miracles

I think it is fair to say that I have had more than my fair share of miracles in

Sometimes life's miracles are things that are present in our lives everyday, so beautiful but we still take them for granted.

my life. At least in the last 20 years or so. I am still trying to figure out why someone like me that has done so many bad things in her life, or let me rephrase that, has made so many really really stupid choices in her life, deserves even one miracle no less as many as I have been blessed with.

I guess I should just start by telling you all just how many miracles I have actually experienced and let you make the call because for the life of me I can’t figure out why I deserve them or what God or whatever divine being that’s out there plan is for me. I am still trying to figure out my life at 42. Most people kind of have a handle on that by the age of what, 12? You know what do I want to be when I grow up? I am still figuring that one out.

Miracle #1 ~ Derrick

Derrick getting ready for his girlfriend's senior prom. Hard to believe he will be 20 in 20 days 😀

Before I got pregnant with my first son, I had a string of bad pregnancies with the worst culminating in a miscarriage at 4 months. Something that you never get over but somehow I have managed to survive, I guess that in itself is some sort of miracle. Back to Derrick.

When I got pregnant with Derrick, It wasn’t clear whether I was going to be able to have him because of my history but I kept faith and quite frankly at this time my husband and I (who weren’t married yet) weren’t doing that well at the time. He didn’t want me to have a baby but I was NOT budging on this one. I just KNEW this one was the one that would work out.

Fast forward 9 months, I am at my close friends wedding and Derrick isn’t due for 2 weeks. He was due on Christmas day. I wasn’t feeling that well, so during the reception I just kind of sat up on the couch and kept to myself. About an hour into the reception I had a little cramp, nothing out of the norm and I went to get up and walk it off when my water broke all over the dance floor and I went into labor right there at the wedding. Talk about a story to tell about your wedding forever. Jim and Diane NEVER let me forget it.

Well, they had to take me to University Hospital in Portland and I was in

your typical epidural needle that has to be inserted into your spine. It seems so much smaller looking at it now.

labor for what seemed like forever but I was in HARD labor for 28.5 hours and Derrick wasn’t going anywhere. He got stuck and was in fetal distress. He was going to die if they didn’t do an emergency C-section right then.

Well, they went and got him out with no problems, but what happened next was the problem. During the course of my labor they had to give me three epidurals and if you are not familiar with that it is, it’s a way to numb your whole midsection area so you don’t feel the pain of child-birth. The problem was, I could still feel it and so they had to keep giving them to me because they didn’t work. If any of you have ever gotten an epidural, you KNOW what the needle looks like and just seeing is enough to make you want to pass out.

Well when they cut into me to get Derrick out I told the doctor (actually student doctor) I could feel it and he decided to be an asshole and not believe me and took the forceps and pulled on my stomach sending me into cardiac arrest and flat lining almost killing me (actually killing me). I guess it wasn’t my time to leave everyone I loved because I do remember dying. It’s hard to explain but for a moment I was not alive however brief it was because I could see everything that was happening, but here I am. Miracle number one.

Miracle #2 ~ Austin

After my experience with Derrick I was not really excited to have any more children and about 5 years later quite by accident I got pregnant with my son Austin. My pregnancy was actually pretty easy with him and I was quite confident after having a full term pregnancy with Derrick that all would be fine. I planned his birth at Kaiser Permanente, where two of my sister-in laws worked (there was NO WAY IN HELL I would ever go back to OHSU). Everything was good to go.

December 10^th, Derricks birthday we have a huge party planned at

Derrick all decked out in his Power Ranger stuff (he was totally obsessed) right before my accident on our way to his birthday party

the Organ Grinder Pizza Parlor ( I don’t even know if it is still there now, but it was really cool) I am backing out of my driveway that we share with our neighbor who is NOT the best or most observant driver. She tears out of the driveway backing out right into, me causing me to slam into my steering wheel at 8 ½ months pregnant. I ended up going to the hospital and having no contractions so they sent me home. I was a little nervous because I had very little movements of the baby either.

Well, my 9 months came and went and I didn’t go into labor. I was starting to get concerned and I went to see a doctor. First of all, I had a 10 month pregnancy. Austin did not want to come out and one of the doctors that was seeing me just figured they had made a mistake in the conception date. I knew differently. I get morning sickness like, 2 seconds after I am pregnant. There is NO mistake when I am. When I wasn’t going into labor and Austin was so cramped in space they decided to induce labor.

Derrick and Austin at Austin's "coming out" party (I never had a baby shower). They may fight like crazy but Derrick would kill anyone that ever tried to hurt Austin without blinking an eye. Brothers always and forever

My doctor was out for an emergency so I got some hippy chick mid wife to come in with me and I thought cool I need someone mellow in there. Little did I know she was a mother fucking NAZI. My epidural didn’t work again but they wouldn’t give me another so I was crying in pain. She screamed at me for being a baby and I told her how I had to have a C-section with Derrick and he weighed 7lbs 13 oz and Austin was clearly at least a pound bigger and she said NO you are NOT having a C-section. Every woman needs to experience real childbirth. This almost caused my son his life. During the course of labor the umbilical cord got wrapped around Austin’s neck three times cutting off his oxygen to dangerous levels and she STILL would not send me to the O.R. By the time I finally had Austin, I passed out for about four hours and so I didn’t hold him right away. He weighed 9lbs 10 ½ oz . Instead of your typical 40 week pregnancy I had a 46 week pregnancy causing a tremendous amount of strain to Austin and to me. My husband after about 12 years finally told me he was born dead and had to be revived. He said he didn’t think I could handle the truth so he never told me before. That was Austin’s first miracle and my miracle #2

Miracle #3

Sabrina ~ Back in 2001 there had been a string of deaths of kids with

Sabrina 3 years old, shortly before getting sick

meningitis and when my daughter became deathly ill, it had never even occurred to me that she could be one of those victims. She had been so sick for two days and running temperatures upto 104. I didn’t have insurance and I didn’t have any money for doctors. I called an advice nurse and asked her what to do and she told me everything I had done was wrong and that I was basically stupid. She told me to bring her to the hospital but to bring money because they would not see her without insurance or something. At this time they were having trouble with people paying and were requiring 50 co-pay up front from people or something like that, I can’t remember but she was a bitch and all I remember is screaming at her and hanging up. I wasn’t on any bi-polar meds at the time so I was really kind of unbalanced.

Keith sent this to Sabrina after she asked him to marry her. He called her after hearing her story and when she asked he said yes. She actually believed for quite a few years that she would marry him when she grew up 🙂

Chuck, said fuck this and grabbed Bree and threw her in the car and said I’m taking her in, you stay with Austin who had been sick but not like Sabrina. Bree was at a point where we really didn’t think she was gonna make it. She hadn’t been able to hold water down for the last day and even after putting her in a tub full of freezing cold water with ice in it I could only get her temp down to about 102.

I wasn’t with Chuck so I am going on what he told me but apparently, he kept checking the rearview mirror and at one point Bree’s eyes rolled up in the back of her head and he had thought she died. He started praying or more like begging god to save her. A minute or two later they pulled into the parking lot of what used to be Woodland Park hospital. During the whole course of this ride to the hospital the radio had been

One of the times Sabrina got to meet up with Keith. This pic was featured on the St. Judes Calendar for that year. I had this pic in the hospital with me for my first brain surgery and all the nurses kept asking me if that was her dad because they look kind of similar. I just looked at them and said "God, I wish"He's a very sweet and beautiful man.

playing on Chuck’s favorite station KUPL the local country station. A song came on the radio by a new artist that we didn’t know or had ever heard his music. The next thing Chuck knows is he hears Sabrina say turn it up daddy it’s Keen Urvin, I love him, I’m going to marry him. The song was “But for the Grace of God” And it was Keith Urban’s 2^nd single Chuck rushed out of the car and grabbed her. She had No fever she was fine and the first thing she said after that was I’m hungy. Miracle #3

Miracle #4

The central Oregon ice ~

March 1, 2007…my son had stayed home from school that day. He decided to go out and get the mail because I had knee surgery a few months earlier and he didn’t want me falling on the ice and hurting my knee again. Not long after he went outside I heard him yell and knew he was hurt. I tore out the door not even thinking about my knee and did the same exact thing he did and fell but a lot harder not only twisting my knee but hitting my back and my head.

I went inside and laid down and begged him not to call his dad. I didn’t feel like getting yelled at for being stupid or something. Austin did exactly what I told him not to do and called my husband and he quit working and called me. I told him I was fine but he could tell I wasn’t and came home. Of course if you read my Hospital Hell blog you kind of have a clue that I did not want to go to the hospital and that when I did they found a huge tumor so falling on the ice was a major miracle in my book. Without that I would have died. I guess the growth rate of the tumor was so fast at that point that it was no telling how fast I could have died and never even known there was anything wrong with me.

Miracle #5-7

Living ~

I had 3 brain surgeries and managed to live through them all so I am calling this miracle 5-7 because each one was a miracle in its own right. The fact that someone can drill into your head a 2 inch hole and pluck this big nasty ass thing the size of a golf ball or bigger out of you and you live through it, then live through everything I did the second time (read Hospital Hell blog) and then with my brain pushing out of the hole left in my skull the third time they went in and fixed that and I am still just physically fine, to me THAT is a major miracle, actually more like 3.

Miracle #8

Austin ~

Well, if you read my blogs or the news paper or watch the Today Show or anything you know there was a 14 year old boy this summer that got hit by lightning and survived. He was so blessed that he was in and out of the hospital in 48 hours after being stuck in the head by a bolt of lightning that actually killed him causing paramedics to have to revive him. This is the same child that had died at birth and had to be revived. He is my son and a miracle in everyway.

So after 8 miracles, I still wonder what my purpose is in this world. Honestly. I kind of have a shitty life, but I am NOT complaining. It could be a lot worse, I could be dead or one of my kids could be dead. I just don’t have a clue. I’m 42 and I’m just here waiting for a sign. In the meantime I write and I talk to my friends on facebook trying to help them when they need it, but I am fairly sure God did not put me on this Earth to sit behind my computer and talk to people I don’t know, write blogs that will never get read and obsess over someone I am fairly sure I will never get a chance to meet. Y’know what though? I am still thanking God every single day. The way I look at it, everyday that I wake up with a pulse is a good day.

Miracle #9

The fact that I have survived it all, I guess that’s the biggest miracle of all 😀