I know most of
you are on the edge of your seats with anticipation just waiting to hear how
life was in the Spoelstra household this year. I can assure you it has been
another normal year for us. Now when I say normal year in the Spoelstra
household I have a feeling that would not be what normal is for others. Tough
luck for you is all I can say.
Sometimes it’s
the little things that tell a person how others view them. I was filling in for
our minister last January and after the service was in the back of the
sanctuary shaking hands with the members of the congregation as they filed out.
I felt something catch on my sleeve, but when I looked down I didn’t see
anything. A few people later down the line a nice woman asked if I had lost
something. She had some woman’s rhinestone bracelet in her hand and was holding
it out to me. Now I don’t think of myself as the kind of guy who wears women’s
jewelry. I would like to think that no one else thinks of me as the sort of man
who wears women’s jewelry. Fact is I think I can honestly say that till now I
have never worn women’s jewelry and do not ever remember wearing a rhinestone
bracelet, although I am a bit forgetful at times I would think I would remember
that. But maybe I have given the impression to some that I do wear delicate
bracelets and if I have I wish to take this opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding.
The bracelet was not mine; it got caught on the button on the cuff of my shirt,
broke and fell off a lady’s wrist. It belonged to a lady not me, OK? Can we
just get past it and all remember that I do not wear delicate bracelets to
church, not that there is anything wrong with that, I think, Oh give it a rest.
Just a quick refresher, the below picture is of items I would never wear.
The 3 items below are things I might possibly wear, but usually do not.
Ok, is everyone clear on this now so I can continue on?
We seem to have
once again this year done our best to keep the medical profession in business. I
am always happy when we can chip in to the retirement fund or just exotic
vacation of a doctor or two.Matthew and Micah went boating a couple of times
this past summer. One fine evening as Sharon and I were in Pella having an
evening meal with my parents, Matthew called. “Dad is it OK if I take a shower?
Which is an immediate clue that the world has gone slightly out of kilter.
Micah and Matthew seem to have the impression that at least two showers a day
are needed and there is no need to get out of the shower until all forty gallon
of hot water has gone down the drain, so the fact that I was being asked if he
could take a shower means there was a problem. He clued me in by saying, “I cut
my foot on the propeller of the boat.” Now a phone call like that makes one
think of missing appendages, shortened limbs and mangled digits. Matthew
assured me that the propeller had not been running and it was a deep cut but it
had stopped bleeding except for maybe seeping just a little. I asked him if he
needed stiches and he said “ no, I’m good”. We have not had too good of luck
with stitches in our family as the scars seem to spread out even with all the
stitches we have had sewn in. I told him to go ahead and take a shower and we
would be home in a bit and I would take a look at it. When we made our way back
home Matthew and Micah were playing a video game in Micah’s room. I explained
to Matthew that if the bleeding had stopped and the cut did not look too bad we
would just let it heal on its own. Of course The best-laid schemes o' mice an'
men Gang aft agley. (That is a quote from a poem by Robert Burns and if you
don’t know what it means look it up) well Matthew took off the bandage he had
on his foot and I was looking at it and saying “no I don’t see any reason to
take you in for stitches, and give our insurance company another chance to let
us pay a ridiculously high deductible for an emergency room visit, when we
found out he had cut an artery in his foot. Wow, have you ever seen an arterial
bleed? If it hadn’t been my kid it would have been kind of neat. They are
really cool. The blood can pump about a two foot stream even out of your
foot. Of course Micah was deeply
concerned about Matthew bleeding out like a stuck pig. He quickly yelled “Hey
he is getting blood on my carpet.” Wow sibling love always shines through in
the end doesn’t it? I grabbed the bandage and put pressure on his wound to stop
the spray. We of course felt that stitches were called for at that point. Took
Matthew up to the hospital. The Doctor was just stitching up the skin when I
asked “don’t you think you aught to find the artery that was pumping blood all
over the place and stitch it? The doctor looked at me with that look I have
gotten used to. It’s the look that says “what kind of a fool are you anyway?”
He said “Once it stopped bleeding it won’t start again”, while I am thinking
yea but it had stopped before it sprayed the first time. Oh well the doctor
seems to have been right. Then I found out I really liked this doctor. He said
“You MUST go to your family doctor to have the stitches removed, now in case
you should be somewhere and there are no doctors you cut the stitches here,
here and here.” He was helpfully pointing as he explained. “That is of course if you are in a place
where there are no doctors.” Ten days later when I was going to take the
stitches out, because there were absolutely no doctors within sight at that
moment, Matthew slapped my hand and removed them himself. What a kid.
We also had
Sharon in to the emergency room this year. She had a red spot on her forearm
near her elbow. Now I know that does not sound like much but there is a nasty
infection that starts as an angry red spot on the skin and kind of eats you
right up. Especially concerning as she is on rituxan which lowers your white
cell count considerably. Now I do not know all that much about medicine and I
am certainly not a doctor by any means, but still a red spot on the forearm and
the first thing they do is hand over a hospital gown and say put this on. What
like she didn’t have on a short sleeve blouse and the red spot was in plain sight?
Is this just a rule for women? Had Micah and Matthew in emergency rooms with
major bleeding cuts, I was in an emergency room with my throat swelling shut a
couple of years back. No-one ever gave us hospital gowns and said you will have
to get undressed now. You might be thinking well if it was an infection they
might have to look to see if it had spread, sure except the doctor never looked
past the elbow so I am not buying that one either. Seems to me you women need
to start telling these nurses and doctors “No if someone needs to put on the
gown, go ahead, be my guest, you can
wear it, I’m trying to cut back on undressing in cold hospital emergency rooms
and putting on clothing with no backs.” Just a thought.
I try to give
blood on a regular basis, not because I am altruistic or a nice guy (thought I
should explain the obvious to those of you who do not know me well). They say
giving blood cuts down on the odds of having a stroke and I want to take a pass
on having a stroke in the coming years as age begins to catch up with me, not
that I am getting older, I want you to know. Well normally giving blood is not
a bad experience, but this past summer they were short on blood and called to
ask if I could come in early to give blood at a different location than I
normally go. I have veins that are rather hard to find, (I know, I know some of
you are thinking “veins hard to find” I’m surprised the guy has a heart, just
keep your judgmental attitudes to yourself, OK?) and the nurses are always
concerned but they find a good vein on the first stick and I’m good to bleed
and my goal becomes to fill the unit faster than anyone else donating at the
same time I am. Yea, I might be a little competitive. Well this nurse looked at my arm and poked and
prodded for a while. I said “don’t worry about it they always hit the vein
first time out”. That’s what I now call a stupid statement. She stuck the old
needle in and yep missed and then missed again. Then she called over another
nurse who also missed, then they brought over the third nurse who got it on the
second stick. By this time I am beginning to wish I had stayed home, but the
fun was just beginning. They must have been awfully short on blood as much work
as it took to get a unit out of me. The flow stopped. A nurse had to hold the
needle lifted away from my arm, while pushing the needle in and putting
pressure on the vein to get the blood to flow. Let me tell you that HURTS. Then
believe it or not the scale they put the bag taking in the blood on quit
working. They had to guess when it looked full enough to call it a unit. Oh yea
I am going back to give blood there again, that was just too much fun to not do
on a regular basis.
I did some
preaching this year at various churches. I had to go up to Newton one Sunday morning.
The day before I looked up the address for Newton CRC. I looked on Google earth
where the streets were so I could find it easily. Of course on Google earth I
thought that doesn’t look like a church. Guess what, it wasn’t a church. Fifteen
minutes till start time and I have no clue where the church is. I stopped at a hotel because they know where
the churches are right? If you ask at the desk they can tell you where the
churches are, it is one of the little services they provide. Well not at the
hotels in Newton. I’m not sure the help knew what a church was. I next stopped
at a gas station. I bet you would never guess that the people who work the
Sunday morning shift in a gas station don’t do a lot of church attending
either, and I got the feeling they didn’t really care where the churches in
town were. Next I thought Police station, right the police will know where the
CRC is. Its’ good to know that Newton is such a law abiding town that they lock
up the police station and the fire station on Sunday mornings. As I came back
from pulling on the locked door of the police station to get in my car and
drive madly around looking for church steeples, I saw a man and his boys ride
past on their bicycles. This crazy thought goes through my mind that I should flag
them down and ask them if they knew where the CRC was. Nah crazy thought. I hit
the next gas station and the nice lady finally found the address in the phone
book, which to that point no-one had been able to do. By the way ever headed to
Newton CRC it is on 5th street east not 5th street west
as I had incorrectly written down. I made it with seconds to spare. Of course
the man on the bicycle was calmly sitting in the council room waiting for the
preacher to show up. He said he wondered who that frazzled looking man was that
was trying to get into the police station. Oh just me having a normal day in
life with the Spoelstras.
