10. (1.) Wayne, hospitals, ICU, blessings, Miracles (first version)
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I thought I had lost this story about Wayne this morning ! When I went to post the other one, I found the draft I though I had lost. So I guess I'll put them both on, and you can read one or the other. They are similar.
(Started early this morning, Thurs. Nov, 21, 2013) Last night I decided to write today about Wayne, and the miracle that he is still alive. When the two twins were born at home one month early, and weighed around 4 pounds each, they were not expected to live through the night. They were given a Priesthood blessing at that time and promised they would live a mature life, and fill their missions in life. His beloved twin brother Blaine passed away at age 68 of what they considered to be an aortic anurism. (Probably spelled wrong -- hemorhage of the abdominal aorta .).
Wayne's health problems began when he developed diverticulitis at around age 60, and was in the hospital a day or two. Since then he has taken Fiberblend daily, which has kept it from returning. The next major illness occurred shortly after we returned from a mission to Connecticut. While there, in 2000, my sister Mavis had colon cancer, and we returned early to help take care of her during her severe chemo treatment. After being with her over 2 months, my sister Vina came to Salt Lake to care for Vina while we went to Oceanside, California, to see our only child we hadn't seen after returning from Connecticut.
The Sunday morning we were planning to return, Wayne seemed very dizzy and tired, and we decided to take him to a local emergency room. When we arrived there was a wheelchair outside, which wasn't supposed to be there. We had him get in, and I went in and told them my husband may be having a stroke. They took us right in and immediately gave him oxygen. His blood oxygen level was very low, they told me later. Within a half hour of arriving they questioned him, and he told them he was 73 (he was only 69). He couldn't remember the year or the month, and soon he was mumbling in Swedish, and quite unconscious.
Many tests, and oxygen wasn't getting to the lungs, so they put him out, and put a tube down into his lungs. We were worried that he had a stroke, and wouldn't survive. After several hours taking tests, they literally ran him down the hall (in a bed) into the intensive care unit, (ICU) where he remained for 12 days. The second day his nurse told me that as they raised his oxygen level to 100% his oxygen level was still dropping, and that if any family members wanted to see him alive, they had better come. We were in Southern California, and all other family members were too far away. He was diagnosed as having respiratory failure, and his weight at that time undoubtedly affected his lungs. He did improve some, and that evening I heard a man on the phone telling that he and his counselor would give a Priesthood blessing to a lady in the ICU, (who later died). I asked him if they would give a blessing to Wayne also. He was Bishop Halladay, and he gladly consented, but asked me carefully all about his illness, and what the doctors had said.
In the blessing he blessed him that he would survive this illness, and live to have many wonderful experiences in his life. He blessed him to live to do a lot of genealogy, and also Temple work. He was blessed to be able to be a strength to his family, and live to enjoy many happy times with them, and blessed to live to care for his family and his wife. The blessing was a total comfort to me and all who heard of it in the family and I felt at peace about him surviving. After 12 days in ICU and 3 more days in a ward, we returned to our son's, and after about a week more Wayne was able to ride back home, with the help of our oldest son and a nephew, Blaine's son. It took about 3 months for him to get his strength back.
In about a year, he became a Temple ordinance worker, and between other operations and a calling to be in the Branch Presidency at "The Meadows" has worked in the Temple ever since. He gets up at 5 a.m. on Mondays and is in the Temple from 6 to about 1:30 p.m. On Wednesdays he gets up at 3:45 a.m., is in the Temple by 5 a.m. and comes home at 11 a.m. I (Pal) worked in the Temple also for around a year, and then had to have an operation on my foot, and was released. I have done a lot of Family History over the years, (another story) so I decided to concentrate on that.
That brings us to the part of the blessing that talked about genealogy -- which is now called "Family History". He hadn't used a computer, which now was the mainstay in Family History, and how was he to do his part to fulfill that part of the blessing? We were both called on a part time mission in about 2007 to an assisted living center here. (I wish I had kept better records, and I'd know the dates!) While there we were asked to work 2 times a week in a very small computer lab where we helped the residents learn to do indexing. Wayne got hooked on it! Since then, he has spent 4 to 5 hours each day doing it. I do it also, but not nearly to the extent Wayne does. I'll tell more about indexing later -- it is on the computer, and the modern way of doing "extraction", which is viewing on the top of the screen a handwritten image of various records, -- census, passenger records, marriage records, etc. etc. and entering the information on the computer, with names, birth dates, place of birth, etc. and then it becomes available for the public to search free, for their own ancestors. To date Wayne has done .and he wants to be able to reach one million. He also does arbitrating, which is a different screen where you see the two entries of one record, and you decide which is correct, if there are differences. He goes swimming 2 or 3 times a week, and it is truly a miracle he is alive!
Since that hospital stay, Wayne has survived radiation for prostate cancer, and had open heart surgery, with a triple bypass, and also hip replacement surgery. In the hip surgery, 11 months after his open heart surgery, his heart beat went up to 200 beats a minute, and they had to shock his heart. Then they gave him medicine to slow his heart down, and after about a week of that, in the rehab his heart rate went down to 30 beats a minute, and they rushed him to the hospital then. He was in ICU two days, and almost died of kidney failure, as the medicine to speed up his heart and then medicine to slow it down was very hard on the kidneys. Our son and daughter came down from Bountiful at that time, and with other family members here, Wayne wanted us to play 6 Handed Rook, which we did in the ICU ! with Wayne all hooked up (just a short while -- a first in the ICU!) We hope he doesn't need any more surgeries -- He is using his 9 lives !
I thought I had lost this story about Wayne this morning ! When I went to post the other one, I found the draft I though I had lost. So I guess I'll put them both on, and you can read one or the other. They are similar.
(Started early this morning, Thurs. Nov, 21, 2013) Last night I decided to write today about Wayne, and the miracle that he is still alive. When the two twins were born at home one month early, and weighed around 4 pounds each, they were not expected to live through the night. They were given a Priesthood blessing at that time and promised they would live a mature life, and fill their missions in life. His beloved twin brother Blaine passed away at age 68 of what they considered to be an aortic anurism. (Probably spelled wrong -- hemorhage of the abdominal aorta .).
Wayne's health problems began when he developed diverticulitis at around age 60, and was in the hospital a day or two. Since then he has taken Fiberblend daily, which has kept it from returning. The next major illness occurred shortly after we returned from a mission to Connecticut. While there, in 2000, my sister Mavis had colon cancer, and we returned early to help take care of her during her severe chemo treatment. After being with her over 2 months, my sister Vina came to Salt Lake to care for Vina while we went to Oceanside, California, to see our only child we hadn't seen after returning from Connecticut.
The Sunday morning we were planning to return, Wayne seemed very dizzy and tired, and we decided to take him to a local emergency room. When we arrived there was a wheelchair outside, which wasn't supposed to be there. We had him get in, and I went in and told them my husband may be having a stroke. They took us right in and immediately gave him oxygen. His blood oxygen level was very low, they told me later. Within a half hour of arriving they questioned him, and he told them he was 73 (he was only 69). He couldn't remember the year or the month, and soon he was mumbling in Swedish, and quite unconscious.
Many tests, and oxygen wasn't getting to the lungs, so they put him out, and put a tube down into his lungs. We were worried that he had a stroke, and wouldn't survive. After several hours taking tests, they literally ran him down the hall (in a bed) into the intensive care unit, (ICU) where he remained for 12 days. The second day his nurse told me that as they raised his oxygen level to 100% his oxygen level was still dropping, and that if any family members wanted to see him alive, they had better come. We were in Southern California, and all other family members were too far away. He was diagnosed as having respiratory failure, and his weight at that time undoubtedly affected his lungs. He did improve some, and that evening I heard a man on the phone telling that he and his counselor would give a Priesthood blessing to a lady in the ICU, (who later died). I asked him if they would give a blessing to Wayne also. He was Bishop Halladay, and he gladly consented, but asked me carefully all about his illness, and what the doctors had said.
In the blessing he blessed him that he would survive this illness, and live to have many wonderful experiences in his life. He blessed him to live to do a lot of genealogy, and also Temple work. He was blessed to be able to be a strength to his family, and live to enjoy many happy times with them, and blessed to live to care for his family and his wife. The blessing was a total comfort to me and all who heard of it in the family and I felt at peace about him surviving. After 12 days in ICU and 3 more days in a ward, we returned to our son's, and after about a week more Wayne was able to ride back home, with the help of our oldest son and a nephew, Blaine's son. It took about 3 months for him to get his strength back.
In about a year, he became a Temple ordinance worker, and between other operations and a calling to be in the Branch Presidency at "The Meadows" has worked in the Temple ever since. He gets up at 5 a.m. on Mondays and is in the Temple from 6 to about 1:30 p.m. On Wednesdays he gets up at 3:45 a.m., is in the Temple by 5 a.m. and comes home at 11 a.m. I (Pal) worked in the Temple also for around a year, and then had to have an operation on my foot, and was released. I have done a lot of Family History over the years, (another story) so I decided to concentrate on that.
That brings us to the part of the blessing that talked about genealogy -- which is now called "Family History". He hadn't used a computer, which now was the mainstay in Family History, and how was he to do his part to fulfill that part of the blessing? We were both called on a part time mission in about 2007 to an assisted living center here. (I wish I had kept better records, and I'd know the dates!) While there we were asked to work 2 times a week in a very small computer lab where we helped the residents learn to do indexing. Wayne got hooked on it! Since then, he has spent 4 to 5 hours each day doing it. I do it also, but not nearly to the extent Wayne does. I'll tell more about indexing later -- it is on the computer, and the modern way of doing "extraction", which is viewing on the top of the screen a handwritten image of various records, -- census, passenger records, marriage records, etc. etc. and entering the information on the computer, with names, birth dates, place of birth, etc. and then it becomes available for the public to search free, for their own ancestors. To date Wayne has done .and he wants to be able to reach one million. He also does arbitrating, which is a different screen where you see the two entries of one record, and you decide which is correct, if there are differences. He goes swimming 2 or 3 times a week, and it is truly a miracle he is alive!
Since that hospital stay, Wayne has survived radiation for prostate cancer, and had open heart surgery, with a triple bypass, and also hip replacement surgery. In the hip surgery, 11 months after his open heart surgery, his heart beat went up to 200 beats a minute, and they had to shock his heart. Then they gave him medicine to slow his heart down, and after about a week of that, in the rehab his heart rate went down to 30 beats a minute, and they rushed him to the hospital then. He was in ICU two days, and almost died of kidney failure, as the medicine to speed up his heart and then medicine to slow it down was very hard on the kidneys. Our son and daughter came down from Bountiful at that time, and with other family members here, Wayne wanted us to play 6 Handed Rook, which we did in the ICU ! with Wayne all hooked up (just a short while -- a first in the ICU!) We hope he doesn't need any more surgeries -- He is using his 9 lives !
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