Welcome wonderful reader in France, you've made my day!

I never thought of myself as naïve before but I find it’s true; when it comes to writing a novel and how being the author of a self-published novel would affect me emotionally, I realize now that I never had a clue.

It has been both one of the most rewarding and one of the most agonizing experiences of my life.

I was convinced that I would be able to write it, edit it, design the cover, write the back cover blurb and publish it, all with very little help and then I would sit back without a care in the world.

I believed I could impassively watch as my friends, family and of course the public either chose to read my beautiful baby or ignore it completely, without suffering horribly in the event it turned out to be the latter.

Of course, I knew publishing success was a longshot, but I stubbornly persisted in believing that if it was a good book and enjoyable to read, somehow it would prosper even in the incredibly competitive, independently published fiction book market.

Well, live and learn as they say. It turns out that my tuff, gruff, façade is just that and nothing more.

It turns out that I do care—a lot!

It was a lot of work to get set up with Amazon as an author/publisher and I have to say it has been quite a ride. Their incredible system reports sales of physical books (or lack of them) almost instantly. It also shows Kindle book sales as well as Kindle Unlimited pages read each day, including which country the reader is located in.

I can’t adequately express how it warms the heart to see someone begin to read your book and to see them read not just a few pages but to power through it like a book they just can’t put down! Today I basked in the glow of seeing someone in France reading several hundred pages over the course of the day and it made me very happy.

Long gone is the notion that I can maintain a placid attitude towards my book’s sales figures; not because I care much for the money that may come in but simply for the joy of knowing that someone somewhere is reading and hopefully enjoying my book.

I can't speak for other writers of course, but I write because I believe that I have something useful to say, and even if that's my own personal delusion, perhaps what I write might at least be entertaining to the reader and that's no small thing.

It is gratifying to think that readers are learning about how an Albertan may think and act in the kind of situation that arises in the novel and maybe they may even learn something useful from my own experience and research.

I know I learned a lot as I wrote the book, and it has been fun to put what I learned into action as I worked to make our family as safe and secure as possible in very uncertain times.

So if that's all that comes of it—my own family and a few friends are more aware of the dangers our society faces and become better prepared to face them successfully, I'm ok with that.

Meanwhile I’m trying hard to resist the temptation to visit my Kindle sales dashboard for the twelfth time today in the hope that the reader in France has picked up my book to once again journey to that beautiful place that exists only in “The Republic of Dan” and in the reader’s mind.

I'm just going to pop over there to check, I'll be right back...

Graphic of pages read in France

Is Jesus the Real Deal?

Whenever Christmas season rolls around once again many of us are reminded to think about "the baby lying in the manger".

That brings to mind an old saying that goes something like this, “careful you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

It’s a saying that’s hard to disagree with, and yet when it comes to God’s message to us all, that’s what many people do. 

There is absolutely no doubt that there has been confusion, lies, greed, hypocrisy, selfish ambition and every other bad human behavior among church leaders and those proclaiming to be followers of Jesus. (That’s the bathwater.)

But the important thing, the thing that we mustn’t throw out with that dirty bath water is indeed “the baby” and yes, unlike the character Ricky Bobby from the silly movie Talledega Nights, I do know that “baby Jesus” grew up to become a man.

The precious part that we need to hold onto in that scenario is the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done for each and every one of us.

A Statue of Jesus in a little prairie church

If you’ve never heard it before, hear it now.

Jesus is God. He came to the earth and lived among us as a completely sinless man until He was betrayed, humiliated and crucified as the ultimate, willing sacrifice to atone for the sins of all humankind. 

After three days He was resurrected and appeared before many witnesses who have left their testimony for us so that we also can believe and have hope. 

He did this so that we all could have the chance to freely make the choice to be forgiven.

We do this (be forgiven) by choosing to recognize and admit that we are sinners in the eyes of the God that made the universe and by choosing to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour so that we too can be forgiven and have new life, eternal life.

That’s the good news also known as “The Gospel”.

The first line of a popular Christian book from a few years ago began, “It’s not about you.”

What the author was trying to get across is that we were all created for a purpose and that purpose is to be in a relationship with God, through Jesus. Many people today, for various reasons, reject God out of hand, without knowing this simple truth, “God is real and He wants to have a relationship with you.”

Every person who has somehow stumbled onto this truth has a duty, a responsibility and hopefully a desire to share this good news with the other people in their lives and of course, I’m no different.

So that means, even though this is my story, my testimony, still, it’s not about me. In fact, it’s much more about you than it is about me.

The reason for that is this: who I am and where I’ve come from, my experiences and life story is mostly in the past, yours on the other hand, at least in how it pertains to your relationship with Jesus is most likely in your future.

I can say that because in this country of Canada, the vast majority of people have only a vague, distorted and incomplete idea of who Jesus really is and most have no relationship with Him at all.

There are many, many, reasons why people reject the idea of “religion” and they may be good reasons. But what is missing from our understanding of who Jesus is and our perceived or experienced reality of religion is that Jesus and Christian religion are not the same thing and are mostly very far apart from each other.

So before I begin to tell my own story I want to get across one very important point.

The historical church and the church that exists today, even though they may try very hard to be what they were intended to be, fall far short of God’s mark, just as you and I fall far short of God’s design for our lives.

Sure we may try hard to do what is right just as the church tries, but the problem is the same, human nature and sin corrupt our lives just as they corrupt the church.

It has been said that “all religions lead to God.” But the sad truth is that “NO RELIGION necessarily leads to God!” 

Jesus Himself often spoke warnings about the hypocrisy of religious zealots who put religion ahead of people. 

He often warned against focussing on the trappings of religion and He instructed His followers to concentrate on doing good, loving others and being in a right relationship with God.

Originally believers and followers of Jesus referred to themselves as followers of “The Way” and unfortunately over the years, many people and churches have lost their way.

The Christian church today (just as it always has been) is composed of people; flawed, imperfect, damaged people who for many reasons have “joined the club” that is the church and these people may or may not have an actual relationship with Jesus.

For the first few years that I attended church with my family I didn’t have a real understanding of what it means to be a Christian and that’s on me. I was afraid to totally commit to anything in life and my Christian faith was no different. Like many people, I had one foot in my new Christian life and one foot still in my old life and that doesn’t allow you to move forward very easily, as a matter of fact it’s an extremely uncomfortable pose making it very easy to fall on your face!

But thankfully I stuck with it, mostly because I enjoyed the life; I enjoyed the people and the sense of belonging and being part of something much bigger than me. Eventually, in spite of my reluctance, I managed to soak up enough of the atmosphere and information so that God finally got through to me and I did “get it”. 

I finally understood that God is real and accepting Jesus is the way that we come into relationship with Him.

I wish that I were one of those people who are just blown away in the love at first glance sort of way and thereby avoid the slow arduous journey to faith that I experienced and if that first scenario describes you, then lucky you! Perhaps you’ve managed to avoid a lot of the heartache and wasted time and probably a few of the big, life sucking mistakes made by those of us who are slower to make that move to faith.

God calls us all to be in a relationship with Him but we are free to ignore that call and many of us do just that. We lump Christianity into the bag with all of the rest as “just another religion” and in some ways that’s not wrong. But as I explained earlier, Jesus is far bigger and more important than the jerk across the alley that calls him-self a Christian but insists on feuding with you over some petty grievance.

If you are a human being and I’m assuming you are (welcome aliens if you are also reading) you will occasionally hurt those around you, sorry but it’s the truth. You will also be hurt by many people, ranging from strangers, to authority figures and especially by those that you love. It is inevitable.

This world that we live in is a fallen world, full of sin, evil and pain and alongside all of that yucky stuff there is also kindness, generosity and beauty.

It is important to note that we do have an enemy here with us, we find we are trapped here with a being the Bible calls “a liar and the father of lies.”  There is no making peace with this enemy.

I believe that anyone who takes an honest, eyes wide open look at the world we live in will see that the evil that exists is not just a dumb, blind evil but instead it is a directed force that hates us and wants to destroy everything that is good.

Much of what we know of Satan comes to us directly from the mouth of Jesus and He is very clear that Satan is a dangerous adversary who will “devour us” if we are not careful. Our defence is our faith and the power that comes from being in an authentic relationship with Jesus.

Some of us are determined not to believe in God or Jesus and are apt to summarily dismiss the Bible but we do this at our own peril.

Years ago I purchased a book to send to my sister called “The Case for Faith” by Lee Strobel and as I traveled around Edmonton for work, the book sat in a bag beside my seat, waiting to be mailed. It just so happened that day as I worked on a POS system at a service station, I was talking to the attendant, a middle aged woman that I knew from previous visits. 

After a bit she confided in me that her life was a mess and she was going through some serious issues with one of her kids. I was feeling bold that day and when she asked how I dealt with life’s big problems I mentioned that I was a Christian and my faith got me through a lot of stuff.

I went out to my van and took the book that I had bought for my sister out of the bag and brought it inside to give it to the woman. I told her that it was well written and explained a lot and how it had helped me to understand much better that faith in God is not some crazy delusion but that there is real evidence that the God of the Bible is very real.

She said that she didn’t believe in God and if she was going to change her mind then He was going to have to show up in her life and speak to her.

As I handed her the book I just looked her in the eye and said, “well, maybe He just did.”

I don’t know what happened after that, I don’t think I ever saw her again but I often wonder what she did with that book and if the encounter that we had perhaps led her to give God a chance. It was up to her at that point to choose to open and read the book and maybe to open her mind to the words and ideas that were written in it pointing the way to the Bible.

She had her own choice to make, just like we all do.

God rarely appears in person or speaks directly to us, although it has happened. He prefers to work through people, He has often operated that way, right from the very beginning.  

People can be positive examples to us; they can actively pray for us, they can speak into our lives by showing us love and kindness or reminding us that we can be better people and calling us to a higher standard. Or they may give us a Bible or a Christian book and invite us to Church where the transformation of our lives through exposure to the Word of God can truly begin.

People can also influence us to pull away from God, convincing us that God isn’t real or if He is real then He must be a terrible hating being that is a destructive or uncaring force.

They say that ”misery loves company” and that tendency sometimes comes into play here, after all if you start following Jesus some of your old friends may be afraid that you will be “less fun” because all of a sudden some of the more destructive behaviour will begin to lose its appeal for you.

Hopefully they will say to you something like, “you’ve changed” and that’s a good thing because if we are following the ways of this world, we are likely doing a lot of behaviors that are bad for us and the people around us. Some people don’t like it when anyone (especially God) says anything that might spoil their “fun”.

When we hear the Word of God we are absolutely free to reject it out of hand, to say that it contradicts science or that Christians are intolerant maniacs or we may point at the abuses of the “church” over the years and the harm that resulted. 

Many people will summarily reject God for various reasons, denying His existence or relevance and that is their prerogative of course, but if they/you will thoughtfully and carefully examine the evidence with a truly open mind, you may be surprised.

Hearing about God through others, whether it is friends, celebrities, media outlets, scientists or some other source is not the same thing at all as reading the Bible with an open mind, after prayerfully asking God to speak to you and to make His word come alive to you (even though you may not believe that God exists at all).

This is a subject that shouldn’t be decided upon without careful consideration and a thorough, personal examination of the Bible and the history behind it.

The Christian Church, flawed as it may be, is God's creation and is part of His plan for us and it is within these flawed local churches that most Christians first hear about Jesus and learn that they too are called to be in a relationship with their creator.

It has been my own personal experience that if you give God a chance, He will reveal Himself to you in ways that right now you can only imagine, taking away your doubts and confusion through His Word and your own spiritual journey to faith, and replacing them with His Truth.

(See my blog post - Room 1219 - An Appointment With Jesus)

https://thedoorinside.blogspot.com/2011/11/room-1219-true-story.html

Please don't take my word for any of this, or the word of anyone else. Instead, search the scriptures for yourself. 

At Christmas when you hear the music and see the nativity scene with baby Jesus lying in a manger, I hope you will at least consider that His birth and life are historical fact. 

We are still celebrating two thousand years later all over the world for the simple reason that "God so loved the world that He gave  His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

So please don't throw the baby out with the bath water! 

Each one of us owes it to ourselves to make a truly informed decision about the most important choice that we will ever make.

Blessings all!

Reno's with Rosie - The Kitchen Contention - Part 2

 

When we left off after completing the first part of our kitchen renovation, life was good and there were no health issues on the horizon (as far as we knew). How things change in a year.

As you may know we’ve had a lot of challenges in 2022 and in spite of all that we finally completed the kitchen renovation in January of 2023.

When we paused the renovation, we still had a few things to do to complete the kitchen. We still had to paint the cabinet doors and switch them around so that the flat shaker style profile would be on the outside, then there was building the curved hood vent and installing cove moulding along the ceiling.

I am happy to report (so that your mind will be at ease) that everything on the list has now been completed, not only to my low standards but to the much higher standards of the foreman who goes by the name of Rose.

The range hood was the first item on the list that we tackled and I actually found that it was a fun challenge. I designed it in such a way that the curve developed into what we wanted as I put it together. Not having done anything remotely like it in the past, we needed to let it speak to us of the organic shape that felt most natural to it.

Just kidding, the foreman did most of the talking and she’s the one I was trying to please, not the range hood!

The finished Range Hood

I built it around a fairly inexpensive white metal range hood that will easily drop out if it needs to be changed in the future and then I used 2” flexible wood slats that I bent into shape  and then I fastened a thin plywood skin over the top.

Working on getting the curve right

Lots of filling sanding and painting later, and it’s super smooth and looks great. Rose is still thinking she might want to do Venetian plaster over the top in the future but that’s up in the air for now.

The next step was the cabinet doors. We were fortunate to have the inside of the doors in a flat profile that is a more modern look and we were able to flip them over and install them with the old rounded profile on the inside where you don’t see it.

We used matching pulls from Ikea and I did a little tinkering with some cut up speaker wire behind the pulls to make them sit flat, trying to mount them on the rounded inside profile just didn’t work so after a little head scratching, voilà.

Attaching speaker cable behind the door pulls

Rose tackled the sanding of the cabinet doors because it was just after my heart attack and I was in no shape to do sanding and I just left her to it.

My lovely wife is more than a little gung ho sometimes and after a few days of her sanding, I took a look at the doors and found she had sanded them down to a nub, leaving the supposedly squared off edges more than a little rounded. Oh well, if the foreman did it, did it really happen?

I did a little magic with some wood filler and tape and we patched them up as much as we could and they look pretty good.

The real head scratching started when I began contemplating the cove moulding that we ordered from Wayfair after searching around Edmonton trying to find something locally.

We only had about 3” clearance above the Ikea Pax wardrobe cabinets that we had used and were unable to find anything suitable so we ordered these ones online. The name should have given it away, who knew Durofoam mouldings are made from foam? Actually they worked great, the only problem being figuring out how do you cut these things without ruining them? They are very soft and easily dented or scratched.

I tried a few things, watched a few YouTube videos and settled on a mitre box and a very long bread knife and that actually worked great. I took a little flak from Rose about using her good bread knife but I convinced her that if that thing can cope with the crust on her no-knead bread, it can handle a little foam moulding!

I took those moulding strips out and stared at them contemplating how I was going to go about it at least 4 times before I figured that I couldn’t avoid starting the job any longer and of course once I did start, it went pretty well. If you’ve ever cut crown or cove moulding before you may know what I’m talking about.

I would watch a video, make some notes, imagine it in my head, hold pieces up to the wall and think some more and then after all that I would end up cutting it wrong, AGAIN!

The only thing that worked for me on this particular inside corner was to cut some various short example pieces and hold them up to the corner and that eventually allowed me to get it right.

The famously difficult inside corner

Hopefully, I will never be called upon to do that again!

But I must say, after all of that work and expense, it looks great and I am very glad that I came up with the idea to renovate the kitchen in the first place. And with my amazing design eye, ingeniously creative carpentry skills, and decorating panache, the foreman seemed to be mightily pleased with me and said she might even keep me on, permanently!

The finished kitchen - South wall

The finished kitchen

If you are wondering how much the whole project cost, we were all in at around $3200 plus of course around $20,000 in free labour, but it was fun (I keep telling myself) and there’s nothing like the sense of accomplishment that you get from doing something yourself, along with your partner/wife/foreman of course!

So that’s it, the last renovation project that I will ever tackle is now complete (I don’t believe that for a minute) and I am just going to relax and enjoy our beautiful new kitchen and all of the delicious food that comes out of it! 

Superpowers the hard way

 

What person hasn’t dreamed of having super powers, I wonder?

My guess is probably not many.

As a father for many years I suppose that I must have appeared to possess superpowers of a sort to my 2 daughters when they were small. But in truth the only special power that I ever seemed to possess around my house was the ability to polish off the last of the cereal.

Many is the time that I reached into the cupboard and picked up box after box to find little more than dust and crumbs rattling around in the bottom. If no-one else has the ability to do something, it must be a superpower, right?

I still to this day combine several cereals in the bowl making a nostalgic mix that has very little to recommend it except that it brings me back to a time when the kids were small.

From dust to dust

Alas, as time went by, in the eyes of my now grown offspring, dad’s infallibility has been exposed for the myth that it was and I have come to terms with my utter ordinariness in that regard.

Until recently that is.

I have no recollection of having been bitten by a radioactive spider or even a glow in the dark mosquito, so my new abilities are almost certainly attributable to a much more prosaic source; a brush with disease being the catalyst to changes within my aging body.

About a year ago I developed lung cancer out of the blue and some strange abilities have appeared since. Probably as a result of the disease or the treatment or perhaps from all of the radioactive diagnostic tests that were performed on me, who knows? Obviously I didn’t suddenly become all wise or even a little bit clever so I’m guessing here.

Shortly after being discharged from hospital after surgery to have one lobe of my left lung removed, I had a heart attack. Once again I was in the hospital, this time for an angiogram which revealed a 70% blockage in my “widow maker” artery supplying blood to my heart. This blockage required 2 stents to be inserted in the artery and it was while I was recovering from that procedure that I received my super hero name.

Nurse Kelly who was always quick with a quip coined my name in the first few seconds of our short acquaintance. Since my situation of also having had recent cancer surgery was a bit unusual, at least in my mind, I always made a point of filling my nurses in on my history, just in case.

When I informed Kelly that I recently had surgery to remove a cancerous lobe from my lung, she responded with, “Oh, you’re….. Lobe Guy!”

“Lobe guy”, I thought, that sounds like a good name for a super hero!

Then came the giant swelling in my right forearm where they had inserted the catheter and that night as she was trying to treat it, she remarked that “you’ve got a real Popeye thing going on there.”

Yes indeed, all of the bulging arm and none of the strength of our spinach swilling cartoon friend. Not an auspicious start to my super career!

Come to think of it though, I did develop some weird new talents.

Although most of the changes in my body brought on by the cancer are much less fun than special new abilities, unless of course you count becoming a walking phlegm factory as a hoot and a half!

My poor wife Rose has a very highly developed gag reflex that kicks into overdrive if there is even the hint of shall we say – throat clearing, so I’ve learned to be careful, lest we have an unfortunate series of events develop.

Chatting about this new and less than endearing feature of my life, we laughingly decided that instead of being of Scandinavian extraction, perhaps my actual heritage was Phlegmish, or Flemish as is the more common spelling.

But no, my family were not from Flanders in the North of Belgium so I’m still Norwegian/Swedish etc. etc.

Phlegm aside, (where it belongs) the other new special power that I have developed since my surgery is a highly developed olfactory sense rivalling that of a truffle hunting pig.

This new ability would perhaps be useful in the forests of Provence, where truffles can be found in abundance, but here in Alberta my nose picks up mostly fumes of one sort or another.

I got a bit of a start the other day when I suddenly smelled burnt toast; I feared I must be having a stroke or something until I heard Rose in the kitchen and knew it for what it was, actual burnt toast.

I should be used to that particular smell emanating from our kitchen by now, but once you’ve had one serious health scare, you tend to pay a bit more attention to warning signs of further problems. That being said, sometimes the smell of burnt toast is just bread that has spent too long in the toaster!

Speaking of toast, many years ago when my sister Chris got married, my older brother Terry who also answered to the nickname my dad gave him of “Terrible” was called upon to give a toast at the wedding.

Never one to waste an opportunity, he produced a paper bag and reaching inside, pulled out a slice of charred bread and waved it before us, claiming it was his “Toast to the bride”.

A toast to the bride

He also claimed it was an example of the cooking skills that her new husband could expect to see in the future, what a guy!

Getting back to the present, I wish I could think of a highly paid job where the ability to discern lawnmower exhaust from Honda Civic exhaust at a distance of 100 meters was useful, but I’m afraid that my new abilities are just more of an annoyance than a sought after talent.

Nevertheless, I will keep waiting and hoping that whatever brought on these changes to my sense of smell is still working away on a new superpower that is truly useful.

I think a very useful super power would be the ability to back out of a disastrous conversation with one’s significant other, preferably leaving no memory of the conversation with either party.

We’ve probably all longed for that little flashy thing that the Men in Black used when they needed to wipe the recent memories of ordinary humans (the neuralyzer) and every once in a while I really, really need something like it. 

If you remember this, you are lying

This new power could be known as the “removal of ones foot from ones mouth power”. Many are the times over the years when it would have come in handy and I’m absolutely sure that very, very soon I will need it once again.

I’m guessing it will be when Rose reads my blog!

Round 2 - Here we go again!

Some people will do anything for a story! 

Since I enjoy writing so much and I was experiencing a bit of a dry spell of ideas, after careful deliberation (NOT) I decided to have a heart attack. 

That is, my body decided to, I was just along for the ride. 

After surgery for lung cancer only a couple of months previous, I thought I had sort of paid my dues and I could treat myself with a little bit more ice-cream, dark chocolate and potato chips, just until I was recovered of course! 

Little did I know, as they say, that the surgery had taken a major toll on my body and some of my arteries were already dangerously close to being closed off due to high cholesterol and that it wouldn't take much to bring on an attack. 

It's a little ironic that I had recently begun riding my bike a lot and my fitness level was actually "quite good". This is a direct quote from the doctor who performed a stress test on my heart only a few months ago. There were "no concerns" according to him and the minor twinges I had been experiencing were most likely caused by the muscles around my heart. Well I'm calling bull-poop on that! 

As we all know, hindsight has exceptional vision and sometimes through the topsy turvey randomness of chance, crap happens. It may turn out to be fortuitous or sometimes it goes against you, who can say why?

Now, on to the story. 

Rose and I had driven out on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend at the cabin and I was excited to make major renovations to the outhouse. Believe it or not, some city folk are squeamish about using a good old fashioned pit toilet.

Their over active imagination can't help but conjure up images of crazed weasels latching onto any exposed or dangling bits and causing them big time grief. 

Some others are afraid of spiders or have sensitive noses and can't take the smell that they imagine must be present in a biffy house. As it happens, our back house is about as sweet smelling as they come. 

We use lye crystals, ash from campfires, charcoal from a friends BBQ and occasionally good old fashioned dirt to keep the odor down. Rose also has a little automatic spritzy thing to puff out some sweet smelling stuff and that also helps. Be that as it may, perception is reality as they say, and in an effort to make people more comfortable during their visit I was determined to install a flush RV toilet. 

I researched it, got Roses approval and purchased one, along with various installation accessories and a sheet of plywood to put in a new floor. 

Now, one of the less pleasant jobs when dealing with a pit toilet like ours is cleaning out the pit. I can hear you now saying "eeiyuuuue" as you imagine what that means! 

For myself, having spent many summers out at "the farm" belonging to my Auntie Evelyn and Uncle Alfred as a kid and having been put to work shoveling out the barn on many occasions, I actually don't mind the job. I don't look forward to it of course, that would just be weird! 

But I don't mind the job….. much. 

Tipping up the outhouse

The hardest part is tipping the outhouse over so you can get at the "sump", after that it's just a little shoveling and shazaam, a clean, sweet smelling biffy. (For a while) So on the day of “the event” I got to work and it's a hot, strenuous job. I had to make a few trips up and down the hill with the product of my labour (so to speak) and I'm pretty breathless and tired and at Roses urging I did stop a few times for a rest. And then I'm done and it's time to push the outhouse back in place but I'm very tired so I get cleaned up and stop for lunch. 

After lunch I decided to take a longer break and rest up on the bed before going back to work. But after a few minutes I began to feel strange; it started out as a similar feeling to very bad indigestion before spreading into my chest, arms and jaw as a very painful aching sensation and then it gradually eased off and went away. 

I was still thinking “whew, whatever that was, I’m glad it’s gone” when it started to come back again, more intense then the first time. At that point I gobbled down 5 baby aspirin, chewing 2 and swallowing 3 and when Rose asked me if I was ok, I told her “no, I have to go to the hospital.” 

We quickly grabbed a few things and closed up the cabin and headed to the hospital in Camrose, 30 long minutes away.

Rose is not a speeder or a passer on the highway and she definitely doesn’t drive through red lights while laying on the horn but she did all of those things and more. I’ll never forget clutching my chest, yelling “step on it, just go, pass this guy, don’t stop, go through the light, it’s ok, you’re doing great and similar things while poor Rose was just trying to find the hospital while trying to drive with tears in her eyes, crying from fear and stress.

I do not recommend it! 

Of course because of construction somehow hiding the hospital sign we actually drove past the turnoff and had to backtrack once I realized that we had missed it. At this point I was clutching my chest with one hand and trying to find the hospital on Google maps but wouldn’t you know it? The GPS couldn’t connect! It only took a couple of minutes to find the hospital but every second of delay seemed like a big deal to both of us at this point. 

We pulled up to the Emergency department bay doors and then drove right inside, expecting to find a highly excited medical team rushing to meet us, yelling things like “100cc of thoratzahepathizne stat!” 

Strangely, it was deserted and Rose helped me along as I staggered into the building, still clutching my chest, in terrible pain as Rose yelled out, “HELP, my husband is having a heart attack!” 

I ended up leaning against a wall as someone pushed a wheel chair under me and told me to sit down before wheeling me over to an exam room and beginning to examine and treat me. I remember an EKG and 3 sprays of Nitro under my tongue having little effect on the pain and then some morphine that brought some relief before eventually seeing a doctor and getting a handful of “anti-coagulants” I think they were called. 

When the doctor finally appeared; after a long string of “don’t worry, he’s coming soon, you’re next, he’ll be right with you” etc. etc. It turned out to be the same doctor who had seen me at the Sturgeon hospital emergency room back in February, what are the odds? I’ve been to the emergency room exactly twice in the last ten years and both times the same doctor, in hospitals 100 km apart, weird! 

Dr. Stan did his thing and quickly determined that I would need to be transferred into Edmonton and before you know it, Victor and Logan had bundled me onto a gurney, hooked me up to a very sophisticated monitor and after some hasty goodbyes to Rose, I was on my way to the CK Hui Heart Center at the Royal Alex. 

In the ambulance while being transferred into Edmonton, I asked Logan, the EMS attendant if we had done the right thing by driving in, he very gently informed me, “probably not, we could have met you on the highway and given you some clot buster drugs”. As I looked around at the well-equipped ambulance, I couldn’t help but agree and I determined right there that if there ever was a next time that is what we would do.

At the heart center I was shocked at what an incredible upgrade it was from the Shutter Island kind of ward that I was incarcerated in after my lung surgery! Someone said that the high profile, “sexy” sort of medicine like cardiac surgery gets all of the money and the best equipment and I can’t argue. 

I felt like I was on an American TV show and they had me in the presidential suite, it was very deluxe and I had a room all to myself until after my “procedure”. Then it was back to reality but still much newer and more tolerable than the wards in the old part of the hospital. 

After arriving at the Royal Alex, my heart seemed to relax and the blood kept flowing, meaning that I had no chest pains and since it was a Friday night and the “Cath team” only comes in on the weekend for emergencies, it took a few days before my case was deemed sufficiently serious to get me in for my angiogram/angioplasty. 

In the mean time they took very good care of me and for the first few days I was constantly monitored for blood pressure, temperature, oxygen, and I don’t know how many EKG’s they did, but it was a lot! I felt very lucky to have made it so far and Rose and I both felt that I was in the right place. 

Since they work strictly on a priority of needs basis, there is no scheduled time or date for procedures in the “Cath Lab” and they tell you to be ready at all times during the day. So make sure your bladder is always empty, don’t eat too much and just wait patiently until someone says, “they’re on their way.” That’s exactly how it played out, all of a sudden after 4 days of waiting; I was told “they’re coming for you!” 

Rose and I in the Healing Garden before the Angioplasty

Twenty minutes later I was being wheeled into place and shifted onto this very narrow little table surrounded by computer monitors and scanners of one sort or another. Then it was swabbing any possible access points to my arteries with industrial cleaner that left my skin dyed red and then injections of blood thinners and whatever other drugs they felt necessary or appropriate. 

Someone was constantly talking to me asking if I was doing ok or explaining what they were doing and asking if that was ok with me and I’m telling them, “sure, do whatever you have to.”

The fellow actually performing the angiogram seemed to be learning the craft under the watchful eye of the cardiologist that I was familiar with and who had visited and examined me several times over the past few days. I was feeling a little bit apprehensive about having this other guy actually doing the procedure, but at that point there isn’t a lot you can do about it and everybody’s got to learn somehow I guess. 

There was a lot of cross talk during the procedure and I don’t remember much of it but what I do remember was the feeling of having the catheter sliding up the artery in my arm and then into my heart. 

Beforehand, the talk from the nurses was all, “they’ll give you some pain meds and something for anxiety and you won’t feel a thing!” But let me tell you, I felt plenty! 

I could feel the wires sliding through the catheter, I could feel something going on in my heart, and when they were doing the angioplasty, it felt like another heart attack! Right in the middle of it all I had to say something. I was afraid of distracting them but I eventually piped up, “hey guys, I feel like I’m having a minor heart attack right now!” That’s when they calmly explained, “oh yeah, we have to cut off the flow of blood to your heart for a little while when we are doing the angioplasty, don’t worry it’s normal.” 

While it may be normal, it sure the heck is unpleasant! Eventually they were done the internal stuff and they practically yanked the catheter out of my arm and after 45 minutes of unpleasantness, more and worse unpleasantness was getting ready to dump itself on me! You see, with me it is never simple. Other people, sure,  once the procedure is complete the patient quickly recovers and they go home. 

For me, it’s 10 lovely days in the hospital waiting for the air leak in my lung to stop and the subcutaneous emphysema to heal up. Then it's, "whoa, look at the big leak in the pressure cuff, blood is squirting everywhere!" And on this lovely occasion, for whatever reason, as soon as I got into the recovery room, my arm began to hurt and to swell up like a balloon, yay! 

I guess I’m a complicated guy! 

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself at this point. Rose had to leave to pick up Junie from daycare and even though she stayed as long as she could, as soon as she left I felt very alone with my troubles.

Feeling sorry for myself - hey, it's what I'm good at!

 

I had to pee like crazy, I was having asthma trouble, my dinner just sat there getting cold because I was in no shape to eat, my heart still felt like an elephant was sitting on it and to top it all off my poor arm was swollen and painful. When I mentioned my arm to the nurse, a much harried guy who was apparently dropped into a busy recovery room when the nurse on duty just “went home” because of some kind of a family emergency, he quickly grabbed a pressure cuff and began pumping it up to try and get the swelling down. 

My arm in the pressure cuff

At this point I texted poor Rose and shamelessly hinted that I needed her to come back and to my relief she took the hint and quickly offered to return. Within a half hour I had my sweet wife/advocate looking after me and with Rose along with my new, nightshift nurse Kelly taking over, I was soon feeling much better. 

Rose jumped right in there and offered to do anything that Kelly needed her for and since I was strapped to a bunch of things and couldn’t leave to go to the bathroom, brave Rose ended up with urinal duty. 

That left Kelly free to concentrate on the medical and she quickly realized that my arm was perhaps beyond the usual, occasional bruising complication and she called for the doctor on duty to come and have a look. He did a bedside ultrasound and didn’t see anything that was overly concerning and after squeezing and prodding my arm for a while, proclaimed that the nurses were doing a good job following the protocol and it should be fine. 

I find it curious how the medical staff tries to make it sound routine, “oh sure we see this a lot, it’s a common post procedure complication, nothing to worry about at all.” 

But they couldn’t control their initial reaction when they saw my arm. Then it was “YIKES” as they cringe back, or “WHOA” as they make an involuntary “Yukky” face. 

Nothing like that to inspire calm and confidence in the patient!

Bruise-what bruise?

My new buddy, nurse Kelly who had a kind of Meg Ryan vibe going, with the curly blonde ringlets that Meg was sporting in the 80’s compared my arm to Popeye’s, with the huge forearm (and normal sized manly bicep) and we both got a good laugh at that. It was a very long night with alternating cold packs and pressure cuffs all night long and it felt good to laugh. 

My nurse looking at my arm - kidding

Me - if both arms had the same swelling

The next morning they kicked me over to the ward into a semi-private room and I was told if I was still worried about the arm, they would schedule a formal ultrasound and keep an eye on it for a day or two. Since I had no desire to end up sitting forever in an ER waiting for someone to take a look at my arm, I opted to stay until they (and I) were sure that it would be ok. 

My new room-mate was an old guy waiting for a triple bypass and when Rose saw him languishing there without a phone or visitors, she kindly offered to bring him a coffee and gave him a slice of Barb’s bran loaf and then she wisely went home.

What she didn’t know was that he had been suffering from constipation for the past few days and to say that her accidental ministrations were successful would be the understatement of the year! 

For the next two days I was subjected to the repeated blasts and the long lingering effects of her neighborly gesture. I was just sorry that Rose never seemed to be around with me at the right time to share in the joy. 

The angioplasty procedure was on Tuesday and it was Friday afternoon before they finally let me go home but I’m glad I stayed for the extra 2 days. Today it’s a week later and my arm is still very painful and purple right up past the elbow and even with the ultrasound and extra care, I’m still tempted by the lure to have it looked at again. 

10 days after the Angioplasty

That is the story of my latest medical emergency and yes, it’s been quite the year so far!

Some of you may be wondering if there is someone up there casting lightning bolts and trying to zap me, or perhaps just trying to scare me and the truth is, I just don’t know.

I don’t believe for a minute that God is actively trying to vaporize me, but there is someone else who just might be out to get me and sometimes God does let some of those pot-shots through for His own very good reasons. Perhaps He wants to get my attention and if that’s the case, I’m listening carefully and I’m ready to hear whatever He has to say. 

Rose has her own take on things of course. Right from the beginning when we found out about the cancer and how it was discovered and treated so early, she believed faithfully that God had set that outcome in motion by ensuring it was caught before it had a chance to spread. 

Later, after the heart attack, the cardiac doctor spoke to us to make sure there was no surgery scheduled for the cancer. He told us that I was committed to taking some pretty strong blood thinners for a year, making it extremely difficult if further cancer surgery was called for. When we heard that, we realized that things had happened in the right order, cancer surgery first, heart attack second! Who knew? I certainly didn’t plan it that way. 

God didn’t send the disease, it happened for a number of reasons: genetics, lifestyle, environmental, etc. But when the time came and the illness that had been there on the horizon for years finally happened, the big things worked out as well as they possibly could and we’re both grateful for that!

If this is the first you are hearing about my latest misadventure, I apologize. Neither Rose or I felt much like talking or texting or blogging about it before now. It came out of the blue and we're both still feeling a little PTSD from the whole thing. With no chance to prepare or get used to the idea beforehand it seems even tougher to deal with than knowing about the cancer and reading and planning for the surgery. 

I very much appreciate your prayers, well wishes, and other gestures of love and support so thanks and God bless!

Update - September 21

Well things have been going great and I'm busy taking my meds like a good boy. Now I'm feeling my age with a handful of morning meds and another handful at night and checking my blood pressure, pulse and oxygen levels daily.

Rose is always willing to go the extra mile, literally, as she did all of the driving for the first month and that was hard on both of us! I am a much better driver than I am a passenger.

Adjusting our diet to stringently avoid saturated and trans fat is probably the biggest adjustment, I love my burgers! Now hamburgers are out of the question and as much as I love chicken, it's just not the same.

Rose did the lawns out at the cabin and after staggering along behind the mower for an hour or two she went into full rebellion mode and insisted that we buy a new lawn tractor. 

And that's how we came to purchase "Chompy" the Ferrari red Craftsman lawn tractor and I love him, he does a great job on the lawns and trails at the cabin. 

Me happily enjoying a ride on "Chompy"

Since I'm doing so well and right now covid is not such a concern, we are back at church and enjoying it very much and the photo club is back and seems to have lots of activities planned and life is good all around!

We are planning to enjoy each day and be glad for all of the good things in our lives and I hope you will do the same.

Blessings all!