real food, real clothes

Dad's been having pain walking for awhile (a long while, on the scale of years). He's progressed from sitting often, to using a cane, to using a walker, to the hospital on Wednesday, October 26, 2016 with a blood clot. He was kept a few days on IV blood thinners, then sent home on oral blood thinners a few days later. A week later, Saturday, November 5, he was unable to sit up or walk and was ambulanced to the hospital where he was kept in observation 2 1/2 days, then sent home once again. A week later (noticing a theme?) on Saturday, November 12, he was at a pain-level-10 meltdown stage and was again ambulanced to the hospital where they discovered incredibly elevated white blood counts due to an enlarged gallbladder. It is supposed to be the size of a small pear; dad's was a bad cantaloupe. Fortunately on Monday the 14th they were able to insert a drain rather than remove it (too big to remove laparoscopically, too many other risk factors to make surgery a viable option.

Big Frog and I were able to come up on Monday the 14th and see him after the drain was inserted. So we missed altogether the scariest part of the experience and got instead the PT end of things. I plan to be in town thru Thanksgiving weekend; Big Frog returned home and will be back up for Thanksgiving weekend.

This was an email that went out to the family on Sat 11/19.

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Dad is accepting some "pushing" from me (and edible rewards) and is overcoming some of the fear of failure/fear of pain issues. He also REALLY loves his surgeon, Dr Scott Rehrig.

So today he got out of bed and into a chair for the first time since Sat admittance.


He also went onto diabetic menu at the hospital, up from liquids, and although the hospital meatloaf looked surprisingly inspiring and smelled great, it was very salty. Hospital food, gotta love it.


An unexpected visit from Dr Scott and dad asked if he could try walking (he has not done anything but transfer with the PTs). With Dr Scott guiding & spotting, UP dad got & walked (with walker) around the room, with less pain than he expected and less pain than he experienced two weeks ago when he was released to home.


Dr Scott commented on virtually untouched plate and dad said I'd mentioned sushi. I'd intended to try to sneak it in, but Dr Scott said to get some real food, home food, whatever would spark appetite.

Thanks to the power of FB, I got eight sushi recommendations from friends even before going to Yelp. One was within walking distance and it's a glorious day out. Sushi!


I asked mom to bring in some real clothes when she came in this afternoon. So after he took a brief hallway jaunt (75 feet roundtrip), (1st time out of his hospital room this stay) mom came in bearing actual tees and sweatpants.


It's a good day.

Goal is to move on Monday to the rehab center Lorien, right here in Columbia MD.

In the midst of all this, mom largely took the day "away" (from the hospital) to catch up on life details. She's super stressed. And the things she needs done aren't delegate-able, and the things that she can delegate are things that are therapeutic for her to do herself. Home reno goes apace. Pray for mom to have peace and to plainly feel God's presence.

Thank you for praying -- we can feel it -- keep it up! There still are big issues, inc blood clot, herniated discs, ongoing back pain... but things are a world better than they were last week.

Hug your loved ones.

Profiling

11pm visit by eight (eight?!?!) of Kernersville's finest today.

All is well, and was well when they came too.  Eight?!?

We have a campaign worker staying with us this week.  Older gent, larger gent... and he's Indian.  He pulled up to our next door neighbors' late tonight instead of ours -- same facade, one house over.  Their dogs barked, which told him he had the wrong house (he met the guinea pigs & knew we didn't have dogs).    He was unloading his laptop & stuff from his car at the wrong house, then put it back and drove to ours.  One house away.

He deposits laptop & shoes at our place and says he went to the wrong house and they called the cops.  I'm up to my elbows in housepaint and just yell back a welcome.  Next thing I know Earl is talking loudly about how he's our houseguest.  I come up front to the porch and the cops yell at me to go back into the house.  "He's our guest," I bellow back.

Evidently it was called in as a B&E, then the neighbor saw him coming over and called us to warn us.  He came over after, met our guest, and apologized profusely. 

I'm glad we have cops who respond quickly.  But two makes sense to me.  Four cop cars, flashing lights, and handcuffing our guest as we stand on the porch vouching for him?  I don't think that would have happened to a white guy.

Gene Luen Yang

some resources:

Graphic novels portray bicultural America -- a new booklist for me to read.  Gene Luen Yang and (American Born Chinese; MacArthur fellow; National Ambassador for Young People's Literature) Dan Santat (Caldecott Medalist for Beekle) are quoted in it, and every single book looks like I'd enjoy learning about those characters.

Reading Without Walls challenge: 1) read about someone who doesn't look or live like the reader, 2) read a book about an unfamiliar topic, 3) read a book in an unfamiliar format.

All this is sourced from his reddit AMA in which he also mentioned he'd love to do a Wonder Twins reboot where the twins weren't aliens, just Asian-Americans who pretend to be aliens in order to be accepted.

Tangentially, there is a NY Times video hashtagged ThisIs2016 about systemic racism.  It makes me sad, and not just because I've received compliments on my English.


Not too big a stretch to think that the Wonder Twins would be more easily accepted as aliens than as Asian-Americans.

Banjos

Big Frog had a rough day (and week, and month for that matter).  But there will be banjos tonight.  We're going to see Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, which includes Mechanicsburg's own Russ Carson, at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro.

After getting inordinately mad at the GPS, which I thought he had on because he likes using the voice command feature, but which in fact he was actually using, Big Frog apologized to it and told me, "For this we have grace, and for this we need Jesus.

"And there will be banjos tonight."

To which I replied, "Yes, and in heaven there is also a banjo-free zone."

Fighter Verse 2: Deuteronomy 10:12-13

Hey, Synergy kids, time for another new memory verse!  We'll be working on this one for the next two Sundays.  Also, we have one kid who has Fighter Verse 1, Deuteronomy 7:9 already memorized.  Who else is stepping up to the challenge?

Deuteronomy 10:12-13
And now, Israel,
what does the LORD
your God require of you,
but to fear the Lord your God,
to walk in all his ways,
to love him,
to serve the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul,
and to keep the commandments
and statutes of the Lord,
which I am commanding
you today
for your good?
Deuteronomy 10:12-13
 

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Using basically one ASL sign per line as a tactile aide.
NOW
WHAT
DUE
WOW
WALK
LOVE
SERVE
HEART
SOUL
C-LAW (law as an initialed sign using C; COMMANDMENT)
YOU-ALL
GOOD

Comfortable

"Don't get too comfortable!
Jesus doesn't give us peace like a pond,
it's peace like a river!"
~Beth Moore, Sacred Secrets, pt3

Deeply graced

"People who have been deeply graced by God never withhold grace from other people."

~Beth Moore, Sacred Secrets