Reflections
Fish! Training and David's Heart Attack
04 10 08 15:12
This past week we facilitated a Fish! training at work. Rather than explain Fish!, I have provided a link.
I took lead on our group process focusing on ‘play,’ and I can’t remember which of my friends was in charge of ‘choose your attitude,’ but in the course of the conversation an example was thrown out that there are times when choosing your attitude is unreasonable, like when one has extreme health issues.
After the training, I was carrying supplies back to central computing with Melanie, Gretchen, and Catherine, and we were processing our successful inspirational training. As were were talking about ‘choose your attitude’ I told them about David’s heart attack on our vacation in Hawaii a couple weeks ago. Talk about an inspirational example of ‘choose your attitude!’ I think the story deserves to be told now.
On Friday of our vacation in Kauai, we were all tromping around having a good time. We visited the Kilauea lighthouse. David was having chest pain. Of course, with David, chest pain can mean something or not. Living with apparently chronic cancer as long as he has, his body sends all kinds of messages, many of which are misleading. Is pain related to medicine? chemo? that tumor that’s finally receding? one that’s growing? heartburn? heart attack? Who knows. What the heck, on vacation, it was a pain to ignore.
Saturday the pain continued.
Sunday we all drove up into Waimea Canyon and stopped several places. David was out of breath and in pain the entire time. On the way home, finally, the decision was made to stop at the hospital in Lihue. Carl, David Erhardt and I headed back to the house. Shortly after we returned, we got a call from Mark. David and he were to be airlifted to Honolulu. They needed us to bring them change of clothes and possibly pick up David’s mom, Elinor, and bring her back with us.
Driving was tense. It’s not good to speed, so we went speed limit, which is painful in Hawaii when you are in crisis. Carl was snippy, understandably, given the chemistry all of our bodies were pumping through our veins in response to our anxiety.
The hospital was socially clumsy. What to say or do? David E. suggested we find food for David, Mark, Patrick and Elinor who had been at the hospital for a while now. Off we went to a convenience store to buy the strangest assortment of sandwiches, fried dumplings, and water. Back to the hospital. More uncomfortable standing around. I felt like we were in the way of the four family members taking care of themselves, but I like to be left alone when sick. Finally, we left.
Well, they flew him that night to Honolulu. The doctors there put two stints in his heart, and sent him back with digital movies of his heart pumping dye through clogged, then newly unclogged arteries. Whew. There was some confusion about why Tucson surgeons had not dealt with these clogged arteries when they did bypass surgery weeks before, but then again, so what? David was back!
... I didn’t hear him complain once the rest of the trip. Remarkable. He reported feeling much better post-surgery, and off we went the 19th on our boat and snorkeling trip, David on board. No, David overboard - he went snorkeling too! He cooked us a full dinner of fresh fish from the Fish Market that night. Tromping around the island continued thereafter. Luau on the 20th. It was like nothing happened. No, it was better. It was better than as if nothing had happened - I think we all had a nice reminder how precious life is and how lucky we were to be in a beautiful place enjoying vacation time with good friends, beautiful land sea and air, and plentiful food.
At one point I asked David if he was really well enough to be running all over the island again. His response was that he felt, nay, *was* better health-wise than he was before surgical stints were applied, and if he was tromping around with us then, he might as well now. The way he phrased it demanded, ‘no arguments!’ None were given. Besides, I agreed with him. Life is too short not to enjoy every moment.
How’s that for a great ‘choose your attitude’ story?
I took lead on our group process focusing on ‘play,’ and I can’t remember which of my friends was in charge of ‘choose your attitude,’ but in the course of the conversation an example was thrown out that there are times when choosing your attitude is unreasonable, like when one has extreme health issues.
After the training, I was carrying supplies back to central computing with Melanie, Gretchen, and Catherine, and we were processing our successful inspirational training. As were were talking about ‘choose your attitude’ I told them about David’s heart attack on our vacation in Hawaii a couple weeks ago. Talk about an inspirational example of ‘choose your attitude!’ I think the story deserves to be told now.
On Friday of our vacation in Kauai, we were all tromping around having a good time. We visited the Kilauea lighthouse. David was having chest pain. Of course, with David, chest pain can mean something or not. Living with apparently chronic cancer as long as he has, his body sends all kinds of messages, many of which are misleading. Is pain related to medicine? chemo? that tumor that’s finally receding? one that’s growing? heartburn? heart attack? Who knows. What the heck, on vacation, it was a pain to ignore.
Saturday the pain continued.
Sunday we all drove up into Waimea Canyon and stopped several places. David was out of breath and in pain the entire time. On the way home, finally, the decision was made to stop at the hospital in Lihue. Carl, David Erhardt and I headed back to the house. Shortly after we returned, we got a call from Mark. David and he were to be airlifted to Honolulu. They needed us to bring them change of clothes and possibly pick up David’s mom, Elinor, and bring her back with us.
Driving was tense. It’s not good to speed, so we went speed limit, which is painful in Hawaii when you are in crisis. Carl was snippy, understandably, given the chemistry all of our bodies were pumping through our veins in response to our anxiety.
The hospital was socially clumsy. What to say or do? David E. suggested we find food for David, Mark, Patrick and Elinor who had been at the hospital for a while now. Off we went to a convenience store to buy the strangest assortment of sandwiches, fried dumplings, and water. Back to the hospital. More uncomfortable standing around. I felt like we were in the way of the four family members taking care of themselves, but I like to be left alone when sick. Finally, we left.
Well, they flew him that night to Honolulu. The doctors there put two stints in his heart, and sent him back with digital movies of his heart pumping dye through clogged, then newly unclogged arteries. Whew. There was some confusion about why Tucson surgeons had not dealt with these clogged arteries when they did bypass surgery weeks before, but then again, so what? David was back!
... I didn’t hear him complain once the rest of the trip. Remarkable. He reported feeling much better post-surgery, and off we went the 19th on our boat and snorkeling trip, David on board. No, David overboard - he went snorkeling too! He cooked us a full dinner of fresh fish from the Fish Market that night. Tromping around the island continued thereafter. Luau on the 20th. It was like nothing happened. No, it was better. It was better than as if nothing had happened - I think we all had a nice reminder how precious life is and how lucky we were to be in a beautiful place enjoying vacation time with good friends, beautiful land sea and air, and plentiful food.
At one point I asked David if he was really well enough to be running all over the island again. His response was that he felt, nay, *was* better health-wise than he was before surgical stints were applied, and if he was tromping around with us then, he might as well now. The way he phrased it demanded, ‘no arguments!’ None were given. Besides, I agreed with him. Life is too short not to enjoy every moment.
How’s that for a great ‘choose your attitude’ story?
Dreams
17 09 08 10:23
I don’t have dreams very often, but last night I had two odd ones. Not sure if it’s a good idea to post my dreams on the internet, but since I sometimes think of this blog as my journal, albeit too public to really process deeply, I’m going to take the wild risk even if some psychiatrist gleans embarrassingly personal information about me from them!
The first one was with my boss. She wanted me to explain to her under what conditions I do work for people outside my department, as though I had been making bad decisions about what projects and with whom I should work. I justified my activity as best I could while trying to get some kind of oxygen tank working despite the fact that it’s rubberized gaskets had aged and become brittle. What was most difficult about the dream was that she seemed not to approve, and to make things worse, I was completely unable to get the tank working.
Then I woke for a bit and after falling asleep I had a second dream: I was at a public stoning. Some people were apathetically stoning someone. I’m not sure what the person being stoned had done, but I had the impression it was something normal and unremarkable. It wasn’t really much of a crime: more like it was something that broke minor, irrationally derived social mores than a crime that harmed anyone. I tried hard to intervene on the so-called ‘criminal’s’ behalf but they would not stop stoning him until he was dead.
Strange dreams to have on a vacation, eh?
I don’t know if this is related, but I spent several hours on the beach yesterday alternating between swims and finally diving in to a Ray Kurzweil book, ‘The Singularity is Near.’ In the course of defining complexity, Kurzweil uses a thought provoking Einstein quote: “make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Einstein probably said this in reference to achieving simpler scientific theories, but I wish we would apply it to religion and politics as well. If we simplified religion, it would eliminate scriptural literalism, which requires the oddest irrational mental calisthenics to uphold in a person’s mind.
If we applied it to politics, it might eliminate the current manifestation of the Republican party, which relies on over-simplifying, to the point of dumbing down and downright misrepresenting fiscal, environmental, and social issues to elect candidates. In fact, it seems to me that Republicans now accept a paradigm where issues are completely important, but cult of personality is all important. This approach is too simple to be responsible. Palin as president in the case of McCain’s passing, for example, is a laughable scenario. She seems like someone you could find in any family gathering, but little more. Check out Wikipedia’s article on Palin, which briefly outlines her career. It’s really quite amusing!
Anyway, I’m wandering off track. All I wanted to say was this: I wish as a culture we could agree to make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.
The first one was with my boss. She wanted me to explain to her under what conditions I do work for people outside my department, as though I had been making bad decisions about what projects and with whom I should work. I justified my activity as best I could while trying to get some kind of oxygen tank working despite the fact that it’s rubberized gaskets had aged and become brittle. What was most difficult about the dream was that she seemed not to approve, and to make things worse, I was completely unable to get the tank working.
Then I woke for a bit and after falling asleep I had a second dream: I was at a public stoning. Some people were apathetically stoning someone. I’m not sure what the person being stoned had done, but I had the impression it was something normal and unremarkable. It wasn’t really much of a crime: more like it was something that broke minor, irrationally derived social mores than a crime that harmed anyone. I tried hard to intervene on the so-called ‘criminal’s’ behalf but they would not stop stoning him until he was dead.
Strange dreams to have on a vacation, eh?
I don’t know if this is related, but I spent several hours on the beach yesterday alternating between swims and finally diving in to a Ray Kurzweil book, ‘The Singularity is Near.’ In the course of defining complexity, Kurzweil uses a thought provoking Einstein quote: “make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Einstein probably said this in reference to achieving simpler scientific theories, but I wish we would apply it to religion and politics as well. If we simplified religion, it would eliminate scriptural literalism, which requires the oddest irrational mental calisthenics to uphold in a person’s mind.
If we applied it to politics, it might eliminate the current manifestation of the Republican party, which relies on over-simplifying, to the point of dumbing down and downright misrepresenting fiscal, environmental, and social issues to elect candidates. In fact, it seems to me that Republicans now accept a paradigm where issues are completely important, but cult of personality is all important. This approach is too simple to be responsible. Palin as president in the case of McCain’s passing, for example, is a laughable scenario. She seems like someone you could find in any family gathering, but little more. Check out Wikipedia’s article on Palin, which briefly outlines her career. It’s really quite amusing!
Anyway, I’m wandering off track. All I wanted to say was this: I wish as a culture we could agree to make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.