on the mend

Bing got an implantable cardiac defibrillator yesterday evening. He's one step closer to being a bionic man. My vote for the next step: electronic hand, a la Luke Skywalker.

Rob is rubbing off on me.

There was no valve replacement at this time, which means Bing still has a slightly faulty original, but also hasn't had open heart surgery, which is automatically a faster recovery. The ICB will be able to help moderate his heart rate if it gets fluttery and erratic, or it can provide a shock/jump start if his heart should stop unexpectedly. Mom and Dad are driving home today and grabbed Blake on their way through Spokane. Bing, Lane, and Maddox should be getting home on Saturday. Hurray and praise God!

bing-a-ling

Update via email:
Mom just called from Seattle, and they have just been in consultation with Bing's doctor.

The stress testing that they did this morning produced arrhythmias in both the atrium and the ventrical. They also said that Bing has an impressive murmur (means his valve is not sealing and the blood is being forced back through the valve). They said the scar tissue in the septum (tissue that divides the heart chambers) from the first surgery may be causing the interference.

They are expecting a consultation with the team this evening to determine whether Bing will have open heart to replace the valve or whether they will place a defibrillator.

I will keep you updated as I hear more.

bird is the word

I've been reunited with my love!

Panda Express is just so tasty, I love being able to enjoy it when I'm in Spokane.

Blake especially loves the orange chicken, which he calls "brown balls." As in, "Mom, can I please have brown balls for lunch?"

Yum yum yum!

Ok, Rob was here for over a week without me, and it was both fun and hard to be away from him for so long. Fun because I got to do just what I liked with my time (playing WoW with him remotely, of course), the house was precisely the way I left it after a weekend away, and Blake and I could eat cereal for dinner and not feel badly about not providing a strapping husband/father with meat and a side of protein (preferably meat-based) with a rib-eye shake for dessert. Hard because I wasn't in Spokane overseeing every minute detail of reconstruction and basically bossing him around all the time. Also, the garbage kept piling up without magically disappearing. It was awful and smelly and heavy and I felt very badly for myself. And going to bed alone was damn near impossible, then I'd get there and be unable to sleep until 1:00 or 2:00 am. I might be a leetle tiny bit EXHAUSTED.

Now we're BOTH in Spokane, fixing up the house with my folks and some friends and whomever of Rob's family we can finagle away for a while. I am convinced that Aislynn (one month) and Cec (age withheld) will bond firmly over a shared love for the trim nail gun... if Blake doesn't get his hands on it first. Things are coming along nicely after all Rob and Cec's work before now, plus what we accomplished today, but I feel badly for Rob. He's putting all this time and money into a place that he won't get to enjoy all dolled up, because we're hoping to sell it or, at the very least, rent it.

And things are going well with Bing and Lane, which is why I can write a post that's not at all about them after two rather harrowing posts all about them. Check out her blog (Burch Perch) for more - she's got the goods.

God's in His heaven, all's right with the world. And I'm not really that bossy.

Ok, I am. Take out the garbage, please.

bing's heart

From an email from my mother this morning:

Good morning all our circle of love,

Thanks for all your calls and visits during our crisis with Bing and Lane. He is resting well with all his family members, awaiting surgery tomorrow.

We have finally found out that Bing’s heart condition is a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. He was what they use to describe as a "blue baby."

I will give you a text book paragraph courtesy of Teri Lee’s A&P class text book.

Tetralogy of Fallot, a complex congenital defect of the heart and major vessels, is the most common cause of cardiac cyanosis (blue) in newborn children, accounting for 10% of all congenital heart defects. First described by the French physician Fallot, the base of the heart seems to be twisted too much to the right, causing the aorta to be displaced to the right. The malpositioned aorta causes narrowing of the adjacent pulmonary artery, which results in pulmonary stenosis (narrowing). This limits the amount of blood that can enter the lungs to be oxygenated.

The reduced oxygen in Bing's blood led to his collapsing episodes. UW did his first repair as a 3-year-old –repairing the septum between the L and R ventricles, which is why he was flighted to UW for the correction tomorrow. He will have open heart surgery where they will correct his pulmonic valve and possibly install wiring for a defib unit and/or a pacemaker. Bing is not a usual case of this defect. He is robust and in shape and did not manifest symptoms until the last few years. We are trusting in our Big God for Him to extend His hand to Bing, Lane, and Maddox to give them the life He has planned for them.

We covet your prayers and love so much.

This is all I've got... Mom's got a friend willing to answer questions, but I won't hand her number out to you, dear internet. Thanks to all offering help to Lane and Bing in Seattle. I've extended the offers and will let Lane take it from there. The good news is that this is the surgery Bing's needed for a while, and he's being taken care of. Other than a successful surgery and quick recovery (he will have his chest cracked, after all), a big prayer would be for financial provision and wisdom for that aspect in their lives.

And he's in good spirits, apologizing to me for not being able to come to Spokane to help fix up the house this weekend. I grudgingly forgave him, even though I was really really REALLY excited for all the time with he and Lane. Also exciting was all the work they were going to do in exchange for donuts, but I suppose major heart surgery on one I love IS more important.

bing-a-ling

Please pray for my brother-in-law Bing. He collapsed twice last night when his heart stopped, and after being taken to the hospital in Billings, they determined that he needed heart valves replaced and a defibrillator put in. He's been flown to Seattle and is awaiting surgery. He's twenty-six years old. He was born with a heart condition, and this is not the first "event" he's had. Surgery may begin tonight or tomorrow based on a battery of tests they've just run.

Lane is currently in Billings, and we're working to get her to his side as soon as possible (she and Maddox fly out at 7:30 tonight). She's understandably distraught and worried. They have no health insurance, and while Bing should be in good shape post-surgery, he won't be able to work for a while. Please please pray for the following:

• Successful surgery and fast recovery.
• Financial provision (along the terms of a miracle) for the medical treatment and living expenses afterward.

Thanks friends and internet. I'll keep you posted.

not today, perv

I just have to wonder about the circumstances of the photo. First, the photographer gives me a severe case of the icks. Second, I've been imagining what she's saying in this meeting while furiously and secretly flipping the bird. Guesses anyone?

cautious post

So, N was seen by her OB/GYN, not the newbie GYN who was supposed to see her. And Dr. B (who delivered Blake and is a wonderful wonderful man) did another test to check for amniotic fluid and said she could go home! I'm not super-clear on the details, so I won't post them (learned that the hard way yesterday, posting the details I had received that were WRONG), but the essential truth is that N gets to go home today, take it nice and easy for the next few weeks, then back to life as usual.

Praise the Lord! Please keep praying that little peanut doesn't decide to crash the party and stays safely ensconced in the womb for several more months.

This is such a relief to me. I was upset enough yesterday to just sort of quit everything. I prayed, wept, opened a bottle of wine, and played a video game while watching a very violent movie (because romantic comedy would have irritated me to no end). I have funny coping mechanisms.

N & P: I can't wait to hug your necks and scold that little belly N is sporting for giving us such a scare.

please make everything be okay *edited

My friend is twenty-three weeks pregnant and has a small tear in her bag of waters. She and her husband are being driven to the neo-natal unit in Great Falls in the morning.

Please pray with me that everything would be okay. I don't know what else to pray for.

*Pray that the tear would spontaneously heal itself (there's medical precedence for this), that N would not go into labor, and that everything would be okay. Previous post was twice and thrice removed, all through men. Men interpret and reinterpret things in a kind of alarming way.

that's what she said (we're so wise in our old age)

M: I have NEVER thought of myself as a worrywort, but now that I've got so much more that I'm attached to here on earth, I find myself having to fend off thoughts of plane crashes and bike wrecks and cancer and (now) falling off of balconies that I'd never battled with before. I'm sure when you have kids it gets even worse.

A: I hear you about worry something will happen to J. That fear does get worse the more you have to hold onto in life. I remember my friend (the one who's son is so broken in utero) being angry that, immediately after Blake died, my fear was that something would happen to the baby. She renounced Satan's attack then and there, but now told me she's struggling with the same fears for her husband and their three girls. Once you have life's frailty pounded down upon you, you realize how fortunate we are that mostly, everything is okay. And I feel especially for my good friends and family, because my life is an almost painful reminder that it can be taken away. Lane looks at my life and fears that Bing will stop breathing at night. Not Maddox, but Bing! She also worries over her son, but in a slightly different way.

And all that to say that you can't worry. It's like paying interest on a debt you might not even owe. And it steals the joy from your right-now-moment. But man, it's damn hard. God's done me a mercy by putting a roadblock up in my mind when I start meandering down that path. He squashes those thoughts firmly, which is good, especially now that Blake is in the care of others so often as he gets older. So I will pray that for you: may God put a roadblock up on your worry wandering so that you may more fully trust Him and His designs.

M: This love-n-marriage thing is such a fertile ground for learning opportunities -- about life in general and mostly about ourselves, realizing that constant contact with the one person you love most in the world can bring out the best in you (that you didn't know was there), the worst in you (that you would still like to think isn't there) and the strangest thoughts that you never really imagined could well up from your heart and mind.

On Christ the solid rock I stand!
all other ground is sinking sand.

this is why it takes so long, momica... and just think, i only paid the man in chips!

From an email exchange with RJ, wedding photographer:
Here's the deal.
All of the photos exist in uncompressed RAW format in an Adobe Lightroom Library at work. I've exported them all as screen-res JPGs to your BPLStaff folder.

Then I went in and deleted the crappy ones - crappy in that they were either way out of focus or way over or underexposed and thus not salvageable. I still have them, if you want them, but they suck.

What you see are photos that:
1. Have NOT been color corrected.
2. Have NOT been white balance corrected.
3. Have NOT been exposure corrected.
4. Have NOT had zits, freckles, boogers, mosquitoes, sneeze aerosol, or anybody's body fat photoshopped out.

OK, I know you're not wanting me to do #4 to your photos (but I'm happy to try, I was pretty successful with some donuts previously), but #1 and #2 are important. I've attached two photos that show why you want this done, especially if you are going to print them or post them proudly on the web somewhere. If you post these JPG's they WILL LOOK CRAPPY. These are composition proofs.

OK, so you're asking yourself, "Now what?"
1. First, keep the chip supply up.
2. Second, burn the JPGs to a CD or DVD at work, and look at them at home with Rob. Take a little time to pick your RRLs.
3. Third, select the ones you really, really like (the RRLs) and copy those to a new CD and give that CD back to me. These should be ones that you'll print, or are just really proud of for online distribution. I must have the photos. No filenames.

Then, I will:
1. Correct white balance, color, exposure, and sharpening one by one on the RRLs and export them as high-res JPGs.
2. Run the rest through one of my mass filters that does something similar, but not as fine tuned. They will look much better than the originals and will be fine for online distribution.

*****
A: I love that you speak my language. Will do.
And what if I DO want fat Photoshopped out? What then?
*****
R: Uhh, then....you'll have to point it out, exactly where it is, because I don't see ANY on your photos...

Whew, close one.
*****

Uncorrected photo:

Corrected photo:

Donuts: