That Day I Almost Died

Did you ever survive something traumatic? I did and this is my story.

In July 2015 my husband and I were camping in the Black Hills in South Dakota. The elevation was more than one mile high. We weren’t used to that and we both struggled to breathe while we were hiking. I will admit that I struggled more than he did.

After our return home, we took one day to relax before heading off for a weekend trip within our state. On the first day, we stopped for lunch. I was full after just a few bites and I was sick to my stomach. I felt better within the hour and we continued our adventure. We took a ferry to an island where we attended an outdoor festival and climbed a lookout tour. The day was passing quickly so we canceled our plans for a second ferry to an isolated island.

Several hours later, the sickness returned. We stopped at a local drug store for antacids. I quickly chewed a couple and felt better until the wee hours of the morning. I chewed a couple more and went back to sleep.

I was awakened in the morning by the light coming through the space where the curtains didn’t quite meet. I played on my phone because the light was not bothering my husband and he was snoring softly beside me.

At one point, the room darkened like a cloud went over the sun and things became burry. I blinked my eyes a few times to clear the blur. A few moments later, I woke up from what my husband described as a seizure. I’ve never had one before and I felt fine immediately after so I promised my husband I would call my doctor when I returned to work the next morning and we continued with our plans for the day.

I also described to him the way the room darkened before I lost consciousness. I explained how peaceful that was. I even wondered aloud if that is what it is like to die.

Although I assured my husband I was fine, I knew something was wrong. I was in denial.  I knew I needed medical care but I called a friend instead of an ambulance. I described what had happened and said I was starting to think I was having a heart attack. We were both confused about the seizure though. I promised her I would pay attention to my body and seek medical attention if I felt any worse.

Driving home in the late afternoon, I noticed I could not stop yawning. My fingertips and my lips were numb like I had been drinking but no alcohol had crossed my lips for weeks. My father had complained about numb fingers a few days before his bypass surgery. Heart attack was becoming a very real thought hanging out in the forefront of my mind instead of the back.

I told my husband I needed a hospital. He drove me to the one nearest our home and dropped me off at the Emergency Room doors while he parked. Things move pretty fast when you walk into a hospital and say "heart attack." I was seated in a wheelchair and ready to be taken to a room in the few minutes it took him to park. I refused to be taken back without him. As soon as he joined me, we were off to an exam room.

The EKG leads were quickly connected and all hell broke loose! I had suffered a minor heart attack so I was admitted. I required emergency bypass surgery. I spent five days in the hospital and returned to work at the four-week mark.

My heart attack symptoms were non-typical – even for a woman. Even the seizure is rare. For the inquiring minds, that is caused by an arrhythmia. I consider myself very lucky I still recognized what was going on and sought help.

That is my only advice to others – know your body. Know when something isn’t right. It’s better to be sent home with heartburn today than to not wake up tomorrow morning.

Memorial Day, Marines, and My Sixth Sense

Memorial Day seems like a wonderful day for the topic of the sixth sense. Especially when it involves our United States Marines.

BoyChild #1 is a Marine who has done two tours in Iraq while serving in the reserves. When he received the orders for his first tour, we were not worried for his safety. We knew he would return fine. We were, however, saddened by the milestones he would miss. His first daughter was just a few weeks old when he shipped out.

His unit suffered heavy casualties on this tour. Five men were carried off planes in flag draped coffins. Each time one of those lives was lost, I KNEW. I knew as soon as I woke up in the morning - before watching TV or checking my email. As expected, BoyChild #1 returned from his tour unscathed. He celebrated his daughter’s first birthday, purchased a home, and settled back into civilian life.

A few years later, BoyChild #1 received orders for his second tour. When he told me about it, I immediately felt a dark presence. I knew harm would come to him but I could not describe exactly WHAT that harm would be. However, I could describe the location of this darkness. It was not in my head but rather, was a point just behind my right ear and shoulder. As strange as it sounds, I sometimes waved my hand in the air back there trying to clear the presence.

I could not share this dark feeling with anyone. I had to endure them on my own. I WOULD NOT trouble others with my fears and I COULD NOT share them with my husband. There was no need for both of us to worry about a feeling.

In April 2008, we received notice about a pair of casualties. The unit was in a convoy when the lead vehicle hit an improvised explosive device (IED). Two young men in that vehicle made the ultimate sacrifice and a third was injured. BoyChild #1 was driving the second armored vehicle. According to his email update, he was about 30 yards behind the lead vehicle. His vehicle was totaled but he claimed to be uninjured.

Both causalities were his friends. One was his roommate, bunkmate, or whatever the correct term is. That man was from my husband’s tiny hometown – a town which suffered heavy losses in the War on Terror. The father of this young man and my husband shared much in common and this loss was devastating to my husband. In addition to mourning the loss of a promising young life, he also seemed to experience some guilt about his son’s survival while another man with a very similar life would bury his own son.

Although BoyChild #1 initially claimed to be unharmed in the explosion, a letter arrived in the mail shortly after. In his tiny printing, he mentioned headaches, dizziness, and a constant ringing in his ears. Around the same time I received this letter, I also realized that the dark presence which had haunted me for months was finally gone. I knew BoyChild #1 would be ok.

Having a sixth sense can be helpful. If you can interpret what this sense is telling you, you may be able to prevent harm to yourself or to your loved ones. Unfortunately, my message is not usually clear and this causes stress. It’s like chronic pain – always present and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it

I am the parent who left the concert early

Recently a high school classmate who is now a high school teacher vented on social media about parents leaving concerts as soon as their kids were done but before it was over. She felt this was unacceptable and rude to the students and other spectators. She called these parents selfish and said they were modeling poor behavior for their children.
I am one of the parents who leaves early.


We have five adult kids and three grandchildren. Two of the kids and my husband play organized sports. The grandchildren go to different schools and play in different sports leagues. They are also involved in music. Although they are nearby, the schools and leagues do not coordinate schedules and they shouldn't have to do this.


Our children and grandchildren are very important to us. We show them they are important by attending the things that matter to them. We are busiest from the start of baseball and softball season in May until the end of basketball season in late January or early February.


Elementary school choir  and beginning band concerts are boring. There. I said it. Boring. And painful. Everybody thinks their little Johnny or Suzy is the most talented angel on the stage but very few of those parents are correct. The singing is out of tune. The kid in the second row is picking his or her nose. The reed instruments squeak. The string instruments shriek. 


I'm not biased against the arts. Beginning sports is just as bad. We've all seen the kid get a hit and run towards third base. We've seen the kid sitting in right field with his glove on his head. We've seen the soccer player score in the wrong goal.


But the collective we of parenthood attends all these things. It's possible we go for the same reason we watch NASCAR - the crashes. Or we go because our children like to be a part of the group or team. They like to perform. They like to be on stage. And we love our children.


I was a kid once. I remember those feelings. And I remember how important it was for my mom to attend everything I participated in. Because I remember this, we will sit through every painful second. If we have the time. It's important to be there for everybody and that is something we want to model for our children and grandchildren.


Unfortunately we don't always have the time. Sometimes we have no choice but to divide and conquer. My husband attends one event and I attend another. Our children and grandchildren notice the absence of one of us and they always ask about it. We prefer when we can both attend everything and we do whatever is necessary to make that happen. It might mean leaving a concert early to arrive at a game late. Or leaving a game early to arrive at a concert late. 


It is my job to make sure our children and grandchildren know they can count on us for the little things and for the big things in life. I don't think your child's self-esteem is dependent upon my watching their performance. If it is, you and I need to talk.


Nobody displays displeasure when you enter or leave a sporting event sporting event in progress. Do we place more value on concerts? Is it just easier to leave loud sporting events? What if I told you that you can minimize the distraction during the concert by being courteous. Sit in the back row or stand near the door. Enter or leave during applause or - even better - as groups are trading places on stage.


Schools could make this easier on parents. We're busier than our parents were. We have blended families. An understanding from the school that many children are part of blended families and may have siblings in different school districts could go a long way. Perhaps the school could hold concerts with intermission. K4 through 3rd grade perform before intermission and higher grades preform after. Intermission would allow parents who have to leave the ability to go and parents who have to arrive late the ability to come in without disruption. 


Contrary to my former classmate's assertion, I am neither selfish nor rude. I am very giving but also very busy. I am not modeling poor behavior. I am showing our offspring and their offspring that they are our priority when we have to make choices. What better behavior could I show them?

The Healing Powers of Air Travel

Writers are usually people watchers and I am no exception.






On my last four flights, I've observed my fellow travelers. Invariably, there are several people in wheelchairs waiting to board. They are boarded first because they need extra time and assistance. And they are the last people off the plane - again because of the additional time and assistance needed.






My observations have taught me that there are miracles preformed during flight. I say this because the number of people needing assistance OFF the plane for each flight was always less than the number needing assistance ON the plane.






I would never accuse anyone of faking the need for assistance just so they can board first, get comfortable, and snag premium room in the overhead compartments. There must be something in those complimentary beverages causing these miracles. I'd be a millionaire if I could bottle that for use on the ground.

Holey Jeans

A pair of jeans was causing a hubbub on social media recently. These men's jeans can be purchased from a luxury department store. They are made to look as if they are caked with mud. I have no doubt people will buy them – even with their $400+ price tag. Urban people. In the country, you earn your mud and your mud stains.

GirlChild is an urban girl. She was born and raised in a large, Midwestern city. She loves metropolitan areas – the bigger, the better.


I was unable to attend a family wedding so I sent 16-year-old GirlChild in my place. She attended with my siblings and my mother. She was a responsible teenager who planned her wardrobe for the trip. She wrote a packing list, packed her clothes, and forgot nothing. Outfits for the drive each way, black jeans with strategically placed holes, dressy green tank top, and heels for the rehearsal dinner, and her favorite red dress for the wedding. It was a very urban wardrobe straight from the pages of the most current fashion magazines.

The wedding was in a Great Plains state. Although my daughter's jeans were very chic and very expensive, they were not understood by everyone in the area. In the Great Plains, holey jeans are barn clothes. At the rehearsal dinner, my uncle's sister-in-law approached GirlChild and said, "We're taking up a collection so you can buy pants without holes in them!"


Fortunately, my mother's sister immediately jumped to GirlChild's defense. This other woman had never met GirlChild. She is old enough to have grandchildren my daughter's age. GirlChild attended this dinner with five adult relatives. There is no reason for a grown woman to bully a teenager in this snarky manner. She could have spoken with an adult in the group but she should have remained silent.


We each have a belief system that tells us how to live life. These beliefs were created from our values, our cultures, and our experiences. GirlChild was not wrong in her clothing choice. My uncle's sister-in-law was not wrong in her thoughts that holey jeans belong in the barn. This was just a cultural difference.  One culture spends $200 for distressed jeans from a boutique store. The other culture spends $20 for jeans from a low-end department store - which also sells agricultural and automotive supplies - and retires them to the barn when they become distressed.


Before we laugh about the "mud caked" jeans from the luxury department store, we should ask ourselves if we've tried to understand how others live or if we're using our belief system to judge that which we do not understand. Either way, we should ignore it. In the grand scheme of our lives, if how others dress is a big concern for us, we should be thankful because we are living a wonderful life.

Cliques

We moved from a medium size city to a small college town across the state the summer between first and second grade. It was a beautiful Wisconsin town. The historic sandstone buildings built by the lumber barons of the 1800s were nestled among the bluffs and overlooking the waterways of the area.

Summers were spent biking to the beach and fishing from an old railroad bridge turned biking trail. We played hide and seek or kick the can with the neighborhood children until the street lights came on indicating it was time to go home. The civic band played concerts in the park on summer Tuesday evenings while an ice cream social raised money for a church or social group. Winters were spent ice skating on rinks at several area parks and elementary schools. We went sledding on nearby hills and tobogganed on the chute the city maintained at the local fairgrounds. It was a wonderful place to grow up in the 1970s.

We had a lot of fun in our charming little town. Even so, I always felt like an outsider. Friendships were formed long before we arrived. Children had their friends before they ever set foot in school for kindergarten. When I arrived, I was automatically an outsider but I still had a few friends.

After two years in my neighborhood school, my mom made the decision to enroll me in the Catholic school four blocks away. None of those children lived in the neighborhood. Or even the city. The only time we could play after school or during the summer was if one of our moms was willing to drive to the other’s house. That rarely happened. Often, we would go for a sleepover on Friday after school and be returned to the respective parent at church services on Saturday night or Sunday morning.

By third grade, my mom thought it was a great time for me to join 4-H. She found a very large club with many activities for the members. I lived and went to school in the city but the club was in the country and many of the members went to the same school outside of the city. I participated in everything I could but I was still an outsider. I did make one friend in 4-H and we remained friends through high school.

Being an outsider felt even more obvious by junior high. I did everything right. I played sports, played in band, and participated in the school play. I had many friends across all these groups but I still felt like an outsider. We were poor and I was embarrassed by this.

My friends had the latest clothes. I'd have them next year when my mom shopped at their mom’s rummage sales over the summer. I was the only person with a brown bag lunch on school or 4-H field trips. Other parents just gave their kids $10 to eat and buy souvenirs. I stopped eating lunch on those trips and started making my own clothes so I wasn't dressed in the latest garage sale chic.

When I entered high school, I was a cheerleader, an honor student, and involved in every club I thought was interesting. I was still an outsider and it felt like my mom was intent on keeping me that way.

Cheerleading camp was held in my hometown my first year on the high school squad. My mom couldn't afford it so I worked during the summer to pay for my share of camp and my uniforms. I was so grateful when one girl's mom suggested we all sleep over at her house during camp. We could bond as a squad without having to pay for a hotel. The cost savings to me was tremendous. Unfortunately, my mom said no. I was only 14 and she wasn't sure how well we would be supervised for that week. It was humiliating to ride my bike to camp the first morning knowing I'd have to tell the other girls I had to go home that night. I was thankful for being stung by a bee the first day. I became sick had to miss the rest of the week so I never had to face the humiliation of telling the other girls I would not have been able to stay the night with them.

I didn't like being judged. I learned how to hide our family's poverty from my friends. And I learned not to judge others. I wasn't popular. I was the cheerleader who marched with the band. I was the only girl in the industrial arts class and I was elected foreman of that class. I was an athlete who dated the farmers. I was the girl lifting weights with the wrestling team. I didn't belong to any of the cliques but I had friends in all of them.

I spent so much time feeling like an outsider that I vowed to do my best so I don’t make anyone else feel like that. Nobody is beneath me. I talk to housekeeping when we stay in hotels. I buy Christmas gifts for the lady who cleans my office at work. When a retail employee says hello or good-bye, I make sure I acknowledge them. It doesn’t take anything from me to be nice and it can mean a lot to someone else.

prompt: cliques

Speak with Passion

My mom grew up in a very small town. Many of the residents were born there, spent their lives farming there, and died there.

My uncle, her youngest brother, wasn't having any of that. He never wanted to work hard so he knew farming wasn't for him. He viewed the Marine Corps as his way out. I'm not sure how he decided this was less work than farming and I've never asked. He enlisted in the Marines because his older brothers and one sister had served in the Army and the Air Force. He also did not want to be on a boat so the Navy was out.

I was quite young when my uncle left for boot camp so I have no memory of it.  I learned later that he was an embassy guard. He'll tell you he was selected for that assignment because he looked good in the uniform. (My family is very modest.) During his four-year commitment, he mailed us letters and gifts from all over the world. I still have the wooden shoes he sent me from his trip to Holland.

Girl-child owns a beer stein he sent to his mother from Germany. After Grandma passed away, the stein was returned to him. He gifted it to girl-child because she had also been to Germany, speaks the language, and loves the country.

When I was nine or ten, this uncle came to stay with us for a visit. I don't remember if he was still in the service but - if forced to answer the question - I would say his commitment was up.

He was sleeping on the pull-out couch in the living room. I was always an early riser so I'm sure I was warned against waking him up in the morning when my mom sent me to bed the night before. I'm also sure I forgot that by morning when I crept downstairs in my pajamas. I didn't wake him though. I asked if he was awake and he replied that he was.

I crawled onto the couch with him and we talked for a long time. He talked to me like I was an adult. He told me he was thinking of asking his girlfriend to marry him. And he shared details of his recent trip to the former Soviet Union.

He described Red Square in such vivid detail that I could see colorful St. Basil's Cathedral. He also told me about waiting in line to visit Lenin's tomb. I learned Lenin’s body has been on display since his death in the 1920s. My uncle described the glass case the body was in, the lighting, and how Lenin's body seemed to glow like it was gilded.

He painted such vivid pictures of these far-away lands that - even as a young child - I knew I wanted to travel. I needed to travel. To see things. To live life.

Almost 30 years later, this same uncle made a passing comment in an email that he doesn't share his stories because nobody listens and nobody cares. I had to respond and tell him how his stories inspired me. He doesn't remember our early morning conversation but he was impressed with all the details I could recall - including the name of that long-ago girlfriend.

What I've learned from this is that we should all tell our tales and share our stories. You never know who is listening and how it might change their life.

prompt: Soviet