Friday, May 29, 2015

When Is Caeli Coming Home?

When is Caeli coming home?
That seems to be the most popular question heard throughout the neighborhood, within our families as well as the church, and even ones my wife and I have inquired throughout our journey in the NICU. To answer it, we don’t know. Saturday will be the original due date yet she isn’t quite ready for that first twenty-minute ride home into Saline County. There are countless classes and other things the trio has to do before graduating from the NICU, so don’t start sizing the little CA up for a cap-and-gown just yet. Also, she will need good supportive care from the team:  mommy and daddy (obviously), the pediatrician, ophthalmologist, occupational therapists, her primary nurse, social workers, chaplains, and so forth. While we pray daily and nightly for a full recovery prior to discharge, I am aware that she may have some special needs such as supplemental oxygen.
Graduation Day from the NICU
Before coming home, a preemie must meet several basic requirements to ensure good health and fewer medical problems. Some nurseries require a minimum weight – thankfully neither UAMS nor Arkansas Children’s Hospital rely solely upon that – but most NICU staff will evaluate on different criteria:
  1. Can the baby maintain body temperature in an open crib for at least 24-48 hours, depending on how premature the baby was at birth?
  2. Can the baby take all feedings by bottle or breast without supplemental tube feedings?
  3. Can the baby gain weight steadily?
Most preemies meet all three criteria two to four weeks before reaching their original due date. However, those infants who have had surgery, were born with malformations, or spent weeks on breathing machines and oxygen are the most likely candidates to stay beyond that date.
Bringing Caeli home is a process, not a single event. It is intended to assure the medical staff that she can survive and thrive outside the hospital, and prepares us to care for her on our own. I know ACH offers a rooming-in period that allows us a few days to take care of her on our own, so that’s quite helpful. This is also reassuring in the fact that help is just down the hall.

We have a slew of other things-to-do on our docket, not limited to:  
  1. Checking medical records and insurance coverage;
  2. Choosing a pediatrician and making medical appointments;
  3. Learning infant CPR and receiving specialized training, such as apnea monitors and administering oxygen if she comes home with it;
  4. Outfitting the Malibu and Escape with car seats; and
  5. Attending discharge debriefing. ACH holds those twice a week for four hours at a time, so it is a matter of choosing which session to attend.
When we get home with Caeli, the expectation is to live quietly with few visitors for several weeks if not months. After this journey, the last place any of us want to be is back in the NICU – and we’re not going to risk that. Regardless of how long I’ve known you or your familial status, my baby’s health is paramount. Anything that endangers Caeli (ex. cigarette smoke, perfume, dirty hands, etc.) means you’re not welcome until that is rectified. To be even pickier, I strongly recommend taking a shower before holding my little girl!
I know everyone wants to meet our daughter and spoil her rotten.
I want to keep coddling my angel.
Daddy and baby stepping up our selfie game
For her health, expect us to fall off the social map for some time. You may not see us in Wal-Mart, at Mount Zion, or social functions for some weeks or months, but it doesn’t mean we do not love or appreciate you. Forgive us in advance for being aloof or ignoring you in the coming days; if you cannot accept that, then may God bless you. It’s the point where we must dissolve a friendship and move our separate ways.
Of course, we’d be doing a huge disservice to Caeli if we are unable to take care of ourselves as parents. As a reminder, just because our little superhero showed up early according to our time does not mean she was not on time. As we sit at home (one week for me, probably more for Chastity) quarantined, you can still drop a line. This is only a season. We’ll be back in due time.
Other reference points or needs have been specified in earlier posts from the Dad Chronicles (there are fifteen not including this one), so feel free to move as God directs you. Examples are not limited to picking up diapers or baby wipes, bringing over food, washing the cars or laundry, etc. I know one of you mentioned a GoFundMe page a few months ago to me, so that can also be of help. At the present moment, lending a nonjudgmental ear is perhaps the greatest thing possible in addition to your uplifting prayers for my family. Affirmation is a beautiful thing.
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. – Philippians 4:13
Turn down for what?!!
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Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Isolation

Isolation.

Tell me, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you see or hear the word isolation? Maybe...being removed from the group to eliminate contact, like in our talkative elementary school years? What about that sinking feeling when it seems like the whole world is bullying you mercilessly? (Most of the people who did that to me in junior high still deny it to this day, and that's OK. May God bless you.) Perhaps, even after watching 28 Days and seeing the people quarantined in isolation or devoured by zombies? Anyway, you get the point.

Isolation in the NICU means putting a baby in a private room to minimize the spread of virus or infection to other babies. This is done for the baby's health. Once laboratory test results come back, then she is reintroduced to the pods she had been living in.

Upon seeing the word isolation taped around Caeli, I was shell-shocked. How can my baby pick up something so serious that she had to be moved to a different room that requires the nurses, doctors, and specialists to don procedure masks and yellow gowns? She's three months old. Are they preparing themselves for a colossal meltdown of Nuclear One in Russellville and not telling us? Is this virus something more critical than they are telling us? This is getting scary now.

Around 10:30 Sunday morning, we found out that Caeli could return to her pod and all of her tests came back negative. A cold, they say. I'll take it. More importantly, thank God that she doesn't have a further compromised respiratory system!


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Thursday, May 7, 2015

Code Words: Why and How Did Thug Equal N-word?

thug - a brutal ruffian or assassin
How did this little four-letter word come to define an entire race of people negatively? I'm certain that whey you compare its current use to the word nigger, the meaning are not alike in any way, shape, form, or fashion, as the latter means a lazy, shiftless person NOT a default term for one with black skin. While a few bad seeds exist in every group, why does conservative media - and some of its liberal counterparts - resort to the use of code words to mask their true feelings?
What do we call the rioting sports fans after their teams win professional titles - or in the case of college athletes - after a blue blood program such as Kentucky basketball loses in the Final Four? I'm waiting. When Penn State fired the late Joe Paterno for not reporting former assistant coach and known pedophile Jerry Sandusky, was the student body unfairly labeled after tearing shit up? Crickets. Those are college kids.
Well, had this happened fifteen years ago at Henderson, I guarantee I would have a criminal record a quarter-mile long and an exorbitant bail to match not to mention an education wasted. Let's be real, who in this state is going to hire a felon for anything beyond fast food and backbreaking labor, let alone a black man?

Shaming black men has happened long before today and while we hope the exposed serve as examples of what not to do, history has proven to the contrary. Genetic attribution - the practice of classifying an entire group based on the actions of one individual, typically African-American - has mutated to naming prominent black men as thugs (ex. Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, President Obama) as a way to denigrate forward thinking. To be truthful, any black person including myself who chooses to stand up for ourselves and not live out specific caricatures are fully aware of this "thug-shaming". Case in point:  the day I posted a picture of my Obama 2012 bumper sticker to Facebook, white conservatives and brainwashed black people came out of the woodwork with particularly strong vitriol. Well, I thought he was the best candidate for the job. I didn't expect the bigotry to be included - and so crass.
Moreover, when brothers were dressed to the nines, we were still called niggers. Dress has nothing to do with your hearts. The "pants up, don't loot" crowd easily lost that argument.
Why does the word thug equal to the word nigger? Easy. Some white people - and older blacks - tend to view all of us as criminals. Even if we're all doing the same dirt in large groups, the black guy gets the brunt of the treatment even if he is completely innocent of the charged action. As an unintended consequence, I have had to prove my objectives were not nefarious to make safe passage, in effect a travel pass to come quickly and leave sooner during daylight hours.

Well, why are older black people quick to shun the youth as thugs? For some people, it is a hypocritical label despite the fact they did the same things in their younger years and are now unwilling to share the lessons from their mistakes that they are not repeated. Others have had a lifelong hatred of their own melanin (as easy as it is to poke fun at Clarence Thomas and black Fox News correspondents/analysts, I won't do it); everyone has a varying existence. Those minds are nearly impossible to change, as they are the ones who always seek approval from the ruling class and are openly willing to play Sambo or Auntie for their proverbial extra slice of cornbread. Like white-on-black racism, black-on-black self-hatred is passed down from one generation to the next. They do see themselves as better than the collective group, fully believing in the bootstraps narrative; however, they are often the most delusional people forgetting that a community helped them become successful. That lifetime of being "yes" men and women only to be spoken of as "one of the good ones" upon death means squat.
I have never known a lazy thug if the dictionary is to be taken at its word and meaning. Consequently, I have seen niggers of all colors because of their lazy acceptance to the media's slant on modern language. Some people are dying to use that term to intimidate and belittle black folks, but we're stronger than that. The real thugs work in Congress and certain sectors of mass media or serve as Daddy Warbucks-types to perpetuate a broken ideology of the greater world.
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Beyond the Smiles

When couples get pregnant, no one expects their bundle(s) of joy to be prematurely born with complications. Most of the time, babies are carried to full term, birthed, and headed home after a day or two.

 We didn't get that memo.

 Those of you who have read The Dad Chronicles know Caeli was born February 13 weighing one pound and eight ounces and have been updated with her progress as we feel like sharing it with you. Some things do belong in the memories section of our family's existence, and may of the pictures will stay there. Her birth has certainly not been a fairy tale, yet we thank God for every day she is with us. So far that's Day 84 and counting; for those not thinking that far, Caeli is twelve weeks old (because of the February birth, she actually hits three months on Wednesday the 13th). She has had some exceptionally terrific days, and there were even a few I thought we would lose her. The tears shed and mounting frustrations from our days in the NICU have noting on the milestones Caeli has accomplished - from the weight gain to needing less oxygen assistance to be being able to maintain a consistent body temperature to even wearing clothes, learning how to suck, and rocking out the nasal cannula!


 I love the Lord, for He heard my cry!

 Somehow, I feel like Job. Am I super upright like he was, even in his trials and tribulations? Naw. Not even close. For all of the prayers and solitude, the uncertain worries and frustrations do mount. Why aren't you working with Caeli's legs? How are her eyes? May I hold her? To top off the issues, there have been weeks which I have lived like a zombie and couldn't tell my head from my posterior. For example, I didn't get to cut the umbilical cord and Chastity was unconscious during her emergency C-section labor; this was no ordinary pregnancy. I still feel slightly robbed for missing that part, but that was a part of God's plan. Do I understand it? Nope. My friends who have served our country during wartime understand PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and some of its symptoms:  flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Before the term hit our lexicon, it was known as being shell-shocked. I've endured some of the signs. Ask my wife if you disagree - I've been angry, lost desire for the things I used to enjoy such as basketball, reading, writing, and sunlight; had trouble sleeping or concentrating; and more irritable than I was when I worked two full-time jobs and had not rested. A few of you (namely my in-laws) might be shocked to know that I briefly lost interest in eating! Unfortunately for me, it has not exactly translated to significant weight loss as I still weigh 260 pounds.

 The days I feel like losing it are the ones God picks me up and carries me. Have you ever read Footprints?

 It's hard to write during the storm when I've been knocked over by the winds, pelted by the hailstorms, and the box of pens seemingly runs dry. Not knowing when or what the next curveball thrown at me will do to my psyche is tough. While people see me standing tall and trying to be Chastity's rock, I'm scared. I do not want anything to happen to my ladies and there are days I wonder if I can sufficiently provide enough for them. As good as Rineco has been to me over the past three years, my life circumstances demand a departure from the nightlife to a more family-friendly role that does a better job of paying the bills. Therefore, I've added finding a new job to the list of things that worry me.

 Beyond the smiles and stoic demeanor, I hurt like a man kicked in the family jewels. Keep us in your prayers.
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Wednesday, May 6, 2015

There's No Place Like Home

Nine years ago, I packed up my life into the Santa Fe and moved cross-country to a kitschy environmental organization which shall remain nameless. Whatever did not make the trip East remained in the family storage unit – couch, end tables, bed, etc. until I returned home from fulfilling my one-year contract. While it is largely true that I have lived (mostly) away from home since age eighteen, I still felt homesick.
Whenever I got homesick, guess where I wanted to go?
Wal-Mart.
For a native Arkansan who worked for the retail giant through college, Wal-Mart was the place I could walk around and feel like I was back home. Most of the stores in the Northeast, including the Torrington location I used to frequent, are still Discount City models. Supercenters were far and few in between, and I wasn’t exactly getting catfish for a good price.
This may resonate with some of us who have been pilgrims in a dangerous land, not knowing a solitary soul for hundreds of miles as we try to rediscover tinges of our familiar lives with us.
Jesus illustrates this principle when He uses the parable about the one sheep missing from the flock of one hundred and its subsequent rescue in Matthew 18:11-13 below:
11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost
12 How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.
As people, we tend to not concern ourselves with the one sheep when the other ninety-nine are right here with us, obediently moving from place to place. The shepherd points out that when the one sheep was missing, he searched high and low, through thick and thin, brambles, bushes, and broken branches all in the name of finding it. Because he was equally accountable for the one as well as the ninety-nine, the shepherd kept looking for it. Eventually, he and the sheep were reunited and he was overjoyed not because of the ninety-nine that stayed loyal but instead of the one finding its way home to complete the flock.
Today, I rest in the solace of knowing home is wherever God is. I do not have to click my heels three times like Dorothy to be instantly transported to Springhill Manor (I don’t own any red shoes that would get me there), nor do I have to make the 45-minute drive to Friendship in order to find a place which I belong. Home is Heaven; all of our earthly destinations are temporal until the day we return to see God in His divine glory.

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