My second trip to the ER

Some people find good fortune in their lives. One of mine is that I've only been to the Emergency Room twice and incidentally, they've both been with our beloved Elizabeth. A few weeks ago I received a call from our dear Elizabeth who sounded less than perky on the other end of the phone. "What's up?" I inquired. "Can you take me to the doctor?" I knew it was serious since it was a Sunday afternoon. Upon my arrival to the Damico apartment I found Elizabeth barely able to move because of tremendous pain she was experiencing. While we waited for her dad to arrive (we were both level-headed enough to realize Micaela shouldn't be left alone) we searched for a clinic/hospital to go to. We had enough time to discover which facility ranked well in terms of bedside service, food, and treatment. After weighing all the factors we drove to Fairview Riverside Hospital; I was glad to finally have a legimate reason to use the police lights that I previously purchased when they were selling of Chips memorabilia.



Since Elizabeth was born at Fairview Riverside they had all her information on file but that didn't mean she was excused from giving her symptoms and medical history at least 10 times to the professionals. Later when I reviewed the rankings of the hospitals, I discovered Fairview ranked low on efficiency of files - oh well.



After limited time in the waiting room across from a young girl who had her nose clothespinned shut, we were escorted to a room where Elizabeth was asked to lie in the bed that was directly in the center of the room - a true ER moment which would allow all staff to come rushing in at a moment's notice and get at every angle of her body. Fortunately such drastic measures were not required and the only person who came in was a good-looking resident, Dr. Galvez. After his intial leaving, Elizabeth turned to me and said, "Of course I would get the hot Latino doctor." Contrary to my first ER visit with Elizabeth, the doctors and nurses who assisted us did not provide as many funny comments. However, Dr. Galvez did say, "I'm putting my hands in hot water so that you will like my hands. Hopefully that will make it better." I had all I could do to not keep from busting my own gut in the corner, and fortunately Elizabeth and I could not make eye contact.



By now you may be wondering what kind of symptoms Elizabeth displayed. After describing what had been happening all afternoon and the location of her pain, they were convinced it was her gallbladder. Dr. Galvez said that sometimes he sees sludge - gross! Who wants to know they have sludge in their body?



After another period of waiting the long-haired, straight-talking (and almost equally attractive) doctor burst through the door saying he was the one actually in charge. "So you had one of those good weekend breakfasts and now you're in pain. Did you at least go somewhere good?" he asked. Elizabeth responded, "I went to the Dinkytowner." "So you went somewhere bad? That's not even worth it. If you woulda had coffee that would've taken care of it - try that next time." His comments may sound unsympathetic, but honestly he was funny and seemed to enjoy his job - especially when two funny ladies came in on a Sunday afternoon.



At this point in our ER visit it was determined necessary for an ultrasound to performed on Elizabeth. No, don't go there - Elizabeth was not having a pregnancy ultrasound! Hospital policy seemed to be that transportation of patients was either by bed or an extra wide wheelchair to the ultrasound area. Elizabeth chose the wheelchair option, and as we were escorted to the ultrasound area I'm pretty sure we were being escorted into a danger zone in order to be abandoned. Walking down a windy, unlevel, sterile white hallway past signs which read"Danger, do not enter" I wondered where we were going. The hallways were abandoned; the wheelchair driver said he didn't know where he was going. At this point I was suspicious that we were being led into a place beyond return and began to drop bread crumbs just in case we needed to escape and find our way back on our own.



In the ultrasound waiting room I found the perfect souvenir for Micaela - a Mickey Mouse and gang surgical mask. Hopefully she still has it because with this recent outbreak of the swine flu she may need it. I know the seventh commandment says you shouldn't steal, but in such instances I think it is okay.



After the ultrasound we were instructed to wait in the abandoned hallway for another wheelchair driver. I was glad that I did leave the bread crumbs because it took forever for someone to come and find us - I thought we were maybe left to fend for ourselves.



I must be honest and say at this point I was becoming a little antsy so that when we returned to our room for further waiting I turned on the TV. Since I do not have a TV I thought we could find something good using the hospital cable. I should have known better and when Dr. Galvez came back to report that the ultrasound was clear I couldn't figure out how to the turn the TV. When such a things happens to you, it is best to turn the volume down and pretend like everything is normal. When nurse Nancy arrived I confessed my inability to turn the TV off. Clearly it was a neglected apparatus because it refused to be turned off.

We left the hospital with a painkilling narcotic prescription and headed home. As I commented earlier, this ER visit wasn't nearly as funny as the first one. Maybe it was the absence of Many which made all the difference, or the fact that Elizabeth wasn't nearly as ill as the first experience. Regardless, I'm glad that my ER visits are not frequent and that when I get to go, I get to go with Elizabeth.

June availability

I'm available all weekends in June, except Jun 19-21 - it's family weekend with the extended Andersons and since I organized the weekend it would be poor form if I didn't show up.

June?

Hello friends-first of all, I would just like to say there has been a pathetic showing on the blog. I know people have babies, internships, new jobs, and just life in general to share...come on!

Second, I'm wondering about June. What weekends work for people? I have the same schedule every weekend in June with class until 3pm on Friday and church on Sunday (although maybe I could get a weekend off). The only weekend that will not work for me is June 26-28, but I think that's much later than we would look into.

So--cast your vote! What weekend are we getting together?!?!?!?!?! Even if you just post your available dates and nothing else, that would be good...it will take you 30 seconds...ready....GO! Love you all!

Catching up...

Wow, when you only go on-line like, once every 3 weeks, you miss a lot. I loved reading all the posts (Elizabeth, I know that only you are sophisticated and dignified enough to pull off the "toddler pee on the skirt" look). And, congratulations, Breanna! You have an extremely beautiful little girl! I hope you're enjoying motherhood! It's a wonderful, crazy adventure.

Things are very busy for us here. Addyson is keeping us busy and keeping us laughing. She's just starting to walk, so I've been doing some extra baby-proofing. Baby number 2 is also keeping me on my toes already. I was on a couple of days of bed-rest last week because of some pre-mature contractions, but after a couple of days of rest everything returned to normal.

My family is thankful the flooding in Fargo is under control. My dad was at work for 48 hours at a time during the height of the flood fight. He oversaw quite a few of the dike building projects. Ryan also spent a lot of time sandbagging; his work closed for the week so all employees could sandbag and he spent every day in Fargo or Moorhead for 9-10 hour shifts. The hospital and nursing home I work at took in evacuees from Eventide and MeritCare, so we were very busy as well. Finally, my whole family worked very hard to save my Uncle Jim's home; he lives on highway 75 south of Moorhead, and had water right up to the top of his sandbag dike, which was built to 42 feet. Things went well, though, and he only ended up with a little bit of water in his basement.

Well, I'm off to bed. We've been sleeping an average of 2 hours a night at our house for the past week, because Addy is getting 4 molars at one time. So, I'm going to take advantage of the quiet time while I can. Take care, everyone!

true story.

and now for another episode from "How the hell did I get here?"

Its 10:55am on Palm Sunday and I am doing the quick transfer of Micaela from Sunday School to the family she was going to sit with during worship. Micaela begins doing a sassy dance with her hips (which I proudly think is the start of her salsa career) when she yelps, "Mommy I have to go potty RIGHT NOW!" I pick her up, hussle in the bathroom and get her on the toilet in an impressive 38 seconds. I squat down in front of her to help hold her up and she sends her stream straight out at me! Now, the front of my denim skirt is covered in toddler pee! I yell, "Micaela!" nearly drop her in the toilet while trying to get out of the way and all while scare my poor, sensitive child. Then she chuckles quietly, "I peed on you."

I now have 3 minutes before church starts (we've sacrificed the prelude at this point) and begin the fun work of trying to get the stink out of my skirt and try to not look I just peed myself before walking across the front of the sanctuary to the piano. Luckily the wash of my skirt hid the wet pretty well, but not totally. Nobody said anything...they are all so nice.

a new class

Yesterday I started a new class entitled Worship and Ethics: Political Ethics which will have the overarching question of wondering what about the relationship between citizenship in Christ and citizenship in a nation state. Already I can tell it is going to be good, but the content is going to be powerful that I think I will feel the need to blog about it occasionally. Bear with me.

In our first class we watched a 2005 PBS documentary entitled The Question of Torture. Whoa! Talk about a powerful, disturbing, make your stomach sick and your heart hurt film. The film gave many interviews of people who were in charge of rewriting law that gave the President unprecedented power in times of war as well as exposing Rumsfeld's insistence to get information from 'terrorists' by any means necessary and Alberto Gonzales saying terrorism is an illegitimate act and terrorists shouldn't be guaranteed the rights from the Geneva Conventions Act.

As a person of faith, this is beyond troubling. It even goes beyond disturbing. Yet, how do we convince people that such heinous activities are simply not permissible and certainly not tolerable?

In a 2006 Christianity Today article, David Gushee gives five reasons why torture is always wrong.

1. "Torture violates the dignity of the human being"- Here he cites that all are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:28), and that bodily integrity has been an agreed upon right of all humans.
2. "Torture mistreats the vulnerable and violates the demands of justice"- injustice comes when we dominate the powerless (i.e. prisoners/detainees)
3. "Authorizing torture trusts government too much"-
4. "Torture dehumanizes the torturer"- I find this a highly provocative - in high stress situations does everyone finally have a breaking point?
5. "Torture erodes the character of the nation that tortures"- Here he says that nations have certain things which they can claim as their identity. Some things come and go (certain causes or threats) but one lasting impression is what can be said about the moral identity of a nation. What can be said about the U.S. which has allowed such actions to take place?

So there you have it. A few thoughts. If you want to read the articles that I read this week, here are the sites- neither one of them is very long.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=38136

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301303.html