Lucas and His Stay At Primary’s Children Hospital (PCH)
A recent weekend alerted me to the world and its antics. I can only control what I can and try to as cheerfully as possible find things to where I can take action to hopefully improve a given scenario. With little Lucas, neither Liz Livingston or I wanted to be in that position. We had to trust in a village of friends that is often invisible and gratefully was smashingly present in our crisis. The kiddos are all exuberantly grateful that mom and Dad and Lucas are back. We’re just holding on and playing catch-up in many ways.
Faith to me is much more than thinking or hoping or believing that things will just be OK. It’s actually when things are not alright, not going my way, or even -perceivably worse; nothing is going my way and trials are overbearing and overwhelming. I often wonder, especially in things I choose – and especially in the past when I did not choose wisely and I did make a mistake, if I had chosen differently would I have gleaned precious gems of wisdom? Nope. My experience and current position may ultimately be near the same but the journeys, roads taken, lessons learned would be much different than my current position today.
Our little guy Lucas wasn’t doing well. We went to Randolph Utah to get a brand new 11/12 week old full-bred Border Collie. We had a few family adventures to The aquarium and to the Zoo and Lucas did well. On the trip to Randolph, Lucas wasn’t doing so hot. So began the adventure of Lucas being feverish about 102 degrees Fahrenheit and often 104 and above for 10 days straight.
On day 4 and 5 we took him to the pediatrician, the visit was telling because our pediatrician alerted us to something called Kawasaki’s disease. We determined to run an blood panel for Lucas, and the results from his lab work paired with the unexplained fevers, our pediatrician recommended we got to PCH and admit Lucas for testing and healing. Long story short, the dr’s and nurses at PCH are AMAZING. The level of service far exceeded our expectations and they actually listened to us, our facts and observations and used that info to isolate and work today a proper path to help Lucas get his health restored. We arrived late Saturday evening and we exited and were discharged late afternoon Tuesday. We had many lessons learned were taken care of by good friends who helped take care of our girls in our absence and check in on Dennis. We left relieved that we did not have anything as serious as Kawasaki’s or Mis-C to contend with and a nasty UTI was the culprit. It took the better part of 48 hours for Lucas’ little body to get into a stronger position to fight this infection with antibiotics (Keflex) and should return back to normal soon. With time, and with help through good vibes, thoughts, intentions, prayers and more, he’s coming back to his demeanor and quickly, too.
Having a growth mindset and being willing to iterate through critical self-assessment is HARD. It is absolutely RAW and is worth it. I find it interesting as I observe others go through their journeys how similarly dissimilar the overall activities and actions or inactions are. How empowering and disabling each may be.
For me, it has strengthened who I am, helps me manage a very egotistical and self-centric tendency and it also inspires me to be more selfless and action-oriented. I’m no where near perfect, but I am nowhere near finished. I really like the Avicii song named TROUBLE.
The lyrics have an interesting capture of all the thoughts that often go through my brain as I reflect on life – whether it is in planning 30-60-90, or looking back to review hindsight and glimpse how far I have come when I choose to have a ‘rearview mirror’ moment.
I am grateful for my personal affinity to long course endurance sports – namely triathlon. I live it. It’s hard. It’s unique. It’s compelling and humbling and I learn a lot. Adaptation, growth, grace, stillness, resiliency, kindness, awareness, tolerance. Most importantly I am grateful to be the human being I am becoming and the stillness I am achieving within me and my immediate nuclear family. This benefits me in the following domains: personal development, family, life balance, and career.
What’s interesting is how quickly things can shift and put the above to the test. It is true that triathlon training and events allows me the space to work on myself. To work through and be confronted by “critical self assessments” so that this is not an unknown space. Meaning, I am familiar with the processes and the discomfort especially in uncharted spaces. An old Utah State friend of mine mentioned the unknown after this comment from me in FB:
“I truly am in a space of I am more concerned than I desire to be, I don’t know what to do more than what I perceive/feel or see as the next right thing. There isn’t much that scares me, and this is an unanticipated and uncontrollable unknown. I’m not afraid, but as I lean in I also know growth is happening .”
Self – Faceboook post
Also, I’m grateful, to those who have reached out on socials or otherwise. The worst part was the waiting, we are not in the clear, and our other kiddos were in good hands and we hope to know more about next steps. It is humbling to be reminded if the great people we have been privileged to be surrounded by (neighbors, friends, and others). It is far to easy to see the worst in things and become an unactionable cynic (aka a complainer and not part of the solution type) – I am often in wonder to see those who choose to take action especially intentional action for and in behalf of another human who has need.
A few days after the experiences from above and now Mr. Lucas is doing quite well. He has finally broken through the fevers and is returning to his previous to this episodes demeanors. The other kiddos have been exploding in Mom and Dad are home modes.
There has been no triathlon training during this disruption. However, it is time to get back to things. One of the primary lessons learned in all of this, is being able to control what I can control. Learning to prioritize which inputs I will interact with, and which ones I acknowledge and determine t=not to have a conversation or interaction with now, and the ones I disregard and forget about altogether. I’m definitely not perfect at it, but I feel I do well some days, then other days I know as Liz observes and she is like, welp – he didn’t handle that one well now did he? Amid all this chaos and confusion, Liz and I did get some together time. Definitely not the together time we were seeking, and the stress of the kiddos being away was different. We did get some rest in PCH and the realizations of how many blessing we have to count were also overwhelming.
We are doing what we feel is best and hope that one day in the future the kiddos – our circus – will appreciate our efforts. One day at a time, one equation at a time, one crisis and one chaotic disruption at a time.
