Getting Older

I went out to happy hour for a work function the other night. As the waiter took everyone's drink orders, he asked my co-worker for her id, while apologizing that he had made everyone at the other end of the table show him theirs; therefore, she had to as well. She politely pulled out her id as did the girl next to her. I then placed my order, which he wrote down and walked off to place, no questions asked. 

I put myself in that 2nd bracket now... although much less blonde.



Getting older... yep. I can't really say I am the type who minds that much, but there it is.

And isn't it funny that when you're 20 and life events happen, you realize you're "Growing Up". Now when someone calls me "Ma'am" I realize I'm "Getting Older". And eventually we'll classify it as "Aging". Different terms, different stages, but it's all the same, isn't it?

I've heard people say for years how the body starts breaking down at 30. Funny, I was half way through writing this post when Marty spoke about this very thing at church on Sunday. 30 years old. They make it sound as if the warranty wears out. You know, the minute you hit 30, you're going to need major repairs, as if you're a car or something. I told my mom this, and she said that she had always heard 40 was the number. Great! With all the advances in medicine today and the threshold for breaking down is actually getting lower. Or better yet, I have another level of crappiness to look forward to in 10 years. Nice! Or maybe, just maybe all these people are just plain silly with their magic voodoo numbers! 

But here I am, living proof  at 31 years of age. Being the type of person who still skips down the sidewalk with her kids and does silly jumps in the office at random, I somewhat reject the concept that I'm "getting older". Oh, but there IS a hitch. You see, last year, the year I turned... gulp... 30... my little headaches got annoying enough that I finally saw a doctor about them, and then a specialist and then another. After searching for a cause and trying a few different options, I now take a daily preventative medication (which by the way if I forget to take, onsets a migraine). And then in the fall, while I was still just... that's right... 30... I started having some fairly disturbing hip problems. I've now seen my doctor and a specialist and then another for that. The end prognosis is that for now I shouldn't do stuff to aggravate it, an interim procedure might eventually help, and someday I'll have to have a hip replacement surgery...  oh, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. 

At 31 years of age I'm already trying to figure out if yoga would be a good exercise technique to implement, not because I'll like it more or it's good for me, but because I don't think physically a lot of other options are viable. I actually teared up the other night talking with Adonai after we watched Wipe Out, because when you watch those shows you laugh and dream about how if you were a contestant on them, you'd be so fantastic and win. But alas, I will never be on the Amazing Race, because suddenly my body won't let me. I feel stupid. I wasn't going to be on Fear Factor anyway, but it's like a little piece of me died. Stupid magic number.

And YET, with all the chagrin that people put on getting older, I TRULY DON'T MIND. Okay, I HATE that my body is breaking down. Ado and I actually have bets against each other on who will need surgery first (him that I'll need my hip replaced; me that he'll need his knee replaced) - that's right, we have that kind of love! But, as for the aging thing - I've never been one to hide my age or my gray (at least not just yet). I think there are a few reasons for this.

Reasons I don't mind getting older:

1. With Age Comes Wisdom - Okay, a little cliché, but it's true isn't it? Wouldn't you rather be a mature adult than a good looking young fool? "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." - Proverbs 31:30
2. I'm a Bit of an Old Soul - Well, we all know my inner-child runs rampant, but I'm complicated okay. I was the 12 year old who could sit at the adult table the whole meal and actively participate in the conversation. I think that being that type of kid let's you be the type of adult who can handle age more gracefully.
3. My Friends are Older - Hee hee, a lot of you are!!! Really though, I've never minded another birthday, because since so many of my friends are 5 years ahead, I'm now just one year closer to being as cool and mature as they are.

4. I Have the Best Husband Ever - You may be perplexed, but truly, Adonai makes aging, like a journey... I can't not want to be on this adventure with him. He talks about how he looks forward to spending our late years together. He complements me, even the physical features I don't find attractive, he does. And because he loves me with a reflection of God's love, I think I love me more. It's sort of like how I'm an Amazon Woman who enjoys wearing high heels, even though I'm already an inch taller than my husband. Adonai doesn't mind, so I feel free to walk tall and feel beautiful in tall shoes. If he had a complex about it, I would totally have a complex about it. Having a supportive husband has been an amazing gift in the aging department.

So there you have it. I'm getting older... but then again, WE ALL ARE! It's a fact of life. Something to embrace. To age my friends!

Children's Hospital

It was just a routine doctor's appointment. I walked down that colorful lobby corridor toward the directory, and I almost totally lost it. “Hold it together Kelly; this isn't our sentence... yet.”  

Children's Hospital is an AMAZING organization. As a student at BCOM, I spent every Tuesday night as part of my Christian Service volunteering at the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital. I'd hold babies who just needed love, play with kiddos who just needed interaction, sit and watch TV with teenagers who just needed someone else to hang out with, or if I had the sniffles, I wouldn't go near the kiddos and I'd stay downstairs in Volunteer office and do all sorts of administrative stuff (craft preparations and what-not) to help out. And by visiting Children's month after month I got to see how they approached hospital care for kids. How they made the glummest of circumstances sunnier. And I conclude that it is truly one AMAZING organization.

And then our friends had little Jaeden 2 months early, and he was admitted to the Children's remote NICU at Good Sam here in Phoenix. They had a private room and a place for mom and dad to sleep so they could be near him. The set-up was fantastic given their situation, which was one I was too familiar with having had to wait 10 days for Natalia to come home after her stint in the NICU on our side of town (not at a Children’s facility). So again, I was impressed by how great Children's Hospital took care of their patients.

Being such a fan, you’d think that visiting their campus for some test results would be no big deal right?

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It was just a routine doctor's appointment. The Children's Hospital campus was really large and had a lot of buildings. I wasn't sure where to park to be close to whichever building we were going to. I hated this. I hated having to drive across town for a bi-annual check-up, but it was the end of the year and all appointments on our side of town at our normal office were booked up. I reminded myself I was lucky to get in at all.

I drove around, did a u-turn and was just about to roll down my window and ask a nurse sitting on bench, evidentially taking a break or at the end of her shift, where building E was, when I saw it on the side of the building above her head. Whew, at least now if I could just find a parking spot, I knew where I was headed. But once I knew which building to go to, parking was easy too.

As we walked toward the doors I saw the long name of the building. I can't remember it now, but beneath the name listed that it was a treatment center for some pretty serious conditions totally unrelated to why we were there. I felt my nerves flicker though. I reminded myself, we weren't even going into the actual hospital, it was just a building on campus.

And then I walked down that colorful lobby corridor toward the directory, and I almost totally lost it. I HATE THIS PLACE. Fear gripped me and I imagined this place being our life. I imagined the appointment going badly. I realized that while I value everything beautiful that Children's Hospital has to offer that I never want anything to do with it ever again personally - not for my family. And my heart quickened and I almost broke into tears standing in front of the elevators, weak-kneed. So, I looked down at the happy toddler in my arms and reminded myself that this was NOT the time to lose it. “Hold it together Kelly; this isn't our sentence... yet.”

I pushed the button “up” and as the elevator doors dinged open, we simply walked in.

The office waiting room was fine. A little older and worn than I’d expected. And large. It had a play area for Natalia though which I thought was nice. I filled out the sheets and sheets of paper work, even though everything was the same. The nurse called us back after only a few minutes. Natalia weighed 23 lbs (I noted that she had weighed 24 lbs the week before, when we’d had the EKG done, but that’s probably no big deal, right?). After all the usual prelim stuff, we dressed Natalia in the cutest little green hospital dressing gown and laid her down for an echocardiogram. I kept her pre-occupied so she wouldn’t pull on all of the cords. She handled it all really well, which made it a lot easier on me.

And then we waited for the doctor. I tried to keep Talia busy and happy, but she was starting to get in a grumpy and temperamental mood. Her patience had worn thin, not from the tests, but from being confined to the little room.

Then the doctor came in. He asked a few questions. Then gave us the test results… everything was great - still fully operational. And the best part - we can wait two years before we need to come back for another check-up. I wanted to cry again. Two years? We went from every six months, to TWO YEARS between needing visits to monitor her condition. She’s still okay. Treat her like a normal health child, because she is one. THANK GOD!

DEEP DEEP sigh and a prayer of gratitude to my Lord. Children’s hospital won’t be our second home. I can take her and drive far away from this place and not worry about coming back any year soon.  

I am grateful for the services that Children’s Hospital provides… so long as they are for others.

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If you're wondering about Natalia’s condition, she was simply born with a bicuspid aortic heart valve. A normal heart valve is shaped like a Mercedes Benes sign (see the image below). It has three flaps for 1) allowing blood flow through and 2) to seal tight afterward so that there isn’t any “backwash” in the blood flow. Natalia’s valve only has two flaps. It is still fully functional at present, which means that she is fine and she may always be fine; it’s just something to monitor. Some people who have a bicuspid valve go their entire lives and NEVER have a problem– they don’t even know they have one (we only discovered her condition because of her other issues at birth, all of which she has fully recovered from). For other people the valve begins to weaken and after time will need to be replaced. The great news is that as humans, we do the most growing in the first two years of our lives. The fact that Natalia has had no change as far as her valve's functionality is a great sign. It makes the likelihood of her needing surgery in the next 10 years a lot less.

Image courtesy of http://www.aorticvalvereplacement.net/aortic-heart-valve-disease-causes-%E2%80%93-congenital-acquired.html