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Cole Balboa

24 Jan

News, news, and more news.

Of course, after posting my phenomena of not having a headache with the last rain, I awoke with symptoms of a headache on Friday morning…the morning of Cole’s surgery day.  And lo, it turned into a full blown migraine…while Cole was under the knife.  I will write a second posting, after this one, titled, “Betty Cranker the marriage killer”, you’re sure to enjoy it, or unsubscribe to my blog–one or the other.  Turns out it did rain the next day, Saturday…my internal barometer is back at work.  Bummer!

The name of the surgery is so long I can hardly remember any names from it.  I will pause and see if I can find it online, hold please…ok forget it, too many plastic surgeons in our area…I can’t find the name of the surgery.  Well anyway, when I was called back to see my son, I turned the corner of the room and came upon his post-op bed only to find a prize fighter, with two very swollen eyes, red and black and blue, with tears of blood slowly creeping their way down his cheek.  Cole Bent turned Cole Balboa!  Apparently all went well and what I was witnessing was normal.

Now funny thing is, Cole has a tattoo on his forearm of a rendition of Jesus crying tears of blood, so all I could say, upon seeing the red tears under his eyes was, “hey Cole–you look like Jesus.”  And of course he had to come back with some dry “Cole style” comment even while still being under the influence of the sedative.  Funny kid!

Well all has been going well over the weekend.  We have been putting in his antibiotic cream, applying cool compresses, and not messing with the area near the eyes, even though I desperately wanted to clean the dry blood in and around the eyes.  But tonight…tonight…tonight…

AAAAAAaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh, tonight.  Tonight I was in the kitchen making dinner when all of a sudden Cole appears and says, “Um mom, my eye is bleeding.”  I turned from the stove to see my son standing at the counter with a red stream of blood pouring from his eye, like a perfect red line was drawn down his cheek onto his chest and down to the floor.  At that moment our household moved to “DEFCON 1”.  Esther took over at the stove, I attended to Cole, his eye, and getting the UCI doctor on the phone, Brian attended to cleaning the blood off the carpet and floor all the while doing his best to gather the supplies I was calling out for him to get (why is it when there is an emergency involving blood, not a clean rag, tissue or cloth is anywhere to be found? …baffling I tell you!).  The good news brought forth from the telephone is that at about day 3, it is “normal” to have a blood vessel “erupt” because during surgery they had to cut a few of them and subsequently seal them via cauterization.  So the good doctor said that all was well as long as the bleeding stopped within five minutes…which it did.  Whew, back to DEFCON 4…we haven’t hit 5 since Cole’s surgery.  And in all honesty, I don’t know if we will ever go back to that place of rest.  Though one can hope, and hope I am full of!

Now I just paused writing for about 40 minutes because Cole needed me to help get him settled for the night.  And lo and behold, just to set our evening down with a cherry on top, the other eye sprung a leak.  It too settled itself before the 5 minute marker…yuck!  Now how is that for a bedtime story?  Speaking of stories, after things had settled down some Esther, my lovely teenaged daughter, announced, “I don’t ever have to see a horror movie…I live it here!”  And you know something? She is right.  AND, she is currently cuddled next to me and in between her dad and I.

I will close at this good point.

Cole's after surgery look

 

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Remembering When

18 Jan

Ok, so I’m not exactly living the life I dreamed about.  I mean, I thought I would be in the healthcare field, but I admit my expectations were more in the arena of making money…not doling it out.  I also had the delusion that family money would follow my life.  You know what family money is, it is the kind of peaceful assurance that is provided to the select few in this world enabling them to go off on wild tangents of exploration, or devote their life to philanthropic causes.  Family money even allows for its recipients to casually attempt a blue collar life, because all the while it hangs in the background assuring the foreground of security.  Alas, my family money connection dropped off the planet, in all actuality, the day I was born.

So I am not living out the exact fantasy of my youth (did I mention I still try to live it out even still?), but I am in full enjoyment of the life I live.  Eventhough…

Cole is scheduled to have an outpatient eye surgery this Friday.  He has been suffering severe pain in his eyes and it is all due to two MAJOR factors:

  1. He cannot blink nor completely close his eyes.
  2. He does not create tears.

And though he employs gadgets to help the closing of the eyes as well as utilizes artificial tears CONSTANTLY, it is not enough to completely protect the eye.  So Friday, with the help of a specialized physician, his lower lids will be lifted to not only make my son look more like the Asian I know him to be (I mark every ethnicity box for scholarship purposes–now they won’t have cause to question!), more of the surface area of the eye will be covered.  It is a temporary measure for we still cling to the hope that he will regain his cranial nerve function that causes him the trouble.

Now off I must go…tea with the queen mother, you know.  My stylist awaits and my butler is here to inform me my car is ready.  AAAAhhhhh, life is but a dream!

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Keeping it Real

5 Jan

I have been holding off writing a new entry for the last few days because I am, or was, in process of keeping myself in check.  Not to mention that yesterday I had a migraine and cannot write or pay bills on a migraine day…more to come on that subject in a different post.

Keeping myself in check simply means making sure my intentions are consistent with my heart’s desire.  I might have written on this subject before, or at least alluded to it.  The reason it came up for me again this week is because I took time to read over some of my carepages entries (for those of you new to this world of mine, the carepages entries are from the website where I first began blogging.  See my about page–https://bentrivka.com/about).  When reading the entries, I found myself blown away by a few of the writings…shoot, I’m not even sure how I came up with some of the vocabulary or information I provided in those postings!  Well I do know…I do not write alone.

…Most of you know, I would like to write a book.  In fact, I have several ideas for different writing compilations.  One is fiction, one is travel/food, one is surviving trials, there is a ‘how to’ book, and one is pure satire.  Yet through my perusal of carepages, I realized I want to “keep it real”, or in other words, I want to only write as the good Lord is guiding my pen (so to speak, for literally He will be guiding my keyboard).

Thus taking a few days to make sure my arrogance is locked back in its cage, and my humble reliance upon the gifting of the Holy Spirit back in the lead, is what I chose to do.  My brother asked/accused me of using my reasoning as an excuse to not write…not something I hadn’t thought of either.  Man-o-man, when I am doing some introspecting I leave no corner, nor crevice, un-inspected!  And to answer him and myself, “no…I am not using my introspection as an excuse to not write.”

Now as a mother, wife of Brian (which translates as secretary, art director, style consultant, counselor, friend, companion, lover, and cook–did I mention personal and administrative assistant, accountant and bookkeeper?!), and personal taxi for Cole, sometimes when my time becomes free I am too tired to collect the thoughts I had pondered throughout my day, so in essence, I sell us all short as a result of sheer exhaustion.  …that is an excuse!

So there you have it, keeping it real.  Thanks for listening (reading actually).

https://bentrivka.com/about/

Taking time to ponder

 

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