Thank You for Your Prayers

Let me start by thanking each and every one of you who took a moment to say a prayer for Captain Chaos since yesterday’s post.  Prayers work.  The fact that she is here with us proves that.  The visit went well.  The Captain cooperated far better than she ever has in the past, lying calmly for the EKG and the echo cardiogram.  Those two tests gave us the results that we expected.  She is doing well, and she does not have to be seen by cardiology for another year.   Our cardiologist did remind us that she will need another cardiac catheterization in the next few years.  Her last cath was in 2009, so next year will probably be the year for another test.  If not in 2012 then it will definitely be in 2013.  Neither the Boss nor I reacted negatively to that news. Not only did we know that he would remind us of the test, but since the Captain sailed through her last cath so well, we won’t be so nervous next time.  All is well.  We can look forward to another year of chaos with the three foot, ten inch tornado.

An Old Hat

This is not the best picture of my daughter. I took it last month. She was playing outside when I arrived home from running an errand. She approached me asking for help with the hat, which had slid down over her eyes. I adjusted it and then snapped this picture before she ran off to resume playing with her brothers. It’s blurry. Her hair is a mess. Still, I love it. She’s my daughter, and I willingly admit that I have a soft spot for my little girl. Check your knee-jerk impulse to leave the usual comments about how she has me wrapped around her little finger. If you knew how many times she folds her arms across her chest and stomps away complaining, “I don’t like that, daddy!” or “I’m mad at you!” then you’d know how much she doesn’t get away with. When I saw her wearing this hat I immediately thought about the day I received it. I was issued that hat by the US Navy in September of 1986 a week prior to departing the US for my one year tour in Antarctica. It never occurred to me that 25 years later my daughter would wear that same hat, or make it look far cuter than I ever could.

Early tomorrow morning we will make our annual trip to the cardiologist. The check-up is fairly routine. After recording her height, weight, temperature, and blood pressure, she’ll have an EKG and an echo cardiogram. We’ll sit in a small room while the cardiologist crunches numbers and then enjoy a conversation with him that more closely resembles a visit with an old friend rather than a doctor’s examination. I am expecting the same news that we received last year. All will be well. For now. That will be great. Captain Chaos will remain blissfully oblivious about her heart and her future. That’s how it should be. She needs to be allowed to live life to its fullest without thought or care for something over which she has no control. There will be a visit when the news won’t be so good, but we know that it should be a little farther off in the future. When it comes it will not be a surprise (unless, of course, it comes tomorrow morning) and there is a plan of action for addressing it.

Living with a child who has survived health challenges like my daughter’s is a constant reminder of God’s providence. Up until the moment her health failed I knew God existed and I knew He intervened in our lives, but there is an enormous difference between knowing something intellectually and living through the heart pounding experience of life on the precipice, and a parent’s feeling of utter helplessness when their child is sick and there is nothing that they can do about it except pray. Ironically, prayer is the best thing that a parent can do in those moments. And we did pray!

Walt Whitman once wrote, “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” My barbaric yawp is “God is good! Look at what he has done for us. For all of us!” Look at what He did for this little girl. If you seek Him, He will make Himself available to you. There’s a pretty good book on the subject available at most bookstores. If you pray, He will answer. I know that He listens. I know that He responds. Just look at that smile up above.

The One Time You Want A Dead Battery

The big concern that The Boss had for the swallowed battery was what could possibly leak out of the battery and into the daughter. The obvious answer, electricity, never crossed my mind. I’m not certain that it crossed hers, either. Apparently, there is enough liquid inside the human digestive system to complete the electrical circuit and cook your innards. The challenge for doctors is determining whether you munched on a dead wafer battery for a camping headlamp or a Lifeline marine battery used to push a harbor ferry. I was more than a little surprised to discover that the children’s hospital sees these kinds of cases regularly. Two things made the Captain’s digestive adventure less troublesome than the average case. The first was that the battery was dead, or nearly so. The second was that she had told her mother that she had swallowed “a coin” right away. Most parents find out that their kid swallowed a battery long after severe damage is done on the inside of the body. You can burn a hole through things like your esophagus, stomach, and intestines. They’re a tad corrosive, too.


Saturday afternoon, I left the boy scouts at their campsite and returned to town to assist The Boss with our daughter. I returned to the campsite early Sunday morning to help the scouts pack for the return trip. I didn’t take Major Havoc out to spend Saturday night camping for two reasons. The first was that I did not want to be out of phone contact with The Boss. I assumed that I would be picking up the girls from the hospital late Saturday night or early Sunday morning after the battery was removed. I never gave any serious consideration to the fact that the Captain would become an in-patient. The second reason was that he didn’t want to go. The temperature dropped considerably Sunday morning. The wind picked up, the wind chill dropped, and the camping was tough. Our Scoutmaster’s first comment to me on Sunday was, “So, Arby, were you warm last night?” I bypassed the answer he deserved, “You can kiss my ass,” for the honest assessment, “Yep. Mighty warm. Warmer than you were, I’m sure.” It appeared to me that he was a little annoyed by the whole ordeal, as if we had spoon fed a battery to our daughter just to take me away from camping. I’m probably wrong in my assessment. Some times he’s a hard man to read.

Upon returning, I showered and then drove to Children’s Mercy to relieved The Boss. I spent twenty-four hours in the hospital with the girl. She was discharged today after a fairly cool test revealed that she had no damage to her esophagus. It was a video x-ray of her swallowing contrast. I did get to speak with one of the doctors who operated on the Captain a few years ago. He met a healthy, re-Energized former patient. That had to be good for them. When he heard what she had swallowed, he called for her test results and delivered them to me in person a short while later. He wasn’t even assigned to her case. He’s a good guy. The girl packed away a huge lunch, her first solid food in 48 hours, and immediately asked for more. Since she had spent two hours with the dry heaves during the night, we waited to make sure that she’d wouldn’t hork, and then called it good. I phoned The Boss as soon as I heard we had discharge papers. The girl and I were out of the room fifteen minutes later. I wanted to be as far away from the doctors as possible in case they changed their minds. We waited in the lobby. And then we went to karate class, the first night of our new semester. The Captain and I received our yellow belts. It was an odd way to finish a day that started in the hospital. Life has returned to normal, one blog post away from sanity.