Stuck!  We’ve all been there.  Stuck in traffic.  Stuck in a bad situation.  Stuck in a undesireable job.  Stuck in the airport.

I left the house early this morning to make a forty mile drive to get my MRI for the “too-mah” on the palm of my hand.  I drove down the road and got on the ramp for the freeway … and then stopped.  No!  I had thirty-eight more miles to go and already I was stuck in construction traffic.  Oh dear.  I really get antsy crawling in traffic.  Exhaling and digging deep for any stored patience, I managed to get to the end of the construction zone and was back to speed in about ten minutes.  Not too bad.  Just a bad start to a long drive to a place I’ve never been before.  I was going to be late.

I suppose I hadn’t planned enough time for the drive and should have gotten an earlier start.  But I was on my own with Amanda and had to get her all dressed, fed, and washed for the day before I could leave.  Usually Ted is around to help.  But Ted is also stuck.   Ted left the day before and was in Indiana overnight.  Without giving details, his boss wanted him there for a certain account that they are trying to arrange business with.  Ted felt it could be done over the phone.  But the boss said go, and you have to listen to the boss.  Ted is stuck in Indiana until business can be taken care of.

I was late for my MRI, but had called ahead to let them know I was on my way.  It was all good.  Then it was my turn.  Now I’ve had MRI’s and I knew pretty much what to expect.  Before taking me for my turn, the tech asked me if I needed to use the restroom.  I answered “No.”  Maybe that was a mistake.  We got to the great machine where I was told to lie on my stomach with my left hand stretched straight over my head, as if I was raising my hand to ask a question, only I was lying face down.  My hand got laid on a cushion, covered with a cushion, and then strapped down nice and secure.  With earplugs in place, they slid me in the tube – hand first – as if I was diving in – or saluting – Heil Hitler? – or maybe just a one-armed Superman pose?   The fact was, my left arm and hand were stuck in position.   I was told not to move.  They took some pictures.  Then they took some more pictures.  Then more.  Then “One more four-minute scan.”  Geez.  How many pictures of my hand can they take???  My fingers were really getting numb.  Finally, they backed me out of the tube to ‘inject.’  Lying like I was, with my left hand strapped down and stuck in the same position, I had to bring my right arm forward, palm up so the nurse could poke a need in the crook of my arm and fill my veins with some stuff that would show up on the MRI.   Quick!  Back into the tube they slid me for more pictures.  Now I was thinking that I really should have gone pee.  And not only were my fingers numb, but my whole hand and half way up my arm.  Uh oh – now I had this sudden intense itch on my nose – and I couldn’t scratch it!  I was stuck!

Of course, I survived.  I got to itch my nose.  I got to use the restroom.  They got their pictures.

Sometimes life puts you in a place where you feel stuck.  It is always temporary.  Things can change in a minute.  Sometimes you can be stuck for days, months, or years.  But it is a temporary place between the start, and the end or resolution of the un-liked ‘stuck-ed-ness.’

But to come to the end of your waiting in that stuck-limbo, you are probably back on the right track and cruising down the road in the right direction.  Or you’ve left the other state, and have made it home again.  (see you soon Teddy)  And just when everything went completely numb and you thought you could never feel again – everything gets back to normal.

If you are stuck somewhere – hang in there.  You’ll find your way out :-).

just Laurel

Ecclesiastes 7:8  The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

1 Corinthians 10:13  And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

It started first thing this morning.  I caught a news story on the ‘crawl’ line of the morning news show I was watching.  I saw the story drift past – something about the G & J Trucking Building being on fire.  I told Ted about it as I hurried out the door to work.  Ted knew the man who owned that business.  By the time I got to work, Ted texted me to say that it was the J & G Trucking company in Detroit (NOT the guy he knew) whose building was on fire.  G & J ?  J & G ?  Whatev.  I told him that I was sorry to be a little dyslexic.  He responded that “dyslexia could eb contagious.”  “Sey it could,” I replied.

At work, a co-worker commented on my name, asking if it was pronounced “lore-uhl”  or “lore-ell.”  I told her the first way was correct.  She told me her daughter’s name was “Amy,” but that in her native country of India, they pronounced it “ah-me.”

Isn’t it interesting how a change of letter order can change things?  Or, how you see and read a word can change things up quite a bit, too.

Later, at work, another co-worker was asking me about the “drop sheets.”  I was having a brain fog moment as I was trying to figure out what she was talking about.  I was stuck on thinking about “drop down boxes” on web site pages where you choose items from the drop down.  I also was thinking it could be some kind of sheet listing patients that were dropped (from the schedule) or some other thing that was dropped or eliminated.  Duh…Laurel…we do eye surgeries here and use eye DROPS all the time.  She was talking about the EYE drop sheets that list the eye drops patients must use.

This saga of changed letters, misreads, and rearranged letters continues!

I believe I blogged once before about how the word ‘listen’ is composed of the same letters as the word ‘silent.’  Hmmm …. so much meaning there!  Shut up and be silent if you really want to listen and not just hear what’s being said!

And the other day while I was working on my computer, a couple of funny words popped up.  First, I was writing about developmental disabilities and it came out ‘develoopmental.’  Oh my.  I think that tells it all!  Anyone who isn’t quite right could be called ‘loopy’ and that makes us all a ‘lil develoopmentally disabled!  Why not.  It sure gives more definition to the word, doesn’t it?  And then….

I was writing something about one of my son-in-laws, and typed out “son-in-aw.”  Wow.  What if instead of “in-laws” we called them all “in-aws” – like we were in awe of them?  Makes it sound so much nicer.  To say ‘mother-in-law’ makes you think of “out-laws” and then sheriffs, and guns and fighting and all things negative.  Instead, we can say how much we love our mother/father/brother/sister-in-aw.  Aww!  Isn’t that sweet?

Interesting how a letter added, changed, or deleted can change the meaning of a word.  Or simply how a word is read.  It’s kind of fun.  Don’t depend on spell check!  I’m sure you have all encountered some ‘oops’s’ there!

I just know, that the best thing to do when puzzled by what I read, is to question the author.  And I will mind my P’s and Q’s.  Or is it my Q’s and P’s?  Oh – and I do LOVE my son-in-aws!

But I think John says it best:

3 John 1:13-14  ¹³ I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. ¹⁴ I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.

just Laurel

I worked today.  (Well, I work everyday!  Whether I am at home cleaning and folding laundry, at the surgical center acting in my role as RN, or in front of my computer blogging – yes folks, I take this very seriously and make it my responsibility to work and write my daily blog!)

So, I worked today … at the surgical center.  I must have had twenty patients.  And they were all different.  And although I had each one for maybe only twenty minutes post-operatively, I love how much I can get to know about them in such a short time.  There were two factors that stuck out today as I observed my patients.

The first factor I found most interesting was what drink or food patients wanted after their surgery.  We offer them water or juice.  In case you didn’t know, patients must not eat or drink after midnight the night before their procedure.  They come to us hungry and dehydrated.  The most obvious response we get is “I would love a cup of coffee.”  Oh yeah.  I can relate.  It just isn’t morning …  It just isn’t a day …  It just isn’t possible to get your game on without that morning cup o’ joe.  We don’t offer that, but we encourage patients to leave and go grab a steaming hot cup on the way home.  One gentleman today turned down our offer of a drink – and we get that occasionally.  We don’t let them get away with it!  They have to drink before they leave – c’mon patients you are dehydrated and we have to get you juiced up before you can leave!  But then there’s the woman who couldn’t wait to get home to drink her diet Pepsi.  Ah … the sugar-free caffeinated soft drink person!  And then, after being starved since the night before, the cravings are expressed.  “I got a turkey sandwich at home I can’t wait to eat.”  Okay – not my first choice – but she was happy about it.  One little old lady was leaving us and going straight to Bob Evans for mashed potatoes!  That was her go-to comfort food that she swore made her feel better and back-to-herself every time.  Bless her heart!  There was another woman who was not looking real good on my monitoring equipment and I suggested she take a few deep breaths.  She coughed and then said it was probably because of her emphysema.  She then talked about the cup of coffee she couldn’t wait to drink and added that she was also hoping to smoke a cigarette on the way home.  Wait.  What?  “You can’t do that” I smiled, “Not with your emphysema.”  “I know,” she smiled back.  But she really was going to smoke one.  We both knew it.  Bless her heart.

The other factor that I found quite telling today was the identity of the person that accompanied the patient.  A person cannot have a surgical procedure that involves anesthetic and then drive themselves home.  The effects of the sleepy medicine might cause them to fall asleep at the wheel.  Not a good thing for other drivers around that car.  The most obvious companion is a spouse.  Many times the accompanying person is an adult son or daughter.  We get lots of friends, and many lovely nieces helping their dear aunts.  And then there are the ones that come alone.  Our center has a van and we can give the patient a ride home.  But they come alone.  🙁   Makes me so sad that they have no one to come with them.

And then there was this one man who had his wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law with him.  In recovery I found his blood pressure to be a little too high for my comfort.  The man sat quietly, eyes large and staring, while the family around him spoke non-stop.  I tried to make light of the loud and over bearing family members and I asked the patient if he was bringing his whole posse with him next week when he was going to have his other eye operated on.  He replied, “Why do you think my blood pressure is so high?”  Poor fellow!

What do you fill yourself with?  Who do you surround yourself with?  The answers to both questions tell others a little bit about who you are.

Just something to think about.

just Laurel

1 Thessalonians 5:11  Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Proverbs 25:21  If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

There’s no better place to go then “home.”  I don’t mean the home we go to everyday after picking up the kids from school, or leaving work for the day.  I mean the home, as in “home for the holidays.”  Or, back home to the place where you grew up; where your family is.  That’s the key word – Family!  I’m talking about the visit to Grandma’s at Christmas where all the cousins and aunts and uncles are.  Or the family cottage up north where the whole family goes for a couple of weeks each summer.  Home.  To family.  To your roots.  Where blood is thicker then water and it just feels good to hang out with the people you are related to.  Even the weird ones.

When my husband Ted was growing up, that ‘home’ belonged to his paternal grandparents.  Ted’s dad was in the Air Force and they lived in many places around the country and around the world.  Grandma and Grandpa were permanent fixtures on East Royal Forest Street in Columbus, Ohio, and that is where they could always go home to, in between moves.  It was their permanent address.

In my case, I didn’t really have a grandparent’s residence to go home to.  However, I had many wonderful Christmas memories with my Aunt Martha and Uncle Bill and my four cousins in New Jersey.  We would fly in to visit, and my Connecticut cousins usually showed up too.  With the three families combined, there was twelve of us cousins!  My childhood memories of Christmas’s in New Jersey were always magical, warm, and all about family.

I happened to look up the origin of the song that includes the familiar lyrics:  Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home.  Written in 1823, the song has remained well-known for over 180 years.  On Wikipedia I read that the song was reputedly banned from being played in Union Amy camps during the American Civil War for being too redolent of hearth and home and so likely to incite desertion.  I am sure our own military stationed overseas would love the option of running home when homesickness overtakes them!

This afternoon as Ted and I were running a few errands together, we were discussing our plans for the rest of the weekend.   “We have church this evening,” I said, “And tomorrow we go to the farm.”

“The farm,” Ted echoed back.

“Yes, to the farm,” I said back to him as I gazed quizzically at him.

“Doesn’t that sound nice?”  he asked.  “Tomorrow we go to the farm.”

Ted’s cousin and family live on a farm in southern Ohio.  There is a big Fall Fest there tomorrow and tons of people will be there including several cousins with their spouses and children, Ted’s mom and dad, as well as a favorite aunt and uncle.  Family!  Ted was just warming up to the idea of being with so many of the family he loved.  For him, tomorrow’s trip to the farm will be like a trip home.

With our daughters grown and moved out (Amanda’s day is coming soon) Ted and I will have this big ‘ole house to ourselves (hurray!).  Part of me wants us to move to a smaller place that is easier to take care of and less costly to maintain.  But another part of me wants to keep the big house so the kids have a place to come home to.  We’ll have to see how that works itself out.

If you’re looking for us tomorrow, we won’t be home.

We’re going to the farm.

just Laurel

1 Chronicles 16:43  Then all the people left, each for their own home, and David returned home to bless his family.

I am usually the one to handle most of the care, transportation, doctor appointments, and daily stuff with Amanda.  Oh, Ted helps out plenty.  But I usually do the most because Ted is the one with the full-time job.  He’s the breadwinner.  He brings home the bacon.

I didn’t mean for it to happen, but today we traded places.  Ted had to work, but because he was local and not driving to another state, he could be hands-on with Amanda.  My new job is in an out-patient surgical center and we start real early in the morning.  And, I can’t exactly tell everyone to take a break while I go fetch my daughter or take her some lunch.

I left the house at 7am.  (I have to add that I had Amanda dressed, fed, and a lunch made for her to eat before I left – sigh, martyr martyr.)  Ted’s job had him making a quick run into a steel mill account before getting home to take himself and Amanda to eleven o’clock dental cleaning appointments.  (Yes.  Woo-hoo!  I didn’t have to take Amanda to the dentist!  Oh – she is pretty good about it, but may I remind every one of Amanda’s sensitive gag reflex??)

When Amanda is in my care and something bad happens, I try not to bother Ted while he is working unless it is an emergency.  Ted knew he couldn’t phone me – not while I am taking care of post-surgical patients.

So – it started with this phone text from Ted to me:

“Call when you can”

“Oh Lord, what does that mean?” I wondered to myself as I snuck a peek at my vibrating phone.  “I hope no one sees me looking at my phone.”

So I texted him back when I had a chance:

“Done soon cant call yet – everything ok?”

My mind is going bonkers!  I am thinking that something is wrong, and yet he doesn’t want to divulge details and get me worried and upset.  But the measly little bit of information he did text me is driving me crazy!  Did Amanda throw up?  Did something happen at the dentist?  Argh.

His response to my texted question?

“It is now.”

Really?  Oh that calmed me right down.  Not.  So everything wasn’t ok, but it is now??  But then, I figured, whatever it was, things must be under control now.  I might as well pay attention to my own job-at-hand and trust my hubby.

I called, of course, as I drove home from work.  The ‘problem’ had nothing to do with Amanda and was an issue Ted quickly resolved.  (big exhale!)

I told Ted how his text had stirred up a good dose of worry.  He apologized and said that, next time, he would give more details in his text.  He also added that if it had truly been an emergency, he would have let me know!

I think the event was a good lesson to both of us.  I learned to trust and to not jump so quickly on the worry wagon.  Ted learned to juggle his job, a dental appointment, and even other issues while being today’s designated caregiver.

Try trading places with someone!

What’s the worst that could happen?  (Besides Amanda puking!)

just Laurel

Do you have a spouse who tells the same old stories over and over again?

This childhood experience must have made a lasting impression on Ted because I’ve heard him tell this story more than once.  He tells how his mother, one day, made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  The first batch went in the oven, and as soon as the heat hit the cookie dough, the dough oozed and melted all over the cookie sheet until it was one mess of liquified cookie dough spread over the entire surface of the cookie sheet.  There was no “cookie” to emerge from the liquid mess.   Oh no!  A quick glance at the recipe and ingredients revealed a most obvious oversight:  Ted’s mom had missed adding the flour.  Okay – she must have been busy or distracted by Ted’s sisters or, most likely, by little Teddy trying to steal chocolate chips.  Mom quickly measured and added the flour and got the second baking sheet of cookies in the oven.  They baked, held together, and came out of the oven looking like cookies … but resembling rocks in texture.  Mom had added all the flour the recipe called for but forgot to account for the first batch of cookie dough that was already missing from the batch.

I think the reason Ted remembers this story is because of the great heartache it caused at not getting a decent fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie that day!  The batch was pretty much ruined.  Mom would probably have done better if she would have just thrown the whole original botched batch of cookie dough out and started fresh.  I’m not sure if the resulting rock-cookies were even edible.

Sometimes you just have to throw away and start over.

Those of you who know me, know that I am a list-maker.  Sometimes my list gets very long with items scratched off and items added on.  It can get to be a scribbly mess.  In my attempt to stay organized, my to-do list is suddenly so confusing and scribbled that looking at it suddenly sends me adrift in the chaos – as if I myself am swirling in the swipes and swoops of my pencil lines.

So I throw it away and start over.

I will take a new look at all that I have to do.  Tasks get put in order and I write out a new, tidy, orderly, easier to-do list.  <sigh>   All is now well with the world!  Order has been established.

Now, in the continuing saga of my contact lens experience:

Some of you have read about how I am new to contacts but I am still in the trial stage of seeing what kind and what prescription works best for me.  Up to yesterday I had 2 different lenses for the right eye, and 3 different ones for the left.  I did not know which was which.  This morning I visited the eye clinic with my bag of lenses and a desperate plea for help with unraveling my chaotic collection of lenses.  Guess what the girl did?

She threw everything out and started over!

Well, she also called the ophthalmologist and, after speaking to her, she got me a fresh trial pair of lenses.  She then explained to me what was different about the other ones I was to still try – but I would get those next week and she was going to give me extra cases for the lenses.  In addition, she was going to clearly mark each lens – both the package it came in and the exact side of the contact case it was to be stored in so that I could methodically try each lens, keep them identified and stored correctly, and ultimately find my perfect set.

Whew!

Next time things get out of hand or chaotic, I suggest throwing out and getting rid of the old – and starting over!  Sometimes you just have to take a step back and re-analyze … clear your head … and then do things right.

I mean, who wants to eat rock cookies?  Or decipher a scribbled mass of instructions?  And, of course, the ultimate goal is to see things clearly!

just Laurel

Ecclesiastes 3:1a, 6  There is a time for everything … a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away.