sur-reality TV during recovery

One of the ways that communication engages people on a personal level is by connecting with their individual experience.  At least that's what I've heard.  You can typically identify in successful dramas major themes such as friendship, trust in relationships, and loss that are common to every person's life.  So it's not uncommon to find myself going through things or having gone through things emotionally that characters on TV are going through.  

Sometimes, however, the connection between my life and the lives of characters on TV can get downright freaky.  Such has been the last few episodes of Grey's Anatomy as they've run tests, located the source of Izzie Stevens' hallucinations, and done surgery to remove the part of her brain in which the tumor resided.  

As that storyline has progressed, I've decided two things - 1. I like Emory's setup better than Seattle Grace's, and 2. I am SO SO GLAD that my surgery happened before the season ended.  Because, well, watching a TV show in which a character goes through the exact tests I went through, faces the same decisions I just made, has the same surgery I just had, and dies just afterwards, well, that gets a little weird.  At least her dying was really due to the chemo and the cancer, not the surgery itself, but it's still weird.

It was kind of amusing, though, feeling like I could have been a medical consultant and calling shenanigans at various points.  I'm sure a random observer would have thought I was crazy (or realized that I am crazy) as they overheard some of the following as I yelled at the TV:

"Oh, come on, the EEG cables are multi-colored so you look like a freakin' clown - they're not all silver.  Why you gotta make it look all pretty just so they can be romantic?"

"Don't be whining to me - You got Denny to show up in like 10 minutes.  It took me 3.5 days to have a seizure when I was in the seizure monitoring unit."

"Shepherd's doing a craniotomy.  So what's he doing once he gets in there?  That's just what they do to get into your head for the surgery.  Surely he's doing more than just a craniotomy ..."

"So, you're going to remove her hippocampus?  Y'all going with a selective amygdala hippocampectomy, or a mesial temporal lobectomy?  Cause we decided to go with the amydala hippocampectomy, but I know the literature isn't unanimous about which is the best ..."

"Come on, chief.  Y'all should put the picture of the brain with the contrast going into it on the big screen like they do at Emory during the WADA test.  That's the cool part, not the brain wave mess."

"They clarified what you should be saying when they showed you the flashcards?  I thought they were just looking to see whether I'd say the same thing both times.  And that's stupid that they just told you to repeat back - they showed the cards to me again and asked if I'd seen them before."

"They let you shake your head during the WADA test?  They told me the catheter was sitting in my carotid artery to shoot the chemical into my brain, so there was no way on earth I was gonna be shaking my head.  Although, I only remember what happened when they put my non-language side to sleep.  Who knows what I did when they put my left side to sleep."

"Huh, Izzie's right hippocampus controls her language and most of her memory?  I guess she's either left-handed or abnormal, cause with most right handed people the right side controls visual-spatial memory, which is why they felt safe about taking mine out.."

"That's funny, Shepherd cuts higher than Dr. Gross for the craniotomy to get to the hippocampus.  You would have thought he'd be more up on the latest techniques"

"The next day to wake up?  Come on, Izzie.  I was 'awake, alert, responding to commands', and grumbling obscenties about the Unversity(sic) of Georgia within a couple of hours of them closing me up."  

But, the season has concluded, so I can stop considering myself a medical expert and wondering if I'm drawing pain-killer induced comparisons between my life and Izzie's.  And, luckily, I was through surgery with my memory intact and recovering before Izzie got out of surgery, had memory problems, and then had her heart quit.  Because sometimes it's entertaining to see how life and art are similar, but sometimes it's nice to say - "nope, we're going off-script."

So that's been the last two weeks of Friday afternoon Tivo-watching and recovery.  Gaining my strength, taking my pain medicine, and being VERY glad to be on this side of the surgery.  

A Day

Stupid Joakim Noah and his complete lack of body control. The foul he committed to send the Celtics to the line, thereby sending the Bulls - Celtics game into overtime, was so blatant I'm surprised they didn't call an intentional foul on him. Even I could be more discrete than that, and well, there's a reason that my last year in rec-league basketball that I managed to get four fouls in the first quarter when we only had five players.

In any case, we're enjoying the opportunity to watch A-Day on ESPN, even if we did have to miss the entire first quarter thanks to Noah's debacle. McElroy looks good at QB, but it's always hard to say in scrimmages whether that will translate. It seems obvious that our defense is deeper than our offense at this point, but it looks like we might have some depth at the skill positions.

Watching Terrence Cody chase down Terry Grant running across the field was definitely fun to see - Cody's definitely taking things seriously, and should be better this year than he was last year. That should be fun to see.

Also, it definitely looks like we're pushing hard in the "successful throughout the athletic department" with all of the ads with Anthony Grant. I'm still waiting, though, for the Harvard "Rammer Jammer" ad. Maybe we fell off in our USA Today All-Americans.

84,050 at A-Day. Roll Tide.

are you ready?

"Are you ready to become a dad?"
"As ready as I can be."
"Well, what you need to do is ..."

As a new father, I have received an endless stream of advice about how to best raise our daughter. From sage to silly, from "if you let her sleep in the bed with you, she'll never stop" to "every time Amanda gets up, you should get up - and get a bowl of ice cream while you're
at it," I've been preparing for my daughter's birth for some time.
Yet as much preparation as I did, as much advice as I got, nothing could have prepared me for how amazing it is to be a dad. But I also realize more and more each day how much I don't know and how much more I could have done earlier in preparation to live the life of a father.

We are now in the midst of the Christian season of Lent, the season of preparation before Easter. And like becoming a parent, the joy of Easter is something that will always overwhelm our senses and is something that, in many ways, we can never be fully prepared for. Yet
the more we can do, the more we can prepare, the more we can savor the experience and the better we can live once the time comes as an Easter people. Preparing, by giving something up to remind ourselves of Christ's sacrifice, by taking on a new commitment to recommit
ourselves to Christ, or by simply reprioritizing our life, will not change the overwhelming power and life-giving message of Christ crucified and raised. What it can do, however, is change us - make us more aware, make us more sensitive, and make us more equipped so that when He comes, we will be ready to shout with joy that He lives.

There are some things, like being a parent and knowing Christ's love and forgiveness, whose explanation simply exceeds words. But let's do what we can to get ready, because when that day comes, I want to truly be as ready as I can be.

now the moment you've all been waiting for ...

JULIA

FRANCES

von HERRMANN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Hey Peter, what do y'all want for lunch?"
"Hold on, let me ask the boss."
"Isn't three days old a little early to be speaking?"

This conversation between my father-in-law and myself basically describes the last week of our lives. Miss Julia has been the center of everything, and I'm imagining will continue to be for quite some time. And we're loving every minute of it.

Born Monday, February 23 at 12:44 p.m., weighing in at 7 pounds 2 ounces and 19.5 inches tall, Julia has already gotten a marriage proposal, and I've already put several strapping young toddlers on notice. She's of course daddy's little girl. Momma's pretty fond of her too.

It's been interesting, however, seeing the effects that stress, the overwhelming amount of things to know, and general fatigue have on us. As I put it yesterday, between the three of us (me, Amanda, and her mom who's staying with us for a few days), we've got half a clue at the moment. I was sitting in church Friday during a funeral and realized that I had no idea what socks I had on. I hoped they matched my shoes. Shoot, I was just hoping for even being dress socks, rather than white socks or hiking socks. Luckily, I had in fact correctly dressed myself, but I realized that the next several years will be interesting, because I'll be doing a lot of flying by the seat of my pants (I really hope I remember to put on pants).

But now the adventure is beginning, and the three of us are on our way. I'm off now, though. She's sleeping. Time to go and admire.

getting the nursery together

Our new baby furniture finally arrived, so work has finally begun on the castle of Princess von Herrmann. Well, it's not really the size of a castle, more like a really really big closet. And we're not going with a princess theme - more ladybugs and butterflies, lots of pink and blue, too. We still have some things to add, decorations for the wall and such, but wanted to share the fun thus far.


































This cute diaper bag was a present from Stacey and Will (author of some of our favorite online reading) and looks so cute now that we had it monogrammed (It is a pretty popular bag now, but I'm certain no one else has this on theirs - the ladies at Monograms Plus sure won't forget me now hehe).