November 8, 2008

Hospitals & Death vs President Obama

Since Rachael is otherwise occupied (more about that in a bit), I am posting my first entry here. I'm Rachael's husband, Justin.

A bit about me... I'm a computer tech turned software developer turned network(s) administrator. I have a wonderful wife and an adorable son, and am blessed with a whole bunch of caring friends and family. I'm a huge progressive liberal, so that might come out a bit in my posts every now and then. I love having discussions with my mother, who is also one of my best friends. We've had a lot of great political discussions, as she is of the moderate/conservative mindset. In fact, unless it's at church or with a client, politics generally comes up a lot around me. I love Law & Order (and all of the spinoffs), crime shows, medical shows (House!), various sci-fi shows, Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Pen & Teller's Bullsh*t, and the Fox Sunday evening lineup of cartoons... every single one of them.

I want to preface this post with a note... This post starts on a low note, but gets better (depending on your political persuasion, I guess).

Hospitals
Rachael's sister is in a (very good) hospital in Seattle right now. She's been sick for several weeks and recently got much worse. She was admitted yesterday very dehydrated and with very low sodium levels. Over the last day her levels haven't gotten any better, so they're trying to figure out what's not right. They've got a good lead on a cause, but we're waiting to see what comes of it. She is stable, but tired. Rachael decided to stay the night in Seattle, so I dropped Sam off with his Grandma and drove back up to our house to make sure the cats don't destroy anything because of lack of food. 

Death
Every once in a while, I get a weird grouping of events that is quite out of the ordinary. This time around it is people dying. Someone who I didn't know all that well, but was very active in the men's group at our Church that I'm a part of died a few weeks ago. Bill went in for routine gallbladder surgery, but just didn't wake up the next day. We had a men's retreat scheduled a few days later at this beautiful lodge in the mountains, which turned into a rememberance of sorts, as this particular retreat was orchestrated by Bill.

At that retreat, I had a long discussion with a friend of mine who lost his wife last year suddenly. He is the first person that came up to us and said "hi" when we came to our Church for the first time. He's a truly great person, and he passed away a few days ago of a heart attack, leaving behind a 12 year old son. His memorial service was today, so we kind of killed two birds with one stone since both the memorial service and Rachael's sister are in the Seattle area.

President Obama
OK, I'm done going on about the depressing stuff in our lives. On to something much greater... Hope!

The night of the election, watching President-elect Barack Obama give the most inspirational speech I have ever witnessed, I was filled with hope for our future. Something about him just makes me feel better about the world.

The "vs" part
You might ask, what am I talking about? Is Obama going to go up against Hospitals and Death? Hospitals maybe, but Death??? Is he really crazy enough to go up against Death itself?

The short answer is: Unfortunately, no. Although it might make for a good HBO special.

The long answer is unavailable at the moment, as I have no long answer.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice to meet you Justin.

I hope the sister gets better soon. I'll keep your family in my thoughts...