Let Me Tell You About My Mom...

About 7 weeks ago I fell and broke both of my arms. When the squad got to scene, they lifted my right arm up into the air to straighten it out of the very bad angle it was laying in. The only problem was that it was so severely dislocated that the pain was too bad for me to allow them to put it down again, so they "air-splinted" it straight up and transported me to hospital like that. The left arm was mummy-wrapped to my body and sent me into shrieks of terror if anyone simply breathed on it. It was quite the ordeal.

When they got me to the hospital they put me in a holding room until the doctor could come look at me. However, since they didn't know if I'd need to go straight to surgery or not, they wouldn't give me any pain medicine until they took x-rays. So I laid there for about 45 minutes or so with my right arm still reaching to the sky and my left arm throbbing and no relief in sight (at least, not in my mind anyway). This was not one of the more enjoyable things I've ever been through, to say the least.

Mom got to the hospital shortly after I arrived. As we waited for the doctor to come in, the pain got more and more intense. Finally I couldn't take it any longer. I remember telling her, "Mom...I'm going to have to start screaming. It's the only way I can deal with this pain." And she responded, "Go ahead and scream honey. It's OK."

So for probably 20-30 minutes Mom sat there in the room with me and listened to me scream. It had to be nerve-wrecking. At one point I started to panic a bit, and all of the sudden thought I wasn't going to be able to handle it any longer. I remember shouting out "Mom! Mom! Are you still here?!" Immediately she answered, "Yes baby, I'm still here. It's gonna be OK."

How comforting those words were.

I could type all night about other instances...her sleeping on a cot in the hospital for 4 nights to help take care of me...bathing and feeding me...staying up half the night to keep me company when I couldn't sleep....the list goes on and on...

But these past 7 weeks have not been the exception. How many other times in my life have I called out for my Mom? Sometimes in a state of panic, sometimes in joy, sometimes in grief, sometimes in sickness, sometimes in happiness. Middle of the day, middle of the night. When I was 8 months old, 8 years old, 38 years old.

Always she has been there for me.

"I'm here honey...It's gonna be OK."

So today I just want say...

Thanks Mom.

I appreciate you more than words can ever tell.

But I'll keep trying to find them anyway... :)

Happy Mother's Day...I love you.

Perspective

Well, a lot of you probably know the story by now, but here it is for posterity's sake anyway...

It was Saturday, March 20, 2010. I had stopped at mom's for a bit. She and Adam were cleaning the van, and Adam's dog Daisy was tied to a cast-iron sun dial in the back yard. The neighbor came over to visit and Daisy, being the energetic-people-loving puppy she was, took off to welcome her. I guess we didn't realize she'd be strong enough to pull the sun dial over, but pull she did. And since it was round on both ends, suddenly there's a cast-iron steamroller flying across the drive, headed for my car (or worse, the neighbor's legs!)

Instinct told me to try and stop it. Impulse made me act on instinct. So I ran. Wish I could get that decision back. I think the dial hit an uneven spot in the drive...which was enough to bring it to a quick halt. Unfortunately, I kept moving, which resulted in my toppling head first over the dial and landing on the pavement, arms fully extended. The world changed to a slow-motion blur as I realized I suddenly had some big problems, and life had probably just changed forever.

So much happened next...I don't yet have the strength to type out all the details. The end result was this...the right arm was seriously dislocated. According to the ER doctor, it was the worst he'd seen in 13 years of practice. And the left arm had even bigger problems. A spiral fracture of the humorous, the bone from the shoulder to elbow. Imagine taking a paper towel tube and twisting it. Pretty much the same effect. Which is not a good thing to do to bone. It would need a plate that I'd get to carry around with me the rest of my life. Not to mention nerve damage in both arms. We're still waiting on feeling and function in sections of both hands. And to complete the prize package...a nice long stint of therapy. Wow...

That was about 6 weeks ago. The doctor said it would take 10-12 weeks for the left arm to heal, so we're about halfway there. The right arm was doing very well after they reset it...until the bone shifted out of place again. After another surgery and 3 weeks of it being casted at a locked 90 degree position, we're finally ready to rehab it. We're on to the task of figuring out how life works again...

I won't lie here and say this hasn't been difficult. I've sure had some tears. And have definitely had fears. Lots of fears. The things I love doing most...piano, photography, blogging...surely I couldn't have just lost all of them. Emotions have been the cliche roller-coaster, for sure.

So I guess I was a little surprised the other day when suddenly I knew very clearly and very strongly just how I really feel about all of this. I was talking to someone who had just found out about it. They looked at me with a horrified expression and said "Oh, I feel so sorry for you. I can't believe you have to face this!"

And you know what I realized? I am so fortunate and so blessed.

I severely dislocated my right elbow. The doctor told us he didn't know why the bone didn't just shatter instead. Blessed.

The surgery on my left arm was extremely difficult. There were no complications. Blessed.

The radial nerve in my left arm was traumatized, so I cannot lift my wrist or extend my fingers on their own. The doctor said it was hemorrhaged, but not cut. If it had of been cut, I would never recover from that problem. Blessed.

I had no damage to my shoulders, spine, neck or head. Blessed.

Even though I may lose some extension in my arms, I will still have fully functional range of use with them.

BLESSED.

I've had so many cards, gifts, well-wishes, prayers and words of encouragement from friends and family. Blessed.

I've got the best Mom in the world to take me home with her and help me day in and day out make it through this ordeal. And siblings to help as well. So very Blessed.

I've got a great big God who has the whole situation in His hands, which means it will be OK no matter what the final outcome is.

Blessed more than I deserve.

So, as I told my friend the other day, please don't feel sorry for me. As bad as this was...I shudder to think of what it could have been. I'm not paralyzed. I'm not an amputee. I'm not even crippled really.

I'm just Blessed.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I have a lot of association with the word "brown". Obviously of course, it's my last name. Did I ever tell you about the time a phone salesman asked me how I spelled my last name? It took me almost 5 minutes to make him understand it. Really. I don't know what was wrong with the dude. I guess his parents had an aversion to crayons or something when he was growing up.

Anyway....

I also have brown circles around my knuckles. I don't know why. I've scrubbed my hand until it's bled and can't get rid of them (no doubt because it's actually in my skin pigment rather than, you know...dirt or something.) I know...I find it pretty weird myself.

Then I also am blessed with (as Heather affectionately refers to them) the "Brown bags". You need only take one look at my eyes to know if I'm sick or tired or just generally not feeling the groove of life, because they get all puffy and droopy and it's just pitiful. Pitiful, I say...

Unfortunately, I also have a brown thumb. I hate this. For one, it goes against the laws of genetics. My dad could grow anything. His front-of-the-house-alternating-red-and-white impatiens display was so desirable that soon after we moved into our house several copycat red-and-white-impatiens-displays began showing up throughout the neighborhood. Mom also follows suit....there's nice houseplants sitting around, and she raised her own garden last year, and...well, it just disgusting. Not too mention Aunts and Uncles and Grannys who can just look at a plant and it starts to grow. (Well, maybe they're not that powerful, but still...)

I - on the other hand - can kill a plastic plant. Seriously, I have actually done that. By the way, a word of advice...Don't ever sit a plastic plant too close to a significant heating source. I'm just sayin'....

So anyway, I've got this house of my own now so I should have houseplants to make it look all "homey" inside, right? Well, this could be a problem. I have one plant that my aunt gave me a few months back. I don't know what it is because I am also flower-illiterate. I can point out Roses and Dandelions pretty well, but it gets a bit dicey after that. (And don't start with the whole "a dandelion is actually a weed" thing!)

But I'm trying to take care of my little plant as best I can. However, I don't think it's a good thing when the leaves start to turn brown and droop to the ground on it. I also don't think it's a good thing when they curl up into a thin little tube. (I really had no idea that plant leaves would do that.) Mom was over the other day, looked at it and wanted to know what was wrong with it. I think it's kind of obvious that if I knew the answer to that there probably would not be a need to even ask the question....However, I let it go and said "I have no idea, but I think I'm killing it." Then she touched it and said "You're giving it too much water! Can't you tell that by touching the dirt?!" Which also seems to be a question that also would not need to be asked if the answer were truly "yes"...

So, now I've learned I should touch my plant's dirt more often. (Of course, I still don't know when "wet" is "too wet", but....) And I'd already discovered that it is not good when the leaves start rolling up into little tubes. See, I'm getting there....Little by little I'll surely get the hang of this, right?

I just wonder how many flowers I'll lose to that great Garden in the Sky along the way....

The Future at my Fingertips.....

I got a new laptop at work. My former was about 12 years old and weighed 56 pounds. So I'm quite happy about the sleek new 22 ounce machine I now get to transport around. However, there is one slight problem....

Security of course is a huge issue at all organizations these days. Our company is no different. For quite some time if you used a laptop, you were assigned a "key fob" that had numbers on it that change every minute. In order to get into your machine, you had to first key in a "secret" number code that only you knew, then you had to key in the numbers on the fob. There was also a status bar on the fob that told you when it was about time for the numbers to change again. So the big game around the office amongst us laptop users was to try to key in the numbers as fast as possible, hoping to beat the clock. I usually didn't make it. For one thing, I typically would have my fob upside down to start. By the time I figured out the "L" was really supposed to be a "7", it had changed again anyway. Ah, the excitement that fills my days.

But with this fancy new machine comes fancy new technology. Gone are the days of "key fob speed racing".......welcome to the world of biometrics. In other words, swipe your finger please.

There's this little sensor on the laptop that you swipe your finger across. The machine recognizes the grooves and swirls of your fingerprint and realizes you are its one and only true master, and allows you into its electronic world. I thought this would be a great thing because, for one...I typically remember to bring all my fingers with me wherever I go. Not so true with a key fob. Nothing was more annoying than firing up the machine to work at home and realizing the key fob was still hanging out at the office. So, this is a big plus. Secondly, it's a bit more difficult to get my finger upside down like I did the fob. The more simple we can make life, the better.

Plus....it's really cool. You know....you feel all....James Bond-y like.

Because when you see this in the movies, it always is a smooth transaction. The hero just swipes their finger in a daring flair and then they're off to fight the manic terrorists who have infiltrated the Empire State Building or have robbed the National Archives of the Declaration of Independence or.....well, you get the idea.

Turns out this is not so much the case in the real world. I don't know if someone comes into my house at night and secretly sandpapers my fingertips while I sleep or what, but for the last 2 days my laptop has refused to recognize my "biometrics". No matter how hard I beg and plead with it, it refuses to believe that my finger is really my finger. It's actually rather insulting to be told by a machine that your body parts are not valid. Or maybe I'm just overly sensitive...who knows. What I DO know is that it does not put my day off to good start in the least to spend an hour fighting with the thing. No exaggeration...AN HOUR!

So today I drug our IT person down to my desk to try and reconfigure it. Tomorrow we'll see what happens.

Welcome to the future....ugh.

Heart of a Champion

Every 2 years the world pauses just a bit from everything that is normal and routine and gets swept up in the phenomenon that is The Olympics. A chance to gather all of the world's best athletes in one spot and revel in the glory of their chosen discipline. A chance to cheer for your nation, to cheer for the underdog, to sing tales of unsung heroes.

We know all the big names...Michael Phelps, Nadia Comaneci, Jesse Owens, Dorothy Hamill, Apolo Ono...the list goes on and on. But there was an athlete several years back that was the epitome of "courage" to me. His name was Eric Moussambani. He was from Equatorial Guinea. He was a swimmer, coming to compete in the 100 meter freestyle.

And prior to arriving in Sydney, Australia for the 2000 summer games, he had never even laid eyes on an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

The International Olympic Committee, in an effort to draw in poorer nations has a wild card draw to give some of these athletes an opportunity to compete. Eric had only been swimming about 8 months. He practiced in a 66 ft pool at a hotel. (An Olympic pool is 160 ft.) Now here he was on the starting blocks of a what must have seemed like a lake to him, waiting for the gun to go off in the biggest race of his life on the biggest stage in the world.

No doubt there were nerves, as evidenced by his two competitors. Before the starting shot was fired, both fell into the water and were promptly disqualified. And Eric stood alone. The gun went off and in he went, about to face the longest 1 minute and 52 seconds of his life. By comparison, the winner of the 100 m would finish in 47.84 seconds. But time wasn't the issue in this heat. It was just about his being there with the impossible laid out in front of him....and not backing down.

It wasn't easy. I remember watching him thinking first he'd never make it to the wall. When he finally did and touched to flip, I was afraid he was never going to come back up from under the water. As the spectators held their breath, suddenly he bobbed up, moving ever slower still. It didn't look good. It didn't look like he'd make it. They said there were lifeguards standing ready to jump in and get him. He was really struggling.

But then something happened. The crowd, who had been politely watching, suddenly realized what kind of effort was being put forth, and they started to cheer. Not just applauding him...but CHEERING for him. Cheering that slowly swelled around the pool like the ocean waves crashing on a beach. They cheered and cheered as if the only gold medal ever to be awarded was at stake. They cheered for his courage...courage to start the race, and the courage to finish it. They cheered to let him know that in that huge, vast pool of water that he was struggling through...he was not alone. They cheered to bring him to the end of this unbelievable journey he had started.

Later Eric made the statement that he "could hear them (the crowd) and it helped me get to the end. Thanks to the crowd, I made it. I'm going to jump and dance all night in celebration of my personal triumph."

When you think about it....isn't that really what it's all about? All of us....just helping each other make it. At some point or another we all end up jumping in that pool in life...unsure, unprepared for the circumstances ahead, feeling so very alone. Hoping to hear someone cheering for us in the background, to give us just that small tiny spark to help us make it to the end of the race.

I've had days when I've been in the pool. And I sincerely thank everyone who stood and cheered.

I hope you'll always find me returning the favor.

And for all of us...
I hope Eric is still dancing out there somewhere in glorious celebration.

Magna Cum Not So Much

One of the objectives my boss gave me at my last performance review was to get some education under my belt. See, insurance is one of those grand professions where you can take classes and get designations that show your mental fortitude to memorize all kinds of fun and interesting facts about things like discreet probability management and loss severity distribution and the factors that should be considered in selecting a domicile and.....well, have your eyes glazed over yet?

Imagine how I feel.

When I was in grade school, test preparation was not this difficult. I mean, I could read a sentence and comprehend it. "Jack and Jill went up the hill." Got it. A dude and a chick, climbing an incline. If they asked me, "Who went up the hill with Jack?", odds are I'd have a pretty good shot at giving the correct answer. In high school, I could study 1/2 hour prior to a test and get at worst, a B. (OK, unless it was math or science. Those took a bit more effort.) In college, had to work a little harder, but you know...I survived my classes pretty well. I knew how to read a text and prepare for a test.

What has happened to me?!

Somewhere between 18 and 38, things have really fallen apart. My brain does not engage like it is obviously supposed to do. Now, I know I'm not stupid. I mean, I work in insurance, for the love of Pete! I have spent the last 4 weeks deciphering the legal jargon of the General Statutes of the state of Connecticut! I understand insurance policy wording! I can quote passages from the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act for you! (Wouldn't you just love to have me come to your next party?!)

But set me down in the evening with the ever compelling "Risk Management and Insurance", and my mind is mush.

2 more weeks of this may just send me right over the edge.

I just hope I can keep my mind intact long enough to remind my boss that the goal was to take classes.

She never said anything about passing them....

Hanging on by a Thread....

One of the things I do at work is troubleshoot problems. Most days, though it can be challenging, it's not too bad.

Today was not one of those days.

Everybody...I mean EVERYBODY...kept coming up to me starting conversations with the same sentence...."I have a problem I need to talk to you about..." And in grand escalation fashion, each and every problem seemed to be just a wee bit worse than the one preceding it. At about 3:00 I walked into my boss' office and informed her I was putting my application in at McDonalds, because I doubted french fries and chicken nuggets had to deal with anything as intense as verifying if system algorithms are accurate and should we be using processed dates or renewal dates and what about the calculation of violation removal... She told me to sit down and quit whining...she had a problem to talk to me about.

So I was sitting there trying to help decipher the latest dilemma, when I suddenly and inexplicably got THE flashback. This is not the first time this has happened...but it always amazes me when it does. It takes me back to when I was 11 or 12...

I was a tomboy as a kid and many times, what my Dad did, I did. So it wasn't surprising to find me up on a roof with a hammer in my hand acting like the master carpenter that I definitely was not. But this was where we were that day...helping a friend put a roof on his son's house. Things were going A-OK... for a while, anyway. And then it got real interesting. I took a step backward to pick up a hammer, which apparently was one step more than I should have taken....and walked right off the roof.

Now, the only thing underneath me was a concrete slab, which obviously was not all that inviting a place to land. The trouble was, it's not like I really had much time to assess the situation and aim for another spot. Granted, I was much smaller than then I am now, but it still doesn't take long for gravity to pull a little kid to the earth when nothing else is in the way. I was plunging to a disaster.

And then...suddenly....I stopped. Just stopped...looking eye level at sky, my feet dangling with nothing under them...and wondering what in the world was going on.

Instinctly, I looked up, and there I saw it....my hand clutched in a death grip around a thin little electrical wire that was swaying in the breeze...and saving me from nothing short of broken bones and bruises (or worse). Apparently on the way down I stretched my hand up in a subconscious plea for help from above...and by nothing more than the Grace of God, caught hold of this tiny little wire.

Wow...it still makes me shudder to think about it.

Dad quickly scrambled down the roof and brought the ladder over to get me down. I remember how he held me while I was shaking and a bit in shock. It felt good to have his arms around me, assuring me it was OK. A lot of bad could have come from that day....but a miraculous story emerged instead.

I'm sure we've all had things happen in life that we never really understand why they happened, or what they meant. I've had more than my share of them. For a while, this day belonged in that category. But as I've gotten older, I get those flashbacks. Usually they come right at a time when I'm ready to run screaming from life as I know it, and/or choke the next person that crosses my path. It's as if God is reminding me..."Hey - you've been in bad spots before. And I've always been there to keep you from crashing to the ground. It's gonna be OK, so just get your feet back on solid ground and snap out of it!"

Not a bad message to remember.

So, whenever the day seems a bit rough, just picture that little kid dangling in mid-air and remember that no matter how desperate the situation, or how impossible the solution, or how unstable the safety net seems, God's got in all under His control.

I'm thankful for the day I learned how to hang on to God's Grace by a thread...

And I'm betting that tomorrow...will be a better day. :)

I'm back!!!! Under a mound of snow!!!

Well, here I am...blogging again. I really enjoyed this when I was doing it before. Then life went all crazy...buying a house seemed to have a lot to do with that. But I'm gonna try to hit it again, at least periodically here. I think the voices in my head should have someone else listen to them besides just me....


So, it is February 15, and apparently we have moved to the Arctic Circle. Up until just a couple weeks ago, the weather hadn't been too terribly bad this year. Then came February. That groundhog must have been really ticked off the morning they woke him up to ask him if winter was over or not, because he's really socked it to us here. (Does anyone else find it very strange we rely on a giant rodent to predict the weather??)


So, first it was freezing. Like, so cold that you could feel your nose hairs turning to ice. (Believe me, that's cold!) Then, we got like 13 inches of "accumulation". (That's our fancy weatherman terminology for "Good Gravy, it's snowing AGAIN!") And everybody spent a day digging out. Then we got 4 or 5 more inches. And everyone dug out some more. Now it's snowing again. This is ridiculous. We tried driving through our local Target parking lot the other day. I felt like we were in the Himalaya's. Snow mountains piled up everywhere....I could almost hear the yodeling....


But, such as is winter in Ohio. Why, we even had freezing fog a few days ago. Freezing Fog. Now that is some wild stuff. Even for this neck of the woods.


But we'll tough it out and hope it won't last too much longer. And that our basements don't all flood when all this mess starts to melt. And try to remember one more time why on earth we live in this glorious state.....