Month: April 2012

Scars

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Scars

In the photo above you can see my incision that it is now beginning to heal. The trauma of getting that scar, twice, now, was extreme and, as you have read in this blog, I have many memories, both traumatic and good, from my time in recovery (both at the hospital and, now, at the Berry’s home). It’s crazy how this scar can be fading so quickly when the experience still feels so fresh.

I feel the scar and the people around me see it. It is a constant reminder of these complicated memories. Yet as the physical wound heals, fewer people now say, “oh my, what happened,” or, “how did u get that scar?”. The physical scar is less noticeable and far less commented on, yet my wife and I (& other family members) will always carry the emotional scars. My wife will always see the scar, whether actually visible or not, when she sees the back of my head.  For my part, I will always feel the scar.  Fortunately, we have a God who understands the memory that lives in scars.

We talk about Christ being on the cross, but that experience came with significant scars. Hanging on the cross, from the outside, seems like a wholly terrible experience, but that terrible moment was proceeded by a life that brought many blessings. The scars of Christ were not just a negative memory, but a reminder of the loving acts committed by Christ, as well. The scars of Christ are reminders of the good that came out of a bad situation.

I think that all of us are confronted by scars sometimes. We all find troubles that leave marks on us whether physical marks or emotional. It is up to us whether we will dwell on the passing negative experience or whether we will find good in the midst of angst and trouble. Christ endured the bad that we would all know the good (His Love). When we experience trouble we must look to Christ, so that through Christ’s wounds, we can experience joy even in the midst of our own pain, our own wounds, our own scars.

Immigration and Private Detention Centers

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Immigration and Private Detention Centers


I will never forget standing in Nogales, Mexico watching Wackenhut busses. Tired, hurting, hungry men women and children would make their way- sometimes needing the assistance of a friend, down off the bus, across a bridge, international boarder, and finally to the No More Deaths Aid station where I worked. I would brace myself so that I would be ready (but how could anyone ever be ready), to offer them soup, water, first aide, to hear their stories, and document the abuses that they had survived.
The migrants would often arrive at our aid station in terrible shape. We met people with raging infections, in serious dehydration, with broken bones, in diabetic shock and having heart attacks; none of whom had received medical attention while in custody. They would tell us of the days they spent in the desert, and then even more days in custody often with no food or water. Moving from my sheltered suburban upbringing to the border I was not prepared to hear these stories of people who had sometimes spent 3 days in custody and yet received no food, water or medical attention. Men bore the bruises of physical force abuse, women told of sexual harassment and assault, children cried as they looked for their families from which they were separated. Sometimes this happened in the desert, at the hands of smugglers or the elements. Often, this happened in custody. 

We listened. We bandaged. We documented all of this, but that documentation often seemed pointless. When not at the border, I would spend days logging these handwritten documentation forms into our data base. There were thousands- an unending avalanche of abuse. We would try to follow up, but who was going to bring complaints? The migrants who survived the abuse had too much at stake and were too disenfranchised. When we did file complaints it was often difficult to know against whom they should be filled as the migrants were disoriented. After days in the desert, when taken into custody they entered a chain of confusion. Sometimes they would first be stopped by vigilantes, arrested by Border Patrol and handed over to Wackenhut. They could be moved through multiple detention centers, kept up all night. At whose hands then did this abuse occur and where? We didn’t know. What did quickly become evident was that with abuse as pervasive as we saw, there was not one or two individuals to blame. It was clear that what we were facing was a culture in which such behavior was commonplace and accepted. 


When we privatize prisons, detention centers and transport; and when we further and further convolute the chain of custody we also make accountability more and more difficult. The year I spent on the border working with No More Deaths as a Young Adult Volunteer with the Presbyterian Church (USA) taught me many things. I learned about myself, about the border and about God. It was also that year on the border that shaped my understanding of the nature of evil more than anything in my life ever has, for it was that year that I so starkly looked into the face of evil.
I had grown up believing that we were called to do good and avoid evil. These choices I thought were simple, and clear cut. I was wrong. Even in the process of doing good we participate in evil. The work I was doing with No More Deaths was good work. We were living out Christ’s teachings in Matthew 25. We were however also trapped in a system of evil and exploitation. We were observers to the abuses that occurred in custody, we were used by the smugglers as we bandaged people only so they could cross again with the smugglers who circled the aid station like vultures. We were aware that we were caught up in this web of sinfulness and exploitation. We were also aware that we were called to be present in the midst of such evil. So we prayed, and we had discussions and we worked with God to discern the best ways to navigate that precarious call. And, we held each other accountable. 
The world is not an easy place. The border and our current immigration system are broken. That brokenness causes immense damage to creation, the Kingdom and thousands of God’s Children. We are called to fix that broken system, but that will take years if not decades. We can all disagree on what a fix to that system might look like. In the mean time, however, we can seek to minimize the pain that that broken system causes. One way to do that is to name the pain so that we may all be accountable to the ways we participate.
Through privatization, we incentivize participation in the broken system. We increase the number of people who profit from the victimization of increasingly vulnerable people. In so doing we feed and strengthen evil. We also decrease levels of accountability. The longer privatization of prisons, detention centers and transport continues the more ingrained the culture of abuse becomes. In 2006-07, when I was working in Tucson we saw the beginnings of this privatization and the worsening of abuses as time went on.
When Wackenhut began transporting migrants, we would be allowed to board the busses and provide food, water and first aide. As time went on, cooperation decreased. Secrecy increased, we were no longer allowed on buses. Officers refused to speak to us and would not accept our aid kits. Treatment worsened. 
When I sit at home in Pontiac, IL this issue of the privatization of detention centers seems small and remote. It doesn’t seem as though this affects me, or could even effect that many people. But we try not to see the numbers. During my year in Tucson, our Nogales Aide Station served an average of 1000 people a day all fresh off the buses. That’s in one small border town. This issue affects thousands of people every day. This issue causes increased suffering and pain to thousands of God’s Children. 

But the migrants aren’t the only ones affected. I pray for them, I get the most upset because their suffering is the clearest to me. We also need to pray for those private prison guards. As they are assimilated into this culture of abuse and dehumanization they too are effected. They too are dehumanized and victimized for the perpetuation of such treatment strips away at them as well. 
That’s the thing about evil. We act in sinful ways, believing that we are in control. Soon, the monster we have created is chasing us perpetually across the globe and we find that we know longer can control the monster we have created. It now controls us instead. 


An Obese American Church

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An Obese American Church

The United Methodist Church has become, like seemingly everything else, an overweight, super-sized monstrosity. It has become both victim and perpetrator of the falsehood that bigger-is-better. The bureaucracy and, even, the local churches have lost connection with a quickly changing America because we are fat and living in the past. Now, I know I will receive criticism for not calling it a ‘global’ church, but the United Methodist agencies physically have their offices in the United States and General Conference, in 2008 and since, has chosen to not take it’s global nature seriously, so how can I? Also, I am located in the United Staes so I can only speak for the portion of the Church I see in action. I cannot speak for the European, African, or Asian Churches, for instance. So I will speak of the US UMC.

In most ‘regions’ of the US United Methodist Church, the largest amount of waste and disconnect in the church is our historical Annual Conference Systems, offices, and staffs, but that is a topic for another day. Today I want to address the challenges facing General Conference which is raging right this moment. For those of you who don’t know, General Conference, in short, is a global legislative conference of the United Methodist Church which sets polity and direction of the church and it’s many boards and agencies.

The most controversial proposals before that body this week (and next) are concerned with restructuring and ‘streamlining’ the church. The words I like to use is that the United Methodist Church must become more nimble if it is to begin responding to a new culture,a new way of life in the World, and being a global church, which is a necessity! Yet, groups, especially agency staff (surprise) and many of the young people of general conference seem to be concerned that there will not be fair representation if we shrink the structure. (I’m sure there are others, again, I can only attest to the tweets, blogs and voices I have seen and heard…)

At first, when a very small board was proposed, that might have been a serious concern, but now that the authors of the “Call To Action” have accepted the need for larger board(s), this is no longer a real concern, if you ask me. The concern is more likely for people who have been serving as board members, like me, or staff members, who fear that there will not be room for them in the new system. We have to put aside these worries.

I chose not to put my name in for a general board or agency during this next quadrennium. I have plenty to do trying to make my local church more vital. I suggest that others, including General Conference delegates do the same. We all need to show a willingness to ‘give up our own seat’ before we can talk authentically about the needs of the church and the good of this church that we all love.

And perhaps it is time to let go of a jurisdictional pool system that has given such limited leadership (and helped certain people hold on to positions for so long), but, again, that is another topic for another blog. Hey, Jurisdictional and Annual Conferences are coming. I have to save some topics for those weeks!



*top image found at:  image found at: http://www.efr.org/workplace-classic/eap/providers

Resurrection & New Life: Hid In Christ

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Resurrection & New Life: Hid In Christ

image from http://christianbackgrounds.info/the-cross-sunshine/





I’d like to introduce today’s guest blogger, Adrienne Trevathan.  She is the Director of Christian Education at Northminster Presbyterian (the church where I interned during seminary).  She is a 2009 graduate of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary where she attained a master of divinity.






Our lives are hid with Christ in God.
Scripture:  Colossians 3:1-3
There is a lot at stake when we talk about our beliefs about resurrection.  There are many different ways to speak of the resurrection of Jesus, and different meanings we attach to it.  What has struck me particularly this year is the idea that when Chrsit rises from death, we also rise with him.  In the same way that we observe Lent and remember the suffering of the cross, we ourselves “rise” in a sense as we welcome Easter.   There is something about our identity that is hidden in God, that we uncover (and continue to uncover) as we live as followers of Christ.

When we live as people with hope, who willingly follow someone who knowingly walked into death and danced right out of it, we come a bit closer to finding our true identity.

When we surround ourselves with others who join us in making this proclamation, “He is risen!,”

we are able to understand the deepest part of ourselves that God is preparing to use to address needs in the world; needs not only of our brothers and sisters, but of all creation.  The groaning of creation is matched by the longing within us to make meaning in life.  We have the responsibility of cultivating the Spirit in our lives so that we are able to recognize and respond those signs of new life when they spring up (often in unexpected places).
. 
When Christ rises, we rise – together.  Our identity is no longer static or predictable; what we can become together is a mystery and possibility.  It is a reason to rejoice.

Health Checks

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Health Checks

Me in the hospital in February 2012 after first neurosurgery.



I suppose everyone has a different experience of the hospital than I do / did, but for me a shift happens at some point during hospitalization. When I was admitted this last time, I was miserable. After surgery, I was hurting really bad. During my first days in a hospital I usually feel as though I need to be there. With this last ER visit and hospitalization, I could only find relief at the hospital and couldn’t imagine going home. As time goes by, though, I begin to feel better and there is finally time when I realize I can go home. A shift happens where my need for the hospital is outweighed by a need to go home.


This time I had so many ‘incidents’ that made me feel bad (like the spinal fluid leaking or migraines) that I didn’t realize how much better I was getting overall! On Saturday the doctor came in and said they were ready to discharge me when I was ready to go. I was shocked. At first I said, “no way.” I mean, I had just had a migraine that morning, but, then, I realized that my pain meds were being reduced, anyway, and there is really very little they can do for the migraines anyway. There was nothing I was getting at the hospital that I couldn’t do at home. It was an odd moment for me and I looked up at the doctor and said, “You know, it seems like it is time to go home after all.” I only wanted to clarify our at home plan for remaining comfortable and healthy.

At my in-law’s home recovering after my first neurosurgery in Feb. 2012



Sometimes it is difficult to recognize our place and what is healthy for us. Whether it is our marriage, a house, a church or organization, or group of friends we can sometimes forget to consider our own health and happiness. I think, especially in marriage, we get comfortable and stop talking to our spouses about healthiness in our relationship(s). Just like in my hospital stay where I constantly evaluated my health and situation with my wife, the nurses & doctors, and with myself; our marriages and other relationships constantly need to have healthy communication and evaluation otherwise we lose track of our health. We wake up one day and realize that we no longer have a healthy reason to stay.


To stay healthy, we can’t just talk about the ‘nice’ things…In the hospital it isn’t easy, at first, to talk about bowel movements or have someone you don’t know help you with a shower; but these difficult conversations are just as important as the easy ones. In marriage, especially, it is easy to just say the “I Love You’s” and forget to talk about the difficult things. Carrie and I try to talk about the difficult things as much as the easy stuff. It sometimes means that we fight. It sometimes means that we get angry or hurt, but, in the end, it always means that we grow in our relationship, know one another more, and have a more solid foundation for the future.


We have to keep an eye on our relationships and we have to constantly evaluate where we are in those relationships and their healthiness.

Thursday Night: Near-Death

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Thursday Night: Near-Death

This is the dressing and where the lumbar drain enters my spine.
You can also see a white (and red) safety valve just below my waist.


Before I tell this story I want to catch-up anyone who hasn’t been reading along in this blog.  At this point I had a lumbar drain in my back so that they could keep the pressure from building in my brain.  They were draining off 10 mL of spinal fluid every hour, but this is dangerous.  If something happens that too much fluid drains I could get sick, have migraines or die, if I lost too much.  Also, as you read in the last post, infection is a very big concern when they keep a hole open in your spine, so I have been nervous ever since my surgery.  My nightmare night-after-night had been that the nurse had left my drain open or it had come loose and I was dying!
Alright, so now with the story:
On Thursday evening my wife went for dinner with her sister and I was sitting in bed with my iPad and decided to check facebook, twitter, email, etc.  Since I was having some trouble with diarrhea because of the antibiotics and the many laxatives they had me on (to combat the pain meds) I asked the nurse to put an absorbent pad back on my bed.
Now, if you are laughing at me a little you have to understand that, at this point, I have two sets of monitors hooked to me, sequentials on my legs, a very important tube connecting my lumbar drain in my back to that machine, and, often, an IV.  Also, I’m a fall risk so I’m not supposed to move without someone helping me…and it sometimes takes a few minutes before anyone answers my call button (let alone how long it takes them to unhook me and get me to the bathroom).  So having bathroom troubles isn’t an easy thing.  It was very likely that I was going to leave a pretty big mess.
Back to my original story:  The nurse put a pad on my bed, but I’m tall and it wasn’t positioned quite right, so I remember sitting in bed and scooting about (the nurse supervised) and I pulled the pad up under me.  I worry that I might have unintentionally and unknowingly pulled something loose at that point, but we’ll never know.  The nurse left and would come back later with my meds.  I remained in the same position checking facebook on my iPad.  When the nurse came back with meds about 30 or 45 minutes later I was having a queasy stomach and felt a migraine coming on.  It should have hit me then that something was amiss.  I told my nurse that I had an unset stomach and a migraine coming on.  My nurse left and later, I’m not sure how much later it was, (I was having a major migraine by then) I felt something wet behind me.  I put down my hand into a bed full of spinal fluid.  It still took a moment for me to realize what was happening.  I looked down to see what had spilled and couldn’t find the tube for my lumbar drain.  Once it hit me, I was utterly terrified by what I was experiencing.
I pressed the call button immediately and tried to turn up on my side the way I had lay the other night when he re-did my dressing.  Luckily the unit secretary answered the call right away and I called out that my spinal fluid was leaking out.  I don’t know how she made sense of what I was saying, nor do I know how my nurse, Sean, made it to my bedside so quickly, but it was his quick thinking and steady hands that were able to pull the bandage away and find a tube to clamp off.
The nurse came back and told me he had paged the surgeon and he waited, pacing (and freaking out a little), with me in the fetal position and blanket over my head (trying to keep dark because of the migraine I was suffering).  There were many nurses and others (interns?) in my room by now.  I could reach my phone so I called carrie to tell her that she should come right away.  I lay there and finally worked up the courage to ask the question I needed so badly to ask, “If I lost too much spinal fluid to survive, would we know it already or will we find out later?”  One of the nurses replied, “I don’t know, we need to wait for the doctor.  The surgeon arrived and explained that to help alleviate my migraine I need only to be laid out flat.  The migraine subsided a bit as he raised the bed to table height.  I told him I’d just had work done on the dressing the night before and he responded that he was the one who had done it.  I told him, “Then, doctor, you have seen my ass two times more than I would like!”  (Which did illicit laughter from him and the rest of the room)
He said that I am young and healthy and since I was still alive and conscious I would likely be alright.  He later told Carrie that if I were elderly or obese or otherwise in poor health I would have likely died from loosing so much spinal fluid.
So, as be began to work on me, my wife arrives on the floor.  I know this because I could hear her voice raising as she tried to get past the nurses.  To Carrie’s chagrin the room was already sterilized and they would not let her in.

I laughed a little and told the surgeon to watch out.  I explained that Carrie, if she feels I was in danger and he was keeping her away from me…I explained that she would probably let him have it.  After a moment of silence I said, “but don’t worry, I’ll remind her that you and this nurse just saved the life of the man she loves.”
As Carrie continued to try to get in, the surgeon leans over and says to me, “That is true love.  We have a hospital full of people who don’t have visitors, but you have someone fighting to be with you and to advocate for you.”

Had I been older or in worse shape, had I not realized the fluid was leaking out, had my nurse not been so quick…had the night not gone just as it did, I might not have survived that night.  The recurring nightmare I’d been having all week came true, but because of an excellent nurse and just a short time later an excellent surgeon, I was put back together and my wife and I were able to see one another again.  By the time the surgeon finished it was well after 1:00am.  Carrie, again, stayed the night.  I mean, it really wasn’t a choice, at that point.  I don’t think anything could have moved Carrie out of that room that night.

Wednesday: Exposed!

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Wednesday: Exposed!
So, Wednesday evening I was introduced to my new nurses and was settling into my space (my wife was actually the one doing the ‘settling,’ I was doing the ordering).  Finally my wife left to go to her parent’s house and get some sleep and I laid back and fell off to sleep.  I woke up needing the restroom, so I sat up on the edge of the bed and got ahold of my urinal.  Something didn’t feel right though, when I pulled up out of bed.  I put my hand behind me to feel the lumbar drain and I felt a string (It was later confirmed that this was the smaller tube from the lumbar drain that should have been under the plastic dressing).  I called for the nurse. 
Now, before I explain what happened, I have to tell you that, every since the surgery I had been paranoid about that lumbar drain.  Every 5 minutes I was asking the nurse to check that the drains were turned off or that the dressing was alright and not leaking.  I think most people can understand how I would be a little paranoid about this thing I didn’t expect, didn’t want, and this thing that can kill you…
So, back to the story!  I called the nurse and said the lumbar drain dressing didn’t feel right.  She said, “I’ve found someone more OCD than me, I think!”  I said, “Yes, but will you please look at it?”  Of course she was glad to look at it  and came around behind me with her little light…  She ended up leaning in really closely to the dressing, because I could nearly feel her breath on my back and from back behind me she quietly said, “I need you to stay very still and I’m going to call the on-call surgeon.”  I asked if everything was okay and she said that she didn’t know, but she didn’t think I was in any danger if I just stay still.  She hustled out of the room and I could reach my phone so I called Carrie and told her something was up.  She didn’t arrive until everything was finished.


It was a very simple procedure.  The surgeon did a great job simply re-dressing and re-sterilized everything and since we became aware, right away, that it was exposed I was never in any serious or imminent danger.  Once everything was sterile and under a plastic dressing again, I was ready to go back to sleep.


Carrie stayed at the hospital the rest of the night, since it was after 2:00 a.m. by then!



Wednesday Misery

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Wednesday Misery
This is actually from Monday before when Dr. Beaumont
pulled that fluid out of my head with syringes. (before my second surgery)

After the surgery on Tuesday I was in the ICU.  Things were progressing pretty well, there, so they moved me on Wednesday (morning?) to the otherside of the 10th floor which is a “step-down” unit.  I’m still hooked up to the telemetry monitor (wireless), but also a room monitor and they still keep a closer eye on us there, but its a shared room with doors, like the rest of the hospital.
When I got to the new room, I had a seemingly very nice and quiet roommate.  Also, I was feeling pretty good…but then the migraines started.  Oh Lord, the migraines!  Here I was in a room with machines beeping and squawking every 5 minutes (one of my monitors was clearly not working right).  In a room with doctors, nurses, and techs barging in and out, not just to care for me, but also for my roommate.  It was not really anyone’s fault, but I was hurting, not just because of the brutal migraines that had gripped me, but because of the cacophony noise, light and motion that seemed unending.
They told us they could get us a private room at first, so there was this hope keeping me sane and then someone else got put in that room and they said I was out-of-luck.
Up until now had endured many painful procedures and had gone through quite a lot, I think most of you can agree, but these migraines were more than I could handle and they had no plan to help me find comfort or even improvement.  Finally I just lost it.  Looking back I feel so bad for the nurses because they were doing all they could do, but  I was finally able to talk to the right people and next thing you know I was in a private room with the lights off!
Not sure what made it happen, probably a combination of everything we were doing:
  • the nurses and I working together on figuring out a new schedule for pain meds
  • the suggestion of Toradol by my Nurse Practitioner
  • and we can’t downplay the role of that new quiet single room
…but I found relief!
Once I was in that single room (and that only happened after I had a little… no…  A  BIG meltdown), I was almost embarrassed that I started feeling so much better.  But my wife reminds me that if I hadn’t gotten a quiet space I might never have started feeling better and I deserved a space that helped me to heal, not a space that made me hurt worse!  (I think she’s right).
Wednesday was terrible.  We seemed to not be managing any of the pain and I never had pain of less than a 9 (maybe an 8 at the least) all day.  Most of that day my pain was excruciating.  I make a big deal out of this only because that night was so amazing.
Once we found the right drug schedule; once we found a new drug to start; once I found a place where we could manage noise and light and cut down the traffic…the pain began to just disappear.  As bad as I had felt all day, within an hour of being in that quiet  room I was a different person.  I pulled my head out from under the blanket.  I began to talk and began, eventually, to smile again.  Wednesday evening I was suddenly able to function a little bit again.  I owe it all to the nurses and administration at Barnes-Jewish for working so diligently to find me a space even though they were out of private rooms, and even though I was yelling and crying at them.  I think I would still be suffering in the hospital (instead of recuperating at home) had they not been able to work that miracle!