Rebirth *Now with an update at the bottom*

As I write this, a friend of mine is keeping vigil in a waiting room at a hospital.  Her mother, never a drinker, contracted cirrhosis and her liver failed.  As a result, she found herself on a waiting list for a new one.  Late last night, they got the call, a donor liver was found.  And this morning the transplant process was started.

Although the reality is, the process started a long time ago.  When the young girl the liver is coming from started using the drugs that ultimately killed her.

Too meta?

Ok, how about this.

Over the course of the last week or so, when our text conversations started, my mind occasionally raced back to May 2003 and to August 2006.

Today, especially, I've been thinking a lot about August 19th through August 21st.

I remember vividly sitting in the waiting room that Friday, waiting for word on how Diane's bypass surgery went.  When the nurses came out a little after 11:00 AM (right on schedule) to tell us they were closing her up, a wave of relief washed over me.

I started making phone calls to family with the update.

I think I was on the third call when I saw the nurse making her way across the waiting room towards me.  I saw the look on her face.

I knew something had happened.

I was horribly correct.

Diane's heart had stopped and they opened her up again to find out what happened and why.  And to make sure it didn't happen again.  She was in the OR for about 12 hours all told that day.  The surgeon didn't leave until about 11:30 that night.  And when he told me she was a candidate for a transplant at that point, the gravity didn't register with me then.

I knew the words, of course.  It just didn't sink in then.  Not until Saturday afternoon when they told me her kidneys had shut down, did I realize what we were facing, just a little over three years after Caitlin's death.

I remember "sleeping" in a chair in the waiting room.  Getting up and walking in to Diane's room randomly, talking to her over the course of those nights.  Trying to pass the time by reading "Marley and Me"  at least until it got to the point where I saw how it would end and I knew I was in no shape emotionally to read any further.

The kids were holed up in the smaller waiting room in the cardiac unit.  But I stayed out in the general waiting room.  Sometimes one of them would be in her room when I went to check on Diane.  And, on Friday night, there was always at least one nurse and her perfusionist in the room.  But as her condition deteriorated, the perfusionist was no longer needed and her nursing staff was cut back.  On Sunday night she was mostly alone in her room.

It gave me a chance to talk to her.  By that time I had, in my mind anyway, made sense of what was happening.  She was only 48 years old and in good health otherwise.  This shouldn't have happened to her.  But what I knew in my heart, what got me out of bed for so many mornings when that was the last thing I wanted to do, was the belief that Diane saw the opportunity to be with Caitlin again.

To shop, work out, tan, and all the other things they so loved to do together.  And it was too much for her to pass up.

Who was I to object?   What right did I have to tell her she was wrong to miss her youngest daughter?

And so I leaned in and whispered in her ear, the hardest words I've ever spoken in my life...

"It's ok."

"I understand."

"Be with Caitlin."

One of the things that I've regretted from that weekend was that it didn't occur to me to talk to the hospital staff about donating Diane's organs once the outcome became inevitable.  By the time we talked about it, all that could be used were her eyes and her skin.  She could've helped so many more people if I had thought of it sooner.

In May 2003, we met with someone from at the hospital from Gift of Hope, the local donor group.  They explained everything to us, how it would work, what organs they would "harvest" (btw that's an absolutely terrible term to use with a grieving family) and how soon it would start.  They told us they would keep Caitlin "alive" for an extra 24 hours to keep her organs viable while the transplant team came in and the logistics for delivery were put together.

Ultimately Caitlin's heart, liver and kidneys were used.  I wish I could tell you there were four happy endings as a result of our loss, but it doesn't always work that way.  All we ever heard was that a 17 year-old girl got her liver.

I think what I'm really trying to do here is multifold.  What I want you to do, if you haven't already done it, is please, PLEASE, agree to be an organ donor.  You won't need any of that stuff when you're gone and you may, in fact, save someone else's life.  Maybe several someones.

The other thing I'd like to accomplish today is; while you're reading this, take a minute to talk to whatever it is that gets you through the night and send some good vibes out to my friend and her family.  They could use them.  It doesn't cost anything and who knows, the karma may come back to you.

We could all use a little of that.

Peace.

PS - because, well, you know... Don't even ask cause I'm not saying.

PPS (or is it PSS?)

Here's the latest (as of a couple days ago) on My Friend's Mom (MFM henceforth) She was extubated on Tuesday as she was starting to fight the tube again.  She was cleared on the blood clot check, and today they're starting to wean her off dialysis.  It's not uncommon for the kidneys to shut down through all this, so it wasn't an unexpected thing.

She does have a little bit of ICU delirium, another not uncommon after-effect of being on a ventilator. Again, the doctors feel this will be a short-term thing and will resolve with time.

There's still a tough row to hoe (look it up) so I'm sure the family would still appreciate good thoughts and positive vibes, so if you have any you can spare, keep sending them!

Again,

Peace

Ventilation

*Cheap literary ploy alert*

The following contains absolutely no information on, or discussion of, the finer points of ventilating a structure fire. 

Ha!  Fooled ya!

Rather, I'd like to take this time to discuss laundry. And, more directly, the denizens of laundromats. 

I'm speaking to you, madam. 

Allow me to vent. (See what I did there?). I live in a three-flat, an old house converted into apartments. There is a common laundry room available for the tenants to use. 

I choose not to use it. 

I choose to take my clothes to a local laundromat. 

I did a couple trial runs at local facilities before settling on this one. I like it, it's clean, well tended to and the young lady that works there is not only personable, she works hard to keep things tidy. On the rare occasions she needs to provide customer service, she does so gladly. 

Like today. The washer I chose malfunctioned, causing me to have to re-wash everything. She was apologetic and paid for the second wash without hesitation. 

Which brings me to the point (it may take a while, but I usually get to one) of this word salad. 

Lady using the only other machine the size I need, why in the name of all that is holy are you being so gentle taking your clothes out?  You do realize that shit is just going to get turned inside out again in the dryer don't you?  I mean, for Christ sake, both machines rotate in the same manner! You see the machine next to you is stopped, you saw the attendant and I pushing buttons and you heard her tell me to switch in to the next machine when it was empty. What. The. Hell. 

And btw, light colors are NOT slimming, I don't care what anyone has told you. 

So, here's a little insight into me. You know the saying "don't sweat the small stuff" right?  Small stuff causes me to lose my shit far more so than big stuff.  And I don't think it's necessarily job-induced either.  I'm pretty sure I've always been this way.  Ask my kids what I used to be like driving through St. Charles...  I recognize this is not something worth creating havoc over.  However, rational doesn't always apply to me.  

Somebody passes away, ok, I can get through that. I've done it. It's no fun, but I know I can handle that stress. Divorce?  I've been there more often than I care to acknowledge. But, yes, I can handle it. Something unexpected comes up that's waaaay more expensive than I'm prepared for?  Sigh. Ok. Let's address it and move on. 

Take approximately four minutes more than is the norm to empty your washing machine?  ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME HERE LADY!?!?  SERIOUSLY?  WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO ASSIST YOU IN GETTING YOUR SHIT OUT OF MY FRICKING WAY!?!?

Fortunately for me, I have, at my disposal, this alternative. 

Making the world a better, safer, kinder, gentler place through literature.

I feel better already. 

Peace

Dress Blues

This is difficult for me to write.  I've put it down on paper (well, not on paper technically but you get my drift) elsewhere, whether that ever shows up anywhere is still up for debate.  Much debate.

But anyway...

I saw a social media post from the Boy Child this morning marking the 13th anniversary of our militaries push into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Thirteen years ago so much was different for my family.  So completely different.  Sure, everyone's was but I can't speak to that.  Well, I can, of course, but not with any intelligence.  I can barely speak with any intelligence period, but at least I lived through my family's experience.

And, if you've ever stopped by here at any time over the last several years, (it surprises me sometimes just how long ago I started pumping this bilge out) you know (Holy crap it's been six years, I just checked) I've written A LOT about this period of time as it relates to my family and to me.

But never about my feelings during 2003 pre-crash.

I'm going to give it a shot here.  However, as is my practice when it involves personal stuff about my family I'm giving full editorial control to the Boy Child.  He'll see this privately first and once he approves it, if he approves it, I'll post this.  Or scrap it.  In which case...

The Fall of 2002 is really a better place to start, since that's when the family picture was taken.  That's always been a kind of reference point for me.  Diane wanted one done.  And, since the Boy Child was home on leave this was the time for it.  He had already done one tour in Kuwait earlier in the year.  And, if memory serves, we already knew he was headed back to Kuwait in January.

There was a lot of post 9/11 tension here as you may remember.  Talk of invasion, WMD's, regime change, etc.  That had a lot to do with the decision to have the family picture done, although I don't remember it coming up specifically while we talked about it.  There was an underlying fear that by going overseas again, something might happen.

None of us spoke about that "something" but any military family knows what we felt.  Much more so than a non-military type family.  Due, of course, to the nature of the job, the morbidity/mortality rate is so much higher than the general population that the "something" is just, kind of, always there lurking in the shadows of your mind.  Ironically, the poignancy of the family picture was created, not by an event in the Middle East, but by Caitlin's death six months later.

Communication being a little less advanced then compared to now, we got mail from overseas semi-regularly.  I'm fairly sure I didn't write as much as I should have.  But we were grateful for every message we got.  I don't remember if we got a "last" one before the Army started to move into Iraq or not.  But I remember, vividly, not having any contact with him for about six weeks.  And, every night on the news, starting thirteen years ago tonight, we watched.

And, we waited.

We watched to see where they were going and what units were going there.  I used to go to the DoD website looking at names of casualties.  The rational part of my mind always knew that this was a wasted exercise.  That, God forbid, anything happened I would have had a knock on the door from uniformed personnel.

That didn't stop me however.  I don't know if I found some kind of solace in not seeing his name on any lists or what my malfunction was, I just know I found a brief respite from worry (and fear) by doing it.  What I do know, is the day we got a phone call from Iraq was among the better days of my life.  There was still worry, of course but we knew, at least in that moment, he was alive and well.

Not that this time was without tragedy.

A high school friend of the Boy Child's was killed in action (among the first American casualties) on March 29, 2003 in Afghanistan.  I went to the wake, to pay my respects.  I knew the young man, not well, but well enough to know that I liked him.  And his sister had been a classmate of the Boy Child for, geez, maybe their entire school lives, and she was just such a sweet kid.

So I went.  And, looking back I really hope I didn't say something stupid to the family there.  I fear I did.  I really had no clue what I was doing.  That situation would change forever in a few months and I became much more familiar with condolences.

I think I'm going to start shutting this one down now.  I've never really had many conversations with the Boy Child about his military experiences.  I think he knows I'll always listen, but never having served, there are many things I have no frame of reference for.

But one thing I do have is the deepest respect for what he and his mates (s/o to Thor, Drunk Mike, Nate and so many others I met but don't remember) dealt with.

Thanks fellas for taking care of him while I couldn't.  I thank whatever it is that's responsible for bringing home, essentiallly, the same person he was when he left.  That's something many families can't say, and it's something I'll always be grateful for.  My kids (even though they're no longer kids, and haven't been for a long time) are a constant source of pride for so many reasons and I'm always proud of them.  But today, in this post, I hope my pride in my son shows through.

I'll end it by pushing a song by one of my current musical crushes, Jason Isbell.  It's about a young man he knew growing up.  A young man that was killed overseas, just short of the end of his second tour of duty.  Without getting overtly political, I've always had a soft spot for protest songs and there are few things more powerful than songs about young people dying too soon.  To that end, here's Dress Blues

Peace.

The Genius of doing good, or, "Hair" he goes again.

I'm not even going to apologize for the terrible pun, so let's get that out of the way right up front.

If you know me IRL, you know where my hairline is located.  That is to say, roughly at the back of my neck.  This is (only slightly) by choice.  It dates back to 2007; the first, and only, year I participated in St. Baldrick's head shaving fundraiser.  A friend had a child fighting a brain tumor (she kicked it's butt btw) and it seemed to me to be kind of a fun way to help out.  I wore my hair pretty close-cropped anyway and, after all, it's only hair.  I kind of liked not having any gray hair afterwards and decided to keep the look.  This, to me, eliminated the desire to do it again, since I'd already proven I'd do it.

There were a couple ulterior motives for sticking with baldness.  Shortly before this all took place, I was in the middle of a phone conversation with the Boy Child.  He'd had a union-related question and wanted to pick my brain.  He was at work at the time.  After I answered his query I heard him relay the information to his coworkers, and this is a direct quote -

"Hey, my Old Man said..."

Old.  Man.

Ex frickin scuse me?

I had never, to my knowledge, been referred to in that way before.  It didn't sit well, as confirmed by the hoots and hollers I heard back through the phone after I yelled at the Boy Child over his choice of alias. Also around this time, the Quiet Child made a similar age-related disparaging comment to me.  Apparently I was already numbed to it since I'm blanking on the particular unintended venom thrown my way.

So, my head-shaving was not completely selfless, since I gained something from it too.  As I said, not having the (mustache excluded) gray (and btw, the mustache is NOT going anywhere) was ok (except for about a three-week long lapse in judgement in my mid-twenties, it's been with me since I was able to grow one) with me.

Moving right along...

I have, here, on occasion, taken my grandfatherly privilege to spout off about the littles.  Even the not-so-little anymore Heir to the Throne, but this time I'm tipping my hat to the Boy Genius.

Last night, for the 4th year in a row, the Boy Genius took part in his local St. Baldrick's head shaving event.  This is, and has always been, something he wanted to do without any external prodding.  He does it to help kids in need.  He's a pretty special kid, all bias aside.  To do this event every year he's been win school is, to me, a very cool thing, and he's helped his school raise a nice bit of money for a charity that, by these metrics, seems to do things the right way.

And that's important.  It's important to me, and it should be important to you too.  We all work hard for our money *pulls out soapbox, climbs up on top* and if, at the end of the week when we sit down to pay bills, we have a little extra to give to those less fortunate, we should be sure the money goes where we want to go and not to pad some CEO's personal bottom line.

There are numerous examples of where not to send your money, fire up your Google machine before you give.

*puts soapbox away*

So, I just want to go on record to tell my readers, both of you, how proud I am of this guy

For doing this 

Again.

In addition to raising progressives, it seems we're doing a pretty good job of raising thoughtful, caring, considerate human beings too.

I'm a pretty fortunate guy, don't you think?

Peace

"Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh! They're going the wrong way!"

I believe this is a first.  I mean, I've alluded to my job in the past, but I'm fairly certain I've never actually written about an event, or series of events, at work.

And then, today, or rather, this morning, happened.

Allow me to flesh this one out a little.

We've had this particular new guy for, oh, about three months.  He's on a rotation through our stations, trying to get a little bit from each house while being evaluated by each of our Lieutenants.  It's what we do with our new guys now.  In attempt to be diligent in keeping the cream of the crop of new guys (a generic term, btw.  I mean no offense to any non-male persons that might be skimming through this mess) our bosses felt it would be better to let all of the officers on a shift determine the relative value of our new people (better?) rather than the traditional way of keeping them with one shift for their entire probationary period.

Clear as mud?

Back to the matter at hand...

I wasn't sure what to make of, oh, let's call him, Seinfeld.  I mean, he seemed fine, but typically new guys come in really nervous and old guys tend to intimidate them (without even trying) and as a result it takes a little while to get a read on how they'll be, both on the job and in real life, you know?

He was quiet at first, did all the "new guy" duties and started fitting in with the rest of us.  In time, we learned that, in addition to being #1 on our list, he was also valedictorian (pretty sure that's the first time I've ever dropped THAT one up in here) of his paramedic class.  Bright kid, hard worker, good, albeit raw, skills.  I think he'll be fine, I really do.  He'll be here for the next thirty-three (I know, right? 3frickin3) years and I (that's 2048 to you and me) think he's got (if you're scoring at home *shout out to Patrick and Olbermann* or even if you're alone, I'll turn 90 years old the same year) a really bright future here.

Of course the journey from point A to point B is not without it's bumps and bruises...

I may have mentioned it before, I've been fortunate over the years to work with some pretty talented cooks here, and that's no small feat.  Of course I had nothing to do with the selection of same, just dumb luck, but my belly has been well-cared for pretty much my entire career.

Today, when we got back from shopping Seinfeld asked how he could help in food prep and was tasked with cutting up the mangoes for salsa (pork tacos for lunch, homemade pizzas for dinner)(And yes, they'll both be as good as they sound #sorrynotsorry).  I asked if he had ever cut up a mango before.  In case you're unfamiliar, they can be quite tricky and not a little treacherous if you don't know the trick.  The fruit itself feels a tad bit slimy and the pit is ginormous.  If you don't give yourself a stable base, it's easy to inadvertently cut yourself.  And I didn't want that to happen.  So I asked.

The reply?

"Sure I've cut them before"

Unconvinced by his tone I continued "Describe to me how you do it."

"You just peel it"

"Really?  You just peel it?  How?"

So one of the other guys showed him how to cut up the mango to avoid injury.

This is just one of the many adventures we've had in our brief time together.  I'm not sure if he thinks I'm always messing with him (I'm not, I'm too old for that nonsense) or if he thinks I'm enfeebled.  I tend to support the latter theory.

This morning, for example.  We got an ambulance call first thing this morning, at an address that has two different ways in.  Like, completely different.  Like you can literally make a right turn out of the firehouse or a left turn out of the firehouse and, other than the street the address is on, never use the same street until you arrive at the address.

Typically, I choose to go left, through the neighborhoods.  It's windy (not the atmospheric condition, I mean it has many turns) and you have to pay attention (or spend a few years in this station learning the streets) or you'll make a wrong turn and nobody ever likes that, but imho, it's the fastest way to get where we needed to go.  So, since I've spent over half of my twenty three years at this station, I don't even give it a second thought, I turn left and drive to the call.

As we were leaving, I was going to wait and let the ambulance go first, but they hesitated briefly so I pulled out of the station and turned left, the ambulance following behind us.  We drove to the scene, took care of business and started back to the station.  Until we caught another one.  We got back to quarters a little while later and soon after, the ambulance returned from the hospital.  Seinfeld's partner du' jour said "He thought you didn't know where you were going."

See the title for an exact quote.

Sigh.

 Can I just add here that while I'm crafting this fine piece of literature we've got "The Fast and the Furious 83" on in the background (a story for another day) and let me just say I'm shocked, SHOCKED that none of those movies have ever won an Oscar for Best Picture.

But I digress...

Seinfeld is the first one we've hired that was born after I started here.  Don't think that doesn't sting a little.  And, as I approach the end of my career, I feel I have much to add to the education of these still-wet-behind-the-ears new people.

Just as they have much to offer me.

Like an almost limitless stream of amusement.

Peace.