Day #43

Day #43. Biblical time of testing is 40 days. I have a feeling this one isn't going by the book. We are off the script now.

Liz and the baby are in Lansing. Her parents and sisters were generous enough to volunteer to help this week. We have been immensly blessed so far by all the family members who have stepped up and offered to help us out with Liz and the baby. It's been really great to have such a huge outpouring of care.

Even though it's great to have people offer to help, it's getting really old not seeing my daughter or wife anymore. I miss having them around. Once you have been married for awhile, sometimes when you have the house to yourself for a night, you enjoy the break. You stay up a bit later, watch whatever YOU want on TV, drink a few beers, it's kind of fun. The second night you attempt another dose of the single life, which doesn't taste quite as good, and by the third night, it's like swallowing a bitter pill. I'm just lonely. I don't sleep without my daughter in the other room.

I hate when my wife hogs the bed, or rips the covers off of me, but right now, I would kill to have her do that again.

I am now on day #13 of singleness. It's really not cool anymore. I'm ready to stop walking around in my boxers already.

I'm working midnights right now, which means I go to work at 9pm, get home around 7 or 8 am, and crash until roughly 4pm. That means you are a giant worthless turd for the duration of the daylight hours. I feel like the time flys by, and I don't know if I am coming or going. At least if the family was here I could spend some QT with them. I need to stop complaining. At least I have a job, thank you Jesus.

I realize this doesn't read very smoothly, I apologize. Look at the time I am posting this. At this time of night/morning I can only generate cognitive sentences. My ability to generate paragraphs departed around 1am.

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers. We need them.

Lesson's I (We) are learning - Day #37

It's now been 37 days since Liz first ruptured the disk in her back.

37 days since she has slept through the night.
37 days since she has walked to the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, laundry room, etc. without bending over and nearly collapsing.
37 days since she was pain free.
37 days since things were last 'normal'.

Since this whole journey started we have seen 6 seperate doctors in two different cities 95 miles apart. We have seen:

The OB.
Family physician
Back Specialist
Pain Management Specialist
Osteopathic spinal manipulator
Physical Therapist
Spinal Neurosurgeon (Jack Shepherd)

Wait that's 7 doctors...

Liz has been poked, prodded, stretched and yanked in so many different ways, it seems almost comical when we go to a new doctor, because I just want to say, 'uh, excuse me, but this hasn't worked the last five times, let's try something new'.

The final diagnosis is that she has severly ruptured her L4/L5 disc in her back, causing her Sciatica Nerve to pinch which in turn atrophe's the muscles surrounding it causing spasm's of intense pain and general numbness down her right leg. Vicadin doesn't help cut the pain anymore. Tylenol is a joke, and we can't take anti-inflammatory's because of the risk to our baby in her belly. We can't do surgery either, because she is pregnant and spontaneous abortions are a serious risk for this type of surgery.

The Neurosurgeon's (Jack Shepherd) exact words to her on Monday morning were 'you are between a rock and a hard place. It's not going to be easy'. How is that for comfort? That's like saying, uh, your life is going to suck for awhile.

Our plan currently is to have a C-Section birth for baby numero dos, and 4 weeks later, Liz will go back under the knife for a Spinal Disk Fusion, where they will build a mechanical cage around her L4/L5 disc's so they can't rupture again. That is a 2-3 month recovery time. If you do the math out, it's looking like couch/bed rest for the duration of 2010. At least the fun parts of 2010.

Even in this situation, despite all the tears Liz and I have shed together, she has such a great attitude. She is still able to laugh, able to joke with me. I can't honestly say that if it was me, my attitude would be that good. Hell, my attitude sucks sometimes, and I can stand up whenever i want. Liz said to me the other day: "sometimes I hear someone complain, and i get so frustrated because they don't even understand, I would kill to have that problem. When this all goes away, and things go back to normal, I am going to remember how thankful I am for the little things"

Is that what you want to teach us God? Thankfulness? Submission to you? Reliance on you? Trust? Faith?

Can we stop learning lesson's the hard way please? It's our prayer that thru this extremely trying portion of life, we would be able to glorify God, and somehow use this experience to minister to someone down the line. We have no idea where God is taking this one, and we still can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes I wonder if the tunnel is caving in, pray for us to Trust God.

Bucket List

Lately, I have been struck by how short and fragile life is. So here's a start at a bucket list.

1. Live forever.

Yeah, that oughta cover it.

The Earing in the Underpants.

To all of my devoted followers (the 4 of you):

I apologize for my blogging laziness. I have decided to redirect the intentions of this blog. Previously, I had strove for earth shattering insight. I will now attempt to share some of the lessons I have learned along the way as a father.

Lesson #1:

There are times when your daughter cries. She cries when she is hungry, tired, hurt, etc. Sometimes she cries when she has a dirty diaper. Normally though, she just smiles once she has finished releiving herself. After all, who doesn't enjoy a little poo in their pants?

This one particular day, Juliet and I were playing on the floor and she was frolicking like she normally does, when she started to fuss. First it was a minor fussing, than it was some wimpering, and within a few minutes, there was an all out wailing. I had no idea what brought this on, so I went thru the steps:

1. Did she bonk her head? - No bumps or red marks, Check.
2. Did she load her drawers? - Nothing stinks so, Check.
3. Is she hungry? - Want's nothing to do with Cheerio's or a Bottle, Check.
4. Is she tired? - Won't lay in my arms and rock with a bottle, Check.

At this point it's been 15 minutes of tears and bogus solutions, still with no resolution and I am getting frustrated. In my world of perfect logic, and cause and effect, there is no reason for this uncontrolled fussing. I start undressing her to put her in the tub (last ditch attempt for happiness), get her down to her diaper and take that off too. Lo and Behold, her dad-gum earing has somehow fallen out of her ear and into her diaper, and is poking her in the butt everytime she moves. Good grief, no wonder she's crying, she's getting jabbed in the ass.

Now I feel like a jerk for ever getting frustrated, because heck, I would cry if there was an earing in butt too.

Moral of the story: Not everything makes sense. Sometimes you have to look for the earing in the underpants.

Prospects

So its been about five days since I last posted. I had a helluva day today. A big 'screw you' goes out to Hess Glass, DTE, DPW, DWSD & Owners who don't pay invoices.

Highlights included:

1. Lunch with Garth at HardRock. It was good to have some relaxing dude time.
2. Getting called back and a phone interview by Chicago.
3. Talking to Liz.
4. Having an adult beverage by the pool while relaxing and reading a whole book.
5. Reading a book.
6. Talking to Liz.

I was really impressed with myself. I went to the pool, had a drink, sat down and read all 170 pages of the book. The book I read was 'Sheet Music'. It's about the importance of Sex in Marriage. It was phenomenal. I needed to read that. It really reminded me alot about how selfish I am and how much I need to be giving with my body and my affections. If you're married, I would reccomend this book. It really grabs you by the cheeks and shakes you awake and makes you think about your sex life. Now if only Liz would come back from Lansing...

Running on Borrowed Time

Facing the more than probably end of my company in the not so distant future, I find myself looking for jobs. Again. I just started here 10 months ago. All I want is some stability. I am pretty damn sure that I am the angel of death for construction companies. If this company goes under I am 2/2. And it's looking good. I work hard - 50-60 hours a week and the harder I work the faster I put myself out of a job.

What do you do? Do I go slower? Drag things on? Act busy and make work out of nothing?

That's not the answer. If I am truly working to please God, I need to be excellent to the best of my abilities. Even if that means putting myself out of a job two months ahead of schedule. So I will continue to pray and job search. I will continue to be successful and make my company as much money as I can and be the best I can be until I get let go or I find another job. So I can spread my angel of death powers somewhere else.

Sin is a funny thing

Here's the deal. I've been realizing in my old age that sin is a tricky thing. The bible talks about how it ensnares you and how you can sear your conscience, and this is what I've realized; it's even worse than that. It starts small. You sin once. You feel guilty. You don't do it for awhile. You start to think about it again. You do it again thinking 'one more time ain't the end of the world'. You don't feel quite as guilty. You do it again, maybe even harder, deeper, more intentionally than last time. You don't feel guilty now. You get excited thinking of the rush of doing it again. You do it again. You get caught. You defend yourself. You think you're justified. You don't think it's wrong. You're so deep now that you can't see the forrest thru the trees. Game Over. Insert two more quarters to continue.

It's really scary because now you start to think other people are prudes, are judgmental, whatever, when they try to point it out to you. At this point, short of the Holy Spirit moving in you, you'll never think you have wronged someone, sinned against The Father.

Enter the plug for accountability. If you have someone in your life who you actually listen to, not just hear, but listen to, then listen to them when they point out issues in your life. If you don't have someone like this - find that someone.

Thank God for Grace. And Second chances. And Third chances. If it wasn't for the cross there would be no do-overs.