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My hernia operation, Part Four (and final) . . .

01 May

I awoke while I was being moved from the recovery room to an area where my daughters could gather and watch my coming out of that place of darkness into the bright light of overhead searchlights, all of which appeared to be focused on me. I was awake, but I was not completely in control of my facilities—oops, I mean faculties. I made ridiculous uncontrollable grimaces, rolling my eyes and asking pertinent questions such as where am I, is it over, you’re cute, who are you, did I tell you that you’re cute, and I asked the doctor, if it was alright to tell the nurse she’s cute.

His reply? “You can say anything you like until the anesthesia wears off, and then you must assume responsibility for anything you say.” He said it with a smile, but it was a serious smile and that dramatically reduced the lasting effects of the anesthesia. I believe the last dumb thing I said that the guy across from my cubicle was taking my picture. That’s something I learned from my sainted mother. When someone, whether male or female, sat with knees apart and facing her, she would say that they were taking her picture. In all fairness, I must admit that the patient opposite my cubicle, although wearing a hospital gown, had apparently been allowed to retain his under-shorts, or perhaps his surgery did not require them to be removed.

However, I doubt that. I had cataract surgery some years ago, left eye first and right eye one month later, and in each instance I was required to wear nothing but the hospital gown and yes, they checked to determine that I was in compliance and if not, the eye surgery would not have been performed. Go figure!

I was moved from the gurney to a not-so-comfortable hospital chair that had a host of features, bounded by a wall with technical-looking things on it, drawable curtains on each side, and a host of people gathered in front completed my recovery cubicle. Everyone seemed very pleased with my condition, all smiling and offering compliments and suggestions. My three daughters were there along with the doctor, a couple of nurses and several aides, all apparently focused on me.

I felt like Timmy probably felt when awakening after Lassie ran home and barked that Timmy had fallen in the well and he went under and didn’t come back up but they reached Timmy in time and got him to a strategically placed hospital and he got over his ordeal and continued to star in 321 episodes (1954-1973).

Incidentally, and in no way germane to this series of postings, Lassie was not a girl dog. Lassie was a boy dog because boy dog’s coats have a brighter sheen and color than girl dog’s coats and are far more presentable on screen. Had Lassie been a Pit Bull or a Great Dane or even a Chihuahua, movie-goers would have seen that subterfuge and would have insisted that directors stop shaming Timmy’s friend  with a wrong-sex name. A better name would be Sirius, the ancient’s name for the Dog Star, very appropriate for an earthy dog star and far more manly.

Patience, be patient, I’m almost finished with my quadrilogy. I walked out of the hospital under my own power, sans wheelchair, sans two burly attendants, one on each side to keep me on my feet. I wanted to walk through the parking lot to my car, but my daughters insisted that I stay at the entrance and wait for the car to come to me. In all honesty, I did not protest strongly, nor did I protest when they escorted me into my home, fed me and tucked me in—actually, I enjoyed all the attention, but it waned rapidly and everything returned to normal.

That’s it. That’s my quadrilogy of my hernia surgery, and I’m sticking to it.

 
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Posted by on May 1, 2012 in health, Humor, pit bulls, surgery

 

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My hernia operation, Part Two . . .

30 Apr

Okay, come on now, admit it—you’ve been waiting with bated breath for the second installment of my recent hernia operation. I can understand your interest in this because everyone, whether male or female or a combination of both, are subject to such surgery. Other than a few statistics extracted from the web, I’ll leave it up to you to do the research. Click here to learn just about everything you probably never wanted to know about hernias and hernia surgery. It’s the most common operation performed by general surgeons in the United States, and males lead females in hernia surgery by a ration of 3:1 in the US. More than 750,000 inquinal hernias are repaired in our country every year by general surgeons.

Now on to Part Two of my quadrilogy, the diagnosis of the hernia.

I reported to the General Surgery clinic as directed and was examined by a Doogie Howser look-alike, the young man who performed fantastic surgeries on the television show Doogie Howser, M. D. from 1989 to 1993. My doctor (not really a look-alike, just young looking) replicated the hands-on exam that I endured in Internal Medicine and scheduled me for a sonogram to determine the exact location and the size of both hernias. He decided that the left hernia warranted surgery, but the right fissure was small and would not need surgery unless it expanded or became uncomfortable or painful—uncomfortable or painful for me, of course, and not for the hernia.

The doctor told me that he had three hernia surgeries in his early twenties, and since then had no other symptoms. I suppose that was meant to reassure me concerning my pending surgery, but it didn’t work. I wasn’t sleeping well before I was scheduled for surgery, and the wait between scheduling and operating was for too short and in no way helped my sleepless nights (I unashamedly admit that I dozed off for a few hours in the mid-afternoon while waiting, and in fact I still do). I believe it is somehow related to age, but in my case I believe that it’s because I am bored, and napping is something that seems to come naturally for me to make the time pass.

The sonogram gave a perfect picture of the two hernias, and I was scheduled for surgery the following week. I made several demands—no, make that several requests—including local anesthesia as opposed to general, no breathing tube in my throat and finally, that I had to be back home before dark. My demands—I mean requests—were given consideration and the doctor said they would do their best to meet them—that was shortly after his laughter subsided.

Okay, that’s the second part of my quadrilogy, the diagnosis. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 
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Posted by on April 30, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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I remember Mama—thoughts of my mother . . .

29 May

Countless times over the years I heard my mother say that she was not afraid to die, that she had lived her life with love for her Maker and in deference to Him, and that she was ready to meet Him at any time He called her. My mother believed that if one had faith, even though that faith be no larger than a mustard seed, then everything would be alright regardless of the situation, whether it be sickness or hunger or severe weather or any other danger looming on the horizon. And if you’ve ever seen a mustard seed you’ll have a good idea of how much leeway that gives one regarding the amount of faith one must have as one travels through life in this realm—let’s just agree that the size of a mustard seed leaves a lot of room for error, for straying from the straight and narrow path.

In late November of 1980 my mother was hospitalized with an embolism near the heart and was scheduled for surgery. She was so thin and the embolism was so large that it was visible under the skin, expanding and contracting with every heartbeat. When I arrived at the hospital late in the afternoon she was in the Intensive Care Unit, scheduled for surgery early the next morning.

She was understandably fearful of the pending surgery, and I told her that her fear was normal, that anyone would be afraid, and then I reminded her of the oft-quoted power of the mustard seed, the seed that if faith were no larger than, then everything would be alright.

My mother’s answer? With tears flowing freely she said, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to hear any more about that mustard seed!

My mother was a heavy smoker, beginning in her teenage years and continuing through adulthood and middle age and later. She never really became old—her body took her into old age and reflected that long journey, but her mind and her thoughts and her outlook on life remained young, right up to the end of her time here on earth. Somewhere around the age of fifty she enrolled in a course of mail order studies and eventually became an LPN, a Licensed Practical Nurse. She often nursed persons rendered helpless after years of smoking and she was well aware of the dangers of the habit.

In response to admonitions to quit smoking, she always said that she would quit smoking when she was eighty years old. She smoked her last cigarette on her eightieth birthday in 1977, and her death came in November of 1980, almost four years later. Her surgery was one of those instances, according to her doctors, in which the surgery was a success but the patient died—her heart was not strong enough to endure the invasive and intensive surgery.

One of her doctors told us that her lungs were remarkably clear, particularly considering some six decades of smoking. I’ve never believed that—his comment was probably meant to be some sort of balm in an attempt to keep her survivors for blaming her cigarette habit for her death. It was not necessary—none of us placed any blame on her—our blame was aimed at the cigarette makers.

That’s it—that’s the story of my mother’s surgery and her death, the only time that I was present when a member of my family died, although I was privileged to attend the funerals of several relatives during my boyhood days. One by one my family members fell—mother, father, brother, five sisters and my stepfather, not necessarily in that order, of course. From the age of sixteen I was far off from home and was able to attend only a few of the funerals, whether my immediate family or those of assorted relatives—brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins—all gave up this realm for another as the result of accidents, disease, old age and in one instance, suicide—none was murdered, at least none of which I am aware.

Of my immediate family I am the last one standing. I’m not particularly proud of that, but I’m not disappointed either. I remain, I exist, perhaps due to the luck of the draw, the roll of the dice, or the turn of the wheel, or perhaps because of divine providence. Perhaps the Creator has a special purpose for me.

Hey, it could be—perhaps some day my WordPress musings, my ramblings, will be consolidated in a pseudo autobiography and published world-wide in numerous languages, and perhaps my tales, my escapades, my foibles and my frolics will influence someone to turn away from a life of sin and pleasure and become a monk and one day become the Pope, the holy keeper of the Catholic faith, the only living link with St. Peter, an apostle of Christ and the rock on which He built His house.

And perhaps not.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Postscript: I’ll be back later with more thoughts of my mother—stay tuned.

 
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Posted by on May 29, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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One soul departs, and another arrives . . .

14 Jan

One soul departs,

and  another arrives.

I have read the letter that follows many times and each time my heart—my soul, my spirit—soars to incredible heights, and then descends to incredible depths. I know that I am not worthy of those heights, but I would like to believe that I do not deserve to remain at those depths.

I have vowed that in the time I have remaining above ground on this sphere—this earth—I will dedicate my efforts, my will, to live my life in a way that honors my wife, my family, my friends and my God. I hasten to add that I will accord that honor in my own way and not necessarily in ways favored by our society, nor by actions sanctioned by various religious denominations. I know that I cannot undo the things I’ve done in my lifetime that I should not have done, but I can try with all my might to do the things I should do in the time I have left in this realm.

I will begin this writing by saying proudly that I have the finest neighbors anyone could possible have, a beautiful couple that lives just a few feet away on the west side of our house. The husband is a self-employed architect and the wife is an educator-at-large in local school districts. They have two grown sons and a brand-new granddaughter.

My wife was in hospice care, and shortly before she died our neighbor gave her a gold chain with a pendant fashioned into the I Love You symbol in American Sign Language. She expressed her sorrow to my wife for her illness and her sorrow that she could not be with her until the end—her elder son’s wife, living in a distant city, was near child delivery and the doctors anticipated problems with the baby. My wife died before the neighbor left, and the neighbor’s sorrow—her sadness—is eloquently expressed in the letter she gave me before she left.

With her permission I have reproduced the letter and am posting it exactly as written, including the pen-and-ink sentence at the top of the page. She professes little talent for writing, but in my opinion, unlettered and unfettered though my opinion may be, she has a tremendous talent for writing and should pursue that talent, whether as a vocation or as an avocation.

Her letter follows, exactly as written. The first sentence just above the poem—This was in my heart today—was written in ink in the upper margin:

This was in my heart today:

Courage is not the towering oak
That sees storms come and go,
It is the fragile blossom
That opens in the snow.
—Alice MacKenzie Swalm

Dear Mike,

You hurt so deeply…..so, so deeply. You are sad, on top of sad, on top of sad. And all I know to say is, “I’m sorry.” So trite…..it screams out that I can’t even begin to feel your pain. I want to just sit and cry, cry, cry with you. Janie left you for another. That will always break your heart. She left you, she left you…how could she? You were always there for her. Year after year, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second…..you were always there for her. But she left anyway. Gone, gone, gone. You always knew that she would leave you. It never mattered. You would do it all over again if you could. If only you could.

She said that you were a “Good Man.” A good man. A loving man. A caring man. A clever man. A funny man. A loyal man. A knowledgeable  man. An interesting man. But a man all the same. Not perfect, but not a requirement for Janie.

And there lies the real beauty. Janie left room for others to live their own lives. To make their own mistakes. To make their own amends. To write their own stories. To make their own verses and rhymes. To be their own selves. To find their own beauty. To find their own strengths. To find their own weaknesses. No matter where you were in life, whether in the good or the bad, she welcomed you home when you were ready to be home. She didn’t push or prod. She just waited. She knew you would eventually come home. She led by example. Every needle, every probe, every surgery, every bruise, every doctor visit…she said, “Be strong. Be strong, be strong, be strong. It was her battle cry. No words needed. She screamed it out with the softest of cries. So strong…..yet so, so gentle.

I’m your neighbor. I’m just simply a neighbor. How could I be touched this way? For me, death and birth are coming at the same time. I didn’t want to choose one over the other. But here it is, saying choose, choose. Janie’s example said to pick life. Choose life, she said. It is with sadness that I go. Even when I should be filled with bubbling joy. Be strong, she says. Go and be strong.

You are a good neighbor. The best. Be strong. Be strong. Be strong. “Live” she says. Be strong. She will wait for you to come Home.

With Sad, Sad, Sadness,

Your Neighbor, Your Friend,

Kathy

Postscript: At the memorial for my wife, our daughters placed the “I Love You” pendant in their mother’s hands, along with a small card with Biblical quotations given to her many years ago by her sister, Christine. The only other jewelry was a gold chain with a small pendant that I brought home many years ago from a foreign assignment while in the military. The pendant has a French quotation that translates as “I love you more today than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.”

My neighbor is back home now and back in work harness. Her granddaughter, Caitlan, was delivered successfully by Caesarian surgery. The baby weighed eight pounds and two ounces at birth, and she is healthy, happy and growing by leaps and bounds.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2011 in death, Family, flowers, friends, funeral, health, marriage, Military, religion

 

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From grimace to grin, from pain to peace and from earth to Eden . . .

04 Dec


Janie, my wife and the mother of our three daughters, for eleven years was a long-time ovarian cancer survivor dating from 1999. In recent months the cancer had metastasized to her lungs and other organs, a spread so severe that surgery and chemotherapy were no longer options. She was also a long-time dialysis patient with a schedule of two days each week, Monday and Thursday, for two hours each day. She had dialysis on Monday, 8 November but because Thursday was November 11, Veteran’s Day, her dialysis appointment was shifted to Friday. We did not take her to dialysis on the following Monday, and she died just three days later on Thursday, November 18 at 9:15 in the evening.

Early in the morning on the Saturday after her last dialysis I was at her bedside and we were talking about going to dialysis on the following Monday. She was very quiet and I was doing most of the talking, and at one point when I paused she said, softly but very clearly, It’s time. When I asked time for what, she again said softly but clearly, It’s time to go. I broke into tears, just as I am now doing while writing this. Choking back my sobs I said that it was not up to her, that God would decide when it was time, not her, and that she should keep fighting until He made that decision. She smiled slightly and sweetly and made no response.

I stumbled on blindly, sobbing and speaking in broken tones and told her that I didn’t want her to leave me, that she couldn’t leave, that I wouldn’t let her leave, that I needed her and our girls needed her, that we would complete almost six decades of marriage on December 13, and that her birthday would be the day after Christmas. I told her that we had 58 years together, all beautiful except for one, and for that year I desperately needed her forgiveness, and I begged her to forgive me—I begged her for forgiveness that I had not earned and did not deserve.

She looked into my eyes for a long moment, then speaking slowly and softly she said, I forgive you, and then she said, You’re a good man. I told her that if she left me I would follow her and be with her, not knowing when but that I would definitely follow her, and I promised her that from that moment on I would make every effort to live my life towards that goal. Her eyes were closed when I told her that and I wasn’t sure whether she had heard me, but then she said, I’ll wait for you, and a few seconds later she said, I’ll tell Jesus you’re coming. I don’t remember any conversation after that. She lapsed into sleep and except for a few precious times that she acknowledged me and others when we spoke to her, she was silent up to the moment she left us.

I had asked her earlier if she wanted a chaplain to come in and she shook her head, but early in the evening on Thursday, November 18, I asked for a chaplain to visit us. Hector Villarreal, a Protestant chaplain, arrived at six o’clock and prayed with her and for her, and for me and our three daughters. He told her that God loved her and wanted her to be with Him, and that He was waiting for her.

The chaplain said that she would draw her last breath on earth, but that she would draw her next breath in heaven. We were at her side when she took her last breath on earth, and we truly believe, then and now, that she took her next breath in the presence of God, and that her spirit, her marvelous soul, never judgmental and so perfect in every other respect, is now complete and happy and whole again, untarnished by toil, trial and tribulations encountered during almost 79 years of life, years that she lived and loved to the fullest—born in 1931, she died just 38 days short of her 79th birthday, December 26. We would have celebrated our 58th wedding anniversary on the 13th of December.

The hospice nurse noted the time of her last breath as 9: 15 PM on Thursday, November 18, 2010. She had lapsed into a coma the day before, and her breathing had become labored, with her mouth sagging open and each breath an audible gasp for air. She was on oxygen, with the maximum allowable flow of oxygen to her nostrils from a bedside tank.

From time to time, depending on whether she seemed to show pain either by sound or movement, the hospice nurse administered liquid pain medication, placing it under the tongue with a syringe. The nurse assured us that the hearing is the final sense to go, and that Janie could hear every word we spoke, so we talked to her right up to that final breath with our hands on her, on her face and smoothing her hair and softly stroking her arms and hands and feet and adjusting the bed covers, each of us in turn professing our love, recalling our favorite times of our lives with her, with all our words interspersed and muffled by sniffs and sobs.

When our daughters left the room, I asked the nurse if she could do anything about the way Janie’s mouth drooped open, twisted and misshapen, drawn down and to the left from the way her head was turned to the side for so many hours. The nurse said that nothing could be done, that it had to be done at the funeral home.

I insisted that we try, and I began trying to place her head differently in an effort to restore her features to a more natural position. The nurse assisted by folding a hand towel and placing it under Janie’s chin, and that helped slightly. Her mouth, however, still sagged to the left and her lips were open and peeled back with her teeth showing. The nurse said that was all we could do, that the rest was up to the funeral home staff.

Everyone except the nurse left the room, but I stayed seated beside the bed with her while the nurse was completing her report, and several minutes later I spoke aloud, saying that my eyes must be playing tricks on me. I thought I had seen a fold in the blanket high on her left chest rise slowly but perceptibly, as if she had slowly inhaled. I watched it intently and after a brief period it appeared to lower.

The nurse either did not hear me or perhaps simply ignored me, and continued with her work. I felt that the blanket fold had moved, but I knew that I could have imagined it, that I was perhaps trying to will my wife to take another breath. The air in the room was very still. The overhead ceiling fan was not on because she never wanted it on.

A few seconds later I again spoke aloud and said that my eyes were still playing tricks on me. I saw the same fold that had moved a few seconds earlier move again, rising ever so slowly but perceptibly and after a brief period I saw it lower. Again there was no response from the nurse. She may have felt that I was so stricken with grief that my imagination was running wild, and that perhaps I was trying to will my wife to breathe, to return to me, to return to life from the other side.

Our daughters had been out of the room since their mother took her last breath, but Kelley, the youngest of the three, asked them if they wanted to come in to see her again. They declined and Kelley came in alone, and as she entered I glanced at her mother’s face and my heart began to pound wildly.

I told Kelley to look at her mouth—it was no longer contorted and sagging. Her lips were closed and her mouth showed a hint of a smile, an uplift at the corners—just a hint of a smile but enough for any observer to see that she looked calm and peaceful and perhaps a bit amused. Kelly told the others that they needed to come in, that there was something they needed to see, and we all marveled at the transformation of Janie’s face—from a grimace to a grin, from a sagging mouth to a smile, and from pain to peace.

When I felt that my eyes were playing tricks on me I was wrong. They were not playing tricks. I believe—no, I know—that I saw the blanket fold move up and then drop back down after a few seconds, and I saw it repeat the movement a bit later.

She did indeed draw her last breath on earth, and it is my honest belief that she then drew her next breath in heaven. I believe that our Creator allowed her to return and draw another last breath on earth, a breath that enabled her to live again, albeit just long enough to correct the awkward position of her lips and her mouth and begin that beautiful smile that she shared with me and with our daughters and with others throughout her 78 years of life on earth. I truly believe that she heard me ask the nurse if anything could be done with her mouth, and I believe—no, I know—that after she took her next breath in heaven, she asked God for a favor and He granted it.

I believe that through the power and grace of God my wife was allowed to return to this life just long enough to slough off all the pain and misery of years of surgeries and chemotherapy and dialysis and several days gasping for breath while under medication for the pain caused by ovarian tumors that almost filled both lungs. I believe the Master sent her back to earth to occupy her body for the brief time she needed to complete the metamorphasis from a chrysalis to a beautiful butterfly, to return that smile to her lips for us before returning to Him. He knew that I needed that, that we needed that, and He gave her the power to do it for me and for our daughters.

Her return to the world of the living, though only for a very brief period, is a miracle because of the miracle it wrought in her appearance. It is for me the epiphany I have longed for and sought for many years. I have always wished for a sign, an unworldly experience I could view as an indication that life does exist after death, that there is a divine presence, that God exists and is responsible for all the good in mankind. That smile on Janie’s face on her last night on earth has given me that sign, and for that I thank God and I thank her.

Sleep well in heaven, my darling.


Postscript: Janie is buried in Fort Sam Houston’s National Cemetery. She lies among military veterans of our wars, many of whom are cited by our nation for bravery and duty performance. Janie is just one of many there, but she is one that deserves every commendation and medal that may exist to commemorate her exemplary life as a wife and mother. Her obituary appeared in the San Antonio, Texas Express-News on Monday, November 22, 2010—click here for the full publication.

The request below appears at the end of the obituary. Perhaps some of the readers of this posting will find it in their hearts to support these or similar organizations with donations, and join in the search for prevention and cures for ovarian cancer and kidney disease, two of the deadliest and most debilitating afflictions known to mankind.

From Janie’s obituary: In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution in her memory to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, P.O. Box 7086, Dallas Texas 75209, http://www.ovarian.org or the American Kidney Fund, 6110 Executive Blvd., Ste. 1010, Rockville MD 20852, http://www.kidneyfund.org

 
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Posted by on December 4, 2010 in death, Family, friends, funeral, health, marriage, Military

 

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Janie . . .

02 Dec

Readers of my blog will note that I write and post letters to my relatives who have left this realm for another. These letters are the means I have chosen to document their lives and to secure them in my memory and the memories of our children, our grandchildren, our relatives and our friends.

The following obituary appeared in San Antonio’s Express-News on November 22, 2010. My wife and I met in August of 1952 and married just four months later on a Saturday afternoon on the thirteenth day of December that same year. We were together for the next 58 years except for the twelve days remaining in November and the first thirteen days in December. We are still together and we will remain together throughout eternity, both in this realm and the next.


Janie Alta Dyer, age 78, an eleven-year survivor of ovarian cancer, died at her home in San Antonio, Texas on Thursday, November 18, 2010 from complications of that disease and kidney failure.

Janie was born on December 26, 1931 in Broxton GA, one of six children born to John James McLean and Wootie Pridgen of Pridgen GA. She met and married Hershel Mike Dyer of Columbus MS in 1952 in Douglas GA and is survived by him, her three daughters, their husbands and her grandchildren: Debra Janet Dyer and William Talbert of San Antonio TX and their daughter and son, Lauren Ashley Talbert and Landen Dyer Talbert, Cindy Dyer and Michael Schwehr of Alexandria VA, and by Kelley Dyer and James Brantley Saunders of Wylie TX and their son and daughter, James Brennan Saunders and Macie McLean Saunders.

Janie is survived by three sisters and one brother: Winnie Sapp of Hamlet NC, Evelyn Pridgen of Brunswick Ga, Christine Young of Fitzgerald GA and Charles McLean of Pridgen, GA. She was preceded in death by her father in 1954, her mother in 1985 and her brother John Herbert McLean in 1997.

Over the years Janie has expressed admiration and love for those involved in her health care, including the staff at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) and Wilford Hall Medical Center (WHMC), with particular affection for those involved in the chemotherapy clinic at WHMC and those in Oncology, Nephrology, Vascular Surgery, Interventional Radiology and Dialysis clinics at BAMC. She viewed them as angels placed on earth to guide her through perilous times.

Her family echoes her sentiments, and they also thank the staff of Odyssey hospice for their loving care and professionalism. Janie’s highest praise for others was that they were good persons, and her life echoes and exemplifies that expression. She was a good person throughout her life. She will be missed in this realm, and will be welcomed in another.

Memorial services will be at 11:30 AM on Monday, November 29 at Porter-Loring Mortuary North, 2102 North Loop 1604 East. Interment will be in Fort Sam Houston’s National Cemetery at 1:00 PM.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution in her memory to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, P.O. Box 7086, Dallas Texas 75209, http://www.ovarian.org or the American Kidney Fund, 6110 Executive Blvd., Ste. 1010, Rockville MD 20852, http://www.kidneyfund.org

Postscript:

I intend to post letters to my wife in the future in order to keep her up to date on family feats and foibles. I know that she will be watching anyway, but I might be able to provide some minor details that she may have overlooked. If they don’t have computers there now, they will have when Bill Gates and/or Steve Jobs relocate from here to there.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 


 

 
 

 
 
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Posted by on December 2, 2010 in death, funeral, Military, newspapers

 

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Going cold turkey on a fishing trip . . .

27 Jun

I have received an e-mail request from my daughter, a self-employed graphic designer and photographer who lives, loves and works in Alexandria, Virginia and blogs at www.cindydyer.wordpress.com.

I kicked the cigarette habit in 1967. Over the past forty-two years I’ve told my daughters the story, many times, of how I escaped the clutches of the tobacco devils, a pox on them, and she is urging me to share my secret with others. She suggests Going cold turkey on a hot summer day as the posting title, but I actually went cold turkey on a fishing trip on a cool summer night.

Here is her e-mail:

Going cold turkey on a hot summer day (or something like that)…I’m reminded of the story you tell about how you stopped smoking after so many years…fishing and then going to the store and forgetting to get cigarettes, etc….and how much you dislike smokers to this day (and the way you express seeing a stunningly beautiful woman light up a cigarette—-ruins the entire image, etc.).

In the spring of 1967 after ending our work day on Friday, a co-worker and I loaded up our fishing tackle and our 15-horse Evinrude outboard motor and headed for Medina Lake some 30 miles northwest of San Antonio, Texas. We had to rent a boat at the lake but we owned the motor, having purchased it at a south-side San Antonio location which levied no tax on us—the seller declined to tender a receipt for the sale, so we were always in doubt as to whether the transaction was legitimate. A few months later my fishing partner relocated to South Carolina and I bought his interest in the motor for $32.50,the same amount he originally contributed.

This is not a plug for Evinrude, but that motor was a fine piece of fishing equipment, one that could be configured with the flick of a lever to produce three, seven or fifteen horsepower. If they don’t make ’em like that anymore, they should.

Friday night was our fishing night, year-round, rain or shine, heat or cold, sick or well—we overcame every obstacle (except sickness in his family or mine) to make the outing. We usually left the lake around midnight, but on one very special night early in the spring of 1967, we fished into the wee small hours of the morning, and I inhaled the poison from my last cigarette several hours before we returned to the city. We lived in the suburbs and in our area nothing was open at that hour. Convenience stores (they were called “ice houses” in those days) were all closed and all-night restaurants were rare—I had no place to go for cigarettes.

At this point I did not intend to stop smoking, although I was well aware of tobacco’s effect on health. Of course, I planned to stop at some point—in fact I never bought cigarettes by the carton—I bought only one pack at a time, rationalizing that if I bought a carton I might decide to stop smoking and the money spent on the unused cigarettes would have been thrown away—some really bright reasoning, right?

Somehow I made it through Saturday without cigarettes. Saturday was lawn-mowing, shrub-clipping, car-washing, child-tending and house-keeping day (my wife worked on Saturday), and I delayed going for cigarettes until late in the evening. At that point I began to seriously consider breaking the habit—rather I seriously considered trying to break the habit. I decided to see if I could make it through Sunday without smoking. I was buoyed by the fact that I would, on my way on Monday to work at Kelley Air Force Base I would pass near the Lackland Air Force Base cafeteria where I could get cigarettes (cost on base back then was nineteen cents a pack, $1.90 a carton).

You can probably guess my secret for kicking the cigarette habit. Having entered my second day without smoking, I decided to see if I could survive for two days without cigarettes, so I breezed past the cafeteria without stopping. The rest is history—I kicked the habit by going without nicotine one day at a time—days became weeks, weeks became months and months became years, forty-two of which have passed since my last cigarette, and only God knows how many more years I will have to tell my story of being a non-smoking, non-wheezing, non-coughing ex-smoker—regardless of the number of years I may have, I suspect it would be far fewer had I not stopped smoking in 1967.

So this is my secret—this is the system I used to break a killer habit:

In my brief—very brief—service in the Boy Scouts of America I learned that one can successfully reach a destination—any destination—by establishing and reaching a series of goals. On a 12-mile hike away from town and back, I learned to establish a short-term goal and look forward to its attainment, rather than looking forward to arriving at my destination. On the hike I looked ahead and picked out a goal—a large tree in the distance, or a hill or a bridge or any other object on the horizon, a goal that I could easily attain—I only needed to keep walking, telling myself that if I needed to rest I could rest under that tree or bridge, or at the foot of that hill. And when that goal was attained, I selected another, and another, and another until I arrived at my destination.

That’s my secret, and each of us has the ability to do the same—simply never say never—never say that you will never smoke another cigarette. Set a goal to not smoke for just one hour, then for one day, one week, one month and one year and continue to attain and set new goals—the chain of smoking will be broken and will remain broken if you continue to set your sights on another goal—I have set my sights, after smoking for 22 years, on completing 50 years of not smoking, and when I reach that goal I’ll select another, and if I fail to reach that goal it will be for some reason other than returning to the cigarette habit.

So far there is nothing spectacular or unique about my breaking my dependence on tobacco, but there is a Page Two of my story. In the same year in which I stopped smoking, I reduced my overweight nicotine-saturated body from 175 bloated pounds to a trim 140 pounds, completed the requirements for a bachelor’s degree and was graduated by the University of Nebraska, and stood by and supported my wife during her two major surgeries, all without the comforting solace of the smoking habit I had cemented into place over a period of 22 years.

I firmly believe that if I could break the habit without resorting to therapy, nicotine patches, psycho-analysis, hypnosis, joining an anonymous tobacco-oriented group similar to AA—in short, if I could stop smoking under all that pressure without any outside assistance at all, and forty-two years later remain free of nicotine’s grip, anyone can do it.

As an afterthought I will now address my daughter’s statement that my “seeing a beautiful woman light up a cigarette ruins the entire image.”

I must rebut that statement, at least in part—the entire image is not ruined—I still look, but only in fascination of the manner in which the smoker acts, from extracting the cigarettes from the purse, then from the pack, then the lighting, the trip to the lips, the drawing, inhaling, exhaling, flicking the ashes and finally grinding out the cigarette.

All hard-core smokers have their personal way to indulge their smoking habit. Over several years of duty at Kelly Air Force Base, I took frequent morning coffee breaks at the base cafeteria. On many mornings I had the privilege of watching (surreptitiously, mind you) a stunningly beautiful woman enjoy her coffee and a cigarette. She was always alone, and always smoked just one cigarette with her coffee, finishing both at the same time.

Other than enjoying her stunning beauty (surreptitiously, mind you), I was fascinated by the practiced way she smoked. On every draw from the lighted cigarette with her pursed lips, she inhaled deeply and held the smoke for a seemingly interminable length of time. Finally a small puff of smoke escaped from the left corner of her mouth. A few seconds later a second small puff from the same outlet, and a final small puff (same source) emerged after a few seconds more. After those three small puffs, similar to the manner in which Native Americans (Indians) covered and uncovered a fire to produce smoke signals, her mouth remained closed for another thirty seconds or so and then her lips parted slightly to slowly set free the rest of her draw, at least that part which did not remain in her lungs.

I wondered then, and continue to wonder, whether the timed sequence of puffs could have actually been a message, something akin to, Hey, look at me, I’m here, let’s get it on!, but unfortunately I had no Native American (Indian) friends—as a matter of fact, I did not then know, nor do I now know, any Native Americans (Indians).

I’m not making this up—on several occasions I told the person or persons who may have been having coffee with me to watch the smoker. I told them exactly what to expect, from the draw to the exhaling, and I was right-on every time. My daughter is correct—I am affected adversely when I see a beautiful woman light up a cigarette. Although the act does not ruin the entire image, it is definitely a turn-off for me.

Of course at my age and my stage of life, a turn-off is really not necessary, but if it were, the cigarette would do the job.


 
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Posted by on June 27, 2009 in cigarette smoking, Humor

 

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