cancer and the Whipple.  I didn’t realize until after I saw relief pour over them that they didn’t realize that pancreatic cancer IS curable.  Cancer survivability statistics usually give a percentage of people who survive to five years without recurrance.  Five years without recurrance is considered cured.  They didn’t realize that.  And they didn’t realize that when the percentages of people who don’t survive up to five years is presented, that they include “all comers” with pancreatic cancer.  They don’t reflect just people whose cancer was caught early and who enjoy excellent health.  They thought pancreatic cancer was pretty much a death sentence.  You wouldn’t have known it by how they were remained filled with joy and hope.  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen this kind of raw courage.  On many occasions Joanne talked of how excited she was to be able to be on this journey with Scott, and what a privilege it is to be able to see God do what He will do.  They embraced this diagnosis with complete surrender to God’s will.  (Nope, not denial…surrender.)

From the moment that Scott got sick to the time he came out of surgery we saw God weaving the fabric of His control in the situation.  Because Scott had some time ago adopted a nearly fat free diet, had he not eaten all that hamburger, it might have been much longer until the diagnosis was made.  All that fat which made Scott so sick brought his cancer to light (thank God for hamburger).  The doctor he went in to see first thought it was just a simple stomach upset and ordered medicine for it, but also ordered a battery of blood tests.  Based on those blood tests Scott was almost immediately in to see a gastroenterologist who immediately arranged for him to see a buddy of his.  A buddy who just happened to be a pre-eminent cancer surgeon up in Denver.  He was in to see this doctor within days.  This doctor, amazingly, had performed the Whipple procedure over a hundred times!  During the course of that appointment the doctor informed him that he could do the surgery the next Monday, as they had just had a cancellation.  Wow.  They ran some pre-op blood tests and a couple of days later it was determined that Scott needed to have stents placed in order to unblock those ducts to bring down his bilirubin level.  This past Thursday Scott urgently underwent that procedure, which ended up being very complicated, but ultimately successful.  One of the nurses just happened to be a friend of theirs and was able to keep them well informed of what was happening.  Calls for prayer went out for the struggling doctors, and it seemed like within moments, the struggling stopped and the stents were in.  Lots and lots more prayer later and repeat labs on Sunday showed that he could have the surgery as his bilirubin level had come down into a safer level for surgery.  It seemed as though God was in the business of giving them little miracle after little miracle. 

I think that every Christian that everyone in the family knows and every Christian that everyone connected to the family knows, has been praying. 

We congregated in the surgery waiting room this morning and hunkered down for the long wait.  Well, Joanne didn’t hunker down.  Joanne was off meeting everyone else in the waiting room, encouraging them, hugging them, praying with them, and raising spirits.  She was calm and she was peaceful.  I don’t know how I would have been if it was my husband in there, but I don’t think I would have been working the room like that.  I wouldn’t have had that sort of reachoutiveness.  There was an incredible peace in our little corner of the room.  And even smiles and laughter.

Late in the afternoon the doctor came into the waiting room and gave the news.  The surgery went great.  They got all the tumor, and they did so completely sparing Scott’s stomach.  The final pathology reports won’t be in for five days, but the doctor believed that all the margins were clear of tumor when he was done.  Scott was in recovery and was extubated and didn’t need a nasogastric tube to his stomach, and wouldn’t even need to spend the night in the ICU, but instead would be going to a step down unit.  Couldn’t have gone better.  Another miracle, this one a big one.

The Whipple is a horribly invasive and very aggresive surgery.  But it has to be since it’s the only hope for a cure.  Because of the nature of the surgery, the risk for complications (from very mild to very severe) is very high.

Your prayers for Scott’s continued good recovery are deeply coveted.  And your prayers for continuing miracles in this family’s life are deeply coveted.  Joanne and Scott, married for decades, are crazy in love with each other.  They’d like to grow old together.  Love like theirs is hard to find.

I’ve found myself at nearly a complete loss at how to pray.  I’ve just been begging God to let them grow old together.

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Why Love?

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

C.S. Lewis

(I hear the most amazing things in church.  Click the link to listen and listen to the entire March 25, 2007 sermon on “Discovering Your Drumbeat – Conduits of Care, Pastor Matt Heard, Woodman Valley Chapel.  It’s number 8 in the series, but can stand alone.)

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“Chicken” – A Dice Game

 

I gave out a bunch of sets of six dice to different family groups this past Christmas.  I had intended to type up the rules to this game and include them with the dice, but I ran out of time.  I have been promising them the rules to the game since then!  I figured I could post the rules here so that YOU can play, too!  I learned this game from a friend of mine.  “Chicken” is similar to a number of dice games, the most popular is Farkel.  I think it’s a lot of fun and I hope you do as well…

“CHICKEN”

Goal:  Reach 10,000 points, EXACTLY!!!

Requires:  Six dice, paper, writing instrument, and minimal arithmetic skills!  J

Counters:

-          5 = 50 points

-          1 = 100 points

-          Three of a kind in a single roll = 100 X that number (for example:  3 – 2s = 200, 3 – 5s = 500, etc.).  If you roll another of the same number in that same roll, add another 100 points. The exception to this rule is three 1s in a single roll = 1,000 points.  (A fourth one still adds 100 points).

-          Five of a kind in a single roll = 1,500 points

-          Six of a kind in a single roll = 2,500 points

-          Two sets of three (triplet) in a single roll = 1,200 points

-          Three pairs in a single roll = 1,200 points

-          Straight (1,2,3,4,5,6) in a single roll = 2,000 points

Rules:

-          To start your turn, roll all six dice.  Look for counters in your roll.  Keep any or all counters you wish.  If you haven’t rolled any, that is the end of your turn.  You are not required to keep all counters rolled, but you must keep at least one counter from each roll in order to be able to roll again.  (You must accumulate 350 points before you can start to keep track of your score.)

-          You must either keep all the counters and end your turn, or reroll to continue your turn, rolling the counters you choose not to keep and any non-counters.  You may not pick some counters and leave the rest without rerolling.

-          If you roll again to continue your turn, and you do NOT roll any counters, your turn ends and you lose all the points you rolled in that turn.  If ALL your dice in your roll are counters that you keep, you may choose to continue to roll and you will roll all six dice.  But you don’t HAVE to keep rolling.

-          You may choose to stop rolling at any time.  You may, however, be called a “chicken” for doing so.  If you choose to stop rolling, you take all points accumulated so far in addition to any points you have for counters still on the table.   If you continue to roll, you take the chance at losing your points if you do not roll at least one counter.

-          To win, you must end your game with exactly 10,000 points.  If you go over, you lose the points in that turn and your turn is over.-

-          You are not required to keep all the counters you roll, even in your final attempt to reach 10,000, but you cannot leave any counters on the table!  (If you are trying to roll 200 points, but you roll 250 points worth of counters, you have gone over if you take all the points.  You MAY, however, pick up only part of those points and reroll the remaining dice in hopes of trying to roll exactly what is needed on the subsequent roll).

Helpful hints:  remember that you can use some rolls creatively.  For example, if you roll 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3 you could use that as a four of a kind and take 300 and roll the remaining two dice, OR you could take it as three pairs, take 1,200 points, and roll ALL the dice.  Doing this gives you more points, and a greater chance at rolling more counters in the next roll!  If you are close to your 10,000 point mark and 1,200 would put you over 10,000, it would be better to take the 300!  Be creative!

Don’t be a chicken! 

Variations:

Here is a link to the Wikipedia version of the game called Dice 10000

Here is a link to the Tankards Aweigh version of the game called Six Dice

Here is a link to another blog where the rules for Farkel are explained

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Drink Coffee

(Thanks Mike!)

I’m off to work!  Hope the coffee is made and is fresh when I get there…

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Ingenuity

“That’s what poverty teaches you.”

Abner said that to me when I asked him how he learned to do all the things he knew how to do.  Like make me kerosene lamps out of ketchup bottles aluminum foil and medical gauze when my “real” lanterns broke after just a few days of use.  Abner grew up in the Philippines and didn’t have much.  Not much in the way of possessions anyway, but much in the way of determination and ingenuity.

I got to spend a few hours with Abner when I was in California last week.  You can see how much he misses Africa just by looking in his eyes.  I longed to be able to sit with him under the African night and all its stars, and to sit in the freezing cold by the hot coals glowing in the brazer, and to laugh about our day’s adventures and plan for the adventures of the next day.  We seem out of place together in America where things like our jobs and our cars and the messes of our romantic and other relationships muddy the waters.  I’ve never worked with somebody so seamlessly as I did with Abner.  I never felt safer than I did in the two months we lead our team together.  We never, not once, found ourselves in conflict with each other.  It was just another one of those miracles.  Boy.  Do I miss that. 

Mama Lou and Daddy Abner, March 2007

But I wax nostalgic.  The subject was ingenuity, so back to THAT!

See what poverty is teaching Africans.  Necessity IS the mother of invention!

Visit AfriGadget.

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Richard’s Energy Plan

I’m still laughing at it.  A number of nights ago, while sitting on the couch at my brother’s house yakking with some of my siblings and mother, the subject of the cost of gas came up. 

My nephew Richard was doing homework on his laptop, but was listening in on the conversation (he is a GREAT multitasker).  He put his two cents’ in:

“I’d get a hybrid car just for the gas mileage.  I don’t care about the environment.  If they made a car that got 500 miles to the gallon running on manatees, I’d get it.”

He’s 15.  Manatees COULD BE considered a renewable energy source!  In fact, if they were made commercially viable, their future would probably be secure!    Perhaps he’s on to something.   

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Through the Fence

When I was in Southern California last week, I was lucky enough to be able to watch my nephew Mitchell play in one of his first Tee-ball games.  His team is the Dodgers.  And they wear uniforms that are nearly real!  Mitchell is number 14.  The numbers are assigned by size…the smallest kid gets 1 and the numbers get bigger as the kid gets bigger.  The highest number on Mitchell’s team is 14.  He’s only just turned five, but he’s a big ole kid!

I’m not sure what you learn about baseball by playing Tee-ball.  They hit off of a tee, they aren’t old enough to really comprehend strategy, most of them have horrible hand-eye coordination, and they can’t really even throw.  There’s no winning, no losing, and no outs.  Everyone hits, everyone scores.  It’s pretty much a feel good proposition all the way around, but they seem to have fun doing it, so no harm done. 

I took these pictures from the stands.  I liked the look of the fence in the foreground.  I superzoomed to get pictures of him all the way in the outfield.  I’m very happy with how the pictures turned out.

I grew up in a baseball town (El Segundo, California) and in a baseball family and I graduated from a high school where baseball is legendary (graduating George and Ken Brett, and Scott MacGregor to name a few).  I’d sure like to see one of the kids in the next generation of my family grow to love baseball and to be able to play well.  Just to be selfish really, because I love going to baseball games and have missed it since my brothers stopped playing.  Looking at Mitchell’s stance here, I think he just might have it!  During the entire “game”, and despite there not being official “outs”, there were a handful of plays made that WOULD have resulted in outs had that been part of the rules.  There was a kid who was tagged out at home with the significant help of a coach and there was a kid who lapped another kid running the bases, and I think there was one kid who chased down a runner for three bases and tagged him out.  But, while playing on the pitcher’s mound, Mitchell made three plays to first that beat the runners!  I was impressed!

He looks a bit like a major leaguer, donchathink? 

Mitchell’s personal style includes wearing his cap down just as far as he can over his eyes.  Nobody can say why for sure!  (And that mitt has been in our family for generations!  Not that you probably couldn’t tell!)

So, little man Mitchell, enjoy playing!  I sure enjoyed watching!  Go Dodgers!!

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WHEW!

Just nicely home from my latest trip.  Some weeks ago my dad asked if I’d come to Oregon to help celebrate my Great Aunt Enyd’s 90th birthday.  I’d never met this great aunt and thought it was a good time to do so!  I figured I’d fly out there for that and then spend a week down in the Los Angeles area to see family and friends.  I flew out of Denver and into Portland last Friday.  My dad drove up from Los Angeles for the party and met me at the airport.  And the whirlwind of activity ensued!

We headed out to Vancouver, Washington to pick up my niece, Natalie, who was to spend the rest of the day and evening with us.  I took my Dad and Natalie over to friends’ house in West Linn, Oregon.  I was to meet up with all of them later for dinner.  I headed out to another Portland suburb.  A friend of mine where I live has a sister who lives in Tigard.  Their mother was visiting from California and they invited me to come over since I was in town.  Lovely folks!  The time was too short before I was off to West Linn again to meet everyone for dinner.  I drove my niece home after dinner and she cajoled me into stopping at a dive bar near her home for a drink and some pool.  Since Natalie is smart, funny, articulate, and well-read, I was delighted to do so!  Besides…how often does a 22 year old niece beg her old lady aunt to hang out with her?  You gotta grab those chances, don’t ya?!!

Early the next morning my dad and I were off for Grant’s Pass for the party.  My aunt Enyd is 90, but sheesh, is she ever spry and mentally sharp!  She is an artist and has a large studio filled with her various works.  She tells me that being an artist is a disease and tells me to stay away from it!  I stopped doing my art back in the late 80′s and have been considering taking it up again.  I’m having second thoughts after her admonishment!    We went to a wonderful riverside restaurant for dinner meeting up with many of my aunt’s friends and a number of relatives that I also had never met.  AND my favorite cousin on that side of my family (everyone knows he is my fave, so I can tell you that) and his very fun wife were there from out of town as well.  I hadn’t expected to see them, so that was a wonderful surprise.  That was Saturday.  My dad and I spent the night at Enyd’s adorable little cottage in the woods.

We were up at six the next day (not counting the time change) and on the road headed for California not too long after that.  We drove past Mount Shasta as the sun was rising.  Quite an impressive and beautiful sight.  We stopped at a Lumberjack themed restaurant (“where the big boys eat”) for breakfast where I had one of the best omelettes I’ve ever  had in my whole life.  About halfway home we stopped at “Casa de Fruta” off the five freeway where we picked up some dried apricots, cashews, artichokes, and avocados.  The rest of the drive down to my brother’s was filled with flowering trees of all varieties and with spring bursting forth all along the freeway.  What an amzaing valley of plenty!  We made it to my brother’s house just after dark on Sunday.  I missed Amazing Race.  As it turns out, it was an important episode to have missed!

Monday came early!  Phil (my brother) doesn’t work on Mondays.  We decided to incorporate geocaching into his kids’ school curriculum and have a field trip for school.  We went out (with Mitchell, too!) to find a number of caches placed by a friend of mine and his four children.  By reading what people wrote who had found these caches in the past, I could tell that they were clever ones.  They didn’t disappoint!  We did find all three of them.  Each of them was very different!  To celebrate our geocaching success we went out to our favorite Mexican Restaurant, La Capilla.  After lunch I went out and ran a few errands to buy things I can’t get where I live (like Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf coffee extract, and Paul Mitchell’s Heat Seal).  Well, I was pooped and went to bed early.  I put in “The Man From Snowy River” and was asleep before Jim Craig got to gentle either Old Regret’s last foal or the rancher’s daughter.  This was Monday

And was up early the next day.  I had brought all my tax stuff with me from home and spent many hours organizing receipts and paperwork and filling out the form from my tax man.  I was off in the early afternoon to drop all the tax stuff off to have my taxes done and then on to Pasadena to visit friends of mine.  Mike was one of “my kids” from my 1985 Teen Missions team.  He’s married and has six kids now.  And he recently moved to Pasadena from Oregon to work at the US Center For World Missions.  They are doing amazing things worldwide through that center, by the way.  Had a GREAT visit with him and his wife and didn’t get home until well after midnight.  This was Tuesday.

And I was up early the next day.  I packed a backpack and headed out to Ridgecrest to visit my friend Donna.  Got to her house around noon.  Delivered a package for a lady who lives where I do.  (Her daughter lives in Ridgecrest just a couple of miles from Donna!)  Donna recently followed her dream and started a jewelry business.  So we went to check out her new space!  The store should be opening in the next month or so!  Very exciting!  In the evening we went over to her sister’s house and spent some time visiting with her parents who are out visiting from Michigan!  Good timing!  I hadn’t seen them in years and it was a good time of catching up.  We all went out for some pretty awesome Chinese food.  This was Wednesday.  Got to watch LOST and was asleep the moment it ended (a great episode!!!  Who knew Claire would turn out to be Jack’s sister????!!!!).

And I was up early the next day.  Spent a few more hours with Donna (it’s never long enough no matter how much time I have) and was back on the road by noon.  I had to be back at Phil’s by 4:00 as ABNER was coming up to visit!  Woo Hoo!  Had about an hour to kill once I got to Phil’s so I went to the “greenbelt” to play Frisbee with Jon, Avalon, and Mitchell.  It was a very long hour waiting to see Abner.  Mitchell begged to go with Abner and I and we headed out to the Redondo Beach Pier.  We walked along the pier and chatted, getting caught up from the months that have passed since we said good-bye at the Lusaka International Airport last August.  Mitchell had fun.  He talked a fisherman into letting him hold his fish and the fisherman let him throw a sanddab back in the ocean.  Mitchell didn’t hesitate to touch those fish!  I had to stop him when I saw him heading for the fish the fisherman planned on keeping!  He would have thrown them ALL back in the ocean if he could have!  While at the pier, Mitchell talked us into going down to the “fun place”, an old fashioned arcade.  We bought tickets to the “Tilt-O-Whirl”.  I have NEVER had any problems with rollercoasters and the like, but this little arcade ride nearly brought me to my knees!  I didn’t barf, but could have!  Back to Phil’s for dinner with the family and then off to Irvine to meet up with brother Low at his church, Mariner’s, for his singles group meeting.  Low was the emcee (M.C.) and it was fun to see him in action.  Abner headed back to San Diego from there (sad day) and Low drove me back up to Phil’s.  We sat around yakking until late.  Then off to bed to fall asleep three minutes into “Pirate’s of the Carribbean II”.  That was Thursday.  Thought I missed “Survivor”.  Was glad to realize that it’s March Madness and I missed NOTHING! 

Friday.  I had awakened Thursday morning with a bad case of bronchitis.  I coughed most of the night.  And I had a lot on my mind.  The combination of the two made for a nearly sleepless night.  My brother had also come down with a respiratory thing and so we loaded up on NyQuil.  I hope it helped, because I don’t think I could’ve coughed more than I did!  I can’t imagine coughing any more than I did that night.  I had plans with my friend Darren and his kids (the ones who placed the really cool geocaches) for Friday afternoon.  We had talked of going geocaching and I had invited Jon to come with us.  What we ended up doing though, was going out to Disneyland!  I don’t know where those kids got the energy, but we closed the place down.  And then we tried to break into a car that looked just like Darren’s!  We eventually found his car and Jon and I were home by 1:30.  That was Friday.

AND I was up early on Saturday.  Mitchell had a tee-ball game!  HOW STINKING CUTE WAS THAT????  VERRRRRY!    He’s on the Dodgers.  He seems to really enjoy himself and he sure is enjoyable to watch!  After the game, Whitney and I went shopping for a BBQ.  My friend Mike from Pasadena and his wife and their six kids were joining us for lunch/dinner.  Mike’s six kids, Phil’s four, Whitney’s one, and a friend of Alaska’s….that’s 12 kids under sixteen.  Holy moley.  They all really enjoyed meeting each other and playing this game and that game.  At dusk they headed out to the back yard to play Mafia (we used to call it Murder, or Killer, but it’s that game where you wink to “kill” people).  We didn’t hear from them for hours.  We started a fire in the firepit and made S’Mores to close out the evening.  I think they’ll all be getting together again soon.  And that was Saturday.

AND I was up early on Sunday.  I headed out for Orange County.  I was on the road at 7:30 to meet up with my Dad to go to church with him.  He goes to Rick Warren’s Church (Saddleback).  Rick Warren is the guy who wrote “Purpose Driven Life“.  I got lucky.  Rick doesn’t preach there but once or maybe twice a month, but he was preaching that day.  It was a really good message on Pride and Humility.  After church we headed over to my sister Liz’ family’s house.  She made us a light breakfast.  It was nice to get all caught up with Liz.  I was surprised by her daughter Jesse’s interest in just hanging out with us.  She is growing up to be quite a lovely young lady and I very much enjoyed her company and what she brought to the conversation.  Smart AND funny AND beautiful!  (But of course she is!)  Later in the day we ate another one of Liz’ stellar meals.  She’s an awesome cook.  The roast that she and Toby rotisseried was, well, one of the most delectable bits of meat I’ve ever eaten.  Ever.  Dad and I stayed there until early evening (Low had joined us but had to leave for a wedding a couple of hours earlier) enjoying the time with Liz and her family and with one of Liz’ best friends and her two sons.  We headed back to Dad’s where I hopped in my Mom’s car and headed an hour back up north.

I was back at Phil’s on Sunday night in time to watch Amazing Race.  A few minutes into it and I realized that my favorite team was nowhere to be seen.  The episode I missed last week?  Wellll, it turns out that Rob and Amber were the ones to be eliminated.  I was sad!!!!  I wanted them to win.  Now I need to find that episode and see just how they were taken out! 

AND I WAS UP EARLY YESTERDAY MORNING.  I don’t really like getting up early.  Can you tell?  Well, that big new AirBus plane was flying in to LAX yesterday morning.  And my flight was scheduled to leave at 10:50.  I had to get to the airport early just in case there was alot of extra traffic and media and such.  There wasn’t.  And I ALMOST got to see the plane land.  Word was it was to come in at about 9:30 and would land visible from the windows in the terminal I was in!  Cool.  Soooo, I am going through security.  Lines aren’t too long, things are moving fast.  I figure I’ll be in the terminal and by a window with plenty of time.  Til the guy in front of me has to have his bag rescreened.  I wait.  The bag is rescreened.  Took them pretty long to do it.  I go through the metal detector and wait for my bags.  They have to rescreen one of mine.  Takes them a long time to do it.  Then they bring the back over to me and tell me they need to look in it.  No problem.  But the plane lands while they do so.  The thing that they were concerned about?  A bunch of coins in my wallet.  Didn’t get to see the plane land.  Didn’t get to see the plane at all.

That was yesterday.   And now I’m home.  And boy is Mew Ling glad about that.  You should have heard her when I opened the front door.  You’d have thought I’d been gone for a year.  I’m glad to be home too.

(I was up early again this morning.  But that is not MY story to tell!  Tomorrow?  I sleep until I wake up.)

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Danny Boy

Danny was my cousin.    He was my mother’s brother’s son (and only child).  He was my grandfather’s only grandson who bore his name.  I never knew his mother.  She passed away long ago.  My uncle, his father, passed away a few years ago.  Though he wasn’t truly alone in the world, he sort of was.  Danny chose to live apart (emotionally) from his extended family.  He wasn’t always like that.

 

I have a “thing” for people who are “different”…for people who live a little bit on the fringe.  Danny?  He was a fringe liver.  I have this one memory of Danny that never fails to make me smile.  When I was a young teenager and Danny was probably 18 or 19 years old, many of the family were together at “Rancho Mono” up in the Santa Ynez valley.  Rancho Mono for a time was the family compound.  The big house wasn’t built yet and the main meeting space was a large double-wide trailer.  Was it Thanksgiving?  Perhaps.  Anyway, the trailer was full and loud and a bunch of the cousins decided to take a tape deck and go for a walk out in the pitch black night.  Though much older than us, Danny came with us.  I remember he was wearing some crazy get-up including brightly colored high tops (were they red?) and a pair of wildly bleached and spotted Levi’s jeans.  And bandanas were involved.  We were listening to the B-52’s sing “Rock Lobster”, and Danny was dancing and singing with abandoned.  Danny had this laugh was absolutely infectious.  And he had big curly brown hair.  He had a devilish grin, and to always looked like he was hatching some sort of nefarious plot.  I really liked Danny.

 

That was the last time I saw Danny really being free.  He moved to Las Vegas and I only saw him once after that.  I was in Vegas and knew he worked at a casino so we went looking for him.  He seemed happy to see us, but later I learned that he developed a dislike of people coming to see him at work.  He struggled with emotional health and mental health all of his adulthood.

 

At times in his life, Danny disassociated himself from reality and society.  I hadn’t heard anything about him for probably 8 or 9 years, until this past friday morning.  I was driving to Denver International Airport and my Mom called to tell me that Danny had died. 

Danny was one of the people in my life and more importantly in my family that I was always a little bit heart-broken at his rejection.  He didn’t reject me personally, but he rejected our family as a whole.  I was glad to hear though that he had been living with one of his maternal aunts and had been “doing well”.  Early death from cardiac arrest (that’s all I know about that) runs in his maternal lineage.  Danny was not even 50.

 

 

 

I can’t say I’ll miss Danny since he wasn’t present in my life.  But I miss that he never was, and now, never will be.

 

May God bless you, Danny. 

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“The Razor’s Edge”

Years ago (gosh, maybe four or five by now), my friend Richard gave me a copy of ”The Razor’s Edge” to read.  My copy looks exactly like this picture, in fact.  Richard gave me the book to read because it would help me to understand who he (Richard) is.  Rich is an ER doctor.  This line of work allows him lots of time for travel.  He is one of the only people I know who has to get more pages stuck in his passport long before it’s set to expire.  The last time he went in for more pages they made him get a new one because his was so worn and so crammed with stamps, stickers, and visas.  What was I to learn of my friend in reading this book?

I started to read the book I don’t know how many times but never got further than a chapter into it.  It didn’t capture me back then. 

While recently going through a couple of boxes I’d brought from California but hadn’t unpacked yet, I came across the book again.  I started to read it again, for about the twentieth time.  Only this time it captured me.

The title comes from a quote taken from a book called Katha Upanishad:

“The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over;

thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.”

- Swami Krishnananda

But THIS is my favorite part of the book:

“I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of such story as I have to tell, since for the most part it is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had with Larry.  I should add, however, that except for the conversation I should not have thought it worth while to write this book.”

Talk about your caveat emptors!  I wonder why indeed he wrote such a sentence!  Was it to push us away and draw us in at the same time??  Here I had read 242 pages so far, and I reach the part that 1) the writer thinks would be okay if I skip, and yet, 2) promises that within the chapter lies the reason for the book to have been written in the first place!  So curious!

By then, with 70 odd pages to go, I had clearly identified Larry to Rich.  Larry and Rich both are on a spiritual quest.  But I already knew that about Rich.  What I didn’t know was that Rich knew he was on a spiritual quest.  I haven’t seen or talked to him (Rich) since I moved away from California.  I imagine he’s still roaming the earth looking for the answers to the questions of life.  Perhaps I’ll look him up when I’m out there next week and ask him how his search is going.  That is, if he’s not in Thailand, or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or diving a reef off of New Guinea. 

He’ll be glad to know that I’ve finally finished the book.

“Somehow or other I did them good.  I found I was able to relieve people not only of pain but of fear.  It’s strange how many people suffer from it.  I don’t mean fear of closed spaces and fear of heights, but fear of death and, what’s worse, fear of life.  Often they’re people who seem in the best of health, prosperous, without any worry, and yet they’re tortured by it.”

- Larry

I liked the book.  I’d never read W. Somerset Maugham before.  I like his style of writing, at least in this novel.  Very familiar, very fluid.  I liked his vocabulary, both the English and the French (that he liberally sprinkled throughout).  It’s not often (spoiler alert of a sort) that everyone in the end of a story gets what they wanted and yet have the story not seem overly contrived or end how I’d consider happily.  This is a well-told story.

I see that Bill Murray starred in a version of this movie.  I think I’ll be renting it.  I would love to see his interpretation of the character, Larry.

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The Hand – Untouched

The latest Round Robin Photo Challenge is to take a picture of our own hand.  Here’s how Brad of the blog “We-Is” put it..

“Take a photo of your hand. Post it untouched, without any digital enhancements. Then, tell us about your settings (and shooting conditions) and what you would do to enhance… post capture. For those of you that like to run enhancements – post that too, as a before and after.”

When I read what the challenge was, I didn’t even have to think about what I’d do.  I immediately knew just what pictures I’d be posting.  I already had them in my files!  My pictures were taken simply using the point and shoot setting.  And the auto flash.  My conditions?  The night cold was still hanging in the air.  The lighting?  Bright African morning sun diffused by the plastic and nylon of a greenish tent.

This is my right hand. 

 

And, for good measure, this is my left hand.

I am in my tent in Chiwala, Zambia.  I took these picture this past July 19th at 0810.  I had just finished cleaning up after breakfast.  We’d been in Chiwala (and in Zambia for that matter) for just a few days, but already my hands were a mess.  You see, I cooked all of our meals over charcoal braziers.  That charcoal had to get out of the bags and into those braziers somehow, and the only really workable method for that was by good old-fashioned digging in and pulling it out by hand.  We tried it with plastic bags on our hands, but the charcoal was sharp and made short work of the plastic.  The charcoal still got into every pore and every crease.  It got down into your cuticles and under your nails.  And it didn’t come off or out.  Well, on laundry day, some of the stuff came out of the pores and creases, but my cuticles and nails were perma-coaled.  Remember, the charcoal was sharp!  Trying to scrape it out from under your nails was like forcing slivers of wood down into your nail beds!   After cooking like that for six weeks, I was still getting charcoal out from under my nails for days after I got home.  I took the pictures because I couldn’t believe I was cooking food with hands that looked like that!  And me, a nurse!    I got over it.  Charcoal just looks bad…you can eat it with impunity.  (You might find it interesting to know that the charcoal the Zambians make burns nearly completely clean.  It leaves practically zero residue on the bottoms of pots and there is no blowing ash.  Quite an amazing fuel source for open fire cooking!  The complicated process was explained to me in part, but other than lighting the wood on fire and burying it in pits for weeks until it burned into charcoal, I don’t remember much of the details!)

Here’s a couple of “background” photos (also taken in Chiwala) to go along with my charcoaled hands:

 

On the left:  digging charcoal out of its bag.  On the right, scrambling eggs over a charcoal brazier for breakfast.  (See that metal box sitting atop another brazier to the far right of the picture on the right?  That was my oven!  It had bisquits in it that morning.)

Click here to see my other Round Robin entries.

Please visit the other Robins to see what they’ve done with this challenge!  The linking list can be found at the Round Robin website:  Click to GO THERE!

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How to Make Oatmeal in Zambia

Sorry “my kids” if you are reading this and get grossed out, but it’s a great story and must be told! 

I learned something of vital importance in the “kitchen” in Zambia.  If I learned nothing else, this was key.  It’s one part oats or rice to two parts water!  Didn’t know that before I went!  Anyhow, this story is about Oatmeal!

I love oatmeal.  You’ve already been given the TMI recipe for “baked oatmeal” in a previous posting.  Love that stuff.  But I like regular old boiled oatmeal, too.  I like the gooey brownish gray stuff that you should never let dry on anything because it’s stronger than superglue.  Oatmeal was easy to make, very filling, relatively inexpensive, felt good to eat steaming hot on a freezing morning, and, I hoped, would be a favorite of “my kids”.  It was. 

Abner had brought a number of boxes of his favorite oatmeal with him in his duffel bag.  Some of the boxes broke on the way over, so he donated the loose oats to the food cause.  We just dumped them out of the bottom of his bag into ziplocks.  We had to pick out some lint and such, but it cooked up great.  We bought more oats at the Shoprite.  Every time we bought oats it would be a different brand.  Whatever they had.  My favorites were the Tiger Brand Jungle Oats.  (Wow, the stuff you find online is amazing!  I thought I might never see this familiar box ever again!) 

 

The first time we bought oats we had to buy the Shoprite brand.  I boiled up a big pot of water and poured the oats in.  A few minutes later Abner approached me trying hard to keep from busting a gut with laughter.  “We need to hurry and you need to help me!”  He dragged me over to the oats that he had gone to stir for me and showed me all these weevilly things floating to the surface!  GUH-ROSS!  It had been so dark when I measured the oats I didn’t see any critters in them!  We frantically scooped and scooped.  We had to get them all out before the mass thickened so much that the bugs would get trapped in it instead of floating to the top of it.  AND we had to try to do it without the kids catching wind of it!  Ultimately, we were VERY successful in both getting all the weevils out AND in keeping it from the kids (until now, that is!).  We were smug. 

But we leaders all LOST it when one of our girls, Allie, let out a stifled scream.  We thought we were in trouble.  We thought we’d failed in our deweevilling attempts.  But no.  It seems some other sort of bug found its way into Allie’s tea and startled her.  We’d only been in Zambia for a short time (we were at our first Rescue Unit in Chiwala) and hadn’t become completely desensitized yet.  She came over and begged for permission to be able to throw that tea away as she just couldn’t drink something that had had bugs in it.  I practically gagged on my laughter, and gave her permission to do so.  She returned to her seat and ate the rest of her breakfast oatmeal (seconds, too!) without incident!

You do what you gotta do!  I ate it, too, and I KNEW what had been in it! 

(Second vital lesson learned – - be careful when preparing food in the dark in Africa!)

Abner and I laughed so much this past summer.  I miss laughing with him.  And I am SO excited because I get to see him next week!  The last time I saw him was at the Lusaka International Airport back in August.  We’ll be getting together somewhere between San Diego and Los Angeles, but wherever it is, I’m sure we’ll be cracking up!

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Update:  12/19/2007

I get a fair amount of traffic to this post through various search engines.  People are looking for how to make oatmeal.  I guess this post doesn’t really go into that, does it??  So, oatmeal is wicked easy to make.  The recipe is one part oatmeal to two parts water!  (So, that would be like one cup of oatmeal to two cups of water).  You boil the water.  I add a little bit of salt to the water.  Then you add the oatmeal, stir it frequently until it’s done!  You can add less oatmeal for a looser end product.  See!  EASY!    The recipe is the same for quick cook oats, or traditional oats.  You just cook traditional oats longer.

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Girls Behaving Baldly

Leave poor Britney alone, wouldja?  So she shaved her head.  Big deal.  Hair grows back.  Let the poor girl have her crisis.  But maybe her hairless-style isn’t a symptom of crisis.  Maybe she’s always wanted to try it.  Ever think of that?

Bald Britney.  Still uber cute if you want my opinion!

When I was in high school I longed to do just the same thing, but I had long and very beautiful blond hair AND a big problem with shyness and these two things added up to wimping out.  I never got up the nerve to do anything at all with my hair except for cutting a few wispy bangs as a junior, and that took every bit of my courage since I knew the change would be noticed, and I hated being noticed. 

My sister-in-law, Connie, DID have the nerve.   She expressed herself often through her many hair styles and colors.  And I thought she looked AMAZING without any hair.  Her son, Richard, was very young at the time she chose baldness, and I will say, he was upset that his mother no longer had “girl hair”, and he cried.  That was both very cute and very heart-wrenching at the same time.

Connie, not quite bald (her hair was growing back in), but fabulous.

Some time ago I was watching the DVD of Connie’s memorial with some friends.  A picture flashed up of Connie when she had been bald.  One of the viewers was visibly horrified.  He declared in a disbelieving tone ”And your brother LET her do THAT?”  I think I probably snorted when he said that.  Let her???  He didn’t know Connie!  And he didn’t know how much Phil enjoyed and encouraged the quirkiness and individuality of his wife.  The truth of the matter was, that it was Phil (who “let” Connie just be Connie) who was the one who did the actual deed this time!  He was the one with the clippers and razor in his hand!  And he will tell you that this was one of his favorite looks on her. 

For Connie’s memorial service, her cousin Katie shaved her head.  I wanted to, but again, I lacked the nerve.

One of these days I’m going to do it.  (It’s on the “List of Fifty”, you know!  I actually only wrote “get a radical new look”.  I cut my hair very short and died it a dark maroon back in the late 90′s and checked that one off the list, but in my heart, when I wrote “radical new look”, I meant bald.  But I wasn’t even brave enough to WRITE it then, let alone brave enough to DO it yet!)

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