Stonewalled

I took several years of French in high school and college.  I had moved passed the proficiency level and could have become fluent.  then I moved to the South Pacific and promptly forgot it all.  The French word for hospital is l'hopital (pronounced LOH-peet-AHL).  Such a pretty word.  Spoken in the demure tone and lilt of a strong French accent, it's lovely.  Not at all indicative of my recent experience, however.

I ask you:  what's the only thing worse than passing a kidney stone?  Answer:  NOT passing one.

What's even worse than not passing a kidney stone?  When your pain meds just stop working altogether.

Long, long story short:  I only thought I passed the stone last week.  Actually, it had simply floated from my kidney into a tube that was wide enough to contain it with only low-grade pain for me.  So I spent the weekend thinking I was recovering, while the stone inched its way toward my bladder, where this tube narrows significantly.

Then it got stuck there.  And all hell broke loose.  I know the physical situation only from hindsight, all I knew in the moment is that I was falling apart.  I just broke down.  The pain meds (narcotics, people) didn't work and with each hour that passed, I got more violently ill.  We went to see my good friends at the ER in the middle of the night and after a couple of hours, they had transferred me to another hospital for admission and surgery.

This past week and a half has been full to the brim.  My cup hath runneth over with pain and with waiting.  Waiting on a stone that won't pass.  Waiting on the pain to ease ever so slightly.  Waiting on the clock to strike the next magical hour when I can take meds.  Waiting (and hoping and praying) for them to actually take effect.  Even when they won't.

Then waiting on doctors.  And nurses.  And hospital administrators.  And paperwork.  And traffic!  And stoplights.  And for rooms to open up.  And for the surgeon to arrive.  And always, always waiting for the meds.

My body feels like a wet towel that has been wrung out until it's just a lumpy, worn out mess.

There are distinct blessings in this.
**Very nice and talented doctors and nurses.  Every one of them I encountered.

**The little janitor who had to clean up my room (she barely spoke English) coming over to my bed with an enormous smile, saying, "You be better now!  Look at you color!"  She places her hands into the prayer steeple position and goes, "I pray for you.  You did not see me because you in pain.  But God help you!"  This from the woman who had to clean up all kinds of stuff after me.  I'm humbled.

**God, who is always with me.  And the Holy Spirit who has been reminding me that we have in Jesus an advocate who has suffered.  Physically, emotionally, in the most acute and painful way.

**Supervisors who have graciously let me miss so much work - who have literally booted me out of the office.

**The warm spread of the meds kicking in (finally, finally) and the pain melting away so smoothly.

**And G.  In sickness and in health, people.  Our interactions were reduced to instances such as G scrutinizing (from afar) my urine sample:  "Hmm.  Looks like it's getting cloudy again.  Hmm.  What's your pain level?  How many cc's of --- did you last take?"
I would croak out some half-formed answer and watch the diagnostic wheels turn.  With a frown and a curt nod, he would disappear for yet another of his private chats with the staff while I faded back into the darkness.
Permit me to shamelessly sound like "that girl" for one moment.  I love that guy.  So much.  He's the only one for me.  And he brought me flowers!  Not just any old thing, but a fall-colored arrangement!  With little harvest wheat touches.  These aren't the best pics, but I put the arrangement close to the bed so I could just look at them and try to find my mental happy place.

On a lighter note, due to a strict (involuntary) vomit routine and then a forced fast pre-operation, I went about 35 hours with no food.  That's approximately 4 months in B time.  Here's my private toast to myself at 3:00 a.m. today when I could have food.

It turns out that while the surgeon was doing the procedure, he took pictures.  I guess they take pictures of everything these days.  And I'm not too proud to show you mine because they look like something taken in deep space.  I guess in a way, they are.  Here's me with my mug shot.

These pics show some of the tears and damage wreaked by Mick, as well as what the stone looked like when they lasered it into bits.  Mercifully (and I mean that from the bottom of my heart), the surgeon removed the stone after he crushed it, thereby sparing me the pain of having to pass now-multiple stones after dealing with this pain for going on 2 weeks.

Now, the doctor will analyze the chemical components of the stone and in a few weeks we'll meet so he can consult me and suggest a specific diet moving forward.  I'm imagining he'll stress the need for more Tex Mex food, specifically chips and salsa.  He may also be concerned about the lack of sugar in my diet.  It might make me feel better to include a variety of cookies and cakes along with my intake of fruits and veggies.  Nothing wrong with a little healthy variety.

As you can see, I'm dedicated to a swift recovery.

Bye Bye Mick!  Bye Bye L'hopital!

Model Mondays: Dreadnaught

This edition of Model Mondays showcases another Dystopian Wars model, the FSA Dreadnaught.

The Dreadnaught is the backbone of my fleet--it has a lot of firepower, and it can throw that firepower a LONG way.  Good anti-aircraft fire, good depth-charges (for use against torpedoes)--it can even ram and sink other vessels.

The model is about 7 inches long, and it took me about two weeks to paint--lots of detail.  The turrets are about the diameter of a dime.

I am aiming for a sort of "raw" look to my Dystopian Wars vessels, so I've painted them to look like there is a lot of bare metal and wood.  The deck planks were painted in a color called U.S. Tactical Tan, and then I gave them a medium Devlan Mud wash to stain them a little darker, and to fill in the gaps between the planks.  The metal hull, paddlewheel guards, turrets, and the bridge are all painted Boltgun Metal.  The paddlewheel guards were the last things to be painted, as that was where I would put my fingers as I was painting the ship.

Comments are always welcome.  Enjoy the pictures!

May the force be with you

The little girly, pinky, princessy force, that is.

Stoned

This week certainly didn't go the way I planned it.  Last Sunday, I woke up with extreme abdominal cramps, out of nowhere.  After about 4 hours they were so bad that G took me to the ER.  I've managed to go my entire life without a single trip to the hospital.  No broken bones, no funky viruses, no emergency situations.  This week more than made up for it, though.

After a few hours in the hospital, their tests never disclosed any problems.  They figured I had some type of weird viral infection somewhere in my "gut" or that it was a case of food poisoning, which G quickly attributed to some chinese scallops I'd eaten over the weekend.  I was relieved that there were no major problems, but I was a little...bothered, too.  It's weird to be in such extreme pain and not be able to point to anything wrong.

Over the course of the next couple of days, I had a residual cramp in the side of my abdomen.  It didn't necessarily get worse, but it never got better.  On Wednesday morning, the cramp got worse and worse until...you got it...ER trip #2.  My carpool buddy M took me and G met us there.  Let me just say that this was by far the most pain I've ever felt.  I couldn't sit still - not even in the middle of the ER waiting room.  I would pace the floor, sit down and rock back and forth, pace again.  There was no relief.

It turns out that I had a kidney stone.  The nurse said it's the worst kind of pain there is, second only to having a baby.  I will not speak of that, since I haven't experienced it, but let me just say that I would have taken an epidural right then and there.  They made me go for quite some time (and I do understand why) without relieving the pain, but as soon as they shot me up, I could see straight again.  I was thinking of every one of my friends who has ever explained an epidural to me.  Let me just say that I get it.  I. Get. It.

I was relieved that we could actually point to the source of all this pain now.  They said it measured less than a grain of sand, but not to worry, that it would, and I quote, "feel about as big as a bowling ball."  Thanks.  That's what I get for having a male nurse.  G named it Mick.  As in Mick Jagger from, yes, the Rolling Stones.  That's what I get for having an insane husband.

I feel like there is a spiritual point to be made here.  About how something so small can wreak havoc so large.  Or about how something almost insignificant can change the course of a life.  Not only mine, but about a dozen or so people around me.  But I'm too exhausted to reach for a deeper meaning.  I can only reach as far as the pain meds and that's it.

The stone is passed now, but due to its barbed shape, it tore nerves and tissues all along the path.  So, although it's left the building, I'm still in quite a bit of pain.  They don't know what caused it and they don't know if this means I'm now prone to getting them.  They say that kidney stones are basically just mineral deposits that build up in one's system - they can be calcium or magnesium or a variety of all kinds of other minerals.  Only time will tell.

GREAT.

Way, way cool

This is, quite possibly, one of the coolest things I've seen in a LONG time.

I don't know what the scale is; I'm guessing something like 1/144, or maybe 1/200.

I think I read somewhere that the whole thing is computer controlled.  The amount of detail is...staggering.

Genius.  Pure genius.  Leave it to the Germans to build something like this.

Make sure you expand this to full-screen size--it's worth it.

Enjoy!

World War II book recommendations

One of our faithful readers has requested some book recommendations on the Second World War.  I have a few titles in mind; however, none are as all-encompassing as Meyer's A World Undone about the First World War.

WW2 was so expansive in every facet--geographically, economically, militarily--that it is difficult to cover in one volume.  More so than the preceding conflict, WW2 was truly a world war.  There was combat on 3 continents, on at least 4 major bodies of water, and on both sides of the equator.  I'm sure there are probably single books devoted to covering the whole war, but I've never read any.

Here are a few that I have read, and would recommend:

An Army at Dawn, by Rick Atkinson:  this is an excellently written, thoroughly researched, Pulitzer-prize winning book about the conflict in North Africa in 1942-1943.  To me, the North African theater is a largely forgotten battlefield of WW2; most of the attention, especially for this period of the war, is taken up by the large-scale naval battles in the Pacific and the bombing campaigns over Europe.  But North Africa is where the British and Americans first learned to fight together against a common enemy--and what a learning experience it was.  Atkinson sums it up in these last sentences from the prologue, which still give me goosebumps:

"The Allies were not yet winning, but they were about to begin winning.  Night would end, the tide would turn, and on that turning tide an army would wash ashore in Africa, ready to right a world gone wrong."

Band of Brothers, by Stephen Ambrose:  the term "band of brothers" has, I think, significantly gained popularity since this book was published and HBO made a miniseries out of it (which I would HIGHLY recommend watching).  This book follows E Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, from their training in Georgia through the end of the conflict in the European theater.  Ambrose interviewed all of the remaining veterans from the unit, and tells the story as they saw it.  E Company jumped into Normandy the night before Operation Overlord ("D-Day"), and fought all the way to Hitler's Eagle's Nest.  Read the book, watch the miniseries (which was done by the same team that did "Saving Private Ryan").

30 Seconds over Tokyo, by Ted Lawson:  I actually read this book when I was a kid, and really enjoyed it (most 8 year old boys stayed up at night reading comic books under the covers with a flashlight; I did the same thing, except I was reading about the carrier wars in the Pacific theater).  Lawson was a pilot in "Doolittle's Raid", which occurred in April 1942.  The raid was designed to be more symbolic than militarily effective:  Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle cooked up an idea to fly B-25 bombers (medium-sized, twin engine aircraft NOT designed for carrier use) off the aircraft carrier Hornet and bomb strategic targets in Japan, in response to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.  The bombers didn't have the range to fly back to the carriers after the raid; they would go on to land in China, where the crews would link up with Chinese resistance fighters and eventually make their way home.  This is a tale of true American ingenuity and bravery--there were about a million reasons why this plan should not have worked, and yet it did.  There was a movie made about it in 1944; it's a little corny, but I thought it did a good job of capturing the spirit of what happened.  For those of you that saw that travesty of a movie Pearl Harbor (which was more about the love triangle between Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, and Ben Affleck than the actual attack on Pearl Harbor), the Doolittle Raid occurred at the end of the movie.  (I would NOT recommend that movie, if you haven't already seen it.)

So there they are.  Happy reading!

TGIF, people!

Wisdom

Due to special circumstances (read: a miracle from God), my carpool buddy M and I got to work from home yesterday.  She has an extension to her house that sits sort of in the front yard, and we worked in there.  It's a neat little area, with a window that faces the street.  As we worked, we could hear children playing, and cars driving by, and walkers saying hello to each other.

At one point in the afternoon, we were both deep into work projects.  I kept hearing a noise like someone was talking, but I just blocked it out.  Finally, M snapped me out of my concentration by saying, "Do you hear that?  It's like someone is talking to us."

It was someone talking to us.

A rather shady looking guy off the street salesman was standing in front of the window, waving a clipboard at us, going, "Hello!...hello?...Ladies!...Woo Hoo...Hello?"  If he had been a snake, he would have bit us.  If he'd been, say, a serial killer, well, I wouldn't be writing this post.

So, M goes out to tell him that she's not interested in whatever it is he's selling, and I went back to zoning out on my work project.

A few minutes later she came back in, sat down at her computer, and said the following, in complete sincerity:

"Hmmm.  That man was selling meat."

"Just, you know, plain old meat."

"Out of the back of a van."

"Who buys meat from the back of a van?  I mean, in America?"

"And he had no teeth.  Do you think it's because he eats the meat out of the van?"

........................

........................

"I told him I wasn't interested."

Then she went back to work.  I surround myself with wise people.

Grody

It's hard to say which is more disgusting...

This:

Or this:

Florida, from behind the lens

This is going to be a duh statement, but one thing I realized while gallivanting around Florida is how architecture is affected by the culture that originally settled in that area.  Not that I know much about the history of that area; I'm just sayin.

Looking around, it's all red-tiled roofs, arches, lots of windows, lots of white but lots of color too - both bright and mellow.  No stately brick mansions with wrap-around porches (of course), no flimsy shacks with palm frond roofs...it's a very beautiful place in its own way.

Model Mondays: Airship

Model Mondays is going small-scale for this edition.  And when I say small-scale, I mean REALLY small scale--like, 1/1200 small.

This is a Lee-class scout airship from the tabletop miniature wargame "Dystopian Wars".  (It's the only tabletop wargame that I actually play).  This particular airship belongs to the Federated States of America (FSA), the faction that I play in the game.

The Lee-class airship is a nice addition to my fleet.  It carries rockets up front (you can see the red tips in the pictures), can deliver decent broadside attacks, and carries bombs behind the crew compartment (you can see the bomb bay doors open in the rear of the ship if you look closely enough).  Also, because it is an aircraft, it can act as a spotter for the naval ships in my fleet to conduct indirect fire against targets that are out of their line of sight.  The green tank at the rear of the airship (underneath) is the steam boiler, which drives the propulsion system (Dystopian Wars is a steampunk-themed game).

The model is made of resin, so it is very light weight.  It looks much bigger in the pictures than it actually is; the total length is just under three inches, and it's only about 3/4 of an inch in diameter, which means those windows in the crew compartment are very, very small.  I found myself having to use an old high school rifle-team tactic to paint the detail on this model:  take a deep breath, exhale it completely, and then run the brush over whatever part I was painting in the 5-10 seconds before I had to take my next breath (this makes your body very still, since you are not holding a bunch of air in your chest).  Most of the detailed parts of the airship are much smaller than the paintbrush I was using, so it was a little tricky.  Thankfully, it's all one piece (other than the stand, which is not glued to the model); all I had to do was paint it.  However, for its small size, it has a great amount of detail.

Comments are always welcome; enjoy the pictures!

A New Season

TGIF, people!

The Now and the Not Yet

A prevalent theme throughout the Gospels, and through the Christian life, is the concept of the Now and the Not Yet.  Basically, it's a nifty phrase to summarize the spiritual mystery of being completely fulfilled by God and yet still living in a fallen world - and being creatures who fail to live up to our true potential, who will always fall short of the mark.  Or miss it entirely.

As Christians, we've been covered with Christ and have been made pure, righteous and holy in God's sight.  We have been redeemed (through Christ) yet are still being redeemed (in the present life) and will one day be perfectly redeemed (new heavens and new earth).  We have been sanctified, yet through our trials and through living out God's will we are presently being sanctified, and one day at the completion of it all, we will finally be sanctified.

The same goes for God's power in our lives.  Our true power lies in God alone and won't be fully realized until our time has come - really, until our time is up.  Yet, we've actually been given (through re-birth) much, much more power than we ever tap into.  I think we - or I - come closest to realizing this in my darkest hours.  Over the past few months, I've had no choice but to deal with some things that need to be dealt with.  I did not ask for them and I don't want them.  It's through this painful process that I see God's power at work in my life, and that I can sort of, kind of, almost understand the Now and the Not Yet.

Concerning these issues that must be dealt with:  Things have not been OK; things are currently not OK and honestly, I don't know what the future holds.  But yet I do.  They are being made new - and maybe they have to die and be resurrected - but one of these days they will be sanctified.  C.S. Lewis said (somewhere - sorry I'll fall short in this reference) that Christians ask God to patch our cottage roofs when what He's really doing is turning us into castles.

So maybe this is what I look like in the spiritual realm...it sure beats the ghetto fabulous shack that I feel like most of the time!

One of these things is not like the others

Do you think it has an inferiority complex?  A little Napoleonic?

Miami Part Deux: A Change of Scenery

Perhaps the biggest change of scenery was not escaping the beginning of fall to endure the heat and hum-id-it-y of the tropics - but escaping the relative quiet of a childless home to the...let's say...PITTER PATTER! of a home full of children.  The last time I saw my niece (AJ) and nephew (BF - for Boy Friend - because he luvs me), they were considerably smaller, even though it was only a few months ago.

Then:

Now:

The children opened up to me fairly quickly, which may or may not have to do with the large quantities of toys I brought for them in my 'magic suitcase' as my BFJ calls it.  G (and every other adult I know) refers to this as 'bribery' but I choose to view it as tangible proof of my affection for them.  And if it causes them to look forward to my visits, well, then, how nice for me.

There was work to be done, despite my fun visit:

But then it was time to play with my other nieces & nephew:

Check out the little cheerleader in the background:

A couple of highlights from the kiddos:

• I got them some plastic flashlights in the shape of certain animals.  One of them was a colorful bird.  When you squeeze its tail, its mouth opens to reveal the light, and it sings this quick burst of a scale, "La - la- la - LA - LA!"  After the 20th or 30th time in row of hearing it, their dad turned to me in his deadpan way and said, "Thanks for this."  But my lil BF just loved it, and started toddling his way around the house, merrily singing, "LALALALALALALALAAAAAAAA!"
• Also, they were skyping some family and the kids were playing in the background.  When it was time to go, the family quickly said bye, and lil BF said clearly, "Bye Bye!" and waved.  We all just stared at one another like aliens had landed in the backyard or something.

I had to leave so a certain little girl could rest up for her first day of preschool. 

Until next time.  I have to save up to buy more toys anyway.