HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
June 11, 2005 Before I start to say my say here today I want to say this. Wowwww, say that 3 times fast. lol. I want to say thank you to Samantha for ringing in the 80's for us. An excellent write that made me smile. Wonderful write Samantha. I would also like to say that I just pulled up to Stan's gas station and had myself a healthy portion of chili con carne. As always Stan, you write a clear, get to the point article that took me right to the old boys talking about life. You always grab my attention no matter what your article. Useless-knowledge is a better place because it has these two columnists writing for them. O.K., with that said, I am ready to write. Twenty-one years ago I met and married a wonderful lady while I was doing my stint in the Air force. We camped, fished, made babies, camped, fished... you get the picture. One year and a beautiful daughter later, Sheila began having some trouble with strength. She had burned her finger while cooking my breakfast. Doctors watched as within one week, her entire hand was purple. After extensive testing and hospital stays, it was decided she had raynauds syndrome. I wont go into the medicals of it. Suffice to say that it was not good. Within about 3 months of treatment, she noticed her legs and arms were also becoming weaker now. More doctors and longer hospital stays brought the diagnoses of Polymyositis, one of the 40 Muscular Dystrophies that attack people without reason or warning sometimes. Luck of the draw I guess. I was working a full time job at night as a mechanics foreman. Sheila had been hospitalized now for about 3 months. Finally they got the disease into remission and home she came. For almost a year she did well. In this time she became pregnant. {Don't tell me that protection is always fool-proof. ;)} Four months into the pregnancy she was hospitalized for the diration of the pregnancy, cut short by 2 months. Our second daughter was taken 7 1/2 weeks early and weighed in at 2.9 lbs. She spent six weeks in ICNNC. My days became a blur from that time on. Sheila remained in the hospital for almost six months after giving birth. I got up at seven each morning to feed my 2 year old and 2 month old. We dressed and went to spend the day with mommy. She was unaware of our presence a lot of the time. That was alright... we would be there when she was aware again. At one o'clock I would get the girls ready and drop them off at my sisters house where they would be picked up by my parents at five. I went to work at three and worked until midnight or one a.m. I left the job and went to the hospital to see Sheila for an hour or so. I would get home about two-thirty and sit and watch t.v. and eat a little something until 4 a.m. Then I would feed my youngest and put her back to her crib that was right beside me. She was on a heart monitor and had stopped breathing a few times. The nurses were used to me as I would have to get off work when my youngest was still in the hospital and learn to feed her and infant CPR and all that good stuff. Anyways, I would lay down at four-thirty and sleep until seven when my oldest came to wake me up. We would then start our day all over again. we did this off and on for almost two years. Throughout the last twenty some years, we have been in some 18 hospitals and I have been called to the hospital 12 times to hear them tell me she would not live through the night. Adding a stay of 2 months in CCU only a year or so ago that had her on 100% life support until she woke from her coma, our life has been one of laughter, love, smiles, tears, prayers and adjustments. So what prompted me to spill the beans today? My daughters share in the care of Sheila who has been wheelchair bound for 3 years now and has been in and out of the wheelchair most of our marriage. Today, my daughter was helping her from the toilet to her chair and Sheila's legs buckled. Down of course to the floor she went... a place she has been a few times in the past many years. Gently lowering her to the floor, my daughter paged me on our monitoe system and I went to help her. I lifted her off the floor and sat her in her chair. I checked for bruising and made certain she was unharmed. I then praised my daughter for lowering her gently and not hurting her. As I turned and walked away, it hit me just how normal and non chalante I had taken this incident. It slapped me and yelled out to me just how amazingly we humans can adjust to anything. I thought about it and then I thought about our country. We have children that cuss and run amuck everywhere. They are undisciplined and rude to anyone. You can not say something to another person without the fear of sometimes DEADLY retaliation. People killing babies and babies killing their friends. And this has what to do with this write? It has everything to do with it. You see, I got used to Sheila taking a fall now and then. I would simply pick her up and set her back in her chair. But that isn't where it should end. Twenty years ago, when she got this week, I would have insisted that we get her into rehab and back on her feet. I drug her across a hospital room floor {held her up to try and make her feet work} I did it until she got angry one day and planted her feet solidly enough on the floor to stand. From there, it was all downhill. She walked for almost four years straight. Aren't we doing the same thing about our world today? Haven't we just reserved ourselves to the way the kids are today? Instead of grabbing the pups by the scruff of the neck and taking them to the mess they made and punishing them for what they have done, we simply pick them up, put them right back into the wheelchair that we made for them by our amazing ways to simply... "Adjust!!" The war that rages on in the middle east, claiming our soldiers lives each day still. { i am not against what our brave men and women are doing in the far away middle east... Agree or disagree, but support them and let them know "WE CARE!!!!!!" But we don't even turn to the CNN coverage anymore. We have "Adjusted" our lives and minds so that the war is a far far away battle that we need not approach or allow to interrupt our daily routine. Well I say, Bull...!!!!! I will be taking Sheila back to therapy to work on her legs again Monday. I am re-adjusting MY way of thinking. She wants to walk again and I am going to do all I can to get her there. We all need to readjust our acceptance of the way things are today. In one voice, one heart for all to see and hear, we need to stand up as a nation and say NO!!!!! Either "finish the job" and bring our men and women home or "just" bring them home. Parents!!!!!!! Listen up... Start disciplining those "brats" and making them show some respect for others. Get them to sit down at the dinner table as a family again. Show them you really do care what is happening in their lives. Take back your rightful place as their teacher, their guide, the one they look up to and with good reason. Lets not settle or adjust our lives around them. Lets not stop watching CNN and all that is happening in our world. As a nation we can walk together... When we start working with Sheila's legs, we are showing our love and caring. This applies to everyone and everything today. To simply settle or adjust to the way things are, we are sentencing this place we call home to life in a wheelchair. Is that what we really want???? ........ You fill in the ending of this article.......settle or re-adjust...????? ------------ About the author: Darrel Day is the author of Abduction, available in stores everywhere and through publishamerica.com, amazonbooks.com, barnes and noble books and Books A Million. He resides in a small town in Iowa with his wife and two daughters. He is also the author of soon to be released "Until Death Do We Meet". He has studied and taught the word of God throughout the past twenty years. He does NOT condemn nor judge anyone because of their beliefs. That... is between them and God... I also have an MSN Group site http://group.msn.D-R-Day that you can join. My web site also up though I am still adding to it. www.angelfire.com/crazy3/darrelday Email: boogieman_50627@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
