Milagro

Post by J

The last few weeks have been challenging. Not only am I learning a language from absolute zero (okay, I guess I did know how to count to 10 when I started), I received yet more bad news from home about a week after my uncle passed away.

My older brother called on Wednesday night (November 12) around 7:00. As soon as I saw the caller ID, I knew something serious had happened, because my brother never calls me. This is what he said:

My dad has had a bad cough for a few months. He's gone to the doctor at least three times because of it, primarily because he coughs so hard he loses oxygen and passes out. The doctor, unfortunately, did not seem too concerned. He listened to Dad's lungs.  An x-ray was taken. The doctor did not find anything unusual, so basically dismissed my dad and his complaint.

On November 12, Dad started coughing. He decided to stand over a trashcan and spit out whatever resulted from his coughing attack. The coughing became severe and my dad passed out. And fell. On his neck.

He regained consciousness and was in a lot of pain. He decided to try and tough it out and crawled to his chair where he thought the pain would ease. It didn't. Fifteen minutes later, he called my brother's girlfriend and asked her to take him to the hospital.

"Hang on," I interrupted my brother. "Shouldn't he have called an ambulance?"

"He said he didn't want the expense of an ambulance," was my brother's reply.

So, after an excruciating ride to the emergency room, the ER doctor ordered x-rays. One look and my dad was life-flighted to Denver. So much for saving the expense of an ambulance ride.

After more tests and an MRI, Dad went into surgery on Thursday morning. The surgery took hours, and my sister and younger brother and I were pretty much in the dark the entire time because HIPAA prevented the hospital staff from speaking to anyone but my older brother. And they weren't giving my older brother much information, either.

As a result of the surgery, my dad has two fused vertebrae and two wounds, one in the front and one in the back of his neck - a testament to the extent of the surgery. Amazingly, after only a few days, he was released from the hospital on Sunday, November 16. He is in a neck brace and is expected to make a full recovery.

The surgeon said he couldn't believe Dad had walked to the car and had been driven to the hospital without sustaining further injury. He also said that Dad missed being paralyzed by a millimeter.

Milagro is the Spanish word for miracle.

Me and Dad, August 2014.

No Words

Post by J

Life was moving along at a predictable pace until this past weekend. R and I spent a Saturday in Annapolis with good friends whom we hadn't seen in many years. We moved from our apartment into a larger unit in a different complex closer to downtown. We completed our first week of language training. I was starting to establish a routine that I expected to continue for the next several months.

And then this past weekend. I received a call from my close friend back in Wyoming, telling me of heartbreaking, incomprehensible news. Our friend's son, in college studying art, was at a party on Halloween and tried to break up a fight. He was punched in the head, fell and hit his head on the street curb, suffered a traumatic brain injury, and died. He was 21.

I didn't know him well. I had met him a few times and knew him mostly from hearing his mom talk about him. Through her, I know he was kind. I know that he was loving and giving and good to his parents and his brother. I simply cannot make sense of this and my heart aches for this family. They were close and supportive. They loved each other. And now there will be a perpetual absence that this boy should have filled with his life. There are no words that will comfort, no words to console. I'm crying and praying for them, but I feel so inadequate and powerless.

And yesterday, I learned that my uncle had passed away. My dad's older brother (by 14 months) had gone into the hospital a mere three weeks ago, unaware that he even had the cancer that would take his life. The consolation is that he didn't linger in a state of suffering.  He was nearly 80, but speaking from experience, it's never easy to lose a parent - at any age - and my heart goes out to his children. He was always kind to me, always interested in what I was doing, in what was going on in my life. Of my dad's seven siblings, this man was the one he was closest to. I will miss him, but I know my dad will miss him more. And this means that my dad has lost three siblings this year.

So. Two deaths in two days, at opposite ends of life. By some measure, one makes sense, while the other never will.

Certainly, any problems I think I have pale in comparison to what these families are suffering. I have no right to complain. What I have is an obligation to honor them by living my life to my best, highest self. To never take for granted the opportunity I have to live in this world and try to make it a little better for others. Because life is tenuous; it can be snatched away - little by little, or in one cruel yank. You just don't know.

All you can do is to tell your loved ones how important they are to you. Call your daughter just to hear her voice. Call your son to listen to his troubles, even if you've heard them all before. Visit your uncle or your mom or your grandma and hold his or her hand. Connect with a friend who may need you. It's all you can do and somehow, it has to be enough.