Snow day! No School!!

Tuesday of Thanksgiving Week and a winter storm blew through with snow and cold weather. Sarah came up with the idea of using clothes baskets for a sled and it worked pretty well!

Returning from the land of the dead!

Finally slept in my own bed last night...almost made it without coughing. Still wheezing a lot and still on my antibiotics,steroids, cough medicine...

Bronchitis on top of asthma...ugly mix! But thanks to my early birthday present (my gorgeous afghan from mom), an arsenal of meds, pot for steaming, a grandfather clock to chime me thru the night, etc. I'm finally feeling a little better.

Vics Vapor Rub on feet

Research question: Does rubbing Vics Vabor rub on your feet diminish coughing?

Study size: 1 subject

Control group: None

Results: No

I'm going to sleep in my recliner so I don't keep sliding off my pillows trying to stay upright and so Alan can get some rest!

Seven Layer Dip in the Garbage!

7 layer taco dip for post-swim team workout...tasted terrible! I guess
that's what happens when you season the meat with nutmeg instead of
taco seasoning! Oops!

Mom diagnosed with bronchitis

The doctor: "So, have you noticed any wheezing?"

Me: I exhaled and sounded like badly tuned bagpipes.

The doctor: "I'll take that as a 'yes'!"

An Essay on Turning 53

I turn 53 tomorrow. Not till 10:22pm. Isn’t that a weird number, 53? It’s not stately like “11” or full of curves like “82.” It’s not a milestone, like 50 was, or 21. Nothing really exciting happens at 53, so far as I can tell. My family won’t make me a memorial quilt (like when I was 50) and I won’t get a video of my life in pictures (like when I was 40). I might get some new cookie sheets.

When birthdays are coming and you’ve been sick at home, you do a lot of thinking. “So, Patti, what did you accomplish these fine 53 years?” I imagine God asking. Immediately I think: I should have served more….volunteered more…given more. What have I been doing with my time?

I have my masters’ in nursing and I work as a staff nurse in a cardiac unit. My teaching colleague stopped being free for our monthly lunches shortly after I left teaching. I guess I lost my networking appeal for her. So, I didn’t know she was diagnosed with cancer in the spring and died that fall. I think she was 53. I remember thinking, “that could have been me.” One of my graduate school professors, on being lauded for her doctorate commented: “I worked so hard for this. There were times my kids didn’t know who I was, I was gone so much!”

I haven’t pursued any lofty career goals. I’m not a nursing instructor, a clinical nurse specialist or manager. Do you know what I really love to do? I love to sit in a patient’s room and ask them how they’re doing. I find out what they need and try to make that happen for them. I didn’t need a master’s degree to do that. I just liked learning. So, thank you, God, that I have a great job that I love, pays good money, and allows me lots of flexibility with my family.

I’ve been sick – but last week I took care of a 44 year-old black man with end-stage heart disease, probably from severe, untreated hypertension. (FYI: Check your blood pressure, take your medicine, and try to keep it under 120/80. Put that salt shaker down now!) Anyway, he’s 44. Doesn’t that shock you? It shocks me. Last Sunday, I watched a grown man eat his Red Robin burger with his foot…he had no arms. So, thank you, God, that I enjoy relative good health.

I’ve taken care of lots of elderly people in the last days of their lives. You’d be surprised how many are divorced, alienated from their children, without siblings or friends, no church or pub community, no neighbors. No one. How do you get to be that old and have no one?

So, at 53, I can think of over half a dozen people I could call at 3 am, confident they would come. They aren’t even related to me! I married my best friend almost 20 years ago. I have four incredibly beautiful, loving children. My mom is still my go-to person when I need advice. My sisters and I talk almost every day, even though we live in different states. Alan asks, “Who talks to their sister every day?” I do. So, thank you, God, that I am surrounded by people who amazingly and inexplicably love me.

I’ve been doing an intensive cardiovascular workout these past few years. When I was 25, in a cold November church in a freezing baptistry, Gary Serago baptized me into the life of Jesus Christ. I went from a narrow-minded, self-focused person, to one who began to appreciate that God loved me and called me to love others. I could feel my heart stretching.

I married my best friend when I was 33. The heart stretches more. In April, 1996, I became a mom standing up in the Sea-Tac airport. Alan handed me my 5 ½ mo-old daughter. Alan was grimy and exhausted from a 24 hour international journey with an infant and Miranda was round, soft, tiny, and frizzy-haired with solemn eyes. I fell in love and thought my heart could get no bigger. But with each child…Brent, Sarah, Bryce…your heart makes more room. God willing, next year I hope to travel with Alan and Miranda to Kenya to work in a medical mission for two weeks. So, thank you, God, for exercising my heart and helping it grow.

I’ve stayed with some of my patients in the last moments of their life. You tell them it’s ok to say goodbye. You tell them they are not alone. You hold their hand and tell them you won’t leave them…and I wonder where they will be in a few minutes. So, thank you, God, that I know whom I have believed and I know where I am going.

I have a large wooden sign hanging in my kitchen. It’s my face book profile quote. “Once in a while, in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives you a fairy tale.” I’m no Pollyanna. We’ve had troubles, who doesn’t? I’ve called Alan at work nearly incoherent with stress over some issue. Since our church watched a family lose their 5 year-old angel to cancer, Alan has tended to respond to me with, “Patti, none of our children has cancer.” So, thank you, God, that despite the challenges of our lives, I can step back and say, “We ARE living happily ever after.”
So, Patti, what have you accomplished these fine 53 years?

I’ve learned I can love. I pray I’ll learn more.

Getting excited

Patti loves to hear Miranda excited about anything....she just vibrates with joy!! Today it's trying to beat the school record for the 500 Free and impressing her English teacher with her poetry analysis. I used to get excited about what was in my lunch box!