I had a strange dream last night, with at least one detail that was a first for me I believe.

As usual, I remember very little of the dream.  A jotted down a few notes when I logged in (kept below for no real reason), but now, days later, these notes do very little to refresh my memory.  The dream was so vivid as I woke up.  It was a really long dream, and I totally remembered the entire thing as I woke.  But, as it always goes, the details immediately began to fade.  If I didn't write the below notes within hours of the dream, I'm sure that most of it would be forever gone from my conscious memory.  Except for that one big difference.

Enough rambling, here's my dream.

I was walking around town, a town which initially looked like Manchester Maryland, a town where my Uncle Dean and Aunt Doris lived, along with other cousins and Grandma Opal.  I spent a lot of time there in my youth, and can still close my eyes and picture how it looked back in the 70s.  I was walking out of the drugstore on Main Street, (they always wrote a date on their comic books here, a fact that always bothered me growing up).  Walking out of the double doors, I was joined by a homeless woman.  We had a brief conversation, and started to walk in separate directions from the drugstore.  But suddenly, and this is the unique part of the dream, I had an overwhelming urge to share the gospel with her.  I changed my route and followed her across the street.

As we crossed the street, the location suddenly shifted from little Manchester Maryland to a big city ghetto-like neighborhood.  I walked into this abandoned courtyard like area, under an overpass if I recall, and stood next to some large storm drain outcroppings.  There I shared the gospel with her.

Later, we walked down the street, which now morphed into one of my old Vienna neighborhoods.  We were walking down towards the bottom of Abbotsford Drive, which featured a great hill with a creek at the bottom.  (I'll have to tell my sledding story someday.)

Notes

homeless woman - need to share gospel

drugstore like in Manchester

then cross street to NY style ghetto

then down street to Abbottsford like neighborhood

Happy Groundhog Day everyone.  Here are some pics to help celebrate this day, and my 4th (and 5th, and 6th, and 7th) favorite movie of all time.

I'm not sure if the below scan is readable, but here is the story. 

I work in a communications center in a large hospital emergency room.  One of our jobs is to handle any mass casualty situation in the region.  Peg, one of the communications nurses, wrote this note, reminding everyone to read the Disaster Policy so that we would all be ready for the "big one".

She wrote this on September 10th, 2001.

I've mentioned and shown my friend Lauren previously.  Here is a drawing of her and her dogs that she did today.  Do you think she missed her calling?  Or should I call the police?

So back on January 27th, I left a blank placeholder entry, meaning to come back to it within a week or so and write about whatever was on my mind at that time.

Well, it is now July 29th, and I am pretty clueless about January 27th.  I usually put some hasty notes in my placeholders, but it was blank this time.

But I always love an opportunity to talk about the past, particularly my past, so here is a quick blurb about what I know I was spending a lot of time thinking about back on this date.

I was thinking a lot about Michelle.  I first encountered Michelle back in 2005, and my interest in getting to know her is the reason I ended a different relationship back in December 2005 (barely, it was New Year's Eve).  I didn't get to spend much time with her until mid-January, but I had been pursuing her surreptitiously for months.

She'll hate this picture, but will forgive me I think.  She's great that way, and in a lot of other ways.  By now (January 27th), we had had a few conversations, and were approaching our first date.

I'm tempted to tell the whole story of our relationship in this entry, but instead will just let details slip out as they come to mind or seem appropriate to the other entries.

I will spoil the surprise and say that we broke up a few months ago, but have stayed great friends.  In fact, with the exception of my #s 1-4 (welcome aboard Lyle!), Michelle is my best friend.  I'm forever changed because of her and what she's meant to me, and I'll never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of her (Last line stolen/edited from Chasing Amy, one of the ten best movies of all time).

Michelle, thank you for being you.  You've cared for me even when I didn't deserve it, and I hope that what we have continues forever.

I've been getting calls/comments from people about my last entry.  I appreciate the concern, but you may not have noticed that this all happened Christmas 2004.

I'm fine now....... probably. 

I hope to get my annual CT later this month.

 In December of 2004, I started getting headaches.

Before then, headaches were a rarity for me.  I could go months without one, and when I had one, it was almost always very mild and brief.  But these headaches were different.  They weren't particularly severe, but they were constant.  Going into Christmas Eve, it was about 3 weeks of constant pain.  Aspirin or other pain killers would temporarily relieve the pain, but it always returned.  I'd take Tylenol PM to let me sleep, but I would awake to a headache.

Looking back, I should have gone to a doctor sooner, but I tolerated it all month.  I either have a high pain tolerance or have never experienced real physical pain, so I kept ignoring it.  Truthfully, if I didn't work in an emergency room, I would have evaded the issue far longer.

I came into work on Christmas Eve, and the pain was a little worse than normal.  I mentioned my symptoms to a couple of my nurse and doctor friends, and they insisted that I get checked out.  The first thing they wanted to check was my blood pressure.  I had only occasionally checked my blood pressure throughout my life, maybe once a year, and it was always normal.  But that night, my blood pressure was around 180/100, very high.  I was hoping that it was an aberrant reading, but I was next hooked me up for a 12-lead ECG, which confirmed a recent history of high blood pressure. 

High blood pressure can definitely explain headaches, so we almost stopped there.  I was simply going to see my regular doctor, and start treating my hypertension.  I was still on duty, and had not checked in as a patient.  I was lucky in that two of my favorite ER physicians were working that holiday, and both were treating me that night.  Both told me that they were fairly sure that my headaches were caused by the hypertension, but that I might want to get a CT to make sure.  Luckily for me, my favorite CT tech was also working this holiday night.  She pulled me into the scanner for a quick head CT.

I was of course expecting a clean scan and to go back to work, avoiding salt and planning to reacquaint myself with my primary care physician, who I had not seen in ten years.  But as she looked at the scan, she sort of squinted and looked carefully at one spot. 

That moment was not one that I would like to go thru again.  It was not a moment of "sheer terror", but it was most definitely more than "mild concern".  Maybe "quite alarming" would be the proper term.

My two ER physicians looked at it, and were undecided.  It wasn't a massive bleed, but it was something.  One of the hospital neurosurgeons happened to be in the ER, so he was shown the scan.  He took a quick look and ordered that I be admitted and an MRI be scheduled for the next day, Christmas.

Now I was closer to the "sheer terror" feeling.  I don't recommend ever having to see a surgeon look at your results and say, "admit him now".  I had already been relieved from duty at this point, and was now being formally made a patient.  I was as close to being afraid that I would die as I have ever been, with the possible exception of the snow incident back in 1976.

My first call went to my girlfriend of the time.  There was nothing I needed more than to have her prayers and to see her that night.  Her support that night and the next day made the uncertainty bearable.  And although that relationship ended the next month, her love got me thru that night and she will always be in my prayers.  Obviously, my family came to see me that night and their love was much needed also.

I downplayed my possible injury/illness in my phone calls to family, not wanting to ruin anyone's Christmas.  I didn't even call most of my friends.  Looking back, I would have wanted my friends to call me if the situation was reversed.  While my intentions were good, if it happens again I'll make more phone calls.  So if you ever get a random phone call from me where I just blurt out an "I love you", you know it might be because of a bad reading at my yearly CT scan.  But before I get ahead of myself, back to the story.

My PMD actually came in to see me that night.  I did not call him, but apparently he had to be called since he was my PMD, and the hospital needed an admitting physician.  I was amazed that he would come in at 2200 on Christmas Eve, and apologized several times that he was called.  If I could have been in charge, he could have admitted me via the phone and I would have worked all night, just going to my hospital bed in the morning.  I was actually a little upset with my PMD, as he did not recognize me.  Truth be told, I had only gone to see him once or twice, and it was at least ten years ago.  But I felt like shouting, "What do you mean you don't recognize me?!  You're the only person in the world to have ever put their finger up my #&*!"

From talking with all my physicians, I learned that the spot in my brain was probably an angioma, which is basically a cluster of abnormal blood vessels. 

But they still weren't positive of that, or if it was an angioma if it had caused a bleed or not.  I was admitted to the neuro floor, 3 East, and went to bed that night not really knowing how serious my injury was.  I didn't get my MRI until late in the afternoon on Christmas Day, and had to wait another hour for the neurosurgeon to read it.  That 17 hours or so is hard to describe.  On one hand, part of me was terrified.  It was very possible that I had had a small head bleed, or that one was imminent.  On the other hand, I did have a sense of calm.  I had fairly recently recommitted myself to serving God, and believe that God sent His peace to me.  I was prepared for any result.

One nice thing that happened during the day was that a local school was walking up and down the hospital halls, singing Christmas Carols.  They stopped at my door for Silent Night (if my memory serves) and one of the carolers (maybe a 2nd grader) handed me a picture that they had drawn.  I then saw that the group came from my niece's school, Lake Anne Elementary.  Besides my visitors, it was a nice moment that made me still feel connected to my community, despite being in the hospital on Christmas Day. 

When I finally had my MRI (I was amazed at how loud that machine is) and got my results, the news was good.  I did in fact have a cavernous angioma.  But is was small, had not bled yet, and it was not in the brain stem (which could cause death when it eventually bled). If you want to know more about angiomas, you can go to this website, http://www.angiomaalliance.org/cainfo.html .  But basically, I can live life pretty much as if I didn't know I had the angioma.  1% or so of the population has them, and most never know.  It has a 2% or so chance per year to bleed, but mine is in a spot where it would hopefully do little damage.  Possible future symptoms include worse headaches, seizures, or neurological deficits.  But since my angioma is small and in a place where it can be easily removed (if you call neurosurgery easy), this hopefully sounds worse than it will ever be.  I do need to go back for annual scans, and I need to avoid roller coasters and similar head "trauma".  Also, I should not take aspirin or motrin, as they thin the blood and could cause a bleed.

But seriously, it looks and sounds worse than it is.  You might have one too.

Soon, I'll post a related entry on my hypertension and diet.  Look for Don't SuperSize Me soon.

Tomorrow's post is one that I have been holding onto since I started this blog.  I've been meaning to write it from day one, but always put it off.

And I'm not sure why.

I tend to do this with my "big" entries.  I want to make sure that I do a good job and write well on certain entries.  Most I don't care that much about.  They are just my random thoughts, or daily activities, not meant to shed any great truths about myself or inspire anyone.  But some entries, like the MRI one, or my testimony last year, are important to me.  They are big parts of my life and I feel the need to do the story justice, both for my memory and for any current or future person that wants to understand me.

I'm rambling again.......

A couple of friends have complained that I write too often and that there is too much old material here for them to read.  I sometimes build on older entries, and I do understand how some people feel like they need to start from the beginning.

I know that much of what I write is mainly written for myself, or is "fluff".  Some would argue that ALL of it is fluff AND written for myself.  They may be right.

But anyway, if you are new to my blog and want to see the highlights without having to read everything, I have selected what I feel to be my best entries from last year.  

I don't use the review page of this site, so I have put them there. Just click the "reviews" button near the top left of this page.

One of the things I hope to do with my blog is to tell the stories of my life before it is too late.  I've never had the best memory, especially when it comes to names, and I'm pretty sure that it is getting worse in the last year or so.  I won't promise that these stories are all that good, but I'll keep the boring personal ones locked as 'private' and only make the possibly interesting ones 'public'.

Back in 2nd or 3rd grade, while living on Onondio Circle in Vienna, I experienced my first broken bone.  A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless since I forgot his name, had just learned some judo from his older brother or maybe a class, and wanted to show me some moves.  He wasn't a particularly good friend, he lived farther down the street than my better friends like Jeff Kapsalis, but I am a very trusting person apparently.  Or at least was.  I let this friend, let's call him Doug, test out his newly learned moves on me.  I forget what these moves were, except for the last one.  I'll probably never forget that last one.  Doug said that he knew how to flip people over his back, and have them safely land on their feet.  I imagine that some people do know how to do this, but I doubt that many of them are in the 3rd grade or younger.  At the time, that logic did not occur to me.  So I bravely (or naively) fell for Doug's plan, literally.

I did not land on my feet, but apparently directly on my nose. 

I remember lots and lots of blood, the sight of Doug running down the circle away from me, and my babysitter taking me inside and laying me down on the couch in our family room until my parents got home.  I had a big crush on this particular babysitter, I wonder if Pam remembers her name.  The age difference wouldn't be so bad now, and maybe she'll respond to my affections...  But I digress.

My parents took me to the emergency room, probably the same one where I now work.  If I recall, X-rays were non-conclusive, but the doctor said that they would do little different if it was or was not broken. 

Looking at my nose now, I think that we can safely say that it was broken.