Family Archaeology

Item #UmpteenHundredFiftySix from the collection of Dad's stuff: a five-inch by seven-inch black six-ring binder stuffed to one-inch-thick, full of worn-edge pages, the cover reinforced with medical tape.

In my dad's household we didn't use duct tape. Since Dad was in the medical profession, we used medical tape for everything. We used it to tape ankles, repair book bindings, and hold the bumpers on the car. You name it, we used medical tape to keep it in one piece.

I opened the cover to discover why it was this little black book needed so much structural support. The addresses inside revealed a lifespan of at least three decades. Three locations graced the inside cover (written on patches of medical tape): University of Vermont Medical Center (1960s); Cincinnati General Hospital (1970s); and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1980s and '90s). This book had seen a lot of action.

Belying the inadequate space within the book's covers lay a packet of 3x5 cards, banded together. 3x5s were my dad's bread and butter. Anything he ever needed to remember he'd write on those cards. He had a permanent stash in his front shirt pocket. If he needed to remember to get milk and butter at the store, he'd write that on a 3x5 card. If he needed to have someone's phone number for later, he'd write that down. If he suddenly realized which branch of the Indo-European linguistic family tree the Czech language belonged to, and wanted to keep from forgetting it again, he'd whip out a 3x5 card and scribble it down.

Dad's kitchen was like a Rolodex turned inside out. Phone numbers, addresses, things to do, messages for Chris and me, trivia about dinosaurs . . . all these things had been written down and attached to corkboards, walls, tabletops (with medical tape). Was it a weakness or a strength? Dad had everything written down.

This little black book, I discovered turning the pages, was Dad's "cheater" for medical practice. Do all physicians have one of these? Or just my dad? In alphabetical order, the book contains an encyclopedic survey of first aid, drug information (including costs of basic antibiotics per 5-day dosage), and disease symptoms. It's all written with the elegance of medical shorthand. (Chris and I learned how to abbreviate "before" by writing "a" with a line over it, and "after" by "p" with a line over it, without ever taking a Latin class, because we knew Dad's shorthand.)

Need to know whether to give morphine to someone having an asthma attack?

Labyrinthitis. Who knew? Suggested drugs and contraindications for vertigo: it's all here (cataloged under "E[ar]N[ose, and]T[hroat]).

Even a hand-drawn, cross-sectional diagram of the wrist and the muscles and tendons that move across the bones of the wrist (below, with red labels). I'm pretty sure that Dad wouldn't have used this at the operating table. I do picture him, however, sitting with a patient who has carpal tunnel syndrome and will need surgery, explaining slowly how the tendons lay upon each other in sheaths, and what it will take to correct her trigger finger. How handy to have an anatomical diagram right in his medical bag:

Or maybe all this was written here to facilitate my dad's long-term memory. I know for myself that often when I write things down--even if I never look at the copy again--I remember better the material that I wrote. Maybe this was Dad's "memory book," where he rehearsed with his fingers the things he wanted to have at the front of his mind for a life of medical practice.

Here's one I laughed at when I turned the page:

Yeah: "snake bite." I remember Dad telling stories about his nights in the ER at Hazelton (northeast Pennsylvania) General Hospital. He told us that on a Friday or Saturday night, especially on a full moon, sooner or later some guy would show up who had been dared to kiss a rattlesnake. With courage helped along by high doses of ethanol, he would take on the challenge and end up with a bite on the nose. That's what you do in the coal regions on a slow weekend, I guess.

I don't understand half of the entries because of the medical abbreviations and terminology, and I know that much of it is probably now outdated in terms of doses and approaches used for specific illnesses or injuries. But I am impressed with the breadth of information in this little tome. I am also struck by the effort that has gone into something that I consider obsolete: the hand-written notebook. My hand aches at the thought of putting pen to paper for that many strokes! For that reason above the others, this is quite an archaeological find.

~emrys

The Love of Family

Just about a month ago we spent a week in Arizona, hanging out with Geo and Krissy, George, David and Ginger, Judy, Andy, Michael, and Tate. I remember coming home feeling exhausted, partly because of plane trips, and partly because of flitting around to see so many people in those seven days. In spite of having to return to work to get some rest, the journey was well worth it.

I took great joy in watching my extended family love my daughter. It is such a blessing to have family that, while distant in terms of bloodlines, is very near in love for us. Sara and I do not dwell in the town of our upbringing, as happens in so many small communities, where four generations live on the same block and a family reunion is one Sunday dinner away. We have family scattered all over creation, and it takes some doing to get together. So it's all the more valuable to me that when we do get together we can enjoy each other's company.

For uncles who will get on the floor with my daughter; for aunts who sew extravagant gifts for Gwendolyn; for not-quite-related family that will still give us their time, their presence, and their love; and, of course, for grandparents: I thank God for you!

~emrys

A Call for Adventure

I recently received an email from Dublin Christian Mission which calls for volunteers for their summer program. While travelling abroad in 2006, we had a good experience during a week "on camp" with Dubliner youth as part of DCM's work. So if you've got itchy feet this year (and have been blessed with enough savings for a ticket across The Pond), and would like to visit the wonders of the Emerald Isle, and don't mind the idea of impacting the lives of inner city youth while you're at it, check out that first link. You won't regret it. In fact, you'll be immensely blessed.

~emrys

Praise Jesus,

who cancels all debts public and private.

Since graduating from seminary in 2005, we have carried with us a significant debt load. It's the common story of pastors in denominations that require their ministers to have masters-level education: students invest in expensive coursework with the hope that their future calls will enable them to pay off the debt.

Problem is, most congregations in our denominations are rural, with mid- to low-income members, and are often struggling to meet minimum salary qualifications for pastors. So my denomination has a program called Seminary Debt Assistance, which offers annual grants to pastors serving a full-time call in small rural congregations.

Sara and I have been blessed by many blessings, including jobs before seminary that allowed us to save, a CFO in the household who knows how to work the numbers, a congregation faithful to its commitments, and the Seminary Debt Assistance program. As a result, we've been steadily paying down my student loan. In case you're wondering what "steadily paying down" looks like, here's a snapshot:

Note the CFO figuring with eyes and lips, and me staring blankly at all those numbers on the screen. Yep, that's how it is.

Until tonight. Tonight we (mostly Sara, but I watched and fulfilled the ever-important function of peanut gallery) clicked the online banking buttons that will deliver the final payment to Citibank. In just two brief business days, our balance due to them will be $0.00! So that my colleagues can be inspired by what they, too, will do some day, here's what that looks like:

We are out from under the yoke of Citibank! Praise the Lord for bringing us out of Babylon!

On a sobering note, the Seminary Debt Assistance has already begun to decrease the amount of cash it offers to strapped seminary graduates, because of the widespread shrinking of funds in denominational coffers. Perhaps we need to begin finding ways to prevent the saddling of future pastors with that debt in the first place. It's strange that in order to lead us in prayer that we be forgiven our debts every Sunday morning, pastors are asked to take it on themselves.

~emrys

Morning Nap

The Worst Job

Working with a finicky substance that gets all over everything, requires two coats, and needs remedial work even after the second coat, all for an aesthetic end: this is my idea of hell. And this is what spackling (aka mudding, the application of joint compound) is all about.

This was also the next step in the completion of our closet.

The help of our dear friend Sharon went miles to making the work easier. The daughter of a professional spackler, she knows all the tricks of the trade to make things go more smoothly (pun quite intended). We are oh-so-grateful for her cheery help. However, I'm still not sending out my resume for mudding jobs.

As of this entry, we've got one coat on. Some scraping and wiping, and we'll be ready for the second coat, which ought to go on more easily. Then comes the sanding. Shudder. At least we only have to do that part once.

Thanks, Sharon!

~emrys

Strangled by a Med Student

My dad used to serve as one of the teachers in a course called Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS). The program prepared and certified physicians to deal with trauma situations in emergency rooms. Instructors in the course (which was a two- or three-day affair, as I remember it) would take either lecture components or oversight of a role-play of a trauma situation. In the latter forum, students (often taking the course for the first time) would enter a room and be told the parameters of a situation. They would then have to go through all the steps of treatment. Meanwhile, the instructor would be checking boxes and, if necessary, giving hints as to what the next step of care might be.

In order to do a proper role-play of a medical scenario, you need a patient. Since this is a training exercise, it's not done with real trauma victims. It's done with dummies. Who are the dummies who volunteer to get slathered in fake blood and lie on a gurney for imitation chest compressions? You guessed it: the kids of the instructors.

C'mon. You'd do it, wouldn't you? It's the next best thing to being an extra in a Freddy Kruger flick.

I remember one year when I was nine or ten years old. I played the part of a nine-year-old boy who had been hit by a car and thrown sixty feet across the pavement. My only job was to lay semi-conscious (and unresponsive) on the gurney, head locked in a neck brace, and breathe shallow breaths. Meanwhile, a parade of students would come through and ply their trade on my fake-blood-smeared body. Yeah. When I told the kids at school, they were all jealous.

Now be reminded that many of the students need to pass the ATLS in order to get a post in a trauma hospital. And for many of these students, such a post is the holy grail of jobs. They want it badly. Therefore they must pass this course. Remember taking the SAT in high school? Yeah, imagine that, but with one thousand times the pressure. Many students at ATLS are nervous. Really nervous.

Anxiety is natural in these situations, of course. It can have unexpected side effects, however, for the dummy on the stretcher, especially since one of the first moves a physician has to make is to take the pulse of the patient. And unlike the nurse at your bedside, a trauma physician examining a young lad is going to take the pulse at a very vulnerable place: your neck.

One student entered the room, received his brief on the patient's (my) situation, and approached my fake-bloody body on the gurney. He put his fingers on my neck to take my pulse, and looked up at the instructor. The instructor gave him a number. I have no idea the significance of that number. What I do know is that the student didn't know what to do next. So he froze. Like a deer in the headlights. With his fingers pressing on my carotid artery.

They had told me that my job was to lie there, be unresponsive, and breathe shallowly. Well, the last one clearly wasn't going to be a problem. However, to a ten-year-old, the weight of a zombified med student cutting off one's blood supply to the brain is pretty scary. I remember feeling that pressure on my neck, wondering if this role-play was going to turn into the real thing. I felt my eyes get larger with alarm. I don't know how long this student fumbled for the right next step, but to the kid on the gurney it seemed like an eternity. So much so that I think I gasped when he finally took his hand away and moved on to blood pressure.

As long as he didn't have to get out those shock paddles, I would be all right. Don't lock up with those on, man.

Praise the Lord, he didn't need the shock paddles; and I have no idea whether he passed the exam or not. I was just the dummy. From the experience, however, I did learn that you should never let a panicked med student take your pulse. He may not give it back.

The next year I got to play a motorcycle rider who had rolled over the hood of a Buick and got the hood ornament stuck under his helmet behind the ear. As a result I learned valuable lesson number two: how to take the helmet off an unconscious rider without doing further damage to the neck.

I've not had to use either piece of knowledge yet, thank God. But you never know.

~emrys

Ja jsem jedl šneky?

While in the Czech Republic, I had a close culinary encounter with snails. I tell that story whenever I get the chance, especially to new people for whom we're preparing food.

This evening I had a different occasion for telling the story. While visiting Geo and Krissy, their Czech friend came over for supper. I had to tell her the one Czech phrase I remembered: Ja jedli šneci. I recited it, then asked her if she knew what I was saying. After looking at me like I had three heads, she tried to puzzle it out. In the end, I had to tell her what I was trying to say.

Because she didn't offer the response I had hoped for ("Oh, my gosh, you know how to speak Czech!"), I asked how to say "I ate snails" in Czech. She told me the proper sentence was, "Ja jsem jedl šneky."

It turns out that the phrase I had learned four years ago actually meant something like, "I am we having a snail." That's pretty close to "I have three heads." If I had recited that to a Czech paramedic during a bout of anaphylactic shock, I'm not sure I would have received the care I needed.

What I should have said? Ja jsem jedl šneky.

Thank God I'm not allergic to snails. Thanks, Simona!

~emrys

Playing in a Park in Phoenix, Arizona

~ emrys

The Second Worst Job

Once framed, the next part of the closet project was to slap on some sheet rock. I say "slap on" with no little irony, because I find that the work demands a certain level of precision to get pieces to fit just right on the first try. And I never achieve that level of precision.

So I brought in an expert for the job. Well, perhaps "expert" is a strong term. But because of circumstances beyond either of our control, he has much more experience in sheet rocking than I do. Here's my father-in-law and I beginning the project.

Paring, scraping, cutting, and cracking--all these are part of putting up sheet rock, and all four produce an obnoxious level of dust. It's another factor that makes this work, in my opinion, the second worst job in construction.

I think this was the third or fourth time we tried to get this piece to line up right:

At least I cut the hole for the thermostat in the correct place the first time, even though this floor-to-top piece I mismeasured and cut three inches short. Thank God for tall floor molding!

But two heads are better than one, and the work went without critical mishap.

I say "without critical mishap" because you'll note here the aforementioned inadvertent three-inch gap at the bottom of this section of wall--I guess I need to modify the old adage to "measure thrice, cut once":

And because of a miscalculation of supply, we had to leave the day's work done with one inside wall and ceiling of the closet uncovered:

One positive side effect of this horrid work, however, was learning that red chalk for the chalk line is so much better than white when working with sheet rock:

And at last, a couple of weeks later, with the help of Jordan-of-the-Creek, we delivered and slapped on the last interior wall and ceiling. And here it is, ready for the worst job in construction:

More to report on that later, I'm sure.

~emrys