IHOP Girl: More scar art!

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

More scar art!

As I sit here typing I am sitting in the most awkward position ever trying to reach my computer stretch one leg out and not run into the wall. You would probably laugh at the sight! The question you might ask is how or why am I in this most uncomfortable position? Well, I have been adding to my collection of body scar art...ok, ok, so its not technically scar art, but I have to call all my mole/possible cancer removal spots something. As of yesterday I have a matching scar on the back of my left leg to the one on my right. And it hurts....yeah think of all you do with your legs, now think of doing it with stitches. Oh well, I'm just hoping that I can survive 12 hours of work with minimal pain. Note to self - take the elevator!

5 comments:

shrunken_frontal_lobe said...: Well here I am sitting in Helsinki Finland reading a blog from someone in Johnson City Tennessee. Isn't technology wonderful? It's 9:30 am, I am clothes-less, excepting those I have on of course! My luggage is somewhere in the world, longing to rejoin me whereby I can make them feel useful, as well as snuggly warm. You see, clothes hate to be cold. Low temperatures make their little micro-fibrils contract, increasing stress. This increased stress can be so high that any defects these little fibrils may have may increase in size, ultimately leading to failure. Oh the pain these little fibrils must feel during plastic deformation, defect growth and failure. Poor, poor micro fibrils. *sniff**sniff*

This little scenario is not unlike what we humans go through, only different. We little humans have defects in us, physical, mental, and spiritual, changes in our surroundings produce stress on us. As the stress rises, the defects can grow in size until they can no longer be hidden. The exposed defects can even increase to the point of catastrophic failure. Quite an embarassing event if I may say so.

I've had many such events and the natural question is, "What's a poor overaged, overweight, frunken-lobed goob to do?" Well, first I must recognize I have defects. Good, I know that. Second, I must identify what they are. Ugh, that's a little tricker isn't it. Yes, I'm not sure what all of them are. Well, not to fear, I can choose to not bother and let them become evident as time and stress exposes them, I can ask WOT and others to tell me what they see if I trust their powers of observation, (I trust WOT, everyone else... TBD), and I can let God tell me, (if I choose to ask Him of course).

So what will it be with you little fibril?

He! He!; 1:52 AM
Clair Bannerman (alias) said...: ...Okay, so wow you turned the weirdest analogy ever into this profound thing...figures. Haha, thats why we love you! I think every day more of my fibrils break or at least stretch. Its there any fibril replacement?; 4:14 PM
shrunken_frontal_lobe said...: It sounds like this little fibril needs more excercise if they are stretching. Are we becoming like Girtha? Hum?

Regarding fibril replacement...

You're the nurse, you should know all this stuff. I'm just a frunken-lobed over-the-hill ferrous metallurgist walking around with the keys to Helsinki and about 15 pounds of spectrolite!

He!He!; 6:28 PM
Clair Bannerman (alias) said...: Haha, no I'm not like Gertha ;p.
But, yes, my little fibrils do need some stretching...Oh well.; 7:50 PM
Jess said...: POOR JESS!!!

You know, someday you are going to have to sit down and tell everyone your scar stories.

"This one I got March 9, 2004. It was a clear sunny morning, and I had just finished an iced caramel latte when I pulled into the parking spot sixteenth to the left of my doctor's front door. I was enjoying the sound of birdsong that followed me inside..."

Poor little Jess. I mean, Clair. :(

Now, SFL. Why, exactly, are you ferrous? Yes, I know blood has iron. But why did you feel the need to mention such a thing? (I have a sinking feeling I shouldn't have asked...)

And why are you carrying the spectrolite? Wouldn't it be more productive if you set it down, investigated some more, and went back to get it later? Think how many more samples you could pick up if you were one stone lighter.

Huzzah!!!!! A pun!!! One stone, get it? 15 pounds? Oh, ha ha ha! Jack Aubrey would be so proud...

I really need to start re-reading those books. And, now that I think about it, I need to watch the movie again too.

Hmm.

What was I saying? Oh yes, spectrolite. What, pray, is the Mohs hardness of your spectrolite?

Just curious. :D; 2:17 PM

Movie Night In...I love a good movie!

Mega Mind
Taking Chance (Will make you cry like a baby)
Charlotte Grey (A bit of a different take on Nazi Germany)
Series - Merlin (I LOVE BBC)
Robin Hood (Okay, a love Russell Crowe, you'll have to understand that about me...)
Kingdom of Heaven (Chuck full of acting power with an epic tale)
Miss Potter (Such a great film! Story of the creator of Peter Rabbit)
How to Train your Dragon (Possibly my favorite animated movie ever...I'm like a little kid, I watch it over and over)
Buck (Sundance winner, Biography of Horse Trainer, heart touching)
Lost in Austin (Modern day spin on Pride and Prej.)

Life as a nurse...

Great words by Reb Jeff: Vayishlach: Facing Death

"Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrat — now called Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar above her grave. It is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day."–Genesis 35:19-20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidui http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism), and preparing the notifications to the community, feel like little fragments of the sacred. I have been entrusted with the care and tending of the most powerful, complex and difficult emotions that a person can experience in life. I have been made, in some small part, a guardian of the memory of a departed soul — a life that touches upon many other lives.After dropping off my older daughter at her high school this morning, I made a stop at Treasure Coast Hospice http://www.tchospice.org/, a remarkable organization that sets a very high standard for the loving and respectful care of the dying. There, I visited a lovely man whom I have seen a few times in his hospice room. I sat by his bedside and listened to him (in full possession of his faculties) as he told me about his worries about his family, the support of his wife after he is gone, and the future of his children and grandchildren. I was deeply moved by the way he put any concern for himself — even while facing death — in a distant backseat to his concerns for his family. When my own time comes, I can only hope to have his awareness of the way that one life can touch so many others.Also at hospice, I visited a woman I have known for the past two years — a dear soul who is a former Jewish religious school director. I sat with her, too, singing psalms to her as I listened to her heavy and labored breathing. I have no medical training, but I have come to know the sound of a person who is close to death. The body begins to fight for each breath as it slowly looses it grasp on life. As I held her hand and sang, I realized that being a rabbi is no protection against becoming one of the people caught in the web of connection. I, too, am changed by the loss of a life that has touched mine.Later in the day, I met with a couple from our congregation. She had just learned that her brother died yesterday in a car crash. Coming to terms with the loss is made more difficult for her by the fact that she and her brother had not seen each other or spoken in five years. Sometimes, people think it is easier to mourn the death of someone who has moved out of your life. In my experience, though, it's harder. Grief is magnified by wounded love and regret. I have no magic words to say to ease the pain of mourning. All I can do is listen, become a vessel in which people place their stories, and offer compassion.Actually, there is one more thing I can do. I can have faith that "all I can do" is all that I need to do. It is enough.In this week's Torah portion (Vayishlach) Jacob watched Rachel, the love of his life, die in childbirth. He was overcome by grief. Jacob had worked for his cruel uncle Laban for fourteen years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Now she was gone. Because she died while they were traveling, Jacob had to bury her by the side of the road. He built a pillar of stones on the spot to mark the place as sacred.This is what we all do, in one way or another, when death enters our lives. We grieve and our hearts break. We wish that we could continue to walk along the path of life with our loved ones forever, but the dead cannot fully join us. We have to leave something behind in order to resume our own journey. So, what do we do? We mark the moment as sacred. We erect monuments — both in cemeteries and in our hearts. The stones we place on top of stones remind us that a life may end, but its sanctity is forever.The Torah says that the monument Jacob built for his beloved continues to stand until this day. A life that touches the lives of others never ceases to send living reverberations throughout the web that binds us all.