When the heart stops beating

We were having a quiet dinner with our Xanga family. Dad cooked a delicious eye of the round and it was perfectly done. Donkey_guy was there with his pretty wife Flash as was Seedsower, Dingdong, Tude and Lorilily. It was after dinner while we were conversing about this and that and the other thing. I didn't find the conversation exceptionally boring but apparently dad did. He closed his eyes and dropped his head.

Mom was the first to notice. "Bill?" She tried to wake him, but he didn't respond. I looked at him and he didn't look good. "Bill?" She shook him, but he didn't move.

Dad has been under the care of a cardiologist for a couple of decades now, and I anticipate at any moment his heart will just plain quit. I thought this was the moment.

I moved to his side and said "Dad?" and shook him, but there was no response. His skin was pale. He had drooled a little onto his shirt and I couldn't detect any respiration. I checked his pulse but couldn't find it.

I have taken and taught First Aid, CPR, Responding to Emergencies and a whole lot more with the Boy Scouts and began acting without even thinking. I heard voices all around me telling me what to do , but I ignored them and let the training take over. Someone was making the phone call, I could hear that, so I didn't have to say it.

I pulled him out of his chair and carefully laid him on the floor on his back. I didn't realize it till a couple of days later, but 180 lbs can put a wallop of hurting on your muscles when you yank it about like that. I tilted his head back to open his airway and kept talking to him. He started breathing, short, shallowed, labored breaths. I supported the back of his neck with my left hand and started rubbing his chest with my right. He snored. Maybe three times, then stopped breathing again.

His face was waxy and pale, yellowish like jaundice and sweaty. His eyes were fixed and dilated. I tried to find a pulse but couldn't. I said "He is not breathing. I can't find a pulse."

Dad has a DNR order. I respect that, however with Mom and Lori and Laura and Beth and Steve and Jen standing right there I had to do something more... I ripped open his shirt and listened for a heart beat, breathing... anything. I decided rather than start chest compressions I should retilt the head, jut the jaw and give two quick breaths. He began breathing as I pulled up on his jaw. It was only a few timeless moments before he regained consciousness and said, "Why?"

"Why what?" I asked.

He had no recollection of anything. I kept a close and careful eye on him, kept talking with him and waited for the EMT's to arrive. He didn't like that we had called an ambulance or were taking him to the hospital. but he didn't have the strength to put up much of a fight. Things became rather chaotic after that and I began noticing other people again including the entire town's fire company standing with boots on and axes drawn, in the middle of my mother's living room.

Dad is fine now. I do not know exactly what happened. I will be talking with him at camp this weekend and see what he thinks it was. He is a very bright man, medically educated. He thinks we overreacted taking him to the hospital in an ambulance and such, but he really didn't start to look better until after the EMT's put him on oxygen. His color came back and he returned to his grumpy ole self, that same grumpy ole self we have come to know and love.

A couple of postscripts...

• When I told Spaz what happened, she said I did a better job than Michael Jackson's doctors.
• We are not certain but we think Flash was talking him to death.
• For about 15 seconds, I thought he was dead.
• One of the EMT's looked as if he were going to need CPR! He was sweating profusely, huffing and puffing... not to mention he looked to be about 125 lbs overweight.
• I think it was a practice death he planned out to get us more used to the idea that eventually he, you, me, everyone... we all die sooner or later.
• Beth, Steve and Jen are some of the best people I know.
• There was boob-o-vision on the TV in his hospital room... and he didn't want to go? He was glad he was there for that!

So a question for you all, or rather a challenge... How well are you trained to handle a medical emergency? The Red Cross offers courses for all levels. I think I will take another refresher myself.

Cell Phone Zombies

Last night I sat in the park watching the people wander round and round
When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a swarm of cell phone zombies!

The newest trend of modern man walking about with cell phone in hand
eyes glues to a one inch screen while the world around them passes unseen

Thumbs and fingers numb and flittery texting and massaging in useless literacy
sexy teens and the balding aged all glassy gazed mired in their muck and cages

I thought they would snap out of it when the fireworks popped loudly
I assumed they would look skyward to see the blooming starbursts proudly
filling the night
but that was not to be the sight

Camera phones held up to heaven, taking video and screenshots, to savor later instead
I looked and listened at my own little self and settled upon the thought, I sit on a shelf
using eyes and ears for here and now instead of recording for posterity the powerful show

After it was all over the cell phone zombies made a slow parade
towards the forrest of automobiles where they sat and they waited
and waited and waited and waited going nowhere, forgetting that somewhere
God had given them grass and trees and stars to see...

I am grateful that I am not a cell phone zombie... yet... but I fear the disease is contagious...

Are you surrounded by cell phone zombies?

"Starlight and Fireflies"

Acrylic on canvas board
 14" x 20"

My wife and I were on our way to visit with friends and family when I spot this smoking hot blonde flying by us in a bright yellow firebird, and I mean smoking.

I said to my wife, "There is something so very unattractive about a young lady with a smoldering cigarette dangling out of her mouth, smoke swirling into her eyes."

Traffic backs up in her lane and we pass her. This time she has the lit cigarette in her left hand and a mascara brush in her right. I am stupefied! "I gotta get a picture of this!", I say to my wife. Thankfully Lori is driving and is able to maintain the same speed as our heroine of the highway. I pull out my trusty cell-phone-cam.

We are coming to the I-490/590 split and she is heading south, we, east so I have to be quick! Just as soon as I snap the picture she turns her head and looks at me!

"HA! GOTCHA!" I smile and put away the camera.

Then she hits a bump in the highway, jabs her self in the eye with the mascara brush, drops her cigarette on the floor, freaks out, loses control and crashes her car in a fiery wreck!

Well at least she died pretty.

Ok I made up that last paragraph, but just to illustrate a point... What in tarnation was this chick thinking???

Anyway, I hope that when you drive, you pay more attention to the road than she did.

...And furthermore, why do you ladies think you need mascara to look beautiful anyhow? I like it better when your eyes are naked!

 Oo-la-la!

 Multi-tasking @ 65 MPH