Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Saturday, April 16th, 2005
Marty and I agreed—it was a “satisfying” day. It began for me with the “Repair Affair,” Boyle County’s annual day of exterior house chores on behalf of those who can’t physically do them. Danville Rotary Club took primary responsibility for it this year and that’s how I got involved. We couldn’t have pulled it off without all the volunteers from Centre College (those students are something else). It was a good deed sort of thing for me and a welcome change of scenery. My friend Scott was there and said he was planning to attend the 30th birthday cookout for the Governor’s son at the Mansion in Frankfort. I told him to give Ernie and Ben my warm regards. I don’t get to hobnob much with Fletcher any more, now that he’s hit the political big time.
After lunch I picked up Marty and we went to the Blue Bank Farm to work in the orchard, which also happens to be our family cemetery. I’m late with the pruning this year, but we got through it all and had time for a hike up Horse Lick hollow for Marty’s first adventure to the Pine Forest, which we both speculate was near the sawmill settlement that used to be located back there. We saw a spot that looked as though a small twister had touched down and leveled a few pines, all in precisely the same direction. Also had a chance to confirm that the back edge of the hollow had been unintelligently logged. What a waste! We came back to the valley by way of Blue Bank’s ridge and the Buddha Trail, probably the most peaceful spot in Casey County.
It was good to see members of my Clan after a month of turmoil. I spent a few moments at Joe’s grave with my sister and learned the sad news that her pet Pookie had just died. Throughout the day, Bruce was never far from my thoughts. Dana called from Indianapolis and my heart went out to her.
Posted in Community, Dana, Death, Family, Friends, Marty, Nature, Pets, Political Affairs | Comments Closed
Friday, April 15th, 2005
I don’t know if I really liked school as a kid, but rather accepted it as my fate. It did have one nice thing going for it—ample opportunity to draw. Because we were Catholics, we went to school six days a week, although the Saturday religious instruction (catechism) was only in the morning, which wasn’t so bad because we were used to it, and we got to hang out with our top chums, the Vagedes boys. But maybe the best thing about Saturday mornings was that we got a comic book. I didn’t know that Treasure Chest wasn’t “cool.” I looked forward to the wholesomely didactic magazine (given out one per family before we went home each Saturday morning) because it was a comic book. Super heroes would come later. “Treasure Chest” introduced me to the longer pictorial narrative form and the art of the visual cliffhanger. Looking back on it, the staff that produced it was clearly packed with talent. I never saw another issue of it after 1964. With the move to a new town, a few dimes to spend, and the proximity of my junior high school to a retail rack of Superman, Batman, and Aquaman, I made the seismic shift to the world of DC Comics. Other than being shown how to use pastel chalk by family friend Mr. Smalley, I still had received no direct exposure to fine arts instruction. I was almost a teen, and I’d had no educator who could demonstrate to me genuine artistic technique, even though I’d had a series of teachers who rather negligently but wholeheartedly supported my effort to become self-taught. And so I continued with my own strange mix of preferred influences: Reed Crandall, Doug Wildey, Bob Clampett, Alfred Andriola, Curt Swan, Bob Kane, and Frank Frazetta. Actually, I could have chosen much worse…
Posted in Art, Creativity, Family, Friends, Home, Personalities | Comments Closed
Wednesday, April 13th, 2005
When you’re going through a rough time, there’s always someone else who is or has gone through a worse situation. Today Dana and I had lunch with our friend Sherron, whose son was in a fiery accident and spent over a 100 days in a burn unit before he expired. She told me she asked God, “Why my son?” and the answer she received was, “Why not yours?”
Posted in Dana, Friends | Comments Closed
Tuesday, April 12th, 2005
My wife Dana and I want to thank each of you—individually, in person, if we could—for your many messages of support. For now, please know that they are much appreciated.
Bruce was able to sit up and talk on Friday, but seemed tired on Saturday. Since we’d arrived in Indianapolis the previous Saturday with clothes for only two days, we needed to get home. We got back to Danville late Saturday, but didn’t get much sleep that night.
Since we hadn’t seen Marty during his spring break, we took him out for dinner on Sunday. During the meal we got the call that Bruce was failing (high temperature, growing infection, pneumonia out of control). We packed up and headed back to Indy. The message we’d received was so alarming that Marty and his mom Terie came with us, despite the fact that school would be back in session on Monday. This time we grabbed our dog, too.
Bruce was stable by the time we arrived, back on a ventilator, but blood pressure and pulse were erratic. By early afternoon, he was resting fairly well and went into surgery to remove a temporary stint (a possible source of the continuing infection) that is used for dialysis, and replace it with a different type. A permanent fistula was considered, but it was decided that he’s too ill to go under anesthesia.
He was sleeping comfortably last night with better vital signs. He’s still under heavy sedation, but he does react to his mother’s voice and can respond to questions with a slight nod. He’s receiving nutrition through a nose tube that goes directly into the small intestine, bypassing the stomach and pancreas. His nurse told Dana that patients with pancreatitis this severe sometimes remain in the ICU three months or more and in the hospital for months longer–a true test of endurance. Regular drives back and forth to Indiana will seem easy by comparison. On Sunday I got to talk to a friend who reminded me that a local acquaintance spent six months in the hospital with pancreatitis, and that it was two years before he was totally his old self. Bruce has the will to undergo a long recuperation if his situation can just stabilize, but I honestly don’t know if his mate has the stamina for what lies ahead.
It is at times like this that Dana and I are reminded how much we value our family (powerful, quiet support) and our friends (an amazing outpouring of affection).
We’re truly grateful for the positive thoughts and prayers. We’ll need them for some time to come…
(Dana helped with this entry.)
Posted in Dana, Family, Friends, Gratitude, Home, Marty, Prayer, Time | Comments Closed
Monday, April 11th, 2005
As we hold our vigil, I’m reminding myself of some hilarious things Bruce said during his interlude off the ventilator.
Paraphrasing… “I was in The Wild Wild West and fighting James West and he took all my money. I was running a railroad and there was the train and everything, but throughout it all I was this huge buffalo. I knew it wasn’t happening, but it was layered over this reality. Then my Dad came to visit me, and I was talking to him, but I was still a huge buffalo… John, I could never begin to catalog all the strange dreams and images, but I can tell you that I definitely gave birth to a ferret.”
As his wife Pam said, “I want some of whatever he was on.”
– – –
p s ~ Happy Birthday, Dana. I pray that you get your wish.
Posted in Birthdays, Dana, Family, Prayer, Television | Comments Closed
Sunday, April 10th, 2005
One night’s restless sleep and it’s back to Indy, responding to the news that Bruce has had another relapse.
Posted in Family | Comments Closed
Friday, April 8th, 2005
It’s now hitting me that it’s rather dangerous to enter the IU medical library and sit down in front of a keyboard, given my internal whirl of emotions and a state of French-roast-induced mental hyperventilation. Oh well, here goes…
Even in the year 2005, at one of the top hospitals in the Midwest, medical decision makers still don’t routinely punch catheters into a sick man’s torso and drain it like a dirty crankcase. They have to seriously think about it first. And then they have to assemble a crack professional team. Neither will they go in blind, but insist on using precise, x-ray imaging to guide them. That’s why Bruce had to endure yet another wait as technicians fiddled with the CT scanner.
But over the next few hours an astonishing sequence unfolded. After coming through surgery (with multi-hued banners rippling in the wind), he was soon off the IV sedation, breathing on his own, and writing truncated notes on the paper he’d asked for with sign language. By evening his ventilator tubes had been removed and he was insightfully recounting his ordeal. When we marveled at his vocabulary he dismissed it with a quip: “For all you know, Art Buchwald could be in the next cubicle.” I was moved not only by the return of his wit, but by all the other honest, pure-hearted expressions that he earnestly and meticulously communicated to each of us who paid a visit.
He told us that he wanted, more than ever, to view “The Passion of the Christ,” so he could be reminded of someone who had suffered more than he.
I am indeed proud of my courageous son and how he persevered though his silent trial and emerged with love, optimism, humility, wisdom, and good manners. I think it was Winston Churchill who said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Posted in Blogging, Family, Movies, Personalities | Comments Closed
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
Bruce the Valiant came out of his surgical procedure with flying colors, just as my sister Joan arrived to be with him as he awoke. Within a few hours he was off sedation, smiling through his discomfort, and asking for something to write with. Evidence of his dry humor warmed me. The ventilator was turned off so he could regain his own lung rhythm. The team of ICU doctors gave a thumbs-up go-ahead for tube removal. By the time I finish this entry and get back, the breathing machine will be history. Today’s progress exceeds our most daring hopes.
Posted in Family | Comments Closed
Wednesday, April 6th, 2005
I was a patient in a hospital once.
Once.
I didn’t have much say in the matter, but I’m glad I was born. I had my tonsils cut out in a doctor’s office. I think it wasn’t much longer before they made old Dr. Ashmun stop doing that.
Over the years I’ve spent a fair amount of time in hospitals, especially when they started paying me to be there. But now I go primarily to visit people who haven’t enjoyed my extraordinary run of good fortune. That’s ok. I can stand to be around these places. (Like a mercenary must feel hanging around an ammo dump, I suppose.) I don’t have too many illusions left, as far as I know. I think I have a pretty good idea what these places can do and what they can’t. It’s a workplace. Some of these individuals can accomplish extraordinary things, and that’s true of many workplaces. It’s also true that some employees might be having a bad day, a bad week… or maybe a bad life.
If I make a mistake and publish a typo, everybody feels bad, but nobody has a funeral. I’m not an architect. My designs can’t fall down and kill anybody. But an architect has to have a lot of negligent people around if a faulty building gets built. In a hospital, one “oops” can be a life-or-death matter. We like to think those blunders don’t happen very often, but they do. In America. By nice, well-meaning people. If my streak is broken and I find myself in a hospital as a patient, I want a bodyguard.
Bruce has a lot of people looking out for him, pulling for him, praying for him. Maybe that includes you, dear reader. I hope so. If it does, I hereby thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Everything coming to bear on Bruce’s critical condition: the drugs, the tubes, the pumps, the microchips, the highly educated minds… it’s all there to give him a fighting chance. And by God he’s fighting. When I walk into the room I just look past all the gear and all the reservoirs of heaven-knows-what, and I see the inner warrior holding his own, preparing to make his move, armed with the weapons of consciousness, unfettered by the constraints of time and space, fully aware of the only thing that matters…
Victory.
Posted in Bruce, Death, Family, Gratitude | Comments Closed
Tuesday, April 5th, 2005
We got within an hour of home last night before receiving a call to turn around and come at once to the hospital. We learned that Bruce had been rushed back into the ICU with a high fever and severe breathing problems. After we arrived, there was time to comfort him, exchange a minimum of words, and see that he was working hard to stay with us. Obviously he’s scared, but with a strong will to pull through. The decision was made to support his recovery by alleviating the burden on his heart and lungs with a ventilator.
Posted in Family | Comments Closed
Monday, April 4th, 2005
Not long after the surprise bonanza of “funny papers” from Uncle Art, I developed the notion that the ideal life would be to have my own studio and draw a daily comic. I began filling up tablets with my original strips. I remember some of the titles and characters, such as “Pop and Pope,” and “Manna, the Nice Hermit,” but these early collections are long gone, and I can’t for the life of me bring to mind the title of the most extensive series, which consisted of humorous, everyday stories about a smart young woman named Miss Little who lived with her quirky grandfather (or was it an uncle?). These serials comprised my “wholesome” creations. At the same time, I applied myself industriously to numerous one-page “wanted posters,” refining my facial cartoon style with a cast of murderers, thieves, arsonists, and blackmailers, as well as pictorial set pieces that I called “scrips,” in which I worked out my shorthand visual body language with depictions of battles, action scenes, and bloody assaults on dinosaurs and other monstrous beasts. These two sets of drawings managed to survive, but it’s the comic strips that I wish I still had as part of my childhood archives, because I viewed these as actual preparations for what I wanted to be when I grew up…
Posted in Creativity, Family | Comments Closed
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
Back at our Indy outpost to visit Bruce again. He’s having a few struggles with breathing difficulties and a low red blood cell count. After a transfusion he felt better. He’s being treated for a fever, which may indicate that the failed kidney has to be removed. This isn’t always the case, but we just don’t know yet. The lung problems are a greater concern, as far as I’m concerned…
Posted in Family | Comments Closed
Saturday, April 2nd, 2005
Although my mom provided a truly rich atmosphere for mental play and my dad revealed for me his familiar world of nature, I look back at times with wonder and some amusement that I ever arrived at any sort of creative legitimacy, given the odd character of my early visual stimuli. I always had chalk and my own blackboard, and was given free reign to inhabit the world of my own imagination, sharing it with a captive sibling audience. I suppose we were rather sheltered. It was no surprise they thought I was a real artist. I recall almost no access to books with “serious” artwork. A bound collection of Currier and Ives reproductions was about as close as it got. I don’t remember any childhood visits to art museums or even going to a library before attending school. There was really nothing about art to learn on television, except for the exposure to Walt Disney, or a glimpse of illustrations in the books read by Captain Kangaroo, or, eventually, Jon Gnagy’s “Learn to Draw.” At least I understood that Yogi Bear and the Flintstones wasn’t about art. We didn’t get a daily newspaper. And so it was a monumental event in my life when Uncle Art delivered a stack of Saturday Evening Post magazines and a year’s worth of old Sunday comics. I must not have had a bit of interest in anything else until it was fully absorbed. For a time, that was the pinnacle: Walt Kelly, Al Capp, Milton Caniff, and, of course, those magnificent Rockwell covers…
Posted in Art, Creativity, Dadbo, Family, Home, Mombo, Personalities, Television | Comments Closed
Friday, April 1st, 2005
— Month of March workout totals: Swim-7; Bike-3; Run-3; Lift-7.
— Time to boost my running and cycling mileage. Plenty of mild weather ahead; no more excuses for the recent pitiful stats.
— Today at my Rotary luncheon I sat next to a retired English professor who’d served on a nearby ship during the battle for Iwo Jima. It caused me to think of Josh, with the profound hope that in 60 years, he, too, might be enjoying a pleasant meal with his friends.
— We’ll be heading back to Indiana tomorrow to visit Bruce. His ongoing exhaustion remains a concern to us. We can’t overlook the steady improvement, though, even if the pace has been tortuous.
— Stalin supposedly scoffed, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” More than adequate, as we’ve come to see, with the collapse of Soviet Communism in the 1980s, due in part to the bold stand for human freedom taken by this Polish priest turned world leader.
Posted in Exercise, Family, Friends, History, Personalities, Time | Comments Closed
Tuesday, March 29th, 2005
I was just thinking back to a Labor Day weekend, seven and a half years ago. I’d just completed an annual event called the “Pound & Pedal” (which has a bit of a reputation in Central Kentucky), and was faced with a trivial choice: should I stick around to enjoy the post-race festivities or go home with my wife Dana?
Permit me to back up a little. In the P&P, two partners compete with other teams by alternating running and cycling— four five-mile legs for a race total of 20 miles. It’s fun if you get in shape for it. The guy who starts out on the bike drops it at the five-mile mark for his teammate, who picks it up and cranks it to the half-way point before his running cohort arrives. It works out best to have the stronger athlete start out on foot (similar to one of those mathematical story problems on an IQ test). With the exertion behind us for the day, my chum Roger had the blender fired up for the cactus juice, and the hot tub was being uncovered.
It was just about that time when we got the phone call. Bruce was going immediately into surgery. A matching kidney had become available. He’d made the nontrivial choice of accepting the sudden donation.
We dropped what we were doing and headed toward Lexington, with the full realization that another decision even more intense had been made at the same time. We found out later that the parents of a 13-year-old child (who’d reached the end of a life that was undeniably too short) had just given the difficult go-ahead to the ever-waiting organ harvesters…
Posted in Dana, Exercise, Family, Friends, Time | Comments Closed
Tuesday, March 29th, 2005
Bruce was able to get on his feet with some help from the nurses today. He also spoke a few words to his mother on the phone. As he improves, many issues are presenting themselves, such as when will the system determine that he should be released, where will he go, and how will he receive the care that he’s not yet ready to provide himself? These are not simple matters, as they might be for someone who has full insurance coverage. Regular dialysis must now be factored in, including the ongoing logistics. A new set of stressful challenges are at hand, but they’re mild when compared to those of last week.
Posted in Angst, Family | Comments Closed
Monday, March 28th, 2005
It would be nice if Bruce were making huge strides in his recovery, but we must take comfort in small increments instead. At least things are moving in the right direction. Only a week ago they weren’t. It seems like a month. Yesterday afternoon he was released from Progressive Care and was moved to a regular room in the Renal Unit. He’s still a very sick man, and drifts in and out of mild delirium. It could take many days before his system is clear of all the residual psychotropics, since his kidney can’t throw it off in a normal manner. He received dialysis again today and that should help.
Posted in Family, Time | Comments Closed
Sunday, March 27th, 2005
Our Indy visit continues. Bruce has made much progress since Friday evening when we arrived, although most of his improvement is in the vital signs and test numbers. He sleeps a great deal, so there’s a minimum of lucid interaction.
Posted in Family | Comments Closed
Friday, March 25th, 2005
— I woke up this morning with a distinct phrase in my mind: magnesium fusion triggers. Look, I don’t drive the thing. I’m just ridin’ shotgun…
— Marty called last night and we talked about a subject that’s totally captured his excitement, the new Sony PS Portable. Hey, you’re allowed to get excited about something like this when you’re thirteen. For me, at that age, it was probably Art Linkletter’s “The Game of Life,” or something like that. However, I can’t help but think of this quote from Ben Stein: “I tremble for the day that the next generation has to provide for themselves with what they have learned from their video games.” Relax, Ben. They’ve probably learned more than I ever learned from watching too many hours of “The Avengers,” “The Prisoner,” “Hawaii Five-0” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
— From what I can discern through the Associated Press, Josh and his 623rd Field Artillery unit was with the convoy that came under attack on Sunday morning, but it stayed with the trucks during the battle and sustained no casualties (from a Bruce Schreiner byline story).
— The new brochure we created for the Brass Band Festival is a major hit, according to our friend who’s retiring as director of the Visitor’s Bureau. I told her I hoped our work makes a good impression with her successor. She said she thought it would and will put in a good word for us. Sounds promising, but the new person brings strong connections to her former employer, a previous client of ours turned competitor. All I can do is stay positive and make my case at the appropriate time. I’d insert a link to the Festival, but the site is just too ugly. Wait a second! This is a job for Website Makeover™ Man!
— Dana and I are heading back up to Indy today to check on Bruce. Normally I have my Rotary Club meeting, but we’re dismissed for Good Friday, so we’ll deal with any urgent matters in the studio and then hit the road before it gets too late.
— I decided to google for “magnesium fusion triggers” and found myself reading an overview at GlobalSecurity.org about special weapons facilities on the Indian subcontinent. OK, so what am I supposed to be more scared of, the metastasis of the World Wide Web, unchecked nuclear proliferation in South Asia, or my own dadburn subconscious?
Posted in Business, Community, Current Events, Dana, Family, Friends, Marty, Personalities, Playtime, Studio, Television, Time | Comments Closed
Thursday, March 24th, 2005
— Now that the corner has been turned, and Bruce’s life has been preserved, he faces a difficult future, short- and long-term. A tough row to hoe, as they say. Today it appears as though the doc has given up on salvaging his transplanted kidney—too little function, too much chronic deterioration. This means more dialysis, a process which Bruce grew to loath, and will surely dread to accept back into his life on any regular basis. It may be several more hours before his awareness clears enough for him to evaluate his choices (or lack thereof). He’s being moved from intensive care to progressive care, and taken off anti-rejection drugs, narcotics, steroids, and sedatives, plus he’ll be down to a single tube—oxygen. One of the reasons they doped him is because he became combative and ripped out the nasal/gastric tube at least twice (as I might have, too, had I been in his situation). Or maybe I have that backwards (side effects of medication causing aggressive behavior and colorful use of language). In any case, the outlook is encouraging, but I’ll keep up my prayers. It’s likely that there will be more bumps in the road…
— If I came up with an idea for a new method of capital punishment—slow death by starvation—would it be declared cruel and unusual? If authorities came into your home and discovered all the pets were dead, would they say, “…within his rights—slow death by starvation.”? Sorry, just thinking rhetorically here. (Did I do the punctuation correctly on that?) “…I can’t imagine why, the world has time enough to cry.”
— As an avid watcher of Brian Lamb’s “Booknotes,” I was disappointed when he wrapped the 800-show series on C-SPAN. Listening to writers talk about writing makes me want to write. Listening to politicians talk about politics doesn’t make me want to run for office. Listening to artists talk about art definitely makes me want to make art. Now the only other good interview show with the classic all-black set is Charlie Rose. I think Rose is at his best when he’s talking to artists. Not that he doesn’t demonstrate the same level of skill when interviewing journalists and politicians, but I guess he tends to insert more opinions that sometimes irritate me. His recent conversation with Daniel Day-Lewis and his astonishingly brilliant and beautiful wife, Rebecca Miller (daughter of the late Arthur Miller), was just about as good as television ever gets. How in the world does he get these creative people to relax and describe the inexpressible aspects of their talent and craft? His style is totally different than Lamb’s, but they both make it look so easy. Not the performance (if that’s what you can call it), but the technique of coaxing the guest to say things that are genuinely interesting. I made the mistake of watching a perfunctory interview with Clint Eastwood, leading up to the Oscars, and the interviewer managed to avoid steering him to a single topic that was remotely enlightening… quite a feat, actually.
Posted in Art, Creativity, Current Events, Death, Family, Movies, Personalities, Pets, Political Affairs, Prayer, Television | Comments Closed
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005
Bruce has experienced the medical turnaround that he needed. Somebody’s been praying out there, and you know who you are! His wife, mother, and sister have been at his side, with so many others close to him in spirit. Today’s news is so much better than it’s been since Monday. Although I’m sure it was nothing compared to Dana’s ordeal, yesterday was a rather exhausting day for me emotionally, and not made any better by someone who called to ask about Bruce, and then, when the subject turned to my nephew Josh’s situation, launched into a scathing denunciation of the President of the United States and his Iraq policy. Even if I’d had the inclination or energy to disagree (which I certainly did not), what could I possibly have said to affect an opinion impervious to what others have already stated so ably in support of winning the war… others more influential than me, such as John McCain or Joe Lieberman; or more intellectually gifted than me, such as Jonah Goldberg or Christopher Hitchens; or more deeply thoughtful than me, such as Tom Friedman or Ben Stein? And for cryin’ out loud, it just wasn’t a decent time to kick-start that old debate.
Posted in Angst, Current Events, Dana, Family, Personalities, Political Affairs, Prayer, Presidency | Comments Closed
Monday, March 21st, 2005
Fully absorbed most of the day in the Salvation Army Advisory Board retreat— new member orientation, committee meetings, and strategic planning. When I got home I found out that Bruce has an inflamed pancreas and continues to be critically ill. Dana and daughter Terie (Marty’s mom) will head back to Indy in the morning. Somehow I’ll force myself to concentrate on client commitments and hold the fort in the studio while keeping our son in my thoughts and prayers.
Meanwhile, news arrives that nephew Josh has lost a brother in arms on an escort mission…
Posted in Community, Dana, Family, Marty, Priorities, Studio | Comments Closed
