Paul's Heart

Green Wednesday

Ah, Black Friday.  The most important day of the calendar year for retailers.  The focus of our Winter holidays has become all about the biggest sales and the earliest times that sales begin.  I remember as a child, I just looked forward to Thanksgiving for two other reasons.  It was a long weekend off from school.  And it also meant the start of the Christmas season with all the Rankin/Bass holiday claymated shows (I am really surprised with computer animation that these shows have not been re-animated).

As an adult, every family Thanksgiving dinner began the same way, plotting a strategy to hit the stores for bargains as early as six in the morning.  As years went on, the time shifted earlier and earlier that at one piont, our dinner concluded this year, with a starter’s pistol to signify the departure on Thanksgiving night.  The majority of us remaining would not even know they had left as we were now glued to the television set for the third pro-football game of the day.  Ah yes, good times.

For me, this holiday weekend means a lot different to me.  Being married to Mrs. Kringle, I will be spending a lot of time in the green.  No, not money.  Bushes and trees.  Since I have no depth when it comes to creativity and design in decorating the interior of the house, I do the outside.

When we first moved to Sugar Valley, the darkness took quite some time to get used to.  With all of our wiring below ground, we had no street lights.  Our neighborhood was unique in that for the most part, the development was all original homeowners.  Wendy and I were one of the first of the second generations to move in.

Getting back, the neighborhood was fairly conservative even when it came to decorating for the holidays.  This was not going to do for Christmas Wrapping Wendy.  So we introduced ourselves to the neighborhood with a bright idea, literally bright.  In a page right out of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, I decorated the outside of the house with every light we owned.  Two holly trees, a maple tree, a firebush, an oak tree, and a whole bunch of shrubs, the fence, 2 light posts, both awnings of the house, around the garage door, and a couple of lawn ornaments.

In the next year, a couple of our neighbors added to their wreaths with some net lighting and other outdoor Christmas ornaments.  And just last year, not to be outdone, one of our neighbors built a 30 foot cutout reindeer.  On Christmas Eve, the majority of our neighbors will continue a tradition that has existed long since before we moved in, putting luminaries along the curb.  The task of coordinating this display has changed hands a few time over recent years, but it remains one of the coolest displays of neighborhood bonding.  With near maximum participation, it is a spectacular sight to pull onto our street and see all the luminaries as far as can see.  For the last several years, our daughters even believe that Santa uses these lights to guide his sleigh to our house.  This is why no matter what, rain, snow, wind, sleet, Madison and Emmalie make sure I get out and light those candles.

So it is official.  Thanksgiving has come and gone.  It is Christmas Time.

Inspirational Lyrics – “Man Against The World” by Survivor

Man Against The World by Survivor

Have you ever walked the night alone like a man against the world?
No one takes your side, a boat against the tide.
When your faith is shaken, you start to break,
And your heart can’t find the words.
Tossed upon the sand, I give you a man against the world.

All the people cheer till the end is near then the hero takes a fall.
They’ll drag you through the mud.  You’re only flesh and blood.
Oh I’ve walked the path from dark to light and have yet to come to terms.
Alone I take my stand,I’m only a man against the world.

But love!
Like a distant reminder, it tugs at my shoulder,
It calls me home.
I shout!
Can a single voice carry?  Can I find santuary,
Within your arms?
One day when the answer’s clearer,
One day when I even the score,
You’ll reach and you’ll find me with you,
Right beside you, forever more!

But for now I walk the night alone, like a man against the world.
A brand new day will shine, through the avalanche of time.
Though the road is long, but the feeling’s strong,
And the fire within still burns.
Alone I take my stand, I give you a man against the world.

A Night In The ER

Earlier this week, I spent an evening at our local hospital Emergency Room with Wendy.  Between the two of us and our health issues, this is just all too frequent of an occurrence.  I believe that not a whole lot of people have a true appreciation or even know what a trauma unit goes through during their shifts, the different dangers they are exposed to, and the various behaviors that they must tolerate.

A bad response to the flu shot or antibiotic she had also just been given, flared up her issue with Fibromyalgia.  She is on meds to manage it, but every so often, she must deal with these flare-ups.  This particular flare-up was so severe, I watched her literally curl up, not just her torse, but her arms, legs, hands, feet, and fingers being crushed by an uncontrollable cramping.

I rushed her to the ER where they began the process of trying to get her body to relax and nothing seemed to work.  After about three hours, they finally found something that would allow her body to relax.  I figured that the hospital would not admit her for this.  I knew that they would not look to treat her for her Fibromyalgia.  The unit would just try to get her symptoms to settle down and send her home.  We have been through this drill before.

There is not alot for a spouse to do while waiting for recovery.  So as I am prone to do, I like to watch, nothing gory mind you.  I am way too squeamish for that, but rather ativity.  My subject tonight, the ER.  I must offer this disclaimer, this was a Tuesday night at 10:00 and I had not seen sleep since Monday morning.  I had to do something to stay awake.

There is a lot of buzz in an Emergency Room, There are all kinds of employees working as a team, not sure of all their roles but we knew our nurse, tech, and doctor.  But there were plenty of other people around too.  In another hour, several would go home, others would come to work in their place so if we needed any kind of comfort, now would be the time to do it.  On-coming shifts usually need some briefing time to gather information of activity in their unit.

There are portable machines being pushed around.  There are technicians walking around with white plastic baskets carrying phlebotomy supplies (these people are blood suckers).  My attention now turns to the other rooms in the unit, or those being wheeled in.

One elderly lady who came in was covered in bleach.  It was eleven o’clock at night and this woman who had to be well over 80 was cleaning.  But she was covered in bleach.  The strength of the chlorine fumes was staggering.  She had fallen and it  had not appeared that she had broken anything, just a decent bump on the noggin.  She had no idea what she was doing there and then became curious why she was getting the bath in bed?  It was really quite sad as the nurses asked the woman all kinds of elementary questions or simple recall questions like, “do you know where you are right now?” or “do you know what year this is?”

Moments later a call comes over the hospital radio.  A patient is coming in via ambulance from an alcohol ovderdose.  This obviously will not be pleasant.  The man is roughly my age, drank an entire bottle of tequila.  To make matters worse, he was skitzophrenic.  He was quiet as they rolled this tall man into the room.  A swarm of personnel followed into the room, I am sure part of it was protocol, the other part curiosity.  All I know is that all the attention that Wendy had been getting is now gone over to those two rooms.  This was going to be a long night.

It was not the elderly patient who was hard of hearing, it was the drunk.  As they started to access the intoxicated giant, he let out this loud groan/grumble as if some sort of warning, followed by several curse words which amounted to “what is happening, please stop, get off me!”  Just then, every person in the ER swarmed on room 21, including our doctor.  None of them would be able to restrain this guy if he got up and charged out of his room.  And then where to?  They gain control of the situation and calm the guy down and disperse.

In comes another elderly person, another fall.  It is 2am on a Wednesday morning.  What the hell are these people doing at this hour to end up here in the ER?  I could see a seizure or perhaps a heart attack, but all of these people were doing something that could have probably been put off until daylight, or in at least one case, not done at all.  I am not being judgemental at all, but the drunk was actually scheduled for surgery just a few hours later.  The doctor advised the patient, it might be best to delay that.

Just then, another call comes in over the hospital radio.  This time it is an alcoholic going through withdrawals.  Arrival five minutes.  And through the doors comes a middle aged man (though because of the alcoholism probably made him look older than he actually was) with his hands behind his back.  Oh wait, his hands were handcuffed.  And he was escorted by a police officer.

And then there was Wendy, who at 2:15am, had finally drifted off to sleep.  But her body had settled down at this point.  Which is good, no electrical current, no overdose,  Let’s go home.