The Life of Cardboard

    The homeless remind me of the homeless we have at home, but it’s hotter here. They’re under bigger overpasses, but the cardboard is the same. It’s in from the Chinese Pacific Silk-road on giant cargo shirts, protecting trillions of dollars worth of stuff, offering small but real protection to products as they float waiting for a useful place. 

    Trees have rings like cardboard has grime; you can tell how how far down the consumer chain by the unreadability of its letters and the scars it bears. The same may be true about those who now use it as a sleeping mat, under the sprawling overpass, beside the GAP store. It still offers small, but real protection to the people as I float by in the Paris of the South.  

Biting a Horse in Tokyo

For all its bright lights and crowded streets, Tokyo is a quiet town.

The malls are full and airports worse, but Tokyo is a quiet town. No one speaks except to friends... and no one sings, or shouts, or stomps... because Tokyo is a quiet town; a busy, hustling, bustling, moving town, but never a "scene in public" type of town.

So, when I bit the horse and felt his leg against my tongue, no one yelled, or whined, or whinnied (Tokyo is a quiet town), which was not what I expected.

American horses are on the plains or in a paddock on the farm, but this old horse was on a plate (did not complain), because Tokyo is a quiet town.

Wanting Movement p1

I find myself wanting to be on the move almost continually. I can feel my body vibrating and only seem to find relief while in motion. It's been simmering under the surface for years; my wife has described it as a wander-lust, but (in recent weeks) I've been intentionally digging under the tension.

Is it the entertainment, the knowledge? Thanks to Netflix and the rest of the internet, I can watch TV anytime regarding almost any subject, but the information soon saturates and the light from the screen soon gives me a headache.

Thanks to my tendency to be more and more sedentary, my legs hurt if I sit too long. At 37, my body fat has begun to distribute to my belly instead of being a butt pad. Hence, sitting also makes my butt hurt. I can only read my Kindle for so long; I have to get up and move.

I could do dishes or through another load of laundry on, but something else still nags my subconscious and makes me want to leave the chair, leave the house, drive a round and get lost at the coffee-shop, the church study, or my bro's place for a few hours until the jitters settle.

Parts of the equation, I already know. More than place, I crave people and (more than that) I crave the interaction, not necessarily their noise. 

They Sat on the Ground with Him.

When my father had his heart attack, the family rushed to Cleveland to sit by his bed and congregate in the waiting room outside of the cardiac wing of the Clinic. We waited for two days: through his stabilization in the emergency room, the initial assessment and first battery of tests, the consults with specialists, and finally the intervention. His surgery was actually delayed by a few hours because Robin William's cardiac surgery was taking longer than expected and they shared the same doctor. In spite of that, Dad made it home safe and sound and a few years have gone by in relative cardiac heath, minus the salt and extra gravy.

From that, the Vega family learned to appreciate the phrase, "as serious as a heart attack." As bad as it could have been, it's amazing how far medical technology and treatments have advanced in the last few years, let alone the last twenty. They now not only stop your heart and divert all blood from your chest to a machine, they cool your body down to morgue temperatures only to revive you after the surgery with a slow thaw. All that in the name of progress and a few extra saved brain cells. 

Despite all the progress and advances made in medicine, things that were unthinkable even a few years in every field of science, nothing still spells terror like the diagnosis of cancer... and, at Grace Fellowship Church (and in my own life), we have had more than our fair share or cancer cases; some of them very recent and still ongoing. What do you say to someone who is actively suffering the diagnosis, treatment, and uncertainty of cancer? For that matter, what do you say or do for anyone who is suffering real anguish and pain?

In the first few chapter's of the Biblical book of Job, the writer describes an ongoing bet between God and Satan regarding the namesake of the book and the horrible series of events that befall him. "But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."

Consequently, all of his belongings are stolen, his children die in horrible accidents, and his own body is stricken with "painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head." Nothing is left except his life, but even his quality of life is destroyed. His friends could hardly even recognize him when they see him for the first time after all of this had happened. If you've seen anyone who has undergone chemotherapy, has been slowly wasting away, or has an advanced liver disease, you may have a better understanding of how Job looked to his friends, shocking.

For all of the commentary indicting the three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) for their presumptuous commentary in later chapters, I think the final paragraph of chapter two (had it been all they did) is the most beautiful example of friends offering solidarity in regards to the suffering of a friend and loved one:

"When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him;they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was."

What do they do? Nothing that seems heroic, but it is amazing.

1. When they hear about Job's suffering, they gather together and go to check on him. 
2. When they see his suffering, they show genuine emotion and concern.
3. Without explanation or rationalization, they share in what they can of his suffering. They sit with him. 

How often do we make the later mistake of the friends and open our mouths to pontificate... when what we should be doing is the simplest of acts, just being with the one who is suffering?

Let them speak if they choose. Let them ask if needed. If they do, then speak or act. Be patient, open, and available. That's the amazing part we all too often forget and, because of that, end up doing more harm than good.     

I may never know or fully understand the true magnitude of anyone's suffering, but I can share in it and sit on the ground with them. 

Dying, But No Faster Than the Rest

I've done it before, but it never seems to get easier: They ask, "How is my [loved one] doing?"

I reply, "How much do you know?... They're dying."

Some of them know it, but can't say it. Some of them get blind-sided. Some of them just cry. None of them react the same, but they all get that look on their face when the light-bulb goes off in their mind. That tears me apart, the moment they see the expiration date on their loved one peaking out from the blanket at the foot of the bed.

I've given up giving false hope, agreeing with the thousand excuses and miraculous scenarios the person asking is hoping I'll tell them. Yes, I believe, but I've seen death more than miracles and the signs are often clear... if you choose to see them. The trick is in how you show them, prepare them, bring them together and help them navigate the inner (and sometimes outer) fights.

They think I'm the expert, not the loved one who's ready to let go and be with their long dead spouse. Sometimes, the patient just knows they can't hold on and is looking for permission from the loved one. In the midst of that, I'm supposed to be the sign post or the weather channel, the portent that signals life or death, the one to tell the family (often) what they already know.

I have to be the first to say it, to make it real or banish all the fears. What's more, the family never wants to ask it in the room or in ear-shot of the patient. They seem to think it's escaped the patient, the one lying in bed. They say things like, "Let's not talk too loud just in case they're listening."

Who? The patient, angels, death?

Even if family never shows up, I know. I mourn. I carry it with me. Each one sticks with me. Each one makes me remember my own mortality and the ones I'll leave behind.

Some nurses get drunk, some get mean, and (worst) some go numb. Personally, I write and always cry, not in front of the family, the lover, the friend, the rest of whoever, but I do cry. I've cried in the stairwell, the break room, the locker room, in bed, or at the solitary bedside of the comatose patient while doing my assessment or hanging medication. I've struggled with God. I've yelled at God in the car before going in the house late at night to go to bed. I've lost faith and gone down dark roads.

But I come back. So far, I've always come back. Sometimes all I can do is put one foot in front of the other until I can look up again, but I look up again. That's what I tell them: the patients and their loved ones. Not all of it, but enough to let them see I care and know a bit of what they feel. Forget the tag you see hanging off the patient's toe or the one you infer on your own toe.

We ask, "Will I ever see this person again, or do I lose them forever? What about my other loved ones? What is the point? What am I doing with my life? When will I die?"

When we're honest with ourselves, we answer, "Yes. We will die. Maybe no faster than the rest, but we are all going to die."

The moments before imminent death, that infinitesimal point in eternal history, make us question life and after. It can rip your psychological well being from its roots. It happens to the patient. I'm sure it's happening to the loved ones I interact with at the hospital. It happens to me, but experience lets me weather the storm with a strong face. At some level, we're all going through the same questions, anxiety, and angst.

What can you do? What can I do?

So far, nothing I can do as a nurse providing care, administering medications, observing what is happening and trying to anticipate what will happen can do anything more than delay the inevitable. Nothing the doctor can do as a physician can stop the end. No amount of family bickering, anger, bargaining, or finger-pointing can affect the past, but we can affect the present.

Discuss what's bothering you, be open, enjoy the moment. Spend now with who you can, when you can. Tell the air if you have to. That's all you can do, but you can miss the opportunity to do it.

Nurses know. Doctor's know. Your loved one who's dying probably knows better than all of us. Do you?

Don't Believe in Charms

The second greatest gift that God gave man is "common grace." Everything good comes from God and He is not limited in His means or by whom He chooses to use.

The theologian Calvin expressed it thus, "that we... cannot do any thing that is good without thee [God]." Even a non-believer glorifies God by their good intellect and/or the products of their hands. Their skill, music, writing, thoughts, actions, and even that which they don't do is temporarily elevated, allowed to exist in a greater plan of good. 

So... Why do some choose to put the Ichthys on their business cards? Is it in hopes of elevating their work? I find that is hardly the case. Instead, quite the reverse. It is used to lull those that think of the symbol as a charm, a speak-easy knock, the secret knowledge that will ensure an honest job from the person who's card it's on. Only charlatans have need to lull their prey and only the naive should believe it.

"Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds." I don't need a charm, nor do I care for those who do. Any reminder I carry is for myself.




  

Glass Aquariums

I feel a compulsory need to gain their attention, talk to them, and then... tamp them down, slow their role, control their outbursts. Why?

He came to church. For Easter, he got dressed up and came to the church he remembers. He was late, but, then again, we've changed times since he was there last. He sat next to a guy he knew and we talked during one of the songs. The conversation wandered from a smiled greeting, to the bike trail, to the song we were singing, to the woman up front at the microphone.

He made me nervous. I waited for the tell tail sign that makes our conversations awkward. Sooner or later, the other shoe always drops. It always has. His neural circuitry tends to loop in inappropriate areas and I have to fight the associated embarrassment when the tic comes out.

Why not say it? They make me nervous, but, as people, I find them (him) engaging. As a medical professional, I find them (him) interesting, fascinating.

I had spent the last four days on a family vacation with my daughters and wife. On the second day, we visited the Newport Aquarium and beheld the wonders of the ocean and the swamp: sharks, sting rays, a school of piranhas, a hundred year old snapping turtle, and a twenty-foot alligator. We stood and watched, tried to touch them (behind glass) as I pontificated to the girls about their habitats, life-cycles, wonders... and dangers. It was fun, it was interesting... it was safe.

Standing next to him in church, talking with him, it hit me. Why was I afraid of him? Why was I wasting all of my attention and energy trying to put a tank of glass between him and myself: to better study him? Was I treating him like a wild animal... an animal?

I was! I repented. I still had to actively focus on the worship going on. I had to force myself not to worry, but, for the next hour, I began to enjoy his presence as a fellow believer.

Social norms... the glass tank we swim in. Perhaps the glass tanks at the aquarium aren't just to protect the tourists? They protect the animals too!

Then it hit me again. I wasn't trying to protect him, I was trying to protect myself. He was as broken and forgiven as I am. He still waits and longs to be made whole again with the resurrection, but can't hide behind social norms like I can. He couldn't put on the protection like I could and he wanted to swim in my tank, sit by me, talk to me, and interact on my turf. That's what scared me. Would I have to do the same? Would I have to take down the glass wall between him and I? 

Would the others in church see my untamed side, my viciously unSunday side? The side of me that enjoys a bawdy joke, that enjoys an occasional beer, that connects and (more than that) empathizes with his daily struggle?

Yes and yes.

I still have boundaries, especially with my daughters in the seats beside me, but I did, will, and do want to swim with the other fish.

The first step: I will not be embarrassed. I will deal with it as it comes... if needed, but not before. I will not be "anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving" enjoy the people God puts in my life.

As my older patient's tell me when I ask them, "live life while you can and live it now." Damn the glass tanks!

Forget the Fig Leaf, Gird Yourself Like a Man

Of all the people in history that might have had a reason to complain, I would have given Job the benefit of the doubt. Adam, not so much:

Lone survivors tell of "fire from heaven,... raiding parties, ... [and] a mighty wind from the desert" that destroy everything dear to him.  Job losses his family and everything he owns. His progeny and their inheritance, his portion of Abraham's covenant with God, gone. His outer safety net of relationships go with it.

At the loss of everything he owns Job "did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing" and, after the loss of his health, Job "did not sin in what he said."

Then, his friends begin to eerily echo the words of the serpent in Genesis:

[Eliphaz speaks-]

A spirit glided past my face,
    and the hair on my body stood on end.

It stopped,
    but I could not tell what it was.
A form stood before my eyes,
    and I heard a hushed voice:[...]

'If God places no trust in his servants,
    if he charges his angels with error[...]

Are not the cords of their tent pulled up,
    so that they die without wisdom?’

At that, a closer ring of relationships are broken. 

Later, after he's afflicted with every milady except death, his own wife encourages him to "curse God and die." Now, all of his most intimate relationships have been severed, and he begins to question God, asks many of the deep questions of life, and even curses the day of his birth: 

“Why is light given to those in misery,
    and life to the bitter of soul,

to those who long for death that does not come,
    who search for it more than for hidden treasure,

who are filled with gladness
    and rejoice when they reach the grave?" 

I imagine that, in his grief and lack of anyone to confide in, he does the only thing he can. He yells at God, the only one left. As the textbook definition of rock bottom, I'm sure the silence and isolation Job feels is deafening. As a nurse, I've seen people who have suffered less and still Job's question has come to my mind on occasion.

Still, unlike when God spoke to Elijah in the gentle whisper, after all that Job has endured, God appears forceful in his answer and, like his questioning of Adam and Eve, gets to the heart of the issue like a knife.

 

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm:

“Brace yourself like a man;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me"

In so doing, God seeks to right the first and most important relationship in anyone's life, that of God and his individual creation. He doesn't mince words, he doesn't dilute or diminish it by asking the hearer (Job) to turn or cover his face. He even warns Job that He's going to tell him how-it-is and then force an accounting, an answer, no choice, no hiding in the garden of Eden.

[Then Adam (guarded by a fig leaf) replied to the Lord:]

“I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid. [...] The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 

In God's mercy, Job refuses to blame his wife and answers God with none of Adam's excuses and denials:

Then Job replied to the Lord:

“I know that you can do all things;
    no purpose of yours can be thwarted.[...]

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me to know.[...]

My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I despise myself
    and repent in dust and ashes.”

With Job's personal relationship with God back in order, God begins to move in the background and right Job's outer relational-rings: 

[God  speaks to Eliphaz]

 “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has... My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.”

To Eliphaz's credit, he obeys God, rights his relationship with the Almighty, stops conveying the message of the shadowy figure, and then asks for Job's prayer... and Job consents.

"After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before."

In this instance, Job's restoration appears to hinge on Eliphaz's personal obedience and Job's blind acceptance of his friends' public offering of regret. Does the idea that someone else's restoration may be riding on your obedience make you uncomfortable? I think it's meant to.

Next time you sin toward someone (even if well or unintentioned), don't hide behind the fig-leaf and wait for God to come calling for you. Gird yourself like a man. Obey and ask for forgiveness like Eliphaz; don't give excuses like Adam.

If anyone asks you for forgiveness, man up like Job (I doubt you have it worse), and extend obedient forgiveness. Don't point fingers, like Adam, at the very relationships and circumstances that you have been blessed with.

It is also worth noting that Job never gets his first children back; he still has to deal with his grief and real hurt, but he does so with the confidence that his relationships have now been righted and confirmed.

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
    and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
    may the name of the Lord be praised.”

All the rest flows from that.

My Oldest and I

She's the one with the quick and quiet wit that waits in line for the right moment to strike and comes out swinging for the fences only to retreat back into her shell with a blushing smile and a glint in her eyes that tells me she is proud and pleased with what she's done and the reaction that she saw register on my face. 

Two years waiting for her to take root and grow, it seemed I already knew her when she came out and grabbed my finger for the first time, wrapped around my finger and my heart.

My second love. I read to her; I played with her before she was born, a game of run and tag, her foot kicking at the light I used to tease her with against her mother's stomach. Her heat permeated anyone she touched enticing them to be the cushion that she slept on, contoured memory foam for her to grow on, she had her pick of human mattresses to protect her as she napped.

Whatever she wanted, she got. Not to spoil her or to make excuses for a lack of attention or to excuse or cajole behavior, but to see her smile and squeal, her eyes light up with joy that someone thought of her and knew just what she wanted. It wasn't hard; she never hid it. You just had to give her clothes to deconstruct and rebuild into her world.

Even at six, she lived for expression, in fashion, in school, in paint, and dance. Her cloths, her socks, they never matched. Why should they? She rejected the matches others made (she didn't know them) and made her own. Intensely loyal and acutely attuned to others'  feelings, she cried for others' pain and stood up for the rejected, sometimes sobbing in the car on the car ride home. She didn't even match her friends, but they still flowed together.

Her parties rocked and she would float between the groups of dance, or school, of church, of camp: lace, books, glasses, and camo. From movies under the stars, make-up in the room, and stages built to dance on, move on, she shined with everyone on whatever stage we built for her and put her on.

I've danced with her. It was best at the "princess balls," costume required. I was her prince, the king, and dinner date before dancing on the floor to music way too loud for both our ears. The first time, she danced with me alone and held my hand when friends came. A circle would ensue; we'd dance together. A hop with fervor in the air. I was still the stage she clung to.

With confidence came willingness to leave me for a while, short trips that soon got longer as the years went by and now I stand and watch her celebrate with friends away from me, but always with an eye to see me there, see me watching, still close enough to see her need should it arise, a visible anchor if she falls.

This year she asked me something different, She wanted me to blend in with the other dads who never seem to go-all-out. They where their suits and stand by the wall sipping beer and chatting to themselves, ignoring all around them: an illusion for her friends or maybe for her own new found sense of adventure, the need to venture out. She asked it to my wife, the sounding board, the go-between, to see if it would stick. I was crushed and she quickly changed her mind, but I've watched her dance, her own creations on the stages of her choosing.

I no longer match her style. I'm no longer the visible protector, partner, father, front-stage-participant, but that's okay. I know which way she's headed. My second love is looking for her independent place, the same one I gave her the confidence to take.

She still knows I'm there. I remind her. I tell her I love her... watching, blending, and waiting should the need arise. 

Daily Pills and Shame

At six, I rode my first bike. My ever-so-slightly younger brother was already gliding the pavement without his training-wheels and I was the one left behind. motivated by shame, I vowed to catch-up and allowed my dad to teach me. I learned quick when he let go at the top of a local hill that had just been tar-and-chipped. The immanent fear of danger was a quick and efficient teacher.

At seventeen, I drove my first car. My girlfriend had started college and my friends had figured out I didn't like to pay for gas. Their was no way I was going to get caught riding the bus as a high-school upperclassman. A weeks worth of trips on the same bus as the freshman and having to get up an hour earlier to do it proved to be the breaking point for my reluctance to get a part time job and begin paying for car insurance. Again, shame drove me to take the next step in my life. 
 
As a nurse working on a hospital's chronic heart floor, I see the effects of shame. Older women who are afraid to admit they can no longer cook for themselves and end up sending their sodium and sugar levels through the roof with microwave dinners. Older men who refused to use a walker or a cane until they fell down the stairs and broke their pelvis. No one wants to admit that they may be suffering from the worst parts of getting older, dependance and physical decline. 

Today, the doctor told me what I had already known. My blood pressure is getting too high. Most of the patient's I take care of would be happy to have my numbers, but I know that the sixty-five year old I take care of during the day probably had borderline numbers like me when he was my age. What kept them from taking care of their systolic business in the 1980's? Aside from lack of information, I'm guessing it was shame. Ignorance may be bliss, but the next best thing is a good show for the rest of them. Right? 

I've seen the ravages of heart disease and high blood-pressure. I've seen proud men drown in their own fluids, their lungs filled up past the first lobe. I've seen women stroke out with a systolic pressure above 240, despite headaches, multiple visits to the ER with chest pain, and difficulty breathing. When I have time, I ask them when they started getting mild symptoms, when they noticed it (and started ignoring it); it's almost always in their 30's and early 40's. They started killing themselves in their 30's!

So, at thirty-four, I've taken my first blood pressure pill and hope the small monthly investment pays bigger dividends thirty years from now despite the shame and the admittance of the inevitable, my body isn't perfect and neither am I. They always say it's the first step. Next step, the right foods and exercise... I'm not there yet. 

Chronic Stress: How to Cope in a Down Economy (Part 1)

The following is the first part in a series on how small businesses can reduce chronic stress in the workplace.

They may lurk in a back office hazed in a ring of smoke sitting next to a cold cup of caffeine. They may be hunched over a calculator and a keyboard crunching numbers, or they may be out at the counter making sure that everything gets done “just right.” Often, they coexist with the equally anxious hired hand in charge of keeping daily operations going and the lights on. Either way, with slim pickings for profit margins and given the generally-negative economic atmosphere, is it any surprise that many small business owners and executives exhibit signs of chronic stress? With that said, what are the signs and possible symptoms of chronic stress and what is its overall impact on the viability and longevity of small businesses in the area and the health and well being of the owners and staff? Once identified, aside from buying a fishing boat and moving to the bahamas, what can be done about it?

This three part article will be an interesting read. It may even take you down memory lane and serve up a few “aha” moments that will better your life and hopefully your health. After all, a happier staff is a more productive staff and “if the boss ain't happy, ain't no one happy.” Your health and the health of your staff is the bottom line.

The disclaimer

Many people read articles like this one, see the list of symptoms, and feel the affliction known to University Clinics around the world as “Medical Student’s Disease” or at doctor’s offices as “cyberchodndria.” In that, armed with the new knowledge of possible symptoms, you begin to see them everywhere. Rest assured and take a deep breath, this article is meant to educate, not diagnose. It’s meant to help you ask questions of yourself, start conversations at work, and then take those questions to your primary care provider.

Am I covered? Wait... if you’re having chest pain signs or other signs of a heart attack, call 911 or go to the emergency room.  So, with that in mind and the lawyers off of speed dial, let’s move on.

Warning! Science Content.

In order to understand abnormal reactions to stress we must first understand our body’s normal reaction to it, which begins with a brief history lesson and some basic physiology.

Only in the last few hundred years, has mankind been able to worry more about what new iPhone app to download than about running away from large predators while looking for food. If you want an excellent primer on the subject, watch the new animated movie “The Croods” with your family. In it, the patriarch of the cave-family uses the motto “Never not be afraid.” His only job is to keep his family alive. He is big and strong and only has to react to threats. No “ideas” necessary.

Physiologically and chemically, not much has changed since the stone-age. In order to outrun the saber-tooth tiger at your heels or fight the bear at your front door, two chemicals do most of the heavy lifting and it starts in your brain.

Think of the amygdala as the alarm bell in your brain. Tucked away in the back of the medial temporal lobes of the brain, this almond sized piece of the basal ganglia is responsible for receiving perceived threat information from the frontal cortex and signaling the adrenal glands (housed atop the kidneys) to begin production of a host of hormones. Just the sight or sound of a perceived threat sets off an unconscious signaling process. Most people identify this as “getting tense” or feeling agitated, but they seldom know why.  

Enter the hormone adrenaline. If the amygdala gets the engine primed, adrenaline revs it through the gears like a Japanese drift racer. It constricts peripheral blood vessels, which decreases the possibility of limb hemorrhaging. Core blood pressure goes up, to fight possible hemorrhaging, and it takes the brakes off your SA node to increase your heart rate to pump needed fuel to running legs. If you’re not already on the run, you’ll feel your heart race, beads of sweat gather on your arms, and you’ll get a headache from too much light entering your dilated pupils.

While adrenaline recruits massive amounts of muscle fiber for fast action, the corticosteroid Cortisol feeds them by elevating the amount of glucose in your blood. It also stalls your immune system and its inflammatory response to protect muscle cells during extreme use. If you haven't been eaten or mortally wounded, the system is designed to save you and then reset itself and return the body to normal. You, however, at the cash register or on the couch after a hard days work will feel completely drained, possibly lethargic, and have no motivation to get into the sunlight you crave.  

Granted, Wolves and Vikings are negligible threats in most of Ohio, but the system still serves its purpose. Cars get pulled off of kids by superhuman moms. Trauma victims make it to the Emergency Room alive and first responders function at top gear, but what happens when the intermittent stresses of wolves, vikings, and overturned cars are replaced by the unending stress of bills and payroll? What happens if the system doesn’t reset itself?

We'll get into this next week and focus on the negative effects of chronic stress over a period of time and begin to delve into practical (and free) ways to begin to identify and combat those effects in your everyday life. In the meantime, check out the references below for more in-depth reading on the subject as your time permits.

References:

Lemonick , M. (2003, October 06). How to heal a hypochondriac. Time, Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1005818-2,00.html

U.S. Census Bureau. (2007). Retrieved from U.S. Census Bureau website: http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html

Mayo Staff. (2010, September 11). Stress: Constant stress puts your health at risk.. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress/SR00001

McEwen, B. S., & Mirsky, A. E. (2007). Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation: Central role of the brain. Retrieved from http://physrev.physiology.org/content/87/3/873.full

My Oldest.

She's picked up a wicked "you have to know something obscure to know what I'm laughing at" sense of humor. Half the fun is watching her watching whoever it is that she's talking to. Her eyes kinda twinkle and you can see the smile on the corner of her mouth begin to twitch as the other person mulls over the obscure thought connection puzzle she's laid in front of them. She lets it go if they don't get it, but her voice dances when they do; they're in the club. They've figured out the secret handshake and cared enough to play along. I've taught her well.

Her inhibitions leave when she's on the dance floor. She owns it. She knows it.  She talks to it. Barefoot, she caresses the wooden floor, whispering with each pirouette. With her toes, she digs in and shouts a chassé, knowing the air accepts her, loves her, and the floor regains her when she's done.

The floor is the foundation of all her muscle, all her moves. It never leaves, never fails, always accepts her efforts to leave and pushes back, with equal force, to help her gain new heights in what she loves. Just enough resistance to make her strong, a trust earned since she was three. I hope I've done the same.

She notices everything, physical and emotional. Windshield wipers that go faster than ours. The movie that showed an obscure shot of the Central Park Zoo trying to pass it off as somewhere else. Seeing others bullied afflicts her physically with pain and hardens her to action. My own inner facial flinch when she does something I don't approve of makes her crumble when I leave the room. She knows me so well it scares me.

She's so much like me that it scares me. Not that I'm afraid she'll do something stupid, she will. Not that she won't be brilliant, she is. No, her burden will be an internal one, a constant struggle between introversion and the excitement of the crowd, the shy subtlety of "will you join my club" and the pure joy of performance. Her power is her weakness; her joy is high and her sorrow black, but tomorrow is always sunny. I think she'll navigate it well. 

I Smell a Panic and it's Covered in Aspartame

Every few years some sort of death food or medicine rears its ugly head on the internet and circulates like wild-fire. Apparently, aspartame is back on the paranoia circuit again.

Remember, anything can be a poison. Of course it's not the best thing for you and has unintended consequences if you guzzle it by the gallon in a frothing frenzy to not eat (all natural) sugar. It might also show up in the blood stream of dead people who had multiple health issues that forced them to use a sugar-substitute; diabetes probably being the common co-morbidity. Others may have been indulging in an unknown variety of "all-natural" health elixirs that don't mix well with much, including aspartame.

If you have ever taken a course in statistics or research you will (or should) learn the phrase "correlation does not mean causation." One of the top examples is the correlation between ice-cream sales and drownings, one of the highest ever studied. As one increases, so does the other. The key is in understanding that they are related, not in causation, but in relation. The relation being the heat of summer time that causes people to eat ice cream and swim. One does not cause the other, but they very often keep close company.

One story that was circulated regarding aspartame included the story of John Cook who "began drinking six to eight diet drinks every day. His symptoms started out as memory loss and frequent headaches." It goes in to great detail describing horrific symptoms that led to his untimely demise. Which begs the question: Was Mr Cook given the standard test for Phenylketonuria (PKU) at birth?

Strikingly, Mr Cook's symptoms correlate with PKU and the substance phenylalanine is often found together with aspartame in sugar-free diet drinks. Was he too old to be tested at birth or was he denied the test by well intentioned parents for fear of a government conspiracy covering up horrendous deaths? We will never know because the story is just vague enough to sound true, but uses a wonderfully generic name that is hard to track.  

Although a bit more money from the government or the FDA might help their bottom line, Doctors, Pharmacists, and Nurses are not part of the conspiracy. They might alert someone as to the over consumption of any food-additive or a potential interaction between medicines or over-the-counter (OTC) herbals.

The current postings smell of the same pseudo-science and panic inducing rubbish that fuels the anti-immunization campaigns, which harm more people than they help.  A web search gives nothing but uncited cut-and-paste news stories that fail to mention where they can from or an original author that has written anything else in the health field. The only "support" for the story is a self-publicized conspiracy theory.

If you or your child need sugar substitutes to make a medical condition bearable, than use them in moderation, but don't throw them away and cause yourself harm by ignoring your medical condition.

If you feel over-burdened to spread medical news, make sure it is a cited article and not cut-and-paste. For everything else, find a medical professional you trust and can talk to before you jump on a band wagon. Even Dr Oz is wrong occasionally, so get a second opinion if you want, but the internet can be a dangerous place to take at its word. 

Time Travel and the Promise That Made it Happen

Have you ever wanted to talk to a time traveler?  What would you ask him? Despite Dr. Brown's repeated warnings, would you risk the space-time continuum? Would you want to visit yourself and see what you've become or give a younger you advice and maybe the winner of the next few sporting events in Vegas? I have and still do, but it wasn't the conversation or the reaction I was expecting.

Twenty years ago, I wrote myself a letter. I had a week to write it, so I woke up at 6AM the morning it was due and typed out the required page, double spaced with the largest allowed font size, on our brand new 486 computer. The dot matrix printer whined as the step feeder clicked a quarter line at a time. Hot off the printer, I tore off the sheet of ready to read dreams, stuffed it in a self addressed stamped envelope, and walked out to the waiting bus. I had done the minimum required. I didn't care or know what the stamp was for.

The letter was a strange mix of what I knew from home, a family that was still together, and the best paying job I could think of (which was the best paying job in the board game LIFE), being a doctor. Three boys seemed to work in my world of two brothers, so that's what I wanted. I liked my hometown, so I would move back after college. My letter-wife was more of an "of course" than a partner, friend, and certainly not a lover. I knew I would have a house, but had no idea what a mortgage was.

Dickens made his living by showing the terrible lives of others and their children. I had the idyllic childhood. My parents still kissed in public, fought behind closed doors, cooked every dinner at home, and we ate together with a fork, knife, and spoon at every meal, including pizza. I had acres of woods to roam in, no idea what 24/7 TV was, and friends I could call to come over any week-end. I lost track of what day of the week it was during summer breaks. Sunday was the only definable day in a whir of frivolity. I could have saved time that morning twenty years ago and simply wrote, "I want what I already have."    

But, all dreams must end and mine ended abruptly. Somewhere during my senior year, my parents shifted back from superhuman to being merely human. Their hard worked facade cracked under the weight of a soon to be empty nest and Dad's graduate school. Then it shattered with a quick divorce after my graduation from high-school.  I didn't know how to cope. I left the country and started running.

Between Japan, working summer camps, and college, I didn't spend more than a weekend home again for over six months.  At college, I joined Campus Crusade to jump around on Thursdays and joined the worship team for a smaller Christian Bible study to feel connected on Tuesdays. On the phone and at home, I devoted almost every waking moment to my high-school girlfriend. She was the glue that kept me coming back to Mansfield, back to home, but even her sweet touch couldn't keep my feet from running from the new reality at home.

When I came home for Christmas break, I had a letter waiting for me. As promised all those years before, a self-addressed stamped envelope from the past was waiting on the living room table, waiting to reminisce, waiting to remind, waiting for an accounting and an answer. Like a gunshot in the night, it stopped me in my tracks.

The paper time traveler wanted to tell me something and all I could do was cry. In three or four small paragraphs in large print, it confirmed for me the loss I had felt and yet couldn't pin down, couldn't remember how to put into words, couldn't recall as the broken ideal I had believed to the point of unspoken and forgotten truth. It allowed me to grieve and know what I was grieving for. I cried tears of remembrance, tears of regret... and, once out, tears of thankfulness, because it also reminded me of what I had had. It gave me a goal for my children as they grew up, albeit with a different ending.

In all the fog of divorce and broken dreams and ideals, a fifteen year-old boy walked me back into the dream he had come so far through space and time to remind me of. He was a procrastinator and a bit of a rule stretcher, but he could articulate his life with passion and conviction even if it was a bit naive. As a thirty-four year old, I have just begun to appreciate how significant that moment was and how you truly can meet wandering time travelers who will change your life and of the teacher's promise that made it possible.    

This Job Will Never Come Again

7:05am

Another morning. The alarm clock has done its thankless job again, but the girls have beat it to the punch. They've run into the room, run me over, and pulled the warm and snugly fitted sheets off of me and onto themselves with a giggle and a contented sigh. They squabble over who gets mom's long abandoned feather pillow. The loser yanks on mine, places her feet on my back, pushing hard, and demands a light breakfast of whatever sugary cereal we have in the cupboard that morning. She always seems to ask for the one that ran out the morning before.

Coffee in the Keurig. The iPod comes off the charger on the kitchen stereo and I check the schedule. If it isn't on there, it probably won't get done. The youngest has dance. Pick up the girls from school. Deposit a check. The watch should be done at the jewelers. Nothing special today. The schedule and my wife kept me moving (and passing) during nursing school. It became a habit of necessity along with checking my email as I rolled out of bed to see the clinical assignments sent out at 4AM. My days are a bit easier in the morning; I check email at seven-thirty now.

7:30am

The filters are getting better, only two or three advertizements and none demeaning the size of my m3mber or touting the newest weight loss miracle cure discovered in some protein rich African berry boosted with B-vitamins and crack disguised as caffeine. The paper version rots in my mailbox and only gets checked a few times a week.

Let's see: Church sent a shotgunned prayer request. The Daily Forward is reviewing life in Brooklyn, again. Dad has sent me another 15MB attachment full of pictures. He says that Facebook is too inhuman and, if he wanted strangers to look at his life, he'd post it on the town square telephone pole. He might have a point, but even his considerate zipping of the pictures does little to curb my irritation at the momentary inconvenience as I set the iPod down to let it download his fishing pictures.

Multitask. The coffee's done. The children are out of bed: cereal, spoons, last minute homework for the oldest,  twenty minutes of Word Girl for the youngest while she eats.


8:00am

Her hair is a tangled fluffy golden puff. Her eyes are playfully blue and her lips are pursed in defiance. She know this dance. We've tangoed before. It's more than that, it's a dare and she knows who wins. Her latest version of "I don't want socks," or "I hate those pants" has evolved to include kicking me in the jaw. It hurts, but I know it's just the independence talking. She has no idea what her real strength is. It took myself, a large orderly, and the doctor to hold her still long enough to get a bean out of her nose a few years ago. She's stronger now.

The oldest has always dressed herself and knows the school handbook by heart. The school challenged her once and she beat 'em down. Not bad for a ten year old. I only heard about it on the way home when I asked why she was smiling so broadly. She is beginning to realize the power of a confident girl, but she feels others pain acutely. I won't be surprised when she joins the peace core after medical school.  

Out the door, still hoping all their shoes are on and the book bags are in the car because I don't see them inside.

8:35am

I sweet-talk the car, half praying to God that the transmission shifts past second gear this time when backing out onto the highway. Truckers don't slow down when you stall and I'm not sure the air bags work, but who does.

I must have upset the tiki-gods last night. The power steering spit up all the fluid last night and my elbows pop in and out as I crank the column around and hit the gas. The youngest is singing to herself about the cereal she spilled. The oldest stares at the clock, knowing we'll be late and trying not to vomit with the realization that she may be the last kid dropped off at the corner of the school and have to walk her sister in alone to the sound of morning announcements.

8:55am 

The lights are all green and we slide in just in time. "Love you girls. Have a good day." Out the doors they go, down the side-walk, and into the school. I miss them already, but I can wait. I know they're growing up and I can't see it all.

Seven-thirty to nine o'clock every day. This is an hour an a half I wouldn't miss for the world. I don't know how I ever did or why. Well, I do. The money was nice, but this is better. I know I won't be able to do this for ever, but I know them better than I ever have. I feel like a Dad. I feel reconnected in a way I haven't felt since they fell asleep as babies on my chest while I was watching football in a chair propped back. It counter-balances my current joblessness/ underemployment and it salves the wounds for now. The job that pays cash will come, but this job will never come again.       

My wife. My love. My joy.

Seeing her in the office with confidence written all over her face impresses me.

She's in her element when she's allowed to talk meaningfully about helping students get a better head start than she had in elementary school. She isn't arguing. She isn't in distress. She's teaching, guiding, team leading and it shows. Her eyes are beautifully bright.

She is a practical woman. She enjoys nothing more then to gather all of the tools around her and plan for the day, the week, the year. Not just to stratagize, but brass-tacks, nuts-and-bolts kind of stuff. Her joy is contagious... and I can only see her through the office window. What a smile.

Even in a pinch, she's there with a grin, but, more than promised prayer on-the-run-out-the-door, she's real help and active practiced advice. She opens up her own resources and shares, without monetary or work-place political gain, anything anyone could need or want... or not even know they wanted until they brainstormed with her is theirs. Book sets on loan: Junie Bee, Deep Fried Worms, Forth Grade Nothing, you name it. Open door during breaks, after school, and in the hall, she's powerful grace in motion.

I trace her beauty in the lines of her dress as she moves toward the door to say hello and see just what I need while excusing the interruption to the others in the room. I love her.

I love the way she loves. I love the way she moves with grace, power, purpose, and an accepting knowledge of her own struggles past and present. Her eyes, her smile, herself. I can't believe she's mine to love in return.   

Snippits for Easter

In Ezekiel, God speaks to Jerusalem regarding looking down on others and foreshadows non-believers receiving His truth: "I will give them to you as daughters, but not on the basis of my covenant with you." Hence, Jesus gives us the blood of the new covenant.

Dear Doctor

I'm still not sure what I said to offend you, but I have an idea of what it was, so I will try to apologize. Let me first say that I talk too much and often too freely and too familiarly. It is a true fault that I have spent the last five months or so thinking deeply about and repenting for when I catch myself gossiping about others or being flippant with subjects that may be hurtful to others. As such, I can only assume that this is where your grievance with me resides. About five months ago I said, in front of the nurses at the front nurse's station, that you could "use me, abuse me, and through me away." What I meant in jest was wrong, hurtful, and embarrassing. I then exacerbated the situation by loosing my cool a few months later in front of the back nurse's station and accusing you of being "childish and absurd." Again, I have no excuses that merited my actions and beg your forgiveness for my own childlessness and absurdity.

I know myself a little better.

My nursing classes take me to weird places in my own soul. It seems that, the more I dig into the workings of the human body and mind, the more I see into my own internal workings. The more I see of others' sufferings, the more I understand my own. In short, to know others is to know yourself.

I had a eureka moment a little bit ago, sitting at my kitchen table in front of the computer, trying to be interested in chapters three through five of my nursing-research book. In it, the authors present a critical thinking exercise about the process of spotting good research questions to look into. The case study involves the often prescribed regimen of bed rest for mothers in high-risk pregnancies, but it focuses not on the mothers or the babies, but on the fathers who are powerless to help and the guilt and anger they may have during the ordeal. It goes further to assert that the main reason for the crisis on the male is that "men frequently derive their primary source of support from their partners."

Wow.

Now I have to tell you that my wife isn't pregnant, but I'm lost for the first two days that I'm away from her. I've been frustrated at my lack of ambition and the depression that seems to take a while to lift when she goes somewhere without me. It literally feels like someone has kicked my legs out from under me and it takes me awhile to get back on my feet and start moving again. No, I'm not suicidal, nor do I intend to do anything stupid, but it's frustrating to not understand the reasons for my temporary inability to function as I should.

Now I know or, at least, I have begun to understand another way in how integral my wife is to me, even at my core. The day-to-day that has formed my life has her written all over it and, my home, is centered and coordinated by her. Without her, my supports, even unseen, are missing. She, for more than half my life, has become my “primary source of support.”

Wow.

It’s a shock to my system to hit the ground without her presence, to miss her voice, to just know that she’s in-the-other-room. I knew it, but now I know one of the reasons why… and I know myself a little better.

Too Soon... Too Soon

I've watched two dad's give their daughters away in marriage. I've watched two men struggle with paradoxically coexisting emotions of joy and sadness as they walked down the isle. The smiling girl on their arm was both three and twenty, a little girl still waiting up at night to see their dad come home and a grown woman ready to move on with another man.

My wife's uncle Steve was blown away and visibly shaken during his daughter's wedding rehearsal tonight. After walking her down the isle, he sat down in the seat beside me and watched my youngest daughter playing in the grass. I've never seen him so thoughtful. After a few minutes, he turned to me and said, "It all goes by so quick. I wish I had done more with my kids when they were growing up. They're all grown and leaving now. Make sure you get in all you can while they're still young." I agree Steve. I agree. It scares me.

I guess that's why I try to, as a friend once said said, looking back, "say yes more than you say no." When either of my daughters asks to jump on me, play with me, or wants their nails done, I try to see the time that's short. That's why they know, if they persist, I will gladly lay down pride, my lack of sleep, homework, or TV to play some cards, dress the dolls, or wear a funny hat to tea.