DOCTOR.
I think I came across some of that guy's work today. Shit. What a freaking mess.
*big heavy sigh*
Rebuilding what this guy destroyed is gonna take waaaaaay more time and energy than I have in my reserves. Time to call in some backup.
So how is everyone else's day going?
I need some more coffee.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
We can do this, it just takes time.
I saw "Logan" again today for a follow up.
He's healing well, and was in good spirits. He brought his lovely wife with him. We discussed what had happened during surgery and his history of treatment. We sat down and talked for a long time.
I told him that I thought I could work with him to get over his fears. I told him it could take weeks, months, maybe even years, but that at some point we HAD to get him back to being able to function in the dental chair, and he agreed. I'm going to start him out with a simple cleaning in a couple of weeks and we're going to take "baby steps" from there.
It's amazing to me that nobody has tried this yet. It's not rocket science. It's humanity. It's compassion. It's common sense!
It may take awhile, but I'm going to get this guy comfortable in the chair again. I just know it. He seemed optimistic and hopeful, and so did his wife. He told me that nobody had ever tried to do that before (big surprise) and that he feels comfortable with me. His wife was thrilled (partly because she gets to make a commissary trip every time he comes back) and I could see the relief in her eyes.
So here's hoping, people. Keep the prayers coming.
He's healing well, and was in good spirits. He brought his lovely wife with him. We discussed what had happened during surgery and his history of treatment. We sat down and talked for a long time.
I told him that I thought I could work with him to get over his fears. I told him it could take weeks, months, maybe even years, but that at some point we HAD to get him back to being able to function in the dental chair, and he agreed. I'm going to start him out with a simple cleaning in a couple of weeks and we're going to take "baby steps" from there.
It's amazing to me that nobody has tried this yet. It's not rocket science. It's humanity. It's compassion. It's common sense!
It may take awhile, but I'm going to get this guy comfortable in the chair again. I just know it. He seemed optimistic and hopeful, and so did his wife. He told me that nobody had ever tried to do that before (big surprise) and that he feels comfortable with me. His wife was thrilled (partly because she gets to make a commissary trip every time he comes back) and I could see the relief in her eyes.
So here's hoping, people. Keep the prayers coming.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
"Where are my men?"
I know the purpose of this blog is to just keep y'all updated on the daily happenings of the Spencer family, so I guess this counts.
Last week was a short week, due to our holiday on Monday, but it felt like the longest week ever. It seemed to drag on and on, and then after Friday, I was just toast. Done. Worn out. Finished. I went home Friday afternoon, had a campout with the family on the couch, and spent the whole day Saturday in jammies, snuggling with the family and watching movies all day. Really. I almost grew tentacles like a slug. I was worn out, felt like I had been beaten by a baseball bat, don't really know what was wrong with me. Anyway, something happened with a patient on Friday that I can't stop thinking about so I guess I'll tell you guys about it. I will not give any identifying markers of this patient, but I have to give you a little background to understand it.
First of all, let me start by saying that I've seen a lot of shit during the last 6 years in the Navy, but thankfully, none of it was operational. The closest to the desert that I got was a beach in Hawaii. And my number was never pulled to deploy. If it had been, I would have gone without too much complaint (well, maybe some but you know me, if I didn't bitch about something I would blow up) because after all, that's kind of what I signed up for. Supporting the war on terrorism. More accurately, supporting the men and women who put their boots on the ground fighting the war on terrorism. And their families. But of all of those children, family members, and servicemembers I have treated, this guy is in my top 10 of people I will never forget.
As a Navy doc, it's my job to treat not only our sailors but our Marines as well. And I've loved it. After all, you'll never find a group of people more energized and motivated to do what they're asked to do. And this guy is no different. For the sake of argument, let's call him Logan. An active duty Marine who has done quite a bit of time in Iraq. Just like every other Marine, Logan was more than eager to tell me about his experiences in country, and give me details that I wasn't quite expecting.
I got to meet Logan because he had been referred to me as a dental fears patient. The first time I saw him, the only history I got was that ever since he had gotten back from Iraq, he hadn't been able to tolerate dental treatment. Something about sharp things in his mouth. I heard some fuzzy story about him pinning a dentist against the wall when he surprised Logan with something sharp. So I was already expecting a battle.
I went in the room and met a normal looking guy, well, normal for a Marine anyway. Average height and weight with classic flat-top "jarhead" Marine haircut. We shook hands and I sat down to talk with him. I cleared out the room of excessive people (he seemed to be more nervous with an audience, and I wanted to respect his privacy) and he gave me the background.
Logan had spent several months in Iraq a few years ago. His platoon saw some pretty heavy activity, many gunfights, IEDs, roadside bombs, field mines, you name it. Logan himself had been hit by a roadside bomb and suffered some trauma to his feet and shrapnel damage to his head. I saw some scars on his face and he explained where they came from. He said that he had seen several of his squad members die in front of his eyes and had been suffering from some pretty severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder since he had been home. The nightmares, flashbacks, and rage had torn apart his marriage (although they have since gotten back together and are in counseling together...I met her later, wonderful woman, but I'll get to that). He was currently in a recruiting office and in counseling and treatment for his PTSD. To deal with his rage, it is universally encouraged throughout the service (just found this out) that the member be involved with some sort of fighting sport. Logan was involved in extreme fighting (cage fighting? I'm not sure) to "get the rage out" as he put it. He told me that he was very sensitive about his feet and his head, and that anything unexpected was very hard for him to deal with.
Just as an aside: You don't have to be a pediatric dentist or even someone who has dealt with "dental fears" to understand that all this guy needed was some compassion, someone who would take their time and help him work through his dental fears, to go slow, to explain every step as they went along, and to not surprise him with anything. Easy. Right? Oh, no. Some dentists in the service (I hate to generalize, but that's really how it is, and not just in the military) become complacent. They treat patients like numbers, "treat 'em and street 'em", and tend to forget that there is a patient attached to that tooth. A patient with thoughts, feelings, and fears. A patient that has their individual issues, one that may be on the brink of snapping from stress. A patient just like Logan. It shouldn't take someone getting to the place where he was at for someone to take notice and start treating him like a human, instead of a head case. There are thousands upon thousands of soldiers, sailors and Marines out there just like him who just haven't reached that point yet. All it takes to make them snap in the dental chair is someone who DOESN'T take into account their history, their own set of conditions that makes that person human, to treat them like a tooth and boom, there you go. Breakdown. I hope that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is that if everyone took the time to treat their patients with just an ounce of compassion, it may never get to the point where Logan was at. There's no reason why anyone should have to bring out a special skill set to have to treat someone with anxiety, if they had a good bedside (chairside) manner to begin with, it should come naturally.
But I digress.
Logan had been treated once successfully under IV sedation for some minor dental work before, so that's what we decided to do this time. We gave him all the information, got some xrays, and signed some consents that day. He let me do an exam on him and we set an appointment to sedate him and finish his work in a couple of weeks.
Flash forward to this past Friday.
Logan showed up with his wife (his safe driver) for the procedure. The IV was started without incident, and we began the procedure. We sedated him enough for me to take out one tooth, but when I tried to start the fillings, that's when we had trouble. Logan was having trouble staying in a good sedated place, because he was having some sleep apnea type symptoms and would startle himself "awake" every few seconds, and then his head would jerk, his arms and legs would move, and we couldn't safely continue the procedure with him moving. We made the decision to stop, wake him up, and try something else at a later date, like an O.R. visit or something else. It was just simply not safe to sedate him heavily enough in our office setting for me to get the work done, no big deal, it happens, so we made the decision to abort the procedure and let him wake up as the medication wore off.
And that's when it started.
As Logan began to come to, I started trying to wake him up and help him come around. I kept asking him to open his eyes and tell him where he was and what was going on. As I was speaking to him, this is what happened:
Logan: "Shh. Shhhh!"
Me: "What?"
Logan: "Shhhh. Gunfire. Gunfire!"
Pause.
Longer pause.
Me: "Logan, there's no gunfire, you're in the dental office. You just had some work done and you're waking up."
Logan: "Where's my men?"
Me: "They're safe, Logan. You're home. Everybody's home. You're in Great Lakes. You're in the dental office. You just had work done and you're waking up."
Chills ran down my spine as I realized Logan was having some wicked flashbacks. His fists came up and he began jerking in the chair. I thought at first it was a seizure but then I quickly realized he was acting out something (which he later told me he thought he was running a 50 cal machine gun off the back of a tank)
This continued for nearly an hour. He kept waking up, indicating that he knew where he was, and then would fall back into a deeper plane of anesthesia, saying things like,
"Did Davis make it?"
"Have you seen Christenson?" (names changed to protect identity)
"Where are my men?" again, and again.
At one point, when I thought he had woken up enough, I asked,
"Logan, where are you?"
"Al-Assad," he answered.
Chills, again. I felt so terrible that he was reliving these moments as I desperately tried to wake him up. One of my wonderful assistants had been holding his hands this entire time, and he kept trying to shoot a gun with one of them. She looked absolutely shocked, and I knew she must be feeling as terrible for him as I was, but I just kept going.
Finally, FINALLY, he seemed lucid enough, so we brought in his wonderful wife. Upon seeing her, he immediately broke into tears. She sat down next to him and started rubbing his earlobes, which seemed to have a calming effect. (Isn't it amazing how we know our spouses so well that we know their trigger zones to calm down? I love seeing that kind of closeness in a couple, it makes me feel warm to know that he had that kind of support). Logan mumbled something to his wife, and she said, "You know he's not here, baby." She seemed to be very familiar with this behavior.
Later, after Logan was completely lucid, we talked some more. He told me that of his platoon, there were 280 wounded and 32 dead. He had seen his best friend completely eviscerated in front of his eyes. I asked him how he had slept the previous night (thinking that a lack of sleep had brought these flashbacks on). Logan looked at me with sleepy eyes and said, "Doc, I don't sleep. I don't want to. The nightmares are too bad."
His wife told me that this happens to him EVERY NIGHT. She has to help him come back to reality, to remind him where he is, to tell him again that he's home, and that those people he was asking for didn't make it.
Imagine that. Mom, Dad, I know you don't have to, that you've been there.
But these young people who come back from the war like this are as crippled as those who come back missing limbs. Thank God that we're now more educated and able to help them, but still, it will be years before this man sleeps through the night peacefully, if ever.
So for now, I just ask that you keep "Logan" in your prayers. I can't give his real name for privacy purposes but you could pray for Jodie's PTSD patient and his family.
I'm sure God will figure it out.
Last week was a short week, due to our holiday on Monday, but it felt like the longest week ever. It seemed to drag on and on, and then after Friday, I was just toast. Done. Worn out. Finished. I went home Friday afternoon, had a campout with the family on the couch, and spent the whole day Saturday in jammies, snuggling with the family and watching movies all day. Really. I almost grew tentacles like a slug. I was worn out, felt like I had been beaten by a baseball bat, don't really know what was wrong with me. Anyway, something happened with a patient on Friday that I can't stop thinking about so I guess I'll tell you guys about it. I will not give any identifying markers of this patient, but I have to give you a little background to understand it.
First of all, let me start by saying that I've seen a lot of shit during the last 6 years in the Navy, but thankfully, none of it was operational. The closest to the desert that I got was a beach in Hawaii. And my number was never pulled to deploy. If it had been, I would have gone without too much complaint (well, maybe some but you know me, if I didn't bitch about something I would blow up) because after all, that's kind of what I signed up for. Supporting the war on terrorism. More accurately, supporting the men and women who put their boots on the ground fighting the war on terrorism. And their families. But of all of those children, family members, and servicemembers I have treated, this guy is in my top 10 of people I will never forget.
As a Navy doc, it's my job to treat not only our sailors but our Marines as well. And I've loved it. After all, you'll never find a group of people more energized and motivated to do what they're asked to do. And this guy is no different. For the sake of argument, let's call him Logan. An active duty Marine who has done quite a bit of time in Iraq. Just like every other Marine, Logan was more than eager to tell me about his experiences in country, and give me details that I wasn't quite expecting.
I got to meet Logan because he had been referred to me as a dental fears patient. The first time I saw him, the only history I got was that ever since he had gotten back from Iraq, he hadn't been able to tolerate dental treatment. Something about sharp things in his mouth. I heard some fuzzy story about him pinning a dentist against the wall when he surprised Logan with something sharp. So I was already expecting a battle.
I went in the room and met a normal looking guy, well, normal for a Marine anyway. Average height and weight with classic flat-top "jarhead" Marine haircut. We shook hands and I sat down to talk with him. I cleared out the room of excessive people (he seemed to be more nervous with an audience, and I wanted to respect his privacy) and he gave me the background.
Logan had spent several months in Iraq a few years ago. His platoon saw some pretty heavy activity, many gunfights, IEDs, roadside bombs, field mines, you name it. Logan himself had been hit by a roadside bomb and suffered some trauma to his feet and shrapnel damage to his head. I saw some scars on his face and he explained where they came from. He said that he had seen several of his squad members die in front of his eyes and had been suffering from some pretty severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder since he had been home. The nightmares, flashbacks, and rage had torn apart his marriage (although they have since gotten back together and are in counseling together...I met her later, wonderful woman, but I'll get to that). He was currently in a recruiting office and in counseling and treatment for his PTSD. To deal with his rage, it is universally encouraged throughout the service (just found this out) that the member be involved with some sort of fighting sport. Logan was involved in extreme fighting (cage fighting? I'm not sure) to "get the rage out" as he put it. He told me that he was very sensitive about his feet and his head, and that anything unexpected was very hard for him to deal with.
Just as an aside: You don't have to be a pediatric dentist or even someone who has dealt with "dental fears" to understand that all this guy needed was some compassion, someone who would take their time and help him work through his dental fears, to go slow, to explain every step as they went along, and to not surprise him with anything. Easy. Right? Oh, no. Some dentists in the service (I hate to generalize, but that's really how it is, and not just in the military) become complacent. They treat patients like numbers, "treat 'em and street 'em", and tend to forget that there is a patient attached to that tooth. A patient with thoughts, feelings, and fears. A patient that has their individual issues, one that may be on the brink of snapping from stress. A patient just like Logan. It shouldn't take someone getting to the place where he was at for someone to take notice and start treating him like a human, instead of a head case. There are thousands upon thousands of soldiers, sailors and Marines out there just like him who just haven't reached that point yet. All it takes to make them snap in the dental chair is someone who DOESN'T take into account their history, their own set of conditions that makes that person human, to treat them like a tooth and boom, there you go. Breakdown. I hope that makes sense. What I'm trying to say is that if everyone took the time to treat their patients with just an ounce of compassion, it may never get to the point where Logan was at. There's no reason why anyone should have to bring out a special skill set to have to treat someone with anxiety, if they had a good bedside (chairside) manner to begin with, it should come naturally.
But I digress.
Logan had been treated once successfully under IV sedation for some minor dental work before, so that's what we decided to do this time. We gave him all the information, got some xrays, and signed some consents that day. He let me do an exam on him and we set an appointment to sedate him and finish his work in a couple of weeks.
Flash forward to this past Friday.
Logan showed up with his wife (his safe driver) for the procedure. The IV was started without incident, and we began the procedure. We sedated him enough for me to take out one tooth, but when I tried to start the fillings, that's when we had trouble. Logan was having trouble staying in a good sedated place, because he was having some sleep apnea type symptoms and would startle himself "awake" every few seconds, and then his head would jerk, his arms and legs would move, and we couldn't safely continue the procedure with him moving. We made the decision to stop, wake him up, and try something else at a later date, like an O.R. visit or something else. It was just simply not safe to sedate him heavily enough in our office setting for me to get the work done, no big deal, it happens, so we made the decision to abort the procedure and let him wake up as the medication wore off.
And that's when it started.
As Logan began to come to, I started trying to wake him up and help him come around. I kept asking him to open his eyes and tell him where he was and what was going on. As I was speaking to him, this is what happened:
Logan: "Shh. Shhhh!"
Me: "What?"
Logan: "Shhhh. Gunfire. Gunfire!"
Pause.
Longer pause.
Me: "Logan, there's no gunfire, you're in the dental office. You just had some work done and you're waking up."
Logan: "Where's my men?"
Me: "They're safe, Logan. You're home. Everybody's home. You're in Great Lakes. You're in the dental office. You just had work done and you're waking up."
Chills ran down my spine as I realized Logan was having some wicked flashbacks. His fists came up and he began jerking in the chair. I thought at first it was a seizure but then I quickly realized he was acting out something (which he later told me he thought he was running a 50 cal machine gun off the back of a tank)
This continued for nearly an hour. He kept waking up, indicating that he knew where he was, and then would fall back into a deeper plane of anesthesia, saying things like,
"Did Davis make it?"
"Have you seen Christenson?" (names changed to protect identity)
"Where are my men?" again, and again.
At one point, when I thought he had woken up enough, I asked,
"Logan, where are you?"
"Al-Assad," he answered.
Chills, again. I felt so terrible that he was reliving these moments as I desperately tried to wake him up. One of my wonderful assistants had been holding his hands this entire time, and he kept trying to shoot a gun with one of them. She looked absolutely shocked, and I knew she must be feeling as terrible for him as I was, but I just kept going.
Finally, FINALLY, he seemed lucid enough, so we brought in his wonderful wife. Upon seeing her, he immediately broke into tears. She sat down next to him and started rubbing his earlobes, which seemed to have a calming effect. (Isn't it amazing how we know our spouses so well that we know their trigger zones to calm down? I love seeing that kind of closeness in a couple, it makes me feel warm to know that he had that kind of support). Logan mumbled something to his wife, and she said, "You know he's not here, baby." She seemed to be very familiar with this behavior.
Later, after Logan was completely lucid, we talked some more. He told me that of his platoon, there were 280 wounded and 32 dead. He had seen his best friend completely eviscerated in front of his eyes. I asked him how he had slept the previous night (thinking that a lack of sleep had brought these flashbacks on). Logan looked at me with sleepy eyes and said, "Doc, I don't sleep. I don't want to. The nightmares are too bad."
His wife told me that this happens to him EVERY NIGHT. She has to help him come back to reality, to remind him where he is, to tell him again that he's home, and that those people he was asking for didn't make it.
Imagine that. Mom, Dad, I know you don't have to, that you've been there.
But these young people who come back from the war like this are as crippled as those who come back missing limbs. Thank God that we're now more educated and able to help them, but still, it will be years before this man sleeps through the night peacefully, if ever.
So for now, I just ask that you keep "Logan" in your prayers. I can't give his real name for privacy purposes but you could pray for Jodie's PTSD patient and his family.
I'm sure God will figure it out.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
2010, already? Hoping for a better year.....
Let's face it, 2009 was NOT my year. I am committed to making this year a better one by doing absolutely everything within my immediate power to making it better. I'm not really one for new year's resolutions, and even if I were, I would have so many to make that typing them out would give me immediate carpal tunnel syndrome, thus negating the whole "within my power" thing.
So, with this thought, one of the very first things I did in the new year? Slipped on the ice and bashed my back into the running board of my SUV. Outside of my kids' daycare. I'm pretty sure that a whole bunch of children learned a few new words that day. Seriously, though, it must've looked like a cartoon, you know, when the cartoon character's feet just FLY out from underneath them and they go careening through the air before ending up flat on their back? With little birdies flying around their head? Yeah, it went something like that. With a lot more F-bombs involved.
But, xrays all clear, I didn't break anything, and today I'm actually feeling much better. So, let's just let that little incident be my freebie for the year. Okay? We'll brush it under the rug as a leftover from 2009.
I realize, once again, that I haven't blogged regularly in a very long time, but here it goes again. Due in most part to the fact that my hubby of FIVE YEARS (as of yesterday) gave me a new, lightweight, highly portable notebook computer (and yes, it's pink, of course), I will have much more opportunity to blog and let you all know how things are going. I intend to download pictures to it too, so I'll have more opportunity to put up pics.
There are a few things I need to catch you up on that happened at the end of 2009. One of them, I wanted to write as a totally different blog post titled "And a baby was born in a manger, and they wrapped him in swaddling clothes and named him Stinky". Stick with me on this one, it's worth it.
So a few days before Christmas, I was giving the kids a bath in our bathtub and had sent them out of the bathroom, all clean and PJ'ed up, while I picked up towels and bath toys. I came out of the bathroom to find them both snuggled up in our bed under the covers. Anyway, it turned into a family snuggle-fest and story time. I was telling the kids the story of Christmas and we were discussing the true meaning behind the holiday and talking about the birth of Christ (just a little FYI, not even close to the first time they've heard it, they're cradle Catholics, after all), you know, telling the story as you can only tell it to children, with lots of inflictions in voice and making it entertaining, asking them a lot of questions to make sure they were paying attention. So I'd gotten to the good part:
Me: "So Mary and Joseph ended up in a manger, that's kind of like a barn, and there were lots of animals there, like cows and goats and..."
Maddie: "Chickens!"
Me: "Yes, and.."
Brady: "Dinosaurs!"
Me: "No, no dinosaurs, more like farm animals..."
Brady: "Giraffes!"
Me: "No, like sheep and stuff. Anyway, they had a BABY in that manger and do you know what the named him?"
Brady: "Stinky!"
(pause for laughter)
I just HAD to write that one down instead of losing it in my jumbled up memory forever. Great stuff, huh? What was that old show, Kids Say the Darndest Things or something like that? Perfect!
We had a great Christmas, Mom and Dad were supposed to come but due to our wonderful weather, they had to come the next weekend instead. So we had Christmas twice! It was nice to have them come a little later, I guess, because we got to celebrate twice!
Glynn and I are looking forward to this year because it marks the momentous occasion of us getting out of the Navy and starting our own practice. We've currently picked a location in Lee's Summit and just went to lease on the space. We still have to have our real estate attorney look it over before we sign anything (as well as us BOTH getting our separation from the Navy approved--Glynn got his this week but I'm still waiting), but we're so excited about building our own practice and not being at the mercy of the Navy anymore.
It's bittersweet, though, because we've enjoyed our time in together (except for this year, and that was largely due to my health issues, which have now reached the ONE YEAR mark. Jeez). I will never forget our time together in Japan especially, because that was a huge growing point for us, only having each other to lean on. I think it helped us grow closer together. This year has been wicked tough, not only because I've been out of commission for most of it, but also because we're stuck in jobs we don't really love because we're not practicing our speciality. On the rare occasion that I DO get to see a child as a patient (and even then it's only for an eval or referral), it makes my day and reminds me how much I DO love my "real" job, and how I can't wait to be practicing my specialty again. Also, being stationed stateside is a whole ballgame than being overseas. There's not such a sense of family or closeness with your co-workers, and you feel the stresses of life more over here, I think. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we felt so removed from everything overseas, but probably mostly due to the fact that we're getting out this year. That's wicked stress.
Anyway, it seems like I had more to talk about but it has escaped me for now. I'm feeling much better today than I was yesterday so this weekend's project will have to be taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning house. My mom really had us caught up (that woman never sits down) but even a two days without cleanup in this house=disaster zone. It's not that bad, but it does look like dinosaurs have taken over. Wonder why?
Right now the kids are making "beds" on the living room floor. They love to make little cuddly spaces with each other, and then they beg to sleep there. That never happens, though, because when they are together, neither one falls asleep. Maybe it'll happen tonight, though. (yeah, right). We haven't had a campout in ages, I think we're due for one. Especially since the kids have made their most recent spot on the floor. That means more couch for me and Daddy!
So hello 2010! Here's hoping for a great year.
So, with this thought, one of the very first things I did in the new year? Slipped on the ice and bashed my back into the running board of my SUV. Outside of my kids' daycare. I'm pretty sure that a whole bunch of children learned a few new words that day. Seriously, though, it must've looked like a cartoon, you know, when the cartoon character's feet just FLY out from underneath them and they go careening through the air before ending up flat on their back? With little birdies flying around their head? Yeah, it went something like that. With a lot more F-bombs involved.
But, xrays all clear, I didn't break anything, and today I'm actually feeling much better. So, let's just let that little incident be my freebie for the year. Okay? We'll brush it under the rug as a leftover from 2009.
I realize, once again, that I haven't blogged regularly in a very long time, but here it goes again. Due in most part to the fact that my hubby of FIVE YEARS (as of yesterday) gave me a new, lightweight, highly portable notebook computer (and yes, it's pink, of course), I will have much more opportunity to blog and let you all know how things are going. I intend to download pictures to it too, so I'll have more opportunity to put up pics.
There are a few things I need to catch you up on that happened at the end of 2009. One of them, I wanted to write as a totally different blog post titled "And a baby was born in a manger, and they wrapped him in swaddling clothes and named him Stinky". Stick with me on this one, it's worth it.
So a few days before Christmas, I was giving the kids a bath in our bathtub and had sent them out of the bathroom, all clean and PJ'ed up, while I picked up towels and bath toys. I came out of the bathroom to find them both snuggled up in our bed under the covers. Anyway, it turned into a family snuggle-fest and story time. I was telling the kids the story of Christmas and we were discussing the true meaning behind the holiday and talking about the birth of Christ (just a little FYI, not even close to the first time they've heard it, they're cradle Catholics, after all), you know, telling the story as you can only tell it to children, with lots of inflictions in voice and making it entertaining, asking them a lot of questions to make sure they were paying attention. So I'd gotten to the good part:
Me: "So Mary and Joseph ended up in a manger, that's kind of like a barn, and there were lots of animals there, like cows and goats and..."
Maddie: "Chickens!"
Me: "Yes, and.."
Brady: "Dinosaurs!"
Me: "No, no dinosaurs, more like farm animals..."
Brady: "Giraffes!"
Me: "No, like sheep and stuff. Anyway, they had a BABY in that manger and do you know what the named him?"
Brady: "Stinky!"
(pause for laughter)
I just HAD to write that one down instead of losing it in my jumbled up memory forever. Great stuff, huh? What was that old show, Kids Say the Darndest Things or something like that? Perfect!
We had a great Christmas, Mom and Dad were supposed to come but due to our wonderful weather, they had to come the next weekend instead. So we had Christmas twice! It was nice to have them come a little later, I guess, because we got to celebrate twice!
Glynn and I are looking forward to this year because it marks the momentous occasion of us getting out of the Navy and starting our own practice. We've currently picked a location in Lee's Summit and just went to lease on the space. We still have to have our real estate attorney look it over before we sign anything (as well as us BOTH getting our separation from the Navy approved--Glynn got his this week but I'm still waiting), but we're so excited about building our own practice and not being at the mercy of the Navy anymore.
It's bittersweet, though, because we've enjoyed our time in together (except for this year, and that was largely due to my health issues, which have now reached the ONE YEAR mark. Jeez). I will never forget our time together in Japan especially, because that was a huge growing point for us, only having each other to lean on. I think it helped us grow closer together. This year has been wicked tough, not only because I've been out of commission for most of it, but also because we're stuck in jobs we don't really love because we're not practicing our speciality. On the rare occasion that I DO get to see a child as a patient (and even then it's only for an eval or referral), it makes my day and reminds me how much I DO love my "real" job, and how I can't wait to be practicing my specialty again. Also, being stationed stateside is a whole ballgame than being overseas. There's not such a sense of family or closeness with your co-workers, and you feel the stresses of life more over here, I think. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we felt so removed from everything overseas, but probably mostly due to the fact that we're getting out this year. That's wicked stress.
Anyway, it seems like I had more to talk about but it has escaped me for now. I'm feeling much better today than I was yesterday so this weekend's project will have to be taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning house. My mom really had us caught up (that woman never sits down) but even a two days without cleanup in this house=disaster zone. It's not that bad, but it does look like dinosaurs have taken over. Wonder why?
Right now the kids are making "beds" on the living room floor. They love to make little cuddly spaces with each other, and then they beg to sleep there. That never happens, though, because when they are together, neither one falls asleep. Maybe it'll happen tonight, though. (yeah, right). We haven't had a campout in ages, I think we're due for one. Especially since the kids have made their most recent spot on the floor. That means more couch for me and Daddy!
So hello 2010! Here's hoping for a great year.
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