Scary Job Is Confidence Aquired

I have enjoyed thinking about and recording a tiny bit of the Big Deal CF Blessings our family received in 2016. I was going to write that this will be my last post referencing our Big Deal CF Blessings in 2016, but I realize now that all of what I write draws on some piece of the past so I won’t say it’s the last. Instead I will stop numbering them and just happily relate our Big Deal CF Blessings for as long as the mood strikes me.  

Big Deal CF Blessings : Nurse Debbie’s Diagram

There are many times in my life when a blessings snowballs and keeps on giving. Maybe the snowball effect doesn’t happen at first, but some small lesson is learned that benefits me over and over again throughout my life and challenges. This happened during our home IV adventure in November of 2016.

When our pulmonologist gave us the glimmer of hope that our oldest daughters hospital stay could be shortened if we would do home IV’s last year we were so happy. Then when it really happened and the nurses at the hospital did the noon IV and said, “OK the next IV is due at 8pm and you guys will do it at home,” I started sweating. I began to physically feel ill. Surely I could convince the home nurse to just come back and do it for me. She really shouldn’t trust me with this job…..I cut myself all the time in the kitchen! I often screw the water bottle lids on crooked and they leak! Once and a while I can’t outsmart a Capri Sun! Don’t let me do this on my own! I didn’t want to hurt my kid!  

Then at 8pm that night we met Nurse Debbie, a very fantastic IV home nurse. She was a perfect match of personality with my family and didn’t mind the circus surrounding her as she tried to teach my husband and I how to administer home IV’s. During this well-rehearsed (on her part) teaching session she started by drawing us a diagram on paper. She drew out with various shapes representing the different IV meds and process. She explained beautifully how to visually go into the process with all the meds and supplies and if you worked simply from left to right following the diagram you would be successful in administering the IV.

The nurse explained that the next IV would be due at 4am and we would do it alone. She said we could call her if we needed her, but that she was confident in us and our ability to do it (but maybe she didn’t want us calling at 4am, ha, ha, hopefully she DID think we were competent and she wasn’t just exhausted). Before she left she again re-iterated that she KNEW we could do it and figuratively made us get down on one knee and knighted us with her nurse-to-parent-sword-of-confidence.

I was so scared for the first IV on our own. Shaking. Anxiety ridden. In wacked out Mom mode I walked into the girls bedroom with my phone flashlight blaring at 4am, not even thinking about the sleeping 15 month old in the crib next to my oldest daughter. So poor baby Ruby got woken up that first IV morning at 4am and stood up in her crib and watched her Dad and I shakily do the first IV. The great news is though that this scary experience increased our confidence.

Nurse Debbie’s diagram teaching method worked perfectly for my husband and I and it allowed us to double check the diagram when we were on our own to clarify and assure ourselves we had it right. My husband and I began to feel like experts with this IV process. Every morning at 4am an IV was due to be administered so we would go in to Maelee’s bedroom together with all the supplies and one of us would administer the IV and the other would take the garbage (we make a lot of medical garbage at our house) and hand back the many necessary alcohol swabs to keep the site clean during the job. We both could do either job (assisting or administering) equally well and it was a unique bonding experience as husband and wife in working together at 4am. I even had the opportunity to really flex my confidence muscles and do the IV a few 4am’s alone when my husband was out of town.

Debbie’s diagram though that first night stuck with me. It became very apparent that I learn best visually. One day Heavenly Father popped the glorious idea into my head to make a morning med diagram for myself to help me make sure everyone gets all the nitty gritty details of their morning meds. I copied Debbie’s method and drew shapes representing what all needed laid out each morning for each kid. I chose to do one diagram instead of three knowing keeping track of one diagram would be easier for me than three separate. This has become a life saver for me. Before the diagram I would write down their morning meds on paper and follow that, but inevitably loose the paper leaving me just trying to remember from memory. Never fail at some point in the day I would either 100% realize I had forgotten something, or 50% wonder if I had or not. Now I just first thing fill up all the shapes on the diagram and then start passing them out! It’s great and works so well for us!

Even more of a bonus it’s going to allow me to train each of the older kids on filling up the Morning Med’s Diagram so that they are all proficient at it and can help each other, me, and themselves. A BIG step to CF self-sufficiency! Hooray!

And it’s all thanks to the nifty Nurse Debbie and her diagram of IV wonder. The blessing of meeting her and learning visually from her IV diagram is the beginning of a huge blessing snowball.

P.S. – On a specific side note for any CF family readers I also in 2016 found this very handy lazy susan of sorts from Hobby Lobby. Its metal (cleanable), and spins (fun), and SO cute! Now all the meds that I keep on the counter because I access them so much are neatly off the actual counter and easy to find. I love and appreciate this CF tool. This along with hanging our nebs to try on the side of our cabinet with shower caddies has saved my kitchen counters from being always full of medical clutter (necessary of course but clutter non the less).

Mother to Mother Yes I Can Help This TIme! Hooray!

(Meeting my goal and writing about some Big Deal CF Blessings 2016. Here is #4.)

There are often times in my life that I feel like I need a lot and get a lot of help from others which I am very grateful for. For someone like me who feels super needy and already one of those “special” friends who people cringe when they get a text from its great when once in a while I can be the giver and not the receiver. Something special happened to me at the end of 2016 with another CF mom for that to happen.

A few days before Christmas, I got a Facebook message from another CF Mom that needed me help. Because of some previous conversations we had, she knew that I lived close to her mother’s house. That day my friend had packed up and headed to her Mom’s house to spend Christmas there. She messaged me because in the chaos of packing her Christmas along with the typical circus needing to be packed when taking a kid anywhere overnight she forgot her nebulizer cups for her sons inhaled medication. She had sanitized them and had them drying on her kitchen counter, but accidentally left them behind.

There was no way for her to get the specialized neb cup since it was later in the evening, and ridiculously you need a prescription to get a nebulizer cup. (Really? I need a doctor to give me permission to buy an expensive plastic cup? Whoever repeatedly abused the nebulizer cups and used them inappropriately should really know that I’m super annoyed about this rule). CF meds need to be nebulized at a specific particle size so we can’t just use any old neb cup it needs to be a special brand. Anyway her son was symptomatic and needed treatment without delay and she needed this special neb cup.

I snuck into the kids room and used my phone light to quietly sort through my large and robust medicine armoire and was happily surprised to find a new sealed neb cup waiting to be used to help a friend!

She came over and we had a really great visit. It was a weird moment for me because I don’t get to talk to many CF moms in person. She also happens to be pregnant and doesn’t know yet if her baby will have CF or not. Hey! I’ve been there!

As we got to talking it became so surreal. Standing there talking with her my heart remembered how it felt to be where she is right now, or at least how it was for me to be there…. I wanted to give her a massive hug and a really inspiring win-the-championship kind of speech.

I wanted to tell her that she is so so so brave to have another baby and that I was so proud of her. I wanted to tell her that no matter what, CF or no CF it is infinitely worth it to have that child and grow their family. I wanted to tell her that everyday angels help me to help the kids with their treatments and meds and I know they help her and will continue to help us both. I wanted to tell her that all the details and minutia of Cystic Fibrosis matters to Heavenly Father. I wanted to tell her that she’s doing so great and that as she keeps on trying with her Mother heart each day ideas will come to her to help bless her children and make the never ending treadmill of Cystic Fibrosis runnable.

In the end, we talked a little shop. Stuff like where we keep our neb cups to dry. Sanitization. SVN machines. G-tubes. Labeling neb cups. Amniocentesis. We laughed a little. Stood there for a few seconds and realized that we “got” each other. It was such a special experience for me to have her in my home, even for just a few minutes. I think I may have asked her if I could give her a hug. Maybe I didn’t, can’t remember….but I should have if I didn’t. Being able to serve a friend in a specific CF-mom-kind-of-way was to me another Big Deal CF Blessing of 2016.

Sorry We Dragged Your Trick or Treating With A Broken Arm Baby Ruby

Big Deal CF Blessings From 2016 #3

I have this awesome nephew who was born on Halloween 9 years ago. We try to Facetime on birthdays since his family lives in Alaska. So we (all four kids and Frank and I) are piled on the couch squeezed into the camera shot of Frank’s phone. The call ends. We all jump off the couch. We really must have all literally jumped off the couch considering the motion of us 5 bodies moving up and off caused Ruby’s smallest of the 6 bodies to fall off the couch. She landed on her right hand.  

Ruby then starts to cry quite hysterically. Of course we comfort her and get her calmed down. She still is a bit fussy and clingy to me (which hey is totally normal) but we give her some Tylenol to be on the safe side. We do notice that she is walking around holding her right arm with her left arm very gingerly.

It’s trick or treat time though so we head out on our adventure and after an hour and a half of getting Ruby in and out of a wagon and a car seat the poor baby girl is exhausted. When she wakes up the next morning and is still holding her right arm with her left I call the pediatrician and get her in right away.

The x-ray shows she broke both the bones in her arm. Thanks to glorious insurance (really with us we can’t ever complain about insurance, since we really get our money’s worth like within 5 days of the start of 2017 we meet our deductible), she gets a fantastic waterproof cast. She really does wear it like a champion for her 6 weeks and even asks for it to be put back on after her arm gets washed in the bathtub every night.

What’s the Big Deal CF Blessing in this then? Well I’ll tell you what it was a great feeling to have a normal crisis on our hands. We didn’t have any uncertainties about lung function, weight gain, throat culture results, blood pressure, or any and all of the medical acronyms you can think of in regards to blood, sweat and tears. Nope, for this doctor’s appointment Cystic Fibrosis wasn’t an issue!

Yes we felt terrible that we dragged her around trick or treating after she broke her arm, but HEY we didn’t know she had yet OK so back off!

All I’m saying is, it was nice for once to not have to delve into the CF history explanations and hope you remembered to say everything that matters so the doctor could make an informed decision. Yes this day baby Ruby got to be just a regular kid with a broken arm and the CF didn’t matter at all. And any day when you can be just a regular adorable little girl with a regular broken arm is a good day. See we are normal…..sometimes.  

Photo from family shoot with Stacy Guthrie amazing photographer and friend.

More Time to Play

Big Deal Cystic Fibrosis Blessings from 2016, #1 and #2

What a wild year! We loved it! Had great adventures! Had many opportunities to learn and did learn about our kids and their Cystic Fibrosis. Many things lay ahead for us in 2017 too. We will most likely get Maelee on the Orkambi (#wehopetothanktheinsurance, #likewewerentalreadyanexpensivefamily) drug which is a spanking new med made specifically for our kids mutation of Cystic Fibrosis (#DF508), the others aren’t old enough yet, but she is so we are working on it!

Since one of my 2017 goals is to write more I plan on splitting this 2016 CF blessings post into a few pieces. Since no one likes to read a novellic blog post I’ll keep this post to two Big Deal Cystic Fibrosis blessing for 2016, and plan to end the posts by the end of January 2017.

The first two Big Deal Cystic Fibrosis blessings walk together since the one gave the other its existence.

Imagine this. You have this plastic thing wedged inside of your stomach. It’s held in place with a balloon of air on the inside of your stomach and a plastic valve for ease of use on the outside of your stomach. You use this button to give yourself extra calories directly into your stomach while you sleep since you can’t physically eat enough calories to sustain or gain weight on your own during that day. Are you imagining that?

Now on top of this plastic button that has been installed in your stomach you can’t just use it and cruise it - you have to take medicine for those calories to work right when they get into you while your sleeping. But wait! What? Your sleeping so how are you supposed to take medicine?? You can’t, so you do your best to take some before and after your tube feed. But that is not good enough, your pancreas doesn’t work and you need more enzymes during the feed. The result is pooping in the middle of the night and stomach cramps and pain from inevitable malabsorption of the calories…………….

ENTER NEW INVENTION: DU DA DA DA! Relizorb!

This is a plastic cartridge full of the medicine (pancreatic enzymes you need) that you can attach to your formula tube so that is slowly administers enzymes to you with your calories while you sleep! How fantastic! Really I can’t use enough exclamation marks about how neat it is that this invention is a thing now! Thank you inventor! Thank you for helping g-tube patients around the world! You are my hero you mystery scientist! I hope somehow you get credit for this and your beautiful idea wasn’t taken from you by a big pharmaceutical corporation in some terrible and sad-make-a-move-about-it-someday-way. Thank you with all my mother heart! OK you can stop imagining now.

So one night while we are hooking up Orson to his night feed, Frank and I start talking about how amazing this invention is and what a very specific idea and type of person around the world it is blessing (Cystic Fibrosis and other GI patients who need enzymes while tube feeding). Charles, our only child without Cystic Fibrosis who is already super into science and how stuff works PERKS up when he hears us say the word “invention.”

We then dive into a conversation about how yes, someone thought of this idea, and yes they made it work through lots and lots of hard work and idea sharing until now its blessing lives and helping people.  

Immediately Charles’ wheels start turning and he ends the conversation by announcing that he will someday invent something to help Orson and Maelee and Ruby with their Cystic Fibrosis. See, that is how the second blessing walks with the first. The spectacular cartridge of enzymes for tube feeders, Relizorb, inspired Charles to think of his CF invention. Ready for your mind to explode?

Charles is going to invent a machine that someone with Cystic Fibrosis can hook up to while they sleep. This machine will do all their treatments for them while they are sleeping. All their lung treatments, and some fancy new GI treatments so they won’t have to take enzymes during the day. All of it will be done at night during sleep so that the person can wake up and have to spend no time doing treatments. Then as Charles so very cleverly and sweetly thought of, “Orson will have more time to play with me.” Because that is one of the ways that Cystic Fibrosis effects these best friend brothers, less play time. Which of course to me was the loveliest invention Charles could ever think of.

With Charles’ natural traits of obedience and love of law and order I can see him really being a successful scientist. I believe that Charles could figure this out one day. The motivation is real. I’m so proud of my children!

Orson for all of 2016 (except for Saturdays and some holidays and travel days thrown in) allowed himself to be hooked up, tethered really, to an IV pole to get “medical food” or as we call it “milkshakes” every night. He slept wrapped up in tubing and allowed it to be normal all those nights. He woke up to a loud alarm blaring at him at 1am all of those nights to get unhooked from his machine, use the bathroom, and get himself back to sleep – he’s five years old! Amazing! Charles sleeps feet away from Orson’s rhythmic pump and one AM alarm. Does it disturb him every night? Probably yes. Does he wake up and complain? Never. Amazing!

Yep I am bursting with pride for a son who does this hard thing and I’m proud of another son who has never once complained about helping his brother get through the hard thing. AND on top of it is determined to invent a life improving Cystic Fibrosis invention in his lifetime. Just wait, you’ll see.  

#BigDealCysticFibrosisBlessings2016 #CFIsNotForever #BurstingWithPride

The contraption with the purple lid is Relizorb

Success!

From my last post, many people have expressed interest in helping my friend get a laptop for the hospital. An anonymous donor delivered a brand new beautiful laptop to my house today and its been delivered again to my friend! This offer of help was given before 7:30am this morning! What an exciting day and a great surprise and tender mercy! Lots of love in the world, lots of goodness! Thankful I get to be around such generosity and kindness!

Stuck In the Medical Clink, Only the Beggining They Say

It’s pouring rain and the time of day when everyone should have their headlights on but it isn’t all the way dark yet. As I turn onto the 202 to start the 23 mile drive to the hospital I think surely this rain is going to stop. But the whole way to the hospital its pouring rain, hard big drops too, very very uncommon for where we live.

My nine year old is in the back seat wound tighter than a spring awaiting her first admittance to the hospital that she can remember. She has had low lung function for the past few months and has sounded “coarse” and “wheezy” so the pulmonologist at our CF clinic has prescribed hospital IV’s and observation. I’m trying to stay calm but the rain and the freeway and car that I am not used to driving in combo with the fast approaching darkness has me noticeable tense. Maelee the nine year old suggests we say a prayer and I agree and that she should say it. We just said one with Dad and the boys and baby Ruby before we left but why not it can only help to say another. She finishes the prayer and is quiet for just a minute then she says, “Mom I think we will be doing a lot of praying these next few days.”

She’s right! A few hours earlier we had just got the cast for our one year old’s broken arm and literally while I was in the casting appointment the “beds” department of the hospital called to say that Maelee’s bed was ready. So we hurry and pack our bags and wait for Dad to come home to give her a Priesthood blessing with a friend and neighbors help and we fly off in the most gas friendly car we have to the hospital.

Everything is new to Maelee. The bed is super cool and moves. Her hospital room is big enough for two people therefore has two televisions and she is super pumped because she thinks she may be able to find a way to watch both of them at once.

Then the nurses come to take her to the “procedure room.” They have a separate room for the “procedures” so the kids have nothing bad happen in the rooms they are staying in. Maelee is incredibly worried for the IV placement. Desperately hoping to avoid 8 nurses laying on top of Maelee while she screams and thrashes I pull out all my Mom ideas. “Hey Maelee want to shop for ankle boots on my phone?” It works. She is so distracted shopping for the boots she has already asked to get for Christmas that the two nurses get the IV in and she’s ready to roll. They warn her though that in the morning the IV team will put a longer lasting IV in called a PICC line. They explain it to her as best they can, something about a long tube being inside of her arm that they put medicine in. Unbeknownst to myself and the nurses Maelee’s interpretation of getting a PICC line means they are going to have to slice open her arm to put the tube in.

After finally settling down after a ham and cheese lunchable and oreo and milk dinner from the vending machine since the cafeteria was closed she finally falls asleep 4 hours past her bedtime.

Maelee dreamt of another girl in a hospital bed beside her. The other girl raised up in her hospital bed to show that she had a giant hole in her stomach. Maelee looked around her room in the dream after seeing this shocking hole in the girl next to her and started getting attacked by doctors and nurses with needles.

Right about that time a PCT came in to poke Maelee’s finger for a blood sugar check. It was 2am. Maelee understandably lost it. I did what I could to help the nurses get the blood and eventually after lots of sadness Maelee was able to again fall asleep mumbling even as she was sleeping about ripping out her IV and going home between sobs about a PICC line. She still thinks her arm is getting sliced open the next day.

After a late in the afternoon PICC line placement (under full anesthesia due to the fight she gave the nurses the night before) things began to fall into line better. Then it just became a waiting and talking game. The mornings especially brought lots of talking to a pulmonologist, a team of 5 pediatricians, and right behind them a team of 5 residents, respiratory therapist, her CPT, her nurse several times, cleaning people, food deliveries. A typical grand central station with no privacy and with large amounts of interruption. Throughout her 6 night stay a sputum culture had been taken that first night and was busy growing in a lab deep in the depths of the hospital basement (we’ve heard its pretty spooky down there for reals). This culture and more testing, another lung function test, and finally a sinus and chest scan would determine if Maelee could go home to finish her IV treatment and for how long.

So she learned a ton about what it means to have CF and that she was been extremely blessed to not to have had to go in for something like this sooner. She goes from feeling super upbeat to feeling like she did something wrong and its her “fault” for being in the hospital. Frank and I and my Mom all worked together to take care of the kids at home and Maelee in the hospital. Someone always slept overnight with her and someone was always there with her during the day. The only breaks she had in one of us not being in there with her was some afternoons I or Frank would drive home to switch the car out for the other person since one of our cars gets considerably better gas mileage than the other. It was exhausting but not a scary trip (besides Maelee’s horrible dream that first night) to the hospital. It was refreshing to have a “big kid” in the hospital and not a little baby, just because it was easier to communicate and understand each other and to endure the experience as a nine year old versus a tiny baby you can’t bear to turn away from for a second.

She had a couple of mom friends bring their kids to come visit her. One night she had two girlfriends and one of their mom’s eat dinner with her. She LOVED that. Another night she had some girlfriends come and do crafts and play games with her. She even had her carpool friends come and before long they were all playing hide and seek. Its surprising how many places you can find to hide in a hospital room.

It was only six nights which is a very short CF hospital stay so she/we received lots of blessings on this visit. She came home with the PICC line and we will have several check ups and check ins as we navigate the next couple of weeks of four vests a day (2 hours a day) and extra meds and doing the IV’s at home in tandem with Orson’s g-tube feeds at night it may get a little hairy but the first night went well.

1:00am – Orson’s G-tube feed finishes and he gets unhooked and taken to the bathroom

4:00am – Maelee has another IV

6:30am – 1^st vest and breathing treatments

12:00pm – IV and 2^nd vest treatment

3:00pm – 3^rd vest treatment and breathing treatments

7:00pm – 4^th vest and Orson gest set up and hooked up for his g-tube feed

8:00pm to 9:30pm - Night IV

I had some misinformation in my head about IV’s and once that was cleared up we were taught from a very skilled home IV nurse on how to do them for Maelee and it’s manageable. Maelee will be missing school while she has the PICC and while she needs to be doing these extra vest treatments, to both protect the PICC from harm and from germs, and to provide ease of treatments.

The message of all the care providers across the board during this experience was, get used to this, its only the beginning. I feel less angry now when I hear that. I still want to tell everyone who says it, “maybe you don’t know us, but that isn’t something we are going to accept as normal.” I don’t tell them that but I think it and feel it. My heart still is shocked when my babies are in the medical clink.

What kills me though after leaving the hospital and having the separation of family that we had only a tiny taste of, is the other kids who didn’t get to leave and families who are still in a state of constant pulling as they manage the home front and the hospital front. I wish I could help them. I wish I could say, hey I’m not a nurse but I am a mom so let me sit with your baby for a few minutes while you go get some ice downstairs. Or walk with them down the halls during the many transports to the different places your kid needs wheeled to. Or give them a pep talk as they walk from the car into the hospital.

One friend we know personally has been at PCH for three months. Our 6 six night stay dealing with what we have been assured will become a multiple time a year event for us indefinitely, is nothing compared to sitting there with your nerves on complete edge and your heart shredded as you wait and watch your child receive and respond to medication and procedures for over 90 days. She has been there with her son who is fighting through Leukemia during the day and then her husband comes to be with him at night. I wish I knew exactly what she needed to help her feel a small bit or normalcy or comfort while she is in the hospital room with her son. One tiny idea that I got was that she would benefit greatly from her own laptop. Her husband uses their only laptop for work purposes so he needs to have it with him. If she had one to use while she was at the hospital with her son it would provide a greater source or freedom for her mentally to wade through her personal sea of worry and waiting. She could more easily journal, make photo books for her family and son to document this life journey they are on. So my new goal is to try to as quickly as possible find a way to get this friend a new laptop. I’m formulating a plan and unlike Mike Wasowski on Monsters Inc, I will not be “using mainly spoons” but plan on making some phone calls and doing some research to see if I can find a company or organization who can donate a laptop to this mother.

This is ham and cheese lunchable vending machine night, before the nightmare

Right before she went under for the PICC placement

The Wall of Love

First scan experience, I was told but never realized that this machine uses 100 times the amount of radiation as an x-ray machine so that is why Maelee won't be getting these done very often per our doc

The Dead Rabbit and the Dead Water Heater

I was driving home from school late one night. I hated the drive home from school. It was long with lots of freeway switching and stretched my nerves to capacity each time I drove it multiple times a week. The drive also gave me time alone and to think which lately was all sad grief filled thoughts. My Dad had died a few weeks before and the last time I ever talked to him was a phone call on the drive home from school so I relived the phone call every night which was both happy (since it was a great conversation) and also sad (because it was the last time I would hear his voice on earth). Then the rabbit my husband had gotten me to cheer my up after Dad died had died earlier in the same week of my drive home. It was a very dramatic rabbit death filled with a panic filled trip to the pet store for potential life saving rabbit supplies but in the end the rabbit died too. I was definitely way down deep in a low point.

So when I stepped into the apartment to hear the announcement from my husband that I had a special delivery I was curious. It was a very glamorous box of flowers. I hadn’t ever seen flowers be delivered in boxes except for in old black and white movies. They were extremely beautiful and simply elegant white lilies. I was shocked and unsure why I would get something like this delivered. The card was brief, “Our deepest sympothies,” and then it read three women’s names. I knew woman with the names it read but none of them had any connection to each other. I began to think of who in the world would spend clearly a wad of cash of these expensive boxed lilies. I thought of all the women I went to church with, worked with, and attended school with. I thought of old high school friends. I thought of potentially distant cousins on my Dad’s side of the family but couldn’t have guessed how they would have gotten my address and why they would have picked me out of the six kids in my family to send the flowers to. I thought of maybe the three female names being some sort of code. Maybe they spelled sympathy incorrectly with o “sympothy” on purpose to provide some sort of clue. I was all over the place with my theories, even of course the guilt theory of “I should know who these three women are!”

I still have no idea who sent the flowers but it turned me around. The flowers made me smile and feel happy and special and loved and especially got me thinking happy thoughts and steered me away from the grief puddle I kept walking through every night on the way home from school. I still think of my flower delivery and wonder who it could have been and hope they know it was appreciated.

Last week the three woman on the card came to mind again. I had another anonymous flower delivery. This time they were left by my front door. It had been a crazy day. Our water heater had broken. So as an extension of that was first thing in the morning emptying out the storage closet that the water heater is housed in. Since this is our only storage space it’s like Pandora’s box and not in the good cool music way. Oh and the plumber who was sincerely super man awesome to come so quick got to watch me rushing to empty the closet out which at the time felt similar to being on one of those “what not to wear” episodes when the hosts completely insult every piece of clothing you have. I wanted to explain everything in the closet, “Yeah we really had an ant problem one year that’s why we have a couple of half used bug sprays….Hey let me tell you the story behind this PVC pipe and random wood pieces it’s a good story you’re going to laugh……Yeah I keep my tamale pot outside! Where do you keep yours?”

After being exposed as the messy and random outside storage closet human being that I am, there was a poop problem that day too. An unexpected amount of kid poop needed cleaned up right after the storage closet incident. THEN I had forgotten that it was happening that day but I had already planned on and agreed to help some friends with something. So when the water heater forced me to expose my closet to a stranger and landed simultaneously on the poop storm witnessed by unsuspecting friends….well it was touch and go for a while.

Then the plumber knocked on the back door. He said that my water heater was 17 years old. He said that similar water heaters to mine are lucky to make it to 7 years. Really?

I was so proud! What a hard working water heater! We have put an increasing load of usage pressure on that big guy over the past 10 years and ALL of those years were miraculous. He never gave up for 10 years! Other water heaters just like him gave up, but not him. He washed our clothes and shined up the baby bottles, nebulizers, and dishes night after night for 10 years past his prime without complaint. How many glorious hot showers had we enjoyed on that wonderful amazing miraculous water heater! The poop storm didn’t matter anymore. The huge mess of my emptied out storage closet in the backyard didn’t matter anymore. That water heater was my new hero! I had been sitting on a miracle for 10 years and didn’t even know it. I began to wonder about all of the other blessings I hadn’t realized were mine but continued to enjoy unawares. What other appliances and pipes should have broken ages ago but are still dutifully performing for our family without us taking notice? My eyes were opened and my attitude was changed. There are so many blessings from God that we don't even see. 

Then a few hours later my husband walked in from work and said, “why is there a bouquet of flowers outside the door?” Could the day have gotten any better after the water heater miracle being unearthed? Sure thing! Some nice person must have known. They must have known the worries in our heart over broken water heaters, lung function tests, lack of weight gain, and poop storms. So they came and left something beautiful by the door. Now again my mind races from person to person in my life on who it could have been. Theories are being conspiracied about this nice person and the flowers they left. But don’t worry sneaky sneaker between your kindness and our newfound hero the 1999 water heater we are unstoppable.

Here is a picture of my hero the water heater and me with the mystery bouquet. I think I will have to write some sort of clever rhyming poem about the “water heater that could” and add him to the wall of family pictures. I really am so proud of him.

Look at this guy! Isn't he beautiful! What a hard worker!

Instead of the messy kitchen in the background you could think, whoa a 50 pound bag of flour almost used up and recipe books balanced on her oven hood, that girl is a baker even in her 4x4 kitchen!