Getting Into The Christmas Spirit

I have been thinking that due to my normal blah-ness of the holidays and the recent family news I will really need to kickstart myself into the Christmas spirit. I was thinking about all of the holiday shows that I can watch and realize that there are so many to choose from.

There, of course, is the obligatory How The Grinch Stole Christmas. I am definitely talking about the original one, not the Jim Carey debacle. Man do I love this one.

There is also the one that always brings joy to my heart. I am talking about A Charlie Brown Christmas. The part where Linus quotes from the bible is very moving.

I think that one of my all-time favorites is Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas. I don’t believe that I have seen this one since I was in elementary or junior high school. I do believe that anything related to The Muppet Show can’t be bad, right?

Then of course, the best way to get into the spirit and to laugh your tail off is the world renowned A Christmas Story. Is there any Christmas movie that you want to watch more than this one? Not me, that’s for sure.

I like all of the one’s that came out in the 60s with the stop action animation (or whatever it’s called) and generally get bored out of my skull for any of the modern shows at Christmas. Are there any that you just have to see every year? Let me know, I may have missed a good one.

Stories Of LeBlancs From The Web

I found this story at the Taipei Times website from June of this year that references a fellow who shares my last name. This story is about how Britain has banned the video game Manhunt 2:

But after years of courting controversy — and earning millions in the process — the company finally fell foul of the censor yesterday. Its latest release, Manhunt 2, was banned amid claims it was an “unrelenting focus on brutal slaying.” It is the first video game to be banned in a decade.

It goes on to talk about my far distant relative (God I hope he is not):

The first Manhunt game also caused controversy, after the parents of a schoolboy murdered in Leicester claimed it was responsible for the death of their son. The family of Stefan Pakeerah said his killer, 17-year-old Warren Leblanc, was addicted to playing Manhunt when he stabbed his victim in February 2004.

Wow, a LeBlanc murderer. I am beyond proud. You can read the entire article over here.

Hidden Gem: Meddle

Before there was Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall English progressive rock band Pink Floyd was a little more experimental than straight forward rock and roll. This is the Floyd that I grew to love in college so I broke out my Meddle LP this afternoon since I couldn’t watch Vandy blow their game in Knoxville.

For me, this record was where guitarist David Gilmour polished his skills and finely honed his unique sound. It was also the album that Gilmour’s signature voice permeated the entire record instead of being relegated to the background or singing so low that he was almost unheard.

Main lyricist Roger Waters was coming into his own with thundering bass lines while Nick Mason pounded the skins like no other. Rick Wright, not to be left out, permeated this record with ethereal sounds on the keyboards that bordered on heavenly.

The album begins with the pounding of “One Of These Days” whose melodic cacophony builds with the song’s only lyric: “One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces!“. The records contains worldly influences and down home blues references. The effort culminates with the epic “Echoes” (or side 2 as you may call it at over 23 minutes long), a song of which I can never get enough. It is simply mindblowing.

This record led directly into the now world renowned Dark Side Of The Moon whose distinct sound can be traced directly back to Meddle. Anyone who is a fan of the radio fodder Floyd must give this 1971 album a listen.

Here is a live version of “Echoes” from the Floyd’s 1972 concert film Live At Pompeii:

For those of you who only know Pink Floyd from what your local radio station’s play here is the classic “Money“:

Conversation In The Waiting Room

Many people made there way through the waiting room over the last few days. Some were loud and very talkative and some were quiet. Some were very nice and some very annoying. This is pretty much the same in any place in life I guess.

Yesterday as we sat in the waiting room my mother-in-law was carrying on a conversation with the friend of a woman whose husband was in SICU. The conversation moved towards welfare and such. I wasn’t payiing too much attention as I was delving deeply into my new read of
Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” (I am hooked by the way.).

I heard this woman begin a sentence as follows:

Now, I’m not a racist but…

I have found that a lot of the times when people begin conversations or statements in this fashion that they tend to have a bit of racism running through their veins. This is especially true, I have noticed when they are talking about certain groups of people and in generalities. This particular woman was refering to a group of people she affectionately called “the blacks”. I stopped listening soon afterwards.

Friday At The VA Hospital

For Friday it was decided that we would head to work and drive separately. The School Girl was going to head to the hospital after work and would head home. As I was taking calls I was falling asleep. Boys and girls, sleep is mondo important! I was not handling the lack of sleep like I did in my 20s. I had decided to take a half day of vacation for yesterday especially after hearing that my mother-in-law was getting some run around with the doctors as far as dialysis was concerned and she was all alone. Ivan TT’s kidneys were still not functioning and the poor man was swelling up like a tick.

My boss was nice enough to send me to the hospital after a couple hours of work to be with her without any grief. Thanks a bunch. We kept our minds off of everything with some good conversation and some old movies.

Thankfully after lunch the doctors decided that they couldn’t wait any longer and got Ivan TT on the dialysis machine. His color came back and most of his swelling has gone down. Unfortuantely, he is still on that damn ventilator and hasn’t truly woken up yet. We do not have a timetable at this time as to when he may actually get to go home. I hope to have some good news from the family today.

Thanks for the prayers and good thoughts during these tough times. It only makes it harder that it comes during what should be a happy and festive family time on the holidays.

Roaming The Halls Of The Hospital

I had a few times Thursday that I was left all to myself. They only allow two visitors per patient in the SICU and I obviously allowed my mother-in-law and wife to visit my father-in-law. I got to wandering around with my camera phone and began to snap pictures throughout the day.

The School Girl walked up to me wondering why I was taking a picture of the mirrored globe. I was trying to take a self-portrait.

I found it amusing that the only door with an American flag on it was for the nuclear medicine area.

I was attempting to take a photo through the doors that lead to the outside but they were mirrored, too.

I thought the floor tile was something straight out of a foregone era. Apparently this stuff is all new. Yikes!

I steered clear of this door. I wonder what they store in there?

These little globes were everywhere. This one points us in the direction of my home for the majority of the past week deep into the catacombs of the VA Hospital.

After snapping all of these photos I came across a notice of legal rights of the hospital and the patients. I was bored so I read it. Notice #23 on this list:

In case you can’t read it, basically it says that there is a $50 fine for illegal photography in the hospital. Oops!

Thursday At The VA Hospital

Thursday started off exactly the same as Wednesday did with one minor difference. No sleep. We got ready for work just as we had the morning before and just as the previous morning about halfway to work we went to the hospital. It seemed wrong to let my mother-in-law spend a day at the hospital by herself.

Thursday brought no changes, at least no good changes. Ivan TT was getting swollen. His kidneys were still not functioning properly. The doctors talked about dialysis. The only talked, they never acted. It was hoped that the kidneys would kick start on their own. It didn’t happen Thursday nor has it as of this moment.

The wife and I got her mom out of the hospital to help take her mind off of things. Since she had slept in the waiting room the night before we also brought her to get a hotel room and food from an actual restaurant. Spirits were pretty low. More tears and more hugs.

Late in the day the doctors spoke with my mother-in-law and wife concerning the tumors on his bladder and stomach. After all of the surgery and grief caused by the surgery, two things were determined. The tumor on his bladder has been completely removed and poses no threat and the huge tumor on his stomach with the fingers is benign. That’s right folks it is non-cancerous!

This was great news. It does not mean, as far as cancer goes, that he is out of the woods. He still has two other tumors that have not yet been addressed (on/in the lung and one in a lymph node). It got me thinking; however, and yes this is all hindsight but something made me angry. The man came into the hospital feeling perfectly fine. Honestly he had no symptoms. The cut him open for a non-cancerous tumor and sent his body into a tizzy.

He has been slowly getting weaned off of his sedation medications and had opened his eyes a handful of times on Thursday but he is still not cognizant of his situation. He may still think it is Tuesday. If he doesn’t wake up in time for football and turkey he will be pissed.

Stormy Day At The Hospital

One other interesting thing that happened Wednesday was the weather. It rained like the dickens and according to the news there was more than one tornado that touched down in the Nashville area. There is an area outside of the SICU that is covered and when the rains came the wife and I decided to go watch it.

Here you can see/hear how intense the rain was coming down.

We can’t forget about the scary part of rain…the thunder.

The storm got even more intense when the pinging began. Slowly at first then with a fierce intensity came the hail. (Sorry for the herky-jerky-ness of the video.)

The hail was pretty good size. I am glad that I was under cover and not getting pelted by these things.

Wasting Time Wednesday

Due to the short and widely spaced out times of visitation in the SICU at the VA Hospital we had lots of time to kill. I am pretty sure that we walked 10 billion one thousand ten many miles all over 21st Avenue. Luckily, the batteries in our camera began to poop out so I was relegated to using my camera phone.

We traveled over to the Vanderbilt Medical Center side of the complex for dinner. I must have been tired or cranky or whatever but this sign ticked me off.

This seems pretty cheap to me but what do I know.

Wednesday At The VA Hospital

As you can imagine after hearing the news about her father on Tuesday, my wife was in a pretty somber mood. Wednesday morning came like it always does following a Tuesday and we prepared for work just as if the world hadn’t stopped spinning. Approximately half of the way into work I noticed the glistening of the eyes had returned to my saddened passenger and suggested that we skip out of work this fine day and head over to the hospital. I could tell that she really needed to see him.

We found out that visitation in the SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit) was limited to 4 thirty minute sessions throughout the day. We would be in time for the first at 8:30am. Nothing prepared either of us for what we were to witness. It can be almost debilitating to see one’s father, the person that a lot of us consider the strongest man in the world, in the state that we found Ivan TT on Wednesday.

I fully expected him to be hooked up to a monitor or two and to be a little out of sorts. I was way out of my league. You can only imagine what his little girl felt. He looked old and feeble. He was yellow-ish and waxy. He was sedated and hooked up to a breathing tube. I have to say that the ventilator is one of the most frightening pieces of equipment in the hospital. This generally signifies to me a last-ditch effort at life.

The nurses told us that he was being sedated to further the healing process and although he was hooked up to the ventilator he was fully able to breathe on his own. It was being used to help remove acid from his lungs. None of this was the bad problem. His kidneys were not working properly. The news was only getting worse. His status remained the same throughout the day. It seemed pretty bleak to me.

How Do You Comfort?

A few months ago my father-in-law, Ivan The Terrible, had been diagnosed with cancer. They had found four tumors in his body: in his stomach, on his bladder, in his lung and one in a lymph node. Previously the doctors had removed and biopsied the one on his bladder. They considered this one to be of the utmost concern. Apparently they had not removed it all and last Tuesday he was to go into the hospital and have an outpatient surgery to remove the rest of the bladder tumor.

The School Girl received a phone call from her mother, Oma, informing us that during his surgery the doctors had punctured his bladder. Since they were now having to perform a more invasive surgery than they originally had planned it was decided that they would go hunting after the tumor in his stomach. The stomach tumor is big. So big in fact that they say it has grown finger-like appendages. The tumor has begun to incorporate itself into the inner workings of his digestive system. It is inoperable they tells us. Ivan TT would be staying in the hospital for several days to recover.

Obviously the family took this news pretty hard. Lots of sitting and staring into nothingness was done Tuesday night at our house. This was followed by the obligatory tears.

Having been extremely blessed to have my parents (and just about all of my family) for the first 33 years of my life without major health issues, I am ill prepared to fully understand the depth of the realization that your parent may be dying. How do you comfort someone that has come to this realization? It pained my heart to see my wife struggle with this acceptance. All I could do was hug.

It is amazing the power a hug can create. It is comforting. It is understanding. It is relaxing. It allows someone to transfer pain and sorrow and to release. This was the best I could do as no words seemed to be the correct ones. As you can imagine Tuesday night was filled with grief. The roller coaster had zoomed to the bottom.

There is more to come in this story…