Brave heart

I promised to use this blog to post an update on my son John and his heart condition.

John is a healthy and happy four year old who happens to have a hole in his heart which makes the blood flow from one side of his heart to the other the wrong way.

We have been monitoring his condition since before he was born and it has not affected his development. In fact a lot of people grow up and live healthy lives with similar conditions.

Nevertheless we felt that it would be wise to continue monitoring his heart on a yearly basis to make sure he would not need major surgery.

We went today for a procedure where a scope was sent down his esophagus so our doctor could get a clearer picture of his heart. John had to be sedated and he did fine. Watching him be sedated and drift off to sleep so quickly was a strange thing to watch and I’m still processing it.

After the procedure was finished our doctor was able to explain more clearly what was going on but it also left her with more questions. According to her the hole in his heart is fairly significant, yet it has not affected his heart growth. However, she wants to do a heart cath soon to be in a better position to answer our questions as to know exactly what is going on with his heart and why it is doing what it’s doing.

We are scheduled for that on the morning of April 28. We appreciate your prayers and well wishes. It means a lot to us.

We also are trusting in God. He has John’s heart in his hands and He is the one who makes it work. He is the one who wove John’s heart together in his mother’s womb (Psalm 139) and He knew exactly what He was doing.

I just hope that my heart can be as trusting of God’s plan as my son’s heart trusts me.

God bless you and hold your heart.

“I know, daddy…”

This is a little difficult to write because it deals with my son, John. He’s four and he’s awesome. He’s also all boy, which means that he’s constantly getting himself in situations that could cause him bodily harm.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I walked into the kid’s play room upstairs and found him on top of the TV looking down on it watching Go Diego Go! I wish I had a picture of it to show you, but imagine him hanging over the front of the TV screen watching it upside down. Scared me to death!  We’ve also walked in on him sitting on top of bookshelves in the room watching his favorite cartoon, or climbing on the outside of the stairway as he proudly yells out, “Look at me!!!”

Love him! He’s crazy. And unfortunately he probably gets it from me. I used to be just as crazy as he is, if not more, which makes me uneasy as I think of what I have to look forward with him. When I was 10 years old, I used to climb on top of our house in Brazil. You read it right. On top of the HOUSE! I liked the view up there and it was the only place where I could be by myself and away from my brothers and sisters, plus it was a good escape option when I was running from my mom’s switch. Rule #1: always have an escape plan! Mine was the roof!

So it really doesn’t surprise me that my son is a monkey. I was one too! (some of you are saying, “Still is!”)  I loved climbing on stuff: trees, houses, precarious ledges, over fences, you get the picture. It was part of being a kid and being a boy. I also fell off of plenty of stuff too. Yet amazingly, I have never broken a bone in my body (I am knocking on wood as I type this). I don’t know how because I certainly had plenty of opportunities to do that. Between playing soccer as a kid, riding my bike and attempting (and failing) many crazy stunts on it, climbing on stuff (and falling off stuff), I am amazed that I have never broken an arm, wrist, leg, or neck. I guess I am unbreakable, like Bruce Willis in that weird movie that came out in 2000. I am UNBREAKABLE!

I hoped that I had passed my super hero powers to my son just as I had bestowed on him my daredevil approach to life. Alas, it was not so. I am afraid that I am the only one with the gift of unbreakability. This past Sunday afternoon, my son was being his normal self and he was climbing all over me.  I was trying to get dressed to go to church so I laid him on our bed and as he was trying to get down, he rolled off it and landed on his right arm, breaking his humerus right above the elbow.  We spent the rest of the evening in the ER getting X-rays done and getting John fitted for a temporary cast until he could get a colorful permanent one for the next four weeks.

Needless to say, that was a hard night for me as a parent.  I never felt more helpless in my life.  Here’s my boy and he’s hurting bad, especially as the nurses are moving his broken arm in different positions so they can get a good X-ray picture or so they can put the cast mold around his arm, and as he’s crying in pain, I’m trying to hold him down and keep him still.  It was heart wrenching.  I kept telling him that he was being such a good boy and that he was being so strong and that what the nurses were doing to him would make his arm all better, and his response to me, as the tears were rolling down his face, was “I know, daddy!  I know.”  Nothing pierces your heart more than seeing your child in pain when you can’t do anything about it.  But it’s even worse when they know that there’s nothing you can do about it either.

It was a gut check moment for me.  I know my son adores me and that to him, I am a super hero.  I used to think of my dad in that way.  But then there came a moment in time for me when I realized that my dad was very much human and he really couldn’t do all the super hero stuff that I had always thought he could.  For my son and I that moment came a lot sooner than it did for my dad and I.

I guess it’s probably a good thing and I also know that I’m making a bigger deal of this than it really is.  For all I know, John will still think of me as a super hero for many years to come (as long as I don’t break any of my bones).  Yet, Sunday night for me was yet another reminder that I am not in control and there’s not much that I can do in this life to make sure my kids are safe and protected.  It was another reminder that when it comes down to it, I have to trust that God knows what He’s doing.  He is in charge and that means that I am not.  He knows my kids’ futures and I don’t.  He knows what’s best for them (and for me) and I don’t.

Bottom line is this: my son taught me a huge lesson this past week.  I may go through difficult and very painful times in my life and God has told me that He is in control, that He’s sitting on the throne (Isaiah 6), and that “for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).  My son taught me that my response to God in those painful times, as the tears are rolling down my face, should be: “I know Daddy.  I know.”

When you gotta go… again

I promise that my posts will not always have to do with bodily functions, but I just had to share this with those of you who are bored enough to read this.

In case you didn’t know, I recently passed a kidney stone.  Now before you start cringing in pain and begin to feel all bad for me, let me qualify that statement by saying that according to my urologist, I’m in the lucky 1% of the population that does not feel significant pain when passing a stone.  Back in ‘07 I had no idea that I had a boulder stuck between my kidney and my bladder and had been walking around with it for a few weeks.  That one didn’t pass – it  had to get blasted out!  This one was smaller and I eventually passed it fine.  Not even a Tylenol needed.

I can see your face right now.  You just went from thinking “poor guy” to “that jerk!”  Don’t worry, I’m used to it by now.  It’s amuzing to see the reaction in people’s faces swing from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Anyway… when I passed the aforementioned stone, I had to bring it to my urologist so he could examine it (although now that I think about it, what if he has a jar in his desk where he collects them? I’ll let you think about that one…) and my doctor told me that because I have a family history of kidney stones and this is my second one, that I should expect them again.  Therefore, he recommends that I drink a lot of water.

According to him, I should be drinking enough to urinate 2 liters a day.  In case you didn’t get that, that’s a Coke bottle full of pee!  So, he gave me some homework to do.  He wants me to pee in a Coke bottle for 24 hours to see if I’m drinking enough water.  You heard it right.  For an entire day, I gotta go in a bottle.  Awesome!

So on the way home, I’m thinking to my self, “You are crazy, doc!  Go back to collecting kidney stones in a jar!”  So I shared this with my lovely wife when I got home and she did what any sensible spouse would do: she promptly finished off the last bit of Diet Coke that we had on the fridge and began to “prep” my pee bottle! She got out her scrap booking stuff and started peeling off stickers and decorating this thing just for me.  She did a lovely job.  Check it out:

So there you have it.  Now I gotta do this because I am not about to hurt my wife’s feelings and not pee in her pretty bottle.  That’s NOT what Jesus would do!  So come Monday, when I’m off from work and plan to stay home most of the day, I’m going to try to figure out how much water a human being has to drink in order to pee two liters worth of urine.  And since I don’t plan on doing this experiment more than once, you better believe that ALL I’m going to be doing on Monday is drinking water.  And peeing.  In a pretty bottle.  Awesome!

So enjoy your Monday world! As for me, I’ll be in the bathroom if you care.

CESAR.

When you gotta go…

I told my wife today that I had started a blog and she asked me not to make it all about theology and deep thoughts. I assured her that I was not that deep. Here’s proof:

I’m going skiing this weekend with our church group and at the local ski rental shop there’s this sign in the bathroom that I felt the need to share with the world. Hope it brings as much joy to your world as it brought me.

Hello world!

It’s my world… but you are welcome to enter into it.

I’ve always thought I should write some of my thoughts down, not because they are worthy of being written down, but mainly because I tend to forget things easily and I need to be reminded of the important stuff quite often.

For example, this morning I was reading through My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers.  Today’s devotional was from 2 Corinthians 12:15.  I won’t write the whole thing down (check it out on myutmost.org) but the basic idea was that my life’s goal is to be spent by Jesus so I can be used to reach people around me with the Gospel.  I need to let Jesus “help himself” to my life and do with it whatever he wants.  And I need to be reminded of that.  Tomorrow, next week, a month from now, I’ll need to be reminded of that.

So this blog is more for me than for you when I really think about it.  Although I do hope that whatever ends up here may benefit you in some way.

So welcome to my world.

CESAR