Medical Procedures, Feather Pillows, Allergic Reactions, & Wailing!

Above: Adi graduated preschool!

Prayer Cards

I was talking to Rex “Tex” O’Keefe and he complimented me on my previous blog post, Procrastination & Motivation. “Every time you go through trials we get a good post out of it,” he said. “Also, thanks for your prayer card.”

I nodded, humbly acknowledging that he said something nice. If I was a good writer, I’d understand why people like what I write. As it is, I’m more of an accidental comedian. Even a blind squirrel finds a few nuts every now and then, as my supervisor Jay often says. Also, we do have new prayer cards (we’ll be trying to send them to people on our newsletter list). Rex managed to get his grubby hands on one.

“I’m glad I have it because it reminds to pray that God sends you more trials so we can get more good blogs.”

“Stop abusing my prayer card, Rex!” I shout at him. “Give that thing back to me!”

Rex’s prayers have been working, that’s the annoying part. Why would God listen to a guy like Rex anyway?

Pathetic Pillows

Now the first thing I want to complain about is my terrible pillow. Apparently my head has the properties of a bowling ball because I keep flattening my pillows. Then one day I fell asleep on the floor with my head on a square, vacuum sealed bag of diapers and after I woke up, I realized that I actually slept pretty good. So I took the bag of diapers and put them on my bed. For a little extra padding I simply laid a folded towel on top of the bag. I used it for several weeks and it wasn’t bad, actually.

Janice couldn’t imagine normal people using such a thing for pillow and she needed to use the diapers before Oliver grew out of them so she bought me a fancy down pillow for my birthday. Imagine that, a pillow for my birthday. Actually, I was quite happy which means I’m getting old, I guess. But the fancy one went flat too. So she returned it and bought another one. This one got terrible reviews because everyone thought it was too hard. Sounded perfect, and yet that one went flat too. So Janice went on the warpath, ripped apart a cheap decorative feather pillow we had on the couch, and stuffed its guts into my fancy pillow. As it turns out, expensive down is nice and soft while cheap down has more hard feathers in it. The hard feathers work better for my situation. So now I have one-of-a-kind overstuffed pillow to rule them all. Thanks Janice!

Bound and Gagged and Talking About Gallbladders

Of course, pillows are just silly problems. Since we’re planning on moving to Papua New Guinea where medical care is rudimentary, we’re going through our checklist of medical ailments and getting them fixed

Janice was having gallbladder issues and so we started investigating it further. I should say Janice began investigating it further. Soon every conversation in our house was inevitably bound, gagged, thrown in the back of a van and taken by force to the subject of gallbladders and the intricate details of their functions and malfunctions. I was ready to get it taken out so she would stop talking about it. Still, it seems a bit rash to remove an organ just so your wife will be quiet about it. Besides, what if it didn’t fix the problem? Then all I’d hear for the rest of her life is how she should have never taken it out it. No, I can’t risk a lifetime of gallbladder conversations. So we began looking for solutions. After an ultrasound revealed she had gallstones we met with a surgeon to talk about our options. He said even though gallbladder surgeries are his favorite and he really wanted to take one out again, Janice’s gallbladder wasn’t the cause of her discomfort. Instead it was most likely GERD (basically acid reflux). We are delighted that we don’t have to take one of Janice’s organs out and throw it in the trash can.

So now the conversations have been shifted to GERD. Interestingly enough GERD can be caused by ulcers and ulcers can be caused by a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori in the stomach. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. Anyway, Janice is going to get tested for H. pylori in the next week or so.

GERD can also wreck your teeth because of the increased amount of acid in your mouth. Interestingly enough Janice has had issues with her teeth all her life. While she was just chalking it up to genetics, we may finally be unearthing the real reason she’s been enriching dentists her whole life. I think she sent one of her dentist’s kids to college. We recently started going to a new dentist and his first reaction, after seeing all the work done to Janice’s teeth, was to ask if Janice had any other medical issues. It was like striking an oil well. So much medical information about GERD came spewing from Janice’s mouth that the poor man was pinned to the wall behind him until Janice had to take a breath. He was the first medical professional who made the connection between all of Janice’s seemingly unrelated ailments. So this is a praise that we’re getting to the bottom of an issue Janice has likely been struggling with for many years. Good for you Janice, for getting to the bottom of it.

Of course, Janice isn’t the only one who has been examined by medical professionals.

Medical Diagnosis: Just a Fatty Lump

The other day I went and got some cysts chopped out of my arm. It turns out they were lipomas, or lumps of fat, and are completely benign. It may not surprise you that I’ve been medically diagnosed as a lump of fat, but to me it was a relief. When you find lumps on yourself, you always imagine cancer, death, and – even worse – huge medical bills. Now I did have them looked at before and the diagnosis was always that they were benign but they weren’t sure if they would cause problems down the road.

“They could be a cysts or they could be lipomas.” The doctor said. “Cysts have a possibility of getting infected in the future because they always have a pore or an opening to the outside of the skin. Lipomas won’t cause you any trouble but we won’t know which they are until we take one out,” the doctor said while fondling his surgical scalpel in anticipation. That always makes me a little nervous when doctors do that. Sort of like when nurses look at your veins and gush about how they want to poke you with needles.

That was a couple years ago. Lately I got a couple more cysts on my arms and they looked weird. No one know what causes them although they say it’s hereditary. That makes sense because my brother, my dad, and my grandpa all had some removed. Not wanting to be left out, I decided it was time to get mine removed. Plus I’m a vain person.

I have a friend who just became a Physician’s Assistant and I offered him first dibs on the slice and dice procedure. “You could practice your cutting and stitching without worrying about how it looks,” I said. He seemed tempted but ultimately decided that we probably shouldn’t do it at his kitchen table. Liability or something like that. What are friends with degrees for anyway? So I resigned myself to the system and went in to the local doctor’s office.

While the PA was chopping, cutting, and stitching we were engaging in small talk. Somehow we got on the conversation of homeschooling. I mentioned that I was walking around trying to find bugs and gross things to put in clear epoxy so that we could study them with magnifying glasses. “It’s very educational,” I said, sounding like an educated person myself. “Plus, there’s something satisfying about suspending gross things in a clear solid so you can admire its grossness up close.” Like normal, the longer I kept my mouth open the less educated I sounded.

“Is cutting out cysts like cutting up chicken breast?” I asked. I’m not good at small talk. I got the impression that my questions weren’t normal.

The PA finished up the procedure and asked me if I wanted to see the lipomas they dug out of me.

“Of course!” I replied, trying not to sound too enthusiastic.

She picked up the lump with a tweezers and held it in front of my face. “Oooooo. Can I keep one?” I asked her. It was part of my body. I have more right to it than anyone else does.

“Why?” She asked suspiciously. After reflecting for a few moments she figured it out, “You’re going to put it in epoxy aren’t you?”

I smirked. “Possibly.”

Her laughter was a little unprofessional but she graciously put it in a little jar filled with alcohol. It’s sitting on my desk waiting to be put on display. Someday when you see a finely preserved example of a large lipoma firsthand, you’ll thank me!

They set up an appointment a week later to get my stitches taken out. As the week drew to a close I was sitting at the table doing something mindless and watching Janice alter a dress. She was picking out stitches on the dress and I thought, “Well wait just a minute. The stitching she’s picking out is much more delicate than this fishing line in my arm. Why can’t she just take out my stitches?” Janice didn’t seem opposed (I suspect she views me as a large dairy cow to take care of at times) and so she looked up “How to take out stitches” on YouTube. All it took was some alcohol and tweezers and we saved ourselves a trip to the doctor. Who needs a degree to do that! Good job Janice! Later the doctor called to see why I had canceled my follow up appointment (I had canceled without saying why I wasn’t coming in because I knew they would snort and laugh when I said I got get my wife to do it). I told them my wife took them out. They snorted and laughed and told me to have a good day. Despite my best efforts I suspect that the doctor’s office thinks we’re a little strange.

Financial Fallout

Adi and Janice also went to the dentist the other day. It’s kind of like playing Russian roulette with your finances. They innocently went for a cleaning and routine examination and accidentally dropped a tactical nuke on our bank account. “I’m going to need a root canal and crown,” Janice said, “And Adi has six cavities that are just starting to form. They gave her a Flouride treatment and will need to treat the spots before they can fully form.” Every time I figure out a way to make the budget work and I’m tempted to smile and relax, God sends more trials requiring faith that I don’t have yet. I need to require people to sign a contract stating that they’ll only pray for good things before I give them a prayer card. That Rex “Tex” O’Keefe – wait’ll I get my hands on him!

Wailing versus Whining

That evening as we were reading bedtime stories, Adi began complaining that there was something in her throat. I told her to drink some water. She drank water but still kind of whined about it. I find it hard to take her seriously at times because our children are excellent wailers. In Biblical times there were professional mourners who would show up at funerals and wail and make the deceased seem more popular. Sadly, having wailing children doesn’t have the same effect on your perceived popularity. People just think you’re a lousy parent. My children could have a thriving career as mourners, if it weren’t for the fact that our culture doesn’t really do that. It’s too bad because they would make the best wailers you’ve ever heard. It’s really something. So then you can forgive me for not taking her mild wailing very seriously. After all, she’s capable of much more and if it was really bothering her, I’d have to close my ears to keep them from imploding. Still, her wailing did begin to increase and after awhile Janice and I were concerned that she wasn’t just being dramatic. She was also holding her stomach and complaining that it hurt. Then Adi began hyperventilating and saying she couldn’t breathe. Now she had our attention! We whipped out the bottle of Benadryl and administered it with the urgency of a firefighter hosing down a burning chemical factory. As we were sitting around waiting for it to take effect, we began going over what she had eaten, her day’s activities, and anything else that could possibly trigger an allergic reaction. The only thing we could come up with was her Flouride treatment she had at the dentist. So we Googled the possible side effects. Sure enough, abdominal pain and throat swelling were up there as the top symptoms. Well, now we know. I guess it’s rare but I wish they would’ve mentioned the possibilities of side effects. What if we were on an airplane or something where Benadryl wasn’t available? Thank God that ten minutes after we gave her Benadryl the symptoms were greatly reduced. I know some people are yelling at me, “Flouride is the devil! It’s poison! Bill Gates is using it to sterilize the world’s population! You should know better than to let the give your child a Flouride treatment.” I’ve had the treatments my whole life and never had issues. Having cavities isn’t good for you either. Pick your poison. We are starting to monitor our children’s tooth brushing much more closely. Before I’d throw a toothbrush and toothpaste in their general direction. They would basically just eat it and I’d sigh and call it good. By the end of the day my willpower isn’t measurable on any scale. Besides, I thought, they are baby teeth. They’ll fall out anyway. Apparently the back tooth will stay in there for almost a decade so we can’t let them just decay until they fall out. I didn’t know they stay in there that long! Now every tooth gets scrubbed like it’s prepping to perform a surgery. Nothing motivates a dad to care like the possibility of spending large amounts of money. (There was that time almost four years ago that I blogged about children not having to brush their teeth because they’ll fall out anyway)

On A Positive Note

I did manage to drive the car to Pennsylvania and back again last week without incident. We picked up two new supporters and I managed to speak at two church services and a baccalaureate service (I didn’t know what that was before I was asked to speak at one) without being thrown out on the sidewalk. So it’s all good. Thanks for praying for good things to happen to our family!

Here’s a video of two brothers laughing as they perform mischief.