a few random stories from you guys

I know MG is not a saint (well, that's not true; as a Believer, she is a saint).
I know MG is not perfect. I am far from perfect. I am not trying to make either of us out to be perfect, or better, or that we have it all figured out.
However, I have received some incredibly encouraging facebook and email posts, and I want to keep them handy for MG to read later. So I thought I'd go ahead and share them here (although I'm not posting this link to Facebook).

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I've had occasion to teach the New Testament Book of James. The most fascinating part, to me, is James' relationship to Jesus (assuming, as most scholars seem to do, that the book of James was written by the half-brother of Jesus). Jesus' family dynamics are a fascinating study in itself, but that's not the point here.

If I were James, I'd have started out bragging about my relationship to Jesus, kind of like that evangelist who was always billed as "Elvis Presley's brother'' or cousin or whatever he was. That's good marketing.

And I use the example of my oldest brother, Rick. He's smart and talented and is considered a Distinguished Professor at one of the top seminaries in the country (if not the world). In certain circles I can introduce myself as his brother and it opens doors (or at least starts conversations).

Anyway, Rick sent me a nice note that I wanted to share. I hope he doesn't mind, but since he preached it to a church I assume it's public domain.

He wrote:

"I intentionally used part of your blog in church this morning as an illustration and to keep it before the people who are praying for (MG).

It was how "our time" switched from her being with you to you being available to her. Point: our time with God is often understood as He being available to us for what we need. We have to turn the corner to where "our time" is we being available to Him on His terms. ..."

I know Rick would have preferred I clean that up to read exactly the way he probably said it, but I think the point is clear enough. It's a good point - just like that, instead of MG changing her life to be available to me, I now have to think about how to change my life to be available to her.

It does have spiritual connotations. We do tend to think of God as being available to us all the time. We pray our prayers and ask for His blessings and somehow expect He will bring us a 'protected life.' I was talking about that today with my good friend Gary. It's so easy to think that as Christians, we're somehow "entitled."

What we have to do is is change over to where we become available to God ...

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I posted this on facebook, but I wanted to save this story for MG:

My new 'best' buddy is George. We always try to 'one up' each other, but he always wins. I have him on sports stuff, but he worked in the White House for years so he's got me on world travel and important people. ... He calls almost every day. Yesterday when he called and I answered, MG kind of woke up and looked over at me. I told her it was George and that he had a Greek Orthodox priest praying for her (George is of that faith). Of course did me one better: he said he'd already called the Patriarch ("better than the Pope!") and they'd lit a candle in the cathedral in Constantinople.
Here's the thing about George: it's probably true!

To continue the story: what is really funny is that MG's family is very Catholic. Of course, the Greek Orthodox believe the Catholic church broke away from them; the Catholics believe otherwise. Not exactly the Hatfield and McCoys - but still, kind of like why the Lutheran always takes two Baptists fishing instead of one: one Baptist will drink all the beer, while two are so busy watching each other, the Lutheran gets to keep all the beer for himself!

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Another facebook post from our friend Sydney Wall: Just over a year ago, you and MG sat at our daughter's house until 4 in the morning, waiting for us to arrive after Mark had been killed in an auto accident. Only known to each other by telephone prior to that ...you were there for us. Then the tornadoes ... knowing you can never pay back only forward, MG engaged us in the recovery efforts at CSM. Having gone through Katrina and it's devastation, we knew of what had to be done and how many had assisted us. It is so obvious that MG is about the giving. So Steve and I will walk the docks in Gulfport ..not in your shoes but in your spirit..not as far (we are older than you) ..look at the water and not try to understand but to try to find peace . From the coast....

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Helen Elizabeth Hardin There's nothing like the ICU to humble you and see more clearly that He actually is in control and we aren't. Just like scripture teaches. And I don't know of anything harder either. I'm so glad we have such a foundation for trust from our histories because it's hard to trust in ICU.
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OK, today's best line ... and I won't reveal the name to protect the identity: "Ray, it may comfort you to know that I have a bunch of drunks praying for MG!!!"
I laughed out loud.
Then he explained: "Seriously, we still call ourselves drunks, but I spoke of her at my AA meeting."
Like I said - I hate it when the audience is funnier than the headliner ... but thanks for the laugh.

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Sylvia Benevides : Well, I am about to walk out the door with MaryGrace in my heart taking her with me to Foggy Hollow. Foggy Hollow in Webster's Chapel where MG did so much for so many. We are having the storm recovery celebration and it would not be complete without her... so I will treat her gently as I carry her with me and we will all have prayer for her continued recovery.

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Maureen Mcgowan Ray - just want to share with you something that MG's example has done for me. I remember as you all would visit and she would do some chore in the house, she had a habit of saying, "It is a joy and a privilege to serve others." This idea has germinated in my life and both Dad and I feel that it would be a "Great Joy and a Privilege if you would allow us to help share in MG's future care." We want to serve you, MG and the kids in any way we are able to and you are wanting us to.

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Today's rant: Do doctors even listen to what they say?

Sometimes I think doctors look at those of us in the waiting room not as family members of patients but as potential plaintiffs in a lawsuit.
And I understand why. I can do a whole blog on lawsuits and tort reform, because I do think while the lawsuits have done a lot of good as far as product safety and corporate responsibility, they also got out of hand and have severely hampered initiative in the business community (and there is no accountability when, years later, the massive rulings against certain businesses - and I'm thinking medical here - have proven to be based on what turned out to be an incorrect cause and effect).
All of my friends who are doctors or in the medical profession, I'm with you.
But some of your colleagues really could stand to learn some communication skills.
Is it really such a bother to tell us what is going on? Who does it hurt to admit you're just not sure of which direction you're going to take, that you might not really know until you get started on the surgery and see what you're dealing with?
Sometimes I really do feel like some of the docs I deal with are just checking the box ... "spoke to patients next of kin - check."
I can't speak for everybody, certainly. But honestly, if you're just the floor doctor and you're only connection to my patient is that you just read her chart before you came in, tell me that. "I'm in charge today on the floor. I just read the chart. If anything happens, we'll take care of it. Obviously I'm not the surgeon who has done anything or will do anything. I'm that guy that is here in case something God-awful and unexpected happens. Let's hope this is the extent of our communication."
Yesterday when I came into the "unit" (what are these little trauma areas called? They aren't rooms because they are so glass-enclosed and open), I saw a consent form that needed to be signed for surgery on MG. I asked if I needed to sign that, and the nurse said yes, and she'd get the orthopedic resident on call to come see me because he had to go through it with me.
A few hours later, this guy I've never seen before comes out and says, "Who is with the Melick family?" since he'd never met me before.
"I am," I say.
"I was told you have some questions for me."
"No, I was told I needed to sign a consent form."
"No. ..." and then he proceeded to go into this song and dance about "you're scheduled to have surgery at 7:15,but it might be 8 or 9. It could be the afternoon...." I halfway expected him to say, "Or we may have already done it and just not told anyone."
At 5:19 this morning, my phone rang. Fortunately and not-surprisingly I was awake.
"Mr. Melick, I'm sorry to wake you, but I need you to authorize surgery for this morning. You'll have to talk to the doctor and can authorize it over the phone."
The nurse was very apologetic, and knew exactly what had happened - she was the one who'd tried to track down the ortho-guy so I could sign the consent form, the one the young resident said I didn't need to sign.

So here we go: communication. I don't care that the resident on-call didn't know me or didn't know about MG's case. I don't even care that he made it clear I was fortunate he had managed to squeeze out a few minutes of his precious time to find me in the waiting room, because he had better things to do (like learning to be a doctor). Heck, we all get busy. I get busy. You think saving the Gulf has been easy?
But all he had to do was ask the nurse, "Do you know why I need to see Mr. Melick?" Or at least listen to her when she explained that he needed to see me so I could sign a form.

I really didn't mind the phone call at 5:19 a.m. It saved me from buying some grout repair kit that was really becoming tempting because if I called in the next five minutes I could get two complete kits for just $10, with a money-back guarantee. I was already thinking about changing the color of the grout in the shower just because with this thing I could do it, then erase it, and do it in another color, erase it again and start over.

A good friend who is a doctor came by to see me. He's everything you want your doctor to be: smart, but also caring. He has the luxury, perhaps, because he's in private practice and not assigned to the trauma unit of a hospital.
He told me something that I appreciated. He said (essentially), "This is a teaching hospital. These guys are among the best at what they do. But they aren't patient-oriented. They are all about the medicine."

Several other people who have dealt with situations like mine shared that their experiences that were very much like my own. So it's not just me.
It wouldn't hurt UAB to make all doctors spend one day a year going through some basic communication skill classes. We do it in media training. We have key people go through practice sessions with someone who is pretending to be interviewing you and ready to turn on you at the slightest miss-statement. It doesn't guarantee that our people won't make a miss-statement because we're human and in the heat of the moment sometimes all of us say things we later regret. But the more they go through it - from the top to the bottom of the organization - the more they know what to expect and how to respond when asked questions.

Doctors - particularly highly skilled surgeons - have reputations for thinking they are little gods. I do understand they are under tremendous pressure to be infallible. Lives are at stake.
As well as the potential for lawsuits.

I wonder if they even listen to the stuff they say sometimes.
These are smart people, well trained, well educated.
I can't help but believe if they did listen to what they say, they'd be embarrassed.

But I could be wrong.

Reruns and opening lines: what do I say next?

When the kids were little, we had the full cable TV package with all the channels (it must have been some kind of special, because I'd never have spent that kind of money). We soon realized there were many, many channels inappropriate for our kids (and for us, for that matter).
Every now and then the kids would come home from school or from a friend's house and say they'd heard about or seen some show on some channel and wanted to watch it, and I'd have to tell them "no" because it was on a channel we didn't watch. And I knew if we made an exception for one show, they would feel like they could turn to that channel anytime, on their own, to see if that show was on, increasing the chance of being exposed to something we didn't necessarily want them to see.
After one such setback in TV-watching, The (then very young) Heir stormed off in anger one day and I heard him tell a friend, "Nine hundred and ninety-nine channels and I only get to watch three!"

People ask me, "Are you sleeping OK?" and I say, "Yes" because I do sleep OK.
When I sleep.
There is a great verse in Job (I told you I was obsessed with the Book of Job) that says "When I lie down I think, 'How long before I get up?' The night drags on, and I toss till dawn." (ch 7, v 4).
I flip channels on the TV - we don't have all 999 anymore, but there are still over a hundred. I watch late night reruns of "The Big Valley" and old movies and reruns of Law and Order (my friend Kelly would be disappointed if I didn't admit that) and info-mercials on getting tight abs, cleaning grout, and - the later it gets - all these single women who are apparently just waiting to talk to me.
(I am hoping one of those girls with tight abs might come over and clean my grout - the perfect confluence of three info-mercials).
I can tell the family room light is on, and I wonder if The Young Prince is still up, watching some movie he's undoubtedly seen before, or whether he just left the light on when he went to bed.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine channels, and not one worth watching at 1 a.m.

When I do get to sleep, I sleep fine. I've always slept well. MG always marvelled at my ability to go to sleep and sleep so soundly. I have always told her that when you have a clear conscious, you sleep the sleep of the innocent.
Maybe the difference is that she grew up Catholic, where guilt was a way of life, while I grew up Baptist, where God would forgive anything as long as you remembered to ask.

Time stopped today. I mean it. I woke up this morning and looked at my watch and it was five minutes to 7. Visitation starts at 8, so I thought was doing fine. I lay back down for a minute to watch Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp" (Kurt Russell's version is so much better, primarily because of Val Kilmer) and when I look back at my watch it was still five minutes to 7.
Uh-oh.
Turns out, it was after 8 ... 8:22 before I go out to get breakfast and leave for the hospital.

So now I have to find time to get a watch battery (I know I can use my cell phone, but I'm in the habit of checking my watch; I've done it all day, and it's always five minutes til seven). And a haircut. And try to get my car in the shop while I'm here to get it checked out. There are so many things that get put on hold, but I find that when I'm here at the hospital watching MG, I don't want to leave; and when I'm at home, all I want to do is get back up here to watch her some more.
In her room, I position my chair where I can watch her eyes. She turns her head from side to side and at times struggles to - I assume - get comfortable (or as comfortable as she can given the situation). When her movements become increasingly frequent I talk to her. Sometimes she opens her eyes for a few seconds, but mostly she keeps them closed. I don't blame her.

I'm supposed to be good with words, but I'm running out of things to say to her, to come up with things that don't require a response - or at least a response more than a head nod. There are no more stories to tell about my day, unless its to let her know the outcomes of my nightly ping-pong matches with Gray (he's killing me now, by the way).
Otherwise, her silence is becoming my silence.
Her reality is becoming my reality.
She would love to hear me say that. One of the great lessons of marriage MG has taught me is that her perception is my reality. By that she means how she interprets things or sees things has to be real to me; I can't just dismiss her with "well, that's your perception,''  because that is just so, uh, dismissive. I have learned to at least try to figure out how she arrived at her perception of any given situation, and deal with it accordingly.
It's a life-long process, of course. Even after all the years we've been married (22 in a few weeks; reminder to me to remember the anniversary!), and all the years before that we knew each other, figuring out how the other thinks is like watching Apocalypse Now, The Redux: there just seems to be no end to it.

Words. It was interesting that, a few days ago, I was so anxious about whether MG would open her eyes and see me. I wondered what she'd say to me.
I was watching some movie last night. In it, the wife had been beaten up by some bad men, who thought she was dead. However, she wasn't, and in the next scene, she's in the hospital with her loving and revenge-minded husband by her side, holding her hand.
And of course her hair is perfectly clean and combed out on the pillow. There is one tube running across her face, into her clean and pretty little nose. His chair is the perfect height to sit easily by her bedside and hold her hand, while of course resting his forehead in dedicated exhaustion on the side of the bed. And when she speaks, she says something terribly appropriate. Not as hokey as when Adrian woke up from her coma to say to Rocky, "There's one thing I want you to do for me: win!" but something memorable.
We all know that's a crock.
But now I wonder what I will say to her when I am confident she can hear and comprehend what I'm saying. I mean, I've been telling her I love her and every thing's all right and how special she is to me and the other stuff that sounds like it came right out of a Lifetime movie special; but I'm about talked out.
I know I'm supposed to grasp her hand tightly, caress her face with my other hand, look deep into her eyes and swear I'll kill the men who did this to her ... no, wait. That's what the guy in the movie said.
It will probably be something trite and predictable, something that just comes out because life doesn't come with a script.
Something like: "How ya' doing?"
The truth is, in the end it won't really matter. I won't remember it, and I'm almost positive she won't. What will matter is the moment she wakes up and we can indeed begin to talk, to cry, to laugh (if her ribs don't hurt too much), to catch up on all that has happened - at least as far as I think she's ready to hear it all.

When I got in this morning (Sunday), the nurse told me MG'd had another rough night in terms of being agitated. MG's white cell count remains a bit high, and she was running a temperature. I asked if she continued to run a high temperature if it could mean postponing tomorrow's surgery, and I was told "yes."
However, by afternoon MG's temperature was down closer to 100, and the nurse said she believes it is staying down on its own, without meds. I guess the temperature monitor is on Celsius - it shows up currently as 38.2. The nurses' station has this chart that converts it over, but with Google, it was easy enough to see that 37 degrees is normal, and that the high 38s is where we don't want to be. They won't operate if she keeps spiking into the 102 range, so if we can hold this current range, we're good.
No one can tell me about the elevated white cell count, other than her body has been through all kinds of "insult" (that wonderful medical term), and she's apparently absorbing the rather large hematoma in her pelvis, so again - no one seems overly concerned.
However, one thing I've learned is they don't tell you what they're concerned about until either it's time to take action, or the crisis has passed.

The ortho-pod on call comes by to talk. By now I recognize this is more an effort to placate me than give me any meaningful information. He says she's on schedule to go to surgery at 7:15 a.m., but they could wait to see how she's responding which could push it back to 8 or 9 o'clock. Or it could be afternoon.
I feel like I've had this conversation before. I dismiss this nice young man as quickly as I can.

And again - best guess - is they will take her off the ventilator "pretty quickly'' (whatever that means), so it shouldn't be long after tomorrow's surgery before I will know MG will be able to hear me, and be able to speak.

A well-meaning friend stopped by to talk, and shared a story. A friends of her had a similar injury last September, and this friend told me, "She went back to work last week. I couldn't believe it! That's so fast!"
Immediately in my mind I started counting - September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April  - eight months.
I know that, looking back, it won't seem that long.
But looking forward, it seems like a lot more reruns in my future.

Learning to wait without losing time

A week ago this morning, I woke up to find my life had changed.

A year ago this morning, thousands of Alabamians woke up to start to go through the rubble of their homes, neighborhoods, communities and towns and realize their lives were going to be different, too.

I am not comparing my little tragedy to that of a year ago. I know what my family is going through is not uncommon. I only have to walk outside to the waiting room to see that it's not "just us." And I have heard from so many friends and even strangers who have similar experiences, so I by no means think we are unique.

I do hope that the commonality of what I'm going through has allowed me to perhaps express your thoughts and remembrances, hopefully in a good way. I've always said the writers I connect with best are the ones that after I read I think, "I have thought that" or "I could have written that." Back when I was a wannabe musician before I'd play a particularly good song I'd introduce it as, "I was writing this song the day I heard it on the radio." That wasn't original with me, but it's the best way I've ever heard to explain how some words connect with us.

A year go, April 27, 2011, the landscape of Alabama and the lives of so many Alabamians were dramatically changed. A year ago, a series of tornadoes and high winds swept through central and north Alabama. Sometimes we get so caught up in Tuscaloosa - and I have no problem with that, the devastation there was horrible - that we forget that earlier that day high winds blew through Cahaba Heights and Vestavia, and after Tuscaloosa there was Pratt City, Phil Campbell, Webster's Chapel,Shoal Creek, Hackleburg, Moody ... dozens if not hundreds of communities that were damaged and, in some cases, nearly wiped off the map.

Despite the damage done to our own property, it didn't take long for MG head down to Christian Service Mission to volunteer. She went down to do anything the executive director, Tracy Hipps needed, and fully expected to just be sorting supplies or taking phone calls or even making deliveries. However, it wasn't long before Tracy recognized that MG's talents were logistics and organization, and he'd hired her to coordinate volunteers, to find out needs and match up supplies and workers. I can remember MG calling me to say Tracy wanted to put her on payroll, and her saying she didn't want to do it to get paid. I, of course, said there were benefits to actually being "staff," and she could do with the salary whatever she wanted. To this day, I don't know what the agreement is.

I do know that - like anything MG does - it became personal. I hope to share some of the emails and facebook posts I have received from her new "family;" the people she has come to love during the last year.

Today and tomorrow, there will be remembrances and dedications. MG was so looking forward to these, particularly in Pratt City, where she has devoted so much of her attention these last few months. I am grateful to the people in Pratt City - and Mt. Moriah Church - that said they would just move the dedication/remembrance to the hospital to be with MG. Of course they can't do that. They shouldn't. They need to be there in their community, where so much work has been done even as so much work remains.

SB wrote a wonderful blog about the meaning of 'tornado'. I can't top that.

Once, years ago in my reporting days, I did a story that I was very proud of. It just so happened I knew five coaches who had been touched by cancer in one way or another, and they were all one year apart. Since the five year mark is, very generally speaking, a significant milestone for cancer survivors, it was an interesting look at five people at five different stages of survival.
One of those stories that stuck with me was the person I spoke to who was past that five year mark. He was very honest, and said something I have never forgotten. He said, "When it first happens, you always talk about how your life will never be the same. But the truth is - for me anyway - it's been five years and finally my life feels 'normal' again. I don't think about it every day. I do all the things I did before. Maybe the best thing is to be able to say my life is, finally, the same again.''
There will be people who disagree with that, and I respect that. But it made a lot of sense to me, and when I share that story with people, many nod their heads in agreement.

I think about this in terms of the people of Alabama, specifically the people of Pratt City. What happened that day/night a year ago was indeed life-changing. In some cases, it was life-ending. Those people will never be forgotten.
But for the living, there is a chance to start over and make it better. In Pratt City, in particular, I know Christian Service Mission and others are building newer, better houses. I have shared with MG, who I know has shared with many of CSM's partners, the concept of developing economic incubators. You take a few abandoned storefronts, or you build some small buildings on a cleared out space, and rent those for very little money (it's not a money-making endeavor for the property owner, it's a community service) to start-up businesses for a specific period of time - I've seen it done for as little as three years, and as many as eight. The goal is that somewhere along the way the business develops enough to be able to move out or, perhaps, start paying full rent. But the real concept is to have a rotation of businesses that come in, start up, become successful (or fail), and move on to make way for another.

In short, I see this as opportunity for people to not "get back to normal" but to create a new "normal." It would be a shame if that doesn't happen, but it will take long-term commitment to relationships, to encouragement, to ideas and volunteers and the willingness to try and share and watch out for each other.

And then I come back to my personal life-changing situation from a week ago. Honestly, selfishly, I spend a lot of time wondering how long it will take to get back to "normal,'' which means - to be coldly, brutally honest - how long will it be before I get to do what I want. That's a terrible admission. But really, in the story of the world from my perspective, I'm the star and the rest of you are supporting actors. I work every day to change that perspective, but it's very, very difficult.

One thing I have tried to do in this blog - particularly the most recent blogs - is be as honest as I can. Oh, I am not sharing every detail, because some things are and should be private.
But two years ago when I finally made a career change and stumbled into this new career path that I'm on, I realized that I had convinced myself I couldn't do anything other than what I had been doing for 25 years. So I desperately clung to that occupation - which, let me say, I enjoyed and loved almost every minute of; and don't think for one minute I did not. But I had convinced myself that my identity was defined by what I did.
MG and I have often talked over the last two years that we don't ever want to fall into the trap again, that we don't want to let what we do define who we are. I have, I admit. It's hard not to. I guess it's a "guy" thing, or maybe an "American" thing.
I know MG loves working for CSM. But I also know the week before this happened, she called me and told me she was thinking of quitting. See, we'd taken a week to celebrate her 50th birthday (and she won't mind me saying that; she was proud of having turned 50). We went to Memphis and Greenville SC and Asheville NC and finished in Charleston, and had a great week together - eating too much, not seeing enough, even getting run off a golf course.
She called me early the next week and said, "I'm really feeling like I need to quit work and just be available to you." We'd always talked about how when our youngest graduated high school she'd move to where ever I was working, so we knew that was going to happen eventually.
"But,'' MG went on, "then today, it was one of those days where I just saw God in every conversation, every decision, every volunteer. I don't know how to explain it, other than I'm just so blessed to work here, with the people I work with, and to experience God in such a real way every day."
Needless to say, I encouraged her to keep on, that "our time" was coming.
"I never wanted you to quit," I told her. "I've seen too much of God at work in you and - by extension - me."

Now, quite unexpectedly, we're getting a lot of "our time.'' The "availability" she talked about wanting to provide to me will now be my decision to make, as I figure out how to be available to her. I don't know how we'll make it all work. There are questions I have, plans I'm trying to make, schedules I'm going over in my head. Who does what? What do I need to do to the house? Where do I get help? How much help can I get (as much as I need, I know- and thank you) but not make MG feel I've abandoned her to other people while I do "my thing?"
And why am I already feeling guilty about things that haven't happened?
Our good friend Lynn Lloyd sent me a note, reminding me of something she remembers MG telling her: Lynn wrote: "She told me once that "Lynn. why worry? Most things we worry about never happen & if they do, we can't do anything about it but look at all the worry free days we have had."
Oh, how I need to talk to MG, to get her thoughts and feedback and perceptions on how to make these next few months work, to balance the short term need with the reality of planning for a long-term "normal" life.
Even as I write that, I realize I really don't have the necessary information to even begin to make plans. I've just got to take it a day at a time, and wait.

I hate waiting.
But I know this: when you wait on God, you're not losing time.

Sure I concur; what else can I do?

"MARY GRACE? MARY GRACE!"
The nurses here practically scream to get a patients' attention. I hear it up and down the hall. I understand it, but for a person who likes quiet (MG, not me), it has to be jarring.
But she opens her eyes. I call her name - much more softly - and she turns her head, but I don't know if she knows its me or if it's just a new sound that distracts her. The doctors have told me whatever she does this week, she won't remember it next week. In fact, she won't remember much at all from this week, they say.
"DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE? YOU'RE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
She looks back at the nurse and nods her head.
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?"
Again, she nods her head. She can't speak; she's still got the ventilator blocking her mouth, even though she's breathing on her own. They have her on a four hours on, four hours off schedule -- no, I'm told she's doing so well they are now going six hours on and six hours off -- with the ventilator. The respiratory people tell me she's doing great with her breathing, but they don't want to over-tax her and risk pneumonia.
"YOU WERE IN AN ACCIDENT. DO YOU REMEMBER?"
She nods her head again. And I think to myself, Dear Lord, does she really remember? Or is she just responding out of some instinct?
It makes me cringe. I can't imagine the light turning green, pulling out into the intersection, catching a glimpse of a flash out of the corner of your eye and as you turn to see what it is, a Chevy Tahoe comes hurtling right into your driver's side door.
Again, my mind goes to this image of the front end of a full-size SUV bearing down on me, getting bigger and bigger until the front grill fills the view from the window like giant silver teeth and I throw my arm up to cover my face ...
"CAN YOU LIFT YOUR ARM?"
MG lifts her arm. She's been lifting her arm from time to time all day. Her arms are strapped down with only a little leeway in the straps, to keep her from reaching up and pulling the tubes out of her mouth and various other parts of her body. The nurse tells me I'd be surprised how many patients find ways to get the ventilator out of their mouths even with their hands strapped down.
But I remember having eye surgery. I was supposed to be awake during the surgery, doped up only a little to where I wouldn't feel anything but could still follow instructions. The next thing I remember was waking up and trying to move my arms, but they were strapped down. It was a feeling of panic.
Here's another thing about MG: she's claustrophobic. We kid her - well, not often because she doesn't really think it's funny - but I can wrap my hand around her wrist and when I tell her I've got her wrist, she'll get claustrophobic. A lot of us that know her have seen her suddenly stop and, in a full panic, start untying her shoes because suddenly her feet feel trapped. She always sleeps with her feet sticking out from under the covers because her feet get claustrophobic.
So I can only imagine, if she's aware, what panic must set in when she can't move her hands or legs or feet.
"CAN YOU WIGGLE YOUR TOES?"
She wiggles her toes. I notice these huge bruises at various places on both legs. The bruise on her left hip is frightening. The nurse tells me there are similar bruises all over her body. I've seen the ones on her arms, and the right leg just under the knee where her leg was probably driven into the center console of the car, and the one on her left hip where she took the impact of the door. Tracy tells me the driver's seat on the car has been squeezed down to about half it's normal size.
"CAN YOU SQUEEZE MY HAND?"
MG doesn't squeeze the hand - not the nurse's hand, or my hand. She did this the other night, and did it this morning for the day nurse. They are not overly concerned because she's so responsive to other commands.
Then comes my favorite:
"CAN YOU STICK OUT YOUR TONGUE?"
Her little pink tongue can hardly find its way around the tubes running into her mouth and down her throat. Sunday when I came in, she had her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth. I know she'd be mortified to know that, but I couldn't help but think it was kind of cute - a little girlish act of defiance. Although I have no idea what she'd be defiant over.
It's amazing, the thoughts and actions I will project onto her while she's like this.

It was a very difficult day. They turned her pain medication way down in order to wake her up. They were concerned because it seemed to be taking so long for her to come out of the sedation, but I told them we're talking about someone who gets knocked out and for a full day and stays groggy for another full day just from one dose of NyQuil. She has never tolerated medicine well.
But she lay there today, tossing her head back and forth, alternately lifting one arm and then the other, shaking one leg then the other. She stretches her left leg- the one that's in traction, the one that is pulled completely out of her hip socket in order to give the bones in her pelvis a chance to reform naturally as much as possible, and I wince.
Her right leg keeps rolling off the side of the bed. It's like she's trying to get up. In fact, she keeps arching her back like she wants to sit up.
"You can't get up,'' I say. "You're strapped down. Relax."
I stroke her arm, her hair, and think maybe I should sing. The only song I can think of is "Sunny Side of the Street," a song I used to sing to the kids at bedtime. I begin (very low, in her ear, so no one will hear), "Grab your coat, and get your hat. Leave your worries on the doorstep. Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street. ..."
And I think, fool! She can't walk. She won't be able to walk for three months. She may never walk normally again (worst case scenario; Eeyore again). What kind of idiot are you?

The orthopedic surgeon comes in. It's the first time I've met him. We've spoken on the phone twice, and the first time I was very unhappy with the conversation. More than unhappy. It was the night I was most angry anyway, and he didn't help anything.
He's very apologetic. I made my unhappiness known both to my friend Catherine Brown who works here, and to Dr. Jean Oakes, a good friend and UAB orthopedic surgeon of note who specializes in hands. He asks me how I know Dr. Oakes. I have a feeling she has told him I wasn't happy, that I would have fired him on the spot the other night if I had known of any other orthopedic trauma surgeon.
He's describing the surgery to replace the hip socket. He says they most like will not be able to completely reconstruct using every piece of bone in her pelvis, but they believe there will be enough to use to form a workable socket, and the bone will mend over time.
I ask just how many pieces her pelvis is in. He just says, "a lot."
He describes it like this: "Say you wrap tape and bubble wrap around an egg, then smash the egg with a hammer. It's busted, but the pieces of the shell are mostly still there in the right position."
Very graphic. 
I ask if he thinks she will eventually have to have an artificial hip. He says yes, and the way they're doing the surgery should allow for an artificial hip some day, way down the road.
People have asked, why not just go ahead and get an artificial hip now? First, I don't want that. I know medicine has improved tremendously, but I also know that artificial hips still can wear out, and you can only replace them so many times. Maybe I'm not up on my orthopedic medicine, but it seems to me you put off having artificial replacement parts as long as you can, regardless.
Also, I get the impression there isn't anything right now to attach an artificial hip too.

"We're schedule for Monday. If something unforeseen happens - some serious injury that requires us to be in surgery all day, then I've set aside Tuesday. If not Tuesday, then Wednesday. I expect it to be Monday, but I have two contingency plans,'' the doctor says.
Monday afternoon? I ask, because that's what he told me.
"No,'' he said. "Monday morning, early. Very early."
That's good news. I know it's going to be a long surgery. I feel better about this guy. But then, what choice do I have?

Like a Rockette at Christmas, MG continually kicks her left leg. Up and down, up and down. The doctor says that's good, it means there's no nerve damage. I guess that's right. It's kind of funny - she always talks about how "twitchy" I am when I sleep. My legs twitch, my arms. I don't change places; I can sleep in one spot all night long and hardly move the covers. But I twitch. I wonder if she'll start twitching now, and how we'll fit together in our sleep if we're both twitching.

Her hermatocrats are down a bit. I think I spelled that right. It's amazing how you start to speak the language - I'm reminded of my brother-in-law Sean in his gown and gloves asking, "Do you concur?" - even though you have no idea what you're talking about.
I know it means she's lost some blood. They're giving her another pint. The last time I asked, she'd had 29 pints of blood or blood product. That was Monday, I think. Or Tuesday. The days run together.
The nurse insists the ultra sound didn't reveal any thing that would lead them to believe there is internal bleeding. They have no idea why. But that's what they said Sunday, too, and shortly after they took her back into surgery to find out. I don't want that to happen again.
"Maybe it's the hematoma in her pelvis breaking up,'' the nurse says. I have no idea if this makes any sense, but I accept it.
Or rather, "I concur."

The community of the waiting room

There is community in shared suffering.
I think I read that in some book somewhere, or heard it in a sermon. But it's true.
The waiting area of the Trauma Unit has become like "Six Degrees of Separation." We come in as strangers with our own separate troubles, but as we talk we find out we have so much in common.
There are so many connections to one family that is up here that it's almost ridiculous. It turns out some of the members I've known for years. The ones I don't know I have much in common with through common friends. One has spent a lifetime in sports and we crossed paths often in my former life. Another is a West Point grad who can relate to the stories I tell about my own son and The Citadel, a missionary who flew back to be here and, since my own family has so many mission connections, we talk about that.
There is another family up here because of a bizarre motorcycle accident. (I don't want to give away too much about any of them since I didn't ask and they don't deserve to be dragged into this blog). But again, as visitors have come and gone, there are people I know, that I have worked with somewhere along the way, that know me. And in once case, someone who has been incredibly helpful in explaining the legal process involving the guy who hit MG, and getting me information.
There is another guy who used to ref high school games that I knew, and another family with some shared connections, so that we now are able to share each other's burdens; we're able to rejoice with small victories both for the immediate family and because it gives us hope for our own situation; and we cry over setbacks, again knowing such setbacks are a reminder that the best physicians in the world still only "practice medicine,'' because there will never be a way to know that they've got it absolutely, 100 percent right every time.
The wife of one of the greatest high school baseball coaches in Alabama - if not the country - was working here as a volunteer today. Her husband passed away, but her son and I are friends (although we don't see each other nearly as much as we used to), and her nephews used to play ball with my sons.
It's a very small world. For whatever reason, not everyone had people bringing them food and drink and snacks like I did over the weekend, and when the gift-bearers left, I'd go around and share. SB had the opportunity to pray with one lady who still waits for some good news about her family member who is up here; a pastor that came up to see me wound up talking to another family and, hopefully, bringing some comfort to that situation.

And sometimes they share their own funny stories, because as Jimmy Buffet once said, "Tragedy has to become comedy or else it gets really old, really fast."
One young lady told me her mother had finally been moved out of the intensive care part of the trauma unit and into a "regular" room on the same floor. She was so glad, because her mother had not slept. "She was having nightmares about robots coming to get her,'' the young lady told me with a smile. "She kept hearing all the beeps and breaths of the machines around her, all the tubes reaching out for her, and somehow it became robot nightmares."
Another guy told me about his friend who, in addition to his serious injuries, had a sore on his "bottom." His buddy was on a ventilator and couldn't talk, but was trying to tell them he wanted to be moved because his rear end was hurting. No one could understand what he was saying, and rather than give him a pen and paper to write it down, they were calling out guesses as to what he wanted. Every wrong guess was rewarded with a one-finger salute. "I've never been flipped off so much in my life!" he told me.

Everyone asks, "How's MG today?"
First, she's kind of awake. She has followed commands - except she won't squeeze any one's hand. I'd like to say that's because she knows she's my squeeze (eye roll goes here). But she will wiggle her toes on command, and stick out her cute little bubblegum tongue, and nod her head to answer a question.
She actually got mad today. The nurse came in and turned on the bright over-head light, and it startled MG. She raised her eyebrows and furrowed her brow and started trying to open her eyes. And when the nurse rolled her up on one side to put some pillows under her, to change her position, her facial expression said (to me), "What the heck are you doing?"
As I told someone today, when this is all over and MG looks back on all of this, she's going to kill me.
But I'll gladly die a thousand deaths at her hands when this is all over.

Medically, blood pressure is good. They've turned down the ventilator and she's more than doubling the number of breaths from the vent, which means she's really breathing on her own. They asked her if she was in pain, and of course she shook her head "No." They removed the tube that was going into her actual heart to monitor something to do there (again, MG is the one who always asked the questions; I just want to know how to read the numbers). There are about half as many machines hooked up to her now as there was on Saturday.

Yes, I've been angry. People ask me about the guy who hit her. I got the accident report today. I'm not going to go into it, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to know he was not in his right mind. There have been charges filed that are serious. Whether or not he has insurance is still questionable, but it doesn't look like he does.
I don't care. Oh, I do care - let's be honest, it's human nature. But my focus is on MG, my kids, my family. I am sad for him, because one horrible decision led to one split second that will change his life forever. I don't know how often he got away with driving in that condition, but it only takes once.
Yes, I know my life will change forever, too. MG's life will likely change forever.
But we are not people without hope. We know that God is in control.

For about three years, I was obsessed with the book of Job. MG used to get so tired of me studying it and re-reading it and trying to share with her what I learned from it. We were playing one of those games with friends about "if you were stranded on a desert island, what one book would you want,'' and I said, "Job."
The book basically comes down to a wager between God and Satan.
Satan says that God has blessed Job so much, no wonder Job loves Him. God says Job's faith is not about what he has been given, but who gave those blessings to Job. Satan says he can make Job turn on God, and God says "give it your best shot."
And so the battle begins.
But you think about it, that's all of our lives. I believe God has faith in those of us who have faith in Him, and Satan believes we don't have enough faith to withstand his tests. There is an unseen audience that watches the battle, and we puny humans are privileged to have the opportunity to win huge, cosmic victories for God on an almost daily basis.
Why God would put His reputation in the hands of such unstable creatures as us, I don't know. I am afraid I lose more than I win. But God keeps me in the game, just as with what has happened to MG I know she's not out of the game yet, either. 

I'm repeating something I wrote here  so forgive me.
But ancient religions believed that the actions of the gods above affected the earth below. Zeus got angry and thunderbolts rained down. The ancient formula was "As above, so below."
But that's not the way it works, according to Jesus. Our actions here on earth affect what goes on in heaven. Jesus said, "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me" (Luke 10:16). The actions of men on earth affect the spirit world. When the disciples went out and performed miracles, Jesus reported that "demons fell from the sky."
So what we do here does affect the Cosmos in some way we can barely begin to fathom.
It's an incredible responsibility, a ridiculous "challenge and opportunity" (as one former Alabama coach used to say so often) that we're not up to alone.

I don't always get it. But if I understood everything about God, then I'd by definition be God - all knowing, all understanding, and with that kind of knowledge perhaps all powerful.

And I'm not God. If I were, I'd never have let this happen to MG.
But if this hadn't happened, I'd never have felt the love of people like you; I'd never have heard so many encouraging comments, reconnected with so many old friends and made so many new ones; not had the chance to see God work in so many ways.
I did a story once on a coach who had cancer. It was horrible, but I spent a lot of time talking to him, and the story came out really well.
Later I told him, "I'm so sorry you had to go through this." He told me - and I'll never forget it - "Don't be. Because without this, I'd never have gotten to know you the way I have; we'd never have become friends."

Sorry. That may sound sappy and Hallmark card-like to you. But it was a powerful statement about community.

And sharing each other's burdens - and watching them turn into joy.

"Every step forward is going to be full of hard"

I don't even know where to begin.
I was sitting here, trying to take joy in the small steps - the eye movement, the number of breaths per minute above what the ventilater does - and suddenly, I see a head move .. and eye start to open ... a foot begins to move in obvious discomfort ... hands and arms start to tug at the straps holding them away from all the tubes and wires ... her body begins to slowly move as if to find a more comfortable position ... the leg stretches and shakes, the way a leg will do when it's been too long in one position and the muscles need a good stretching ...
And I'm hurting.
This is what I wanted, to be here when MG opened her eyes. I wanted my hand to be the one she first squeezed, my command to be the one where she wiggled her toes. I got two of those - the eyes and the hand.
It's not like the movies. The beautiful starlet doesn't suddenly wake up, a sparkle in her eyes, her hair glossy and clean, and whisper something wall-poster profound.
No, the eyes are only half-opened. They are yellowed with the cream they've been putting in there to keep them moist. I can't even really see her wonderful green-brown-gray eyes - I'm no good with colors, and to me MG's eyes have never been about color as much as they've been about sparkle, about light, about expressing every emotion.

She doesn't understand.
There is no way she can know where she is, why she can't move. She looks like she's trying to sit up, but can't. She looks like she wants to roll over, but can't. She wants to raise her hands, but can't.
I don't know what I was thinking. I got what I wanted, but it hurts so much to see.
I find myself wanting for the nurse to put her back under, to turn the pain-killer up so she will go back into the bliss of unconsciousness, but they won't - can't - until MG proves she can follow simple commands.
"Stick out your tongue"
"Wiggle your toes"
"Squeeze my hand."
She turns her head toward the sound of whoever is talking to her; isn't that enough? She stretches her leg and her foot shakes; won't that do? She lifts her hand and I squeeze it; can't we be done here?
No. They aren't sure she's following commands; they think she may just be reacting.
Well, yes - don't they know MG? She doesn't follow commands! She reacts! Her ways are always the right ways. She knows what she wants to do; let her do it!
I find myself fighting to send her back into that dark hole from which she has barely emerged.
But that's me: I want it all, or I want nothing.

They yell at her, calling her name in a loud voice, tapping her on the chest to get her attention.
I speak softly, stroking her arm, telling her everything is going to be all right.
I fear we're working at cross-purposes here, and I know the one who is wrong.
But I can't help myself. She's hurting, I'm hurting; she's confused, I'm confused.

How I wish I could take the pain. If I could only make her understand what has happened, what is happening, what will happen; if I could explain that she's alive and her head and heart are intact and that's all that matters because everything else can be put back together ...

But that's not how it works. We fallen humans hate pain, because - whether we want to admit it or not - it is a reminder of our sin, which brought on suffering to a fallen world.
God never meant for us to experience pain. We chose that. We chose to follow a voice other than God's voice, and look at what has happened as a result?
Yet that pain is good. It tells us something is not right. It is a reminder that something needs to be fixed. It screams that there is a better way to live, a better place to be in, and that one day, when the pain is gone, we'll appreciate joy and peace even more.
And of course, God hurts with us. God hurt for us. God - once, long ago - even went so far as to hurt in our place.

I wonder if MG will remember mine was the first to see her open her eyes? I don't even know if she 'saw' me, at least not in the sense of cognitive memory.
So many of you have told me you were praying that I'd get to be the one she opened her eyes for, and I thank you for that.
But the truth is, I didn't really care; I just wanted to know she opened her eyes.

It is an hour after MG first opened her eyes. I remember it was 9:01. I was answering a text from SB about what had gone on today, when MG started to wake up. It's right there on my phone where I stopped in mid-sentence and typed "They came to x-ray her shes opened her eys (sic) and is moving! PTL!"
Now, it's 10:18. She looks like she's back asleep. She's no longer moving. The nurses that that's OK, it may take awhile, but we made a giant step.

It's just a first step. As SB eventually texted me back: "I know it is hard to watch. Praying for you and for her. Unfortunately, every step forward is going to be full of hard. ..."

I wish I'd written that. My wonderful daughter is so wise and eloquent and sees far beyond her years.

"Every step forward is going to be full of hard."

The best I can do is help her understand she won't be taking those steps alone.

Update: This one's for the guys (ladies, you were warned)

OK, enough with the drama. I appreciate everyone who sends their love and prayers and tell me how they read what's going on and they cry ... which only makes me cry ... and I'm a guy; I don't cry!

Well, except at that scene in "Old Yeller" and the end of "Brian's Song" (the original, with James Caan).

I was going to try to be all high-tech (which would make my buddy Justin Saia laugh; he knows when it comes to technology I'm old-school - pad and pen vs. iPad), and insert a clip from the movie "Airplane!" - you know, the one where Robert Hays' character is sitting on the plane, telling his life story, and person after person listens to him and then commits suicide in a variety of creative ways.
 I'm sure the clip is on YouTube somewhere (and, yes, Justin, if I were truly high-tech, I could find it!), but I couldn't find it.

The truth is, this is kind of weird. In the trauma unit at UAB Hospital, every time you visit a patient you have to "suit up" (shout out to Barney Stinson!) - put on a gown and latex gloves. Every single time. I can't imagine how much money each of these disposable gown and glove combinations costs. I'd love to have the exclusive concession on this stuff.
Even more, the gowns are bright, Easter chick yellow, while the gloves are a kind of pale lavender or purple (I'm not good with colors; are lavender and purple even in the same family?). So every day I sit here, feeling like a giant Easter Egg that hasn't been found.
What is funny is to watch "newbies" - first-time visitors, so anxious to do everything correct out of concern for MG. The truth is, you can just kind of put your arms in the gown and drape if over your shoulders. If you tied it up, you'd be all day tying and then, of course, untying. But some of the first-timers start to do all the tie-offs - neck, waist.
However, I give MG's youngest brothers, Sean and Seames, credit. I think it was Sean who put his gown and gloves on, held his hands up in the air like a surgeon on TV, looked over at Seames and said loudly, "Do you concur?" That is apparently the total extent of his medical knowledge. It was pretty funny. Maybe you had to have been there.
Then there are the bags. Can I get mildly graphic? I'm sitting here looking at the bag that is holding fluid draining from MG's lung, and the bag that holds what is draining from her bladder. Then the nurse comes in and they draw stuff directly from her stomach to see how she is digesting whatever it is they are putting into her stomach.
I know that's gross. But that's life in the Trauma Unit that you never see on TV.
Oh - and traction. You'd think with all the advances in medicine over the last 100 years they'd have come up with something other than ropes and pulleys and weights. But they haven't. So there is this bar over her bed, and four ropes that hold these pads up that wrap under her leg. Then there is the pin they inserted all the way through her thigh bone (femur?) just above the knee that has ropes attached to it. All the ropes go back to the foot of the bed through a series of pulleys where there are other pulleys, and at the end of those ropes are a series of stacked weights. Not gleaming, stainless steel, shiny weights either; these look like they came out of the old Headland High School weight room - after my high school was torn down 30 years ago!
And, since I'm a guy, I have to admit I'm sooo tempted to play with it, to pull on the cords and watch her leg go up and down, to mess with the weights ... you know: just be a guy.

Enough with the grossness.
Today was an active day. They took MG down for a CAT scan this morning. I assumed it was to check some of the stuff in her abdomen (I think I've been graphic enough for one day), because after the Sunday night surgery the surgeon said he wanted them to do that.
MG comes back, and a woman comes in a few hours later and says, "she's got fluid on her right lung, is it OK if we put in a drain?"
Stupid me, I say, "What happened to the drain that was already in her lung?"
The lady (I don't know if she was a nurse or doctor or what, and Lord knows I don't want to offend anyone. I've done enough of that already) looked startled and started digging around under the blankets and gown on MG's right side.
"Wait," I said. "The tube is on the left side. That's where the damage was. Do you mean her right side, too?"
Turns out she did indeed mean the right lung. So of course I let them do the right side tube. Apparently, they felt one of the reasons MG wasn't waking up like they'd hoped was possibly because of fluid in her lungs.
Although they also insisted it wasn't unusual or any reason for concern that MG hadn't started to wake up.
So I pressed a little more. I wanted to know what else they did.
Turns out they did a scan of her brain while they had her down there, just to make sure there was nothing they'd missed earlier - no bleeding, and "no signs of a mini-stroke." I hadn't even considered that. That one got my attention. But they assured me there was no sign of any damage to the brain.
"Nothing there,'' the lady told me.
Hah! I knew it! I asked her if she would please tell that to MG when MG woke up - that her head was empty and there was nothing there!
Needless to say, the nice lady declined. Oh, sure, she can talk tough when her patient is in a coma, but she wouldn't dare say anything insulting face to open-eyed face!
And I don't blame her.

But MG is showing signs. I think I wrote about how one way they could tell if she was waking up was if she started breathing over the ventilator. The 'vent' gives her 12 breaths a minute. If she does more than that - she was doing 14 for about a minute Tuesday night - then two of those breaths were on her own, a good sign.
This morning, while I was sitting there, MG suddenly went up to 17 breaths a minute. I jumped up and started talking to her, squeezing her hand, encouraging her. And of course, she went right back down to 12 breaths and, I assume, back to sleep.
Her friend Sylvia posted "Ray, you know you always take MaryGrace's breath away!"
I like that.
It's a lot better than thinking I put her to sleep.

A little later, this new nurse Rachel was in there, and she started shaking MG and calling her "Mary!" I figured, what the heck, and joined in. (Another "Airplane" reference: I thought about all those people lining up to slap the hysterical woman. If you haven't seen "Airplane," I'm sorry. It's a really funny movie - at least, it is if you're 18 years old, and you've been up all night, and you're with a bunch of guys in the  fraternity who've been trying to see if you get drunk quicker on a keg or on daiquiris. Now, those of you that know me know I don't drink, so I was the judge. I don't remember who won).
Anyway, we're shaking and calling out to MaryGrace and I'm squeezing her hand and we see an eye flutter. Her eyebrows go up. Her eyelids twitch. She's trying - really trying.
We're yelling and shaking - gently - and talking about where she is and who has been in to see her and anything I can think of that might get her attention.
"There's a sale on shoes at DSW!" I say.
And then she settles back into restful repose.
But half the nurses immediately ran out of the building. (Rim shot).
We called a halt to it, because a line was forming out the hall with people holding black jacks and baseball bats and pipe wrenches .... sorry, another "Airplane" reference.
Come on - you've got to admit that's a funny image!

I did speak to the orthopedic surgeon. The plan is to go in on Monday afternoon and do the pelvis repair/rebuild. He said the surgery would last anywhere from "four to six hours."
Maybe I'll call Steve Phillips to come down and we'll watch "Monty Python's In Search of the Holy Grail." I guarantee that will cause MG to roll her eyes.
Can you tell I'm a little stir-crazy?

From my buddy Glenn Stewart: "Ray...forgive me for being so late in sending this note, but I was out of town and just heard the news about Mary Grace. ... I'm going to offer some advice from my own experiences with internal surgeries...tell her to hang on to any and all organs that had to be removed and place them under her pillow. Trust me, those stupid fairies will buy anything!

That's from a man who has seen Airplane and Monty Python one too many times.
(I hate it when the audience is funnier than the comic.)

I'll be here all week, folks. Tip your waiters and waitresses.

Do the 'eyes' really have it?

There is a "Peanuts" cartoon that I remember from when I was a child (the olden days) that I always thought was very funny.
One of the gang had a new baby in the house, and all the kids - Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, etc. - are talking excitedly as they go to see it. As they pass Snoopy, they call out, "Hey, Snoopy! (whoever) just had a new baby and we're going to see it! You want to go?"
And Snoopy - being a dog - sits there and says, "No, I'll wait a few days until its eyes are open."

I am waiting for MG to open her eyes.
She came through her final (hopefully, prayerfully) trauma surgery today. The nurses have turned off the medicine that is keeping her paralyzed. They have strapped her arms down, just in case. While MG remains on the ventilator, she's starting to over-ride the vent; while it is giving her 12 breaths a minute, sometimes she's doing 14, which means two of those are on her own. That means she's waking up.
I know that "waking up" has various meanings. As heavily sedated as she is and will remain, there is a very good chance MG still won't be fully cognizant of where she is. Almost certainly I'm told she won't have any memory of what has happened. They expect it could be days before she fully comprehends where she is, much less why.
But the little gel moisturizers that kept her eyes closed while keeping them moist are gone, which means she could ....

SB left tonight in tears. I hope she doesn't mind me saying that. The Princess has to go back to school tomorrow. She wants desperately to be here as her Mama starts to come around. She is so much her mother's daughter.
The Heir flies out tomorrow to return to Charleston and The Citadel. He's more stoic, of course, but I know how hard it has been to sit here for the last few days, to come to grips with the realization of what happened, to sit through the surgeries and ups and downs of emotion, and then to be this close to an "awakening" and not be there.
I want, badly, to sit here all night. I know when the ventilator alarms go off, it means she's over-riding the vent even more. The nurses will rush in to check on her.
And maybe - just maybe - her eyes will open.
Oh, how I want the first thing she sees to be me.

On my 13th birthday, my parents gave me my first "real" football: The Duke. Anyone of my generation knows "The Duke'' was the football used by the NFL. It was stamped on the side, "The Duke." At the time, it sold for some enormous price of over $50 dollars - an outrageous expense that I now wonder how my parents, with three other kids who were in college, managed to afford.
I wanted to be the first to do everything with that ball: the first to hold it, to hike it, to throw the first pass, to catch the first pass, to carry it on its first run, to score its first touchdown, to be the first to spike it.
Obviously, some of those things are impossible to accomplish if you're going to accomplish the other. But I didn't want anyone else to ever be able to say they were the 'first' to do anything significant with that football, such was my love for that gift.
That's how I feel about MG. I want to be the first one she sees, to have the first hand she squeezes, the first one she wiggles her toes for.
I'm sitting here, holding her hand, gently stroking and squeezing, trying to get a response. I'm talking to her softly, reading, telling stories. The doctors and nurses have said all along to assume she can hear everything that is being said around her. If that was true then, surely its even more true now.
I pick up her hand. I play with her fingers. I watch them drop when I let them go and think I see some independent movement. But I can't be sure; in fact, I'm sure I don't really see it.
They say it will take hours. If they had done the surgery at 11 as scheduled, those hours would be gone by now.
Silly me.

They close down the trauma unit from 6-8 every morning and evening. Tonight, SB, Roecker, Grayson, and MG's brother Bill and I went down to Moe's to eat. (Thank you, Barbara, for the Moe's gift card!). We sat and talked and told stories about family and friends and laughed. It was so much fun.

I need to get some sleep. They tell me it could be morning before MG actually opens her eyes, that it takes a long time for the medicine to clear her system. Everyone tells me I need to take care of myself and go home and get a good night's sleep. I need to get my clothes from Tracy, who brought them back from Gulfport (thanks, Jay, for taking Tracy in and rounding up the landlord with the right key). I need to go by the police department and get an accident report (but thank you, Sergeant Herren, for stopping by again and bringing with him Grayson's wallet and driver's license, which The Young Prince had left in the car MG was driving).
I need to take a long walk. I miss my four mile walks through the Gulfport small craft harbor every night. I can tell I'm starting to feel rusty, starting to get comfortable with the inaction.
I want to see Bill and Cindy's son, "W" - his name is actually Walt, but Cindy is a staunch Democrat so we've determined to call him "W" after you-know-who. We're supposed to have breakfast in the morning before they leave town.

But what I really want is to be here when MG opens her eyes. I have all these random things in my mind, and today I thought about this quote from Audrey Hepburn: "The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides."

As frustrated as I was at the orthopods last night and today, it's OK now. I understand that the next surgery, on MG's pelvis, will be complicated. The doctor I spoke with last night wants another set of eyes and ideas with him, so he'd like to wait until Monday when his partner gets back into town. That's all he had to tell me. I'm OK with that. So now we're looking at the orthopedic stuff to start Monday, which gives MG's body a few more days to mend and rest and recover to be strong enough to take the next trauma.

I read to MG from a book of Puritan prayers, a book called "The Valley of Vision." MaryClaire loaned me her copy, then decided she'd better just buy me one in case I didn't give hers back. Smart woman.
Here is part of a prayer or devotion I read to MG, but really I read it for me:
"Lord God, I know that my sudden anger arises when things cross me,
        and I desire to please only myself, not Christ.
There is in all wrongs and crosses a double cross -
        that which crosses me,
        and that which crosses thee;
In all good things there is somewhat that pleases me;
                                      somewhat that pleases thee.
My sin is that my heart is pleased or troubled
   as things please or trouble me
      without my having a regard to Christ. ..."

I want to be here when MG opens her eyes.
But I realize I still need my own eyes to be open, too.
  

I hate being stupid - and being treated like I am

I desperately want MG to talk to me.
It's been since sometime before 5 a.m. Saturday that I last heard her voice, when she said "I love you, too" because one of us always says "I love you" at the end of most of our conversations - especially lately, since we've been apart so much of the time.
I sit by her bed, and she looks like she's sleeping. I touch her hand and expect her to jump the way she would when she'd come suddenly out of a deep sleep, looking so angry at me (even though she wasn't, she was just startled). I expect her to roll over on her stomach and say, "If you really want to, you can rub my back."

It's Monday night, and everything today has been good. However, now I find that the surgery that I thought was scheduled for 8 a.m. is for 11 a.m. Thankfully it is still expected to be the final one on the abdomen, the one where they close up that part of MG's body because the swelling is going down and the healing is beginning.
And, even better, they seem to think the "orthopods" - as I call them - may actually get to her tomorrow, too. That's been the question I haven't been able to get answered. One doctor tells me the orthopedic procedure could begin as soon as the trauma surgery team is finished; another says if her vitals are good they may even let the orthopods go first; a third says no way, they won't let the ortho procedure start until the next day to give her body time to heal.
I'm a reformed reporter who spent most of my life working under the cute little wall-poster motto of "Get if first, but first get it right." I realize I'm not breaking a story here, but I am talking to people who I expect know ... but medicine, for all its science and formal training and the god-like respect we both give to doctors and some of them expect, remains an inexact practice.
That's not a knock on doctors or nurses or the medical profession. It's just a reminder that, like the rest of us, they are fallible. They have theories and ideas and opinions (as anybody who watches "House" knows), and sometimes they are wrong.
Yet most of the time they do eventually get it right.

Finally, I talk to an actual orthopedic surgeon. And all I hear is more "maybe this, maybe that, maybe this, I'd like to do that, but I might do this." Maybe it's late and I'm clearly frustrated.
So when will they do surgery on MG's pelvis? Maybe the end of the week. He'd like to wait until early next week. But they might do it tomorrow. And they might not do it at all, because the bones are kind of forming in the right spot so it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But then, that's not the best thing in the world, either.
Oh, he assures me they've got MG's best interest at heart.
I do believe him. But I'm tired. I'm grumpy. I'd like to actually talk to one of these doctors face-to-face. He says he'll come by and see me tomorrow ... if he can.
I can't wait.

More disappointment.
 For some reason, I thought after the final surgery to MG's abdomen, when they'd begin to take her off the paralytic and bring her out of the medically induced coma, they'd also remove her from the ventilator.
For some reason. I thought I'd maybe get to hear MG's voice - raspy and horse and perhaps slurring her words, but I'd get to see a glimmer of the light that I know shines behind those coma-closed eyes.
Now - and it makes perfect sense - I find out it is unlikely they will remove her from the ventilator. She won't be ready to breath on her own just yet, and if there are more surgeries needed it would do more harm to re-ventilate her than to simply keep her as she is.
Plus, particularly with the broken ribs, it's going to be painful to breath. And if she doesn't take good deep breaths, she's more susceptible to pneumonia.
So the ventilator will remain part of her for the foreseeable future.
Which means no words.

I know SB and The Heir have to go back to school for final exams. But I know they want to be there if "Mama" wakes up. I know they are hoping to see her, to talk to her and see recognition in her eyes, to hear her say something back.
I don't want them to be disappointed, but I'm afraid they will be.
And I'm frustrated.

But, the night nurse tells me, she will be able to open her eyes and react. She should soon be able to follow instructions to wiggle her toes and squeeze a hand. Maybe even my hand.
Soon, we could give her a pen and paper and she can write if shes feels like it.
"And some people come out of this and write perfectly,'' the nurse tells me. "Some people think they are writing perfectly, but you can't tell what it says."
MG was always skilled in her penmanship.
You and I 'write.' MG practices 'penmanship.' It's a source of great pride for her (although she might not admit it). Those nuns from her Catholic school stressed the importance of penmanship. It was a lesson she learned well.
I hope it is instinctive.

Down the hall, I can hear the night nurse asking a patient, "Is it hurting? Where are you hurting?"
I assume he or she must be able to answer, and I'm envious.

Sometimes I am frustrated at how little progress we've made on this journey, and overwhelmed at how far we have to go.
But then, there I go - thinking about me again. I try to imagine how MG must feel. And when I do, I feel ... small.

Tracy Hipps is incredible in all this. Everyone should have a friend like Tracy. Today, he volunteered to drive to Gulfport, to my apartment, and get some of my clothes, my boots, my Bible and reading glasses and vitamins. I wrote out careful directions, described what my building looked like, wrote a map, carefully detailed exactly where in my apartment everything could be found.
I called the other two guys who live on the same floor - there are three apartments in the building, which is over a business and behind a law firm - to let them know someone was coming and would be spending the night in my apartment. I laughingly told them not to shoot him, and told Tracy that the good thing was that if he did get arrested, the building next door was home to the "Aw Shucks Bail Bondsman" service. (I love that name).
I wrote everything down, and gem-clipped my keys to the paper.
Everything was perfect.
Except I gave him the wrong key.
I hate to be stupid like that.

The vital signs are good. She's been steady throughout the day. Her room here in the trauma unit is a quiet oasis of sorts, away from the crowds in the waiting room - the crying babies, the talking families, even my own family and friends who want to be near, and I can't blame them.
But sometimes its nice just to sit here with MG, to read her the emails from friends and family, to read facebook posts about her, to read from a book or quote the words of a song or just to tell her the funny stories of the day.

I hope, somewhere behind those closed eyes and plastic tubes and matted hair, she'll wake up with her own stories.
I desperately want to hear her voice.

Depending on the Kindness of Strangers

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." - Blanche DuBois, "Streetcar Named Desire," by Tennessee Williams.

Tell me about it.
There are so many friends that I need to thank, but today I'm thinking about the 'strangers' - strangers to me, anyway.

I freely acknowledge and admit this is self-indulgent. I don't mean for this to sound like it's all about me. But I don't know what MG is feeling or thinking. And I am self-centered. I'll probably write about that more later. I admit it bothers me, that I do feel guilty, but I guess I don't know how to think about this except in terms of 'what do I do next?'

At the time of MG's wreck, sometime around 5:30 Saturday morning, strangers travelling up Highway 280 stopped and called police. They stopped and re-directed traffic around the car she was trapped in, because she was facing the wrong way in the far left lane, at a critical point in what is essentially a blind curve heading west/north on 280. Everyone in Birmingham knows what 280 traffic is like; it's either a parking lot during the week, or it becomes Talladega International Speedway when traffic is light. It would have been nothing for someone to come around that curve and smashed the car - with MG inside it - again, and who knows how that would have compounded an already horrible situation with another injury?
People do care. They don't stand  by while someone is in trouble. Some of those 'strangers' undoubtedly risked their lives to protect MG until police and emergency personnel could get there.
Thank you.

We have all gained an appreciation for EMP's and police, particularly since we saw what they do played out in horrific real time on 9/11. But I saw real concern, real compassion, real care in the people of the Mountain Brook Police Department. We laughingly call Mountain Brook "the tiny kingdom'' because it so often comes across as presumptuous and arrogant and isolated from the rest of the Birmingham metro area and the state. Sometimes that description is deserved. Most of the time, it's said with loving affection.
But the members of the MBPD I dealt with - from the policeman who came to my door (and maybe he was actually Vestavia Hills police, I didn't really bother to check) - have my and my families' heartfelt appreciation. The police officer who came to find me in the hospital directly from the scene of the accident told me every person on the scene was concerned and wanted to know how MG was doing.
When Tracy Hipps went to the police department to try to recover MG's purse, he said even the dispatcher told him they were praying for MG, that everyone he talked to knew what happened and cared.
Tracy told me a detective would be calling me, but no - shortly after the detective showed up on the ninth floor of UAB to personally see how things were going, to let me know what was going on with the report, etc. I honestly felt like he took this personally, sick that it happened and determined to see the investigation through.
Thank you.

My oldest, The Heir, Roeck-Dawg, the Knob - he's had a difficult year as a Knob at The Citadel. Of course, he knew that going in. Still, there is often a wide gap between expectation and reality, and the reality was much more difficult because his expectation was that the Knob year of the Fourth Class System would be mostly physically demanding and instead it was incredibly mentally challenging.
At times, he hated it. (I think any Knob would say the same thing). At times, he felt everything the Citadel said it stood for was a lie. He once told me "these guys will not be my life-long friends." We talked about transferring, but I insisted - and he was determined - to finish the Knob year.
Last weekend was Rec Day - "Recognition Day" - when the Fourth Class system ends and the Knobs become accepted members of the Corp of Cadets.
On Saturday, when Roeck got the news, he was fine on the phone with me. I told him there was no reason to come home, but if he wanted to we'd work it out. After he got off the phone, he told me he was pretty shaken. The guys in his company he is closest to gathered around him and protected him. He was supposed to eat breakfast (mess) with some guys, but when he got down to the mess hall he broke down again. One of his buddies literally picked him up and said, "I'm getting you the f... out of here. They're not going to see you like this."
I'm not sure of Lt. Alexander Morgan's full rank, but he's a senior and company commander or some such. Roecker told him what was going on, and Mr. Morgan told said, "You're going home if I have to drive you to Birmingham myself. I'll talk to your professors. You're going."
I'm not sure how Roecker got to the airport, got on a plane, but he got home.
And he told me, "Now I understand what the Corp is about, the bond and the camaraderie. These are the guys I'll be friends with for the rest of my life."
I wrote a note to Mr. Morgan to thank him and he said,  "I'm just paying it forward. This is what we do. I've had it done for me, and I do it for the younger guys, and they'll do it for someone else."
At The Citadel, they have this thing about "wearing the ring." Roecker is a long way from that, but he sees what it means.
Thank you.
And if you're at The Citadel and read this, don't hold this against Roecker. He is going back to The Citadel.
Proudly.

I could go on and on. But like Blanche, the truth is I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

We live in a fallen world, a world that is crying out for redemption. But every day, we see a little of "Eden" - that place where we were created to live in perfect relationship to God, to each other, to nature - burst through our fallen personalities.

Great is Thy faithfulness (surgery update)

It is Sunday night, and once again I'm fascinated by numbers.
All of my life I've studied numbers: wins and losses; batting averages; yards per carry; points per game; height and weight and time in the 40 yard dash.
Even the last two years I've studied numbers: pounds of debris cleaned, miles of beaches worked, number of dollars spent and invested.
Now I'm watching more numbers:
127 - pulse rate; down from the 144 beats per minute of the last 24 hours.
110/65 - blood pressure, up from the 90 over whatever it was most of the last day.
99.9 - temperature, down from the 101.6 which wasn't terribly high, all things considered, but not normal.
66 - I'm not sure what this number means. It has something to do with the heart, and normal is between 60-75 I was told; for most of the last day and a half that number has been closer to 60.
These are MG's vitals. There are more of course .. far more monitors and screens and beeps and graphs than I'll understand. MG would understand them all; she made a point of knowing everything that was going on in situations like this. When my Dad was in the hospital with a Factor 8 blood inhibitor disorder, she soon knew as much as the hematologists and other specialist treating him.

MG had emergency surgery tonight. Not emergency in the sense that anything was particularly life-threatening, but emergency in the sense that for the last day or so, her "vitals" had not been right. They'd not been stabilizing the way the doctors hoped. So finally, the trauma surgeon decided rather than wait until tomorrow when he surgery was scheduled, he'd just do it tonight.

Let me back up some more. In the list of "insults" that occurred to MG's body, I don't know that I mentioned collapsed lung, lacerations to her kidney, and a bruised heart.
I don't know if 'bruised' is the right word for heart, but the cardiologists were concerned that her heart rate was staying up in  the 140s. And her blood pressure was not coming up. And she was showing loss of blood - barely, but enough to notice and create concern. Blood oxygen levels had dropped. And who knows what else.

I didn't mention all that, because I get caught up in the 'big' things. But as we all know, it's the 'little' things that can kill you.
So she had surgery Sunday night. Slowly, friends started showing up. It was after 8 p.m. and I was sitting with Tracy and MaryClaire, but then Sara Beth and Roecker and Grayson and Rob and then Kevin Delaney show up.
The nurse comes to say the doctor wants to see me in the conference room, and of course I'm terrified. But the news is good. They checked out the abdomen, and nothing was bleeding. There was a lot of fluid built up, and they did an antibiotic wash and took out the sponges that had been left in from the previous surgery to, I guess, soak up stuff. They put in another drain from her pancreas to watch what came out there. They saw the hematoma in the pelvis was still there, but that was expected and the body will absorb it eventually.
But almost as soon as the sponges were removed and the cavity drained, the heart rate started dropping and vitals went up. It's as if the body was just rejecting all the crap - oh, how MG hates that word! - that was inside her.
So Dr. Cox seemed pleased. There will be more tests Monday. There are concerns over blood in her urine and a few things like that. They are watching her heart because of the trauma it suffered, but there is nothing they can do but let it heal.
But if everything continues like this, then Tuesday they can go back in, clean up again, and close up the abdomen - hopefully for good.
And then turn it over to the orthopedic surgeons to start putting the pieces back together.

I asked about the ribs. As I've said, roughly all her ribs on the left side were broken, many several times. But the feeling seems to be that ribs tend to go back into place, and as one doctor said, "By the time she needs them to start breathing on her own, they'll have already started to heal." Isn't the body a wonderful machine? Isn't God the ultimate healer? We're talking maybe two more days before they take her off the ventilator, and her ribs will be ready to help support her natural breathing.

Oh, that was another thing - during surgery, they checked her lungs and she could be breathing on her own. Don't ask me how they know or test, but that's what they said. I accept their word on that.

I went back to the waiting room so excited - and there were Ralph and Rick and Suzanne and Jay and Pam and Dan and Laurie and Warren and Pastor Williams and Kelly and ... I don't know. I'm probably missing someone.

But we had church. Right there in the little dining room off the side of the waiting room. We held hands and prayed and thanked God and, well, had church.

And God was there. We know, because we brought Him with us. But of course when we got there, we found He was already there anyway.

So now I sit beside my Trophy Wife, watching her lie there, suddenly looking so much more peaceful than before. Of course, I didn't realize she wasn't peaceful before because she looked the way she looked. But now I can tell so much of a difference.

Thank you for caring. We're a long way from being out of the woods. There are miles to go, and decisions that have to be made, and more hurdles than we've ever faced as a married couple.

But tonight, I feel a burden lifted.

Before MG went back to surgery, I spent the afternoon talking to her, reading to her, because she always said my voice brought her comfort (which means, put her to sleep - but her description sounded so much better).

And I remembered these words, sung so often in my youth:

Great is Thy faithfulness, oh God my Father.
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not.
As Thou has been, Thou forever will be.
Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto Me!

I'm going to bed now.
I think I might actually even sleep.

Surgery, sooner than expected

I'm going to be jumping around a little now that I'm trying to do updates on Mary Grace.

I've watched her lying there in bed for two days, on ventilator, in a medically induced coma and medically induced paralysis, and hurt.
I hurt for her, and I hurt for me, and I hurt for the kids and family and friends.

The messages you get from medical personal are so mixed, and I'm not good at deciphering. That was always MaryGrace's job.
We were told they'd do surgery Monday on her abdomen, and if everything looked good, then the orthopedic surgeons could go in the next day to start on the pelvis.
Then I was told that one surgery would more than likely not be enough. Typically, it takes more than one surgery to determine that everything is fine internally to allow the orthopods (my name for them) to go to work. And the surgery would only happen every other day, so if they did it Monday and didn't like what they found, they'd wait until Wednesday to go again, then Friday, then Sunday and so on ... until they saw what they wanted to see.
Then the ortho's could begin later that day or the next.

However, just after I was told that on Sunday, the surgeon came and said they didn't like the bloodwork they were getting from MG. After studying it for four hours, they decided there was something going on internally and, as the surgeon said (Dr. Cox): "Why wait 12 hours for something we can do now?"
My sentiments exactly.

So Sunday night, MG is going into surgery to see if they can find what they didn't see Saturday. With all the trauma, I'd be shocked if they didn't miss something. In addition to the previously described injuries, they determined her elevated heart rate is probably due to her heart being bruised by the busted ribs - or something - and the injury triggered something that caused her heart to start working too fast.
Not too too fast, but fast.
And the cardiologists were not overly concerned because everything else heart-related remains good.

So we face another surgery tonight, as I type this. I'll let you know what what we find out.
Regardless, it means another surgery Tuesday to do a check-over, and if that's not good then Thursday, then Saturday, then .... I don't want to think about it.

Let's pray and hope that Tuesday is it. In fact, Dr. Cox said if everything goes well tonight, then they possibly could have the orthopods ready to go Tuesday as well. Maybe even go first!

I admit to being impatient, and MG was just telling me how God was teaching her patience, that she realized she had to wait on other people ... and that's hard for MG to do, because she's so efficient and proficient. But she was learning.

Now, I have to learn. Because this is totally out of my control.
God, do the lessons always have to be this hard?