Category Archives: I. My Life So Far . . .

My Latest Heroes!

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I know that I have yet to write tributes to all the people who have sacrificed SOOOOO much for me prior to this year, (which I totally intend to do), I figure that I need to start somewhere.  So, I thought that I start by giving honorable mention to those who have been there for me since I’ve moved back to Minnesota.  These are all people who have demonstrated sacrificial love and concern for me without expecting anything in return.

(These are not in any specific order.)

  • Austin Berg – Austin is my very reason for living, now.  Except for fulfilling God’s will for my life, Austin is and will always be my top priority.  Even though he is only 4 years old right now, he has no idea how much joy he brings to me.  He is such a joy to be with, so happy, so easy to please, and hearing him laugh makes EVERYTHING I’ve been through worth it.  It is my number one mission in life to always be there for him.  No matter what, he will always know that his daddy, although not perfect by any means, loved him more than anything!”Thank you, Austin, my son!  You have already made me SOOOO proud!  I love you more than you will ever know, and nothing thrills me more than watching you grow up.  Please know that your Daddy wishes he could be with you every single day.”
  • Dinah Urban – As strange as this might sound, Dinah is my real estate agent!  Not only is she the best Realtor in the world, she’s been such a good friend to me, too!  When I was still in Illinois recuperating, I found out that my tenants in my house in Burnsville had moved out.  The house was left abandoned and unattended.  I didn’t know who else to call but Dinah.  I looked her up on the internet and sent her an email.  Even though it had been ten years since I bought the house from her, she still remembered me!  We talked on the phone and I explained my situation.  I hadn’t seen the Burnsville house in two years and I asked her to go over to the house to check on it, which she did.  When I moved back to Minnesota, Dinah was often there to give me rides to places that I needed to go, even once picking me up from downtown Minneapolis during a violent thunderstorm to go back to Burnsville.Dinah worked very hard with me to explore the different options I had regarding the house, including doing a short sale.  That was the route I had prematurely decided on last year.  Dinah put so much effort into doing the short sale, but then when it became apparent that it was highly improbable that the bank, CitiMortgage would accept it, we realized it was all for naught.  I then decided to let the house go and asked Dinah to help me find another rent-to-own property.  She put some work into that too, but it didn’t take long to realize that that was going to be impractical since I still had so much on my plate to take care of, the last thing I needed was the burden of taking care of a house!

    “Thank you, Dinah!  You have been waaaaay too nice to me.  I just don’t think there’s any way I could ever pay you back!  I really, really wish that I was in a much better position to show you my appreciation.  You are, hands down, the hardest-working, most knowledgeable, most dedicated real estate agent I’ve ever known, and for as long as I live, I will ALWAYS refer people to you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!”

  • Kristin Benda – Kristin, who VERY successfully ran a charity benefit for me in January of 2009 here in Minnesota when I was in Illinois and since I’ve moved back here, she has still remained a good friend and has helped me out whenever she can.  “Thanks, Kristin!”
  • Tom Illg – I simply cannot say enough good things about my dear friend, Tom.  We first met in 2000 when the company I first worked for here in Minnesota was bought out by a larger consulting firm, Compuware.  As very committed conservatives who were strongly against people who believe killing unborn babies should be legal, we became fast friends.  It is to TOM’S credit that we have remained friends despite our separation from working together.  Tom has been SUCH a faithful, giving, and generous friend.He was there for me when I needed to discuss the pain I was going through because of the divorce and the totally unfair custody battle that resulted in my very young son from being deprived from having a  good relationship with his father.  He also paid for an old T-Mobile cell phone bill that I owed while I was in the hospital, and, since I’ve moved back to Minnesota, Tom has been a priceless friend in terms of helping me drive to the place where I go to see Austin, and most recently, helping me move from my old place to the new one.

    “Thanks Tom!  You have been SUCH an inspiration to me.  The genuine love you have for your family that so much more exceeds you own career aspirations is so commendable!  In fact, it has been very convicting because I used to be so career-driven, myself but just refused to admit it.  You are ALWAYS there for your wife and your kids, who will NEVER EVER doubt your love for them.  Tom, whether or not you ever climb to the highest rung of the corporate ladder that you have the capability to do, I regard you as the true definition of success.  You HAVE achieved the American dream, because you have put your wife and children first above yourself.  God bless you, Tom!”

  • Luda Balun – It’s been difficult for me to believe that my relatively new friend, Luda, is not an angel!  I’m convinced that God put her in my life to provide a bridge from a very dark period of my life to see a new bright horizon!  She has been relentless in her devotion to helping out those around her who are in need.  I haven’t known Luda for very long, but we have somewhat of a kindred spirit and are becoming fast friends.  She and her husband came here from Ukraine many years ago and started up their own cleaning business.  We met through another mutual friend, and she has been such an inspiration to me.  Whenever I have been in need whether financially, or for transportation she has been there to help out in ways that would make most other people’s jaw drop!  She has also so unselfishly devoted her time and hard work toward helping me get my old house cleared and cleaned out; even going over there behind my back and virtually leaving me with nothing left to do!  She has also been picking me up and bringing me to church on Sundays.  Mere words simply cannot express my gratitude for all that Luda has already done for me.”Thank you, Luda for being the person that you are!  I can really sense God’s love pouring out of you and I know He has a very special place in heaven reserved just for you!  God bless you, my friend!”
  • Jean Eason – I’m not even sure Jean and I have ever even met, but it was at some time this past September that Jean appeared as suggested friend on Facebook.  I knew who she was because she is a relatively well-known former Jehovah’s Witness who has appeared on several counter-cult programs.  In any event, due to the friend request we began dialogging and the topic of the upcoming Witnesses Now for Jesus convention held every October in New Ringgold, Pennsylvania came up.  Although the timing wasn’t the best (seeing as I was in the middle of moving out of my foreclosing house!), she took it upon herself to lead an effort to provide the means for me to travel to the convention and took care of making all of the arrangements for me while I was there.  It cost several hundreds of dollars (which, I know was shared amongst several others as well who have mostly remained anonymous to me!)

    I gave my testimony at this same convention back in 1993 (which I have included here as a separate page on my web log). It had been seven years since I had last attended.  That was the year I brought my then girlfriend who would then become my fiance two days later.  Those seven years were probably the worst of my life.  This years’ convention proved to be especially pivotal in my spiritual journey.  God finally removed the scales from my eyes and I found myself, for the first time in such a LOOOONG time, to just let go of an ugly, foul sack of guilt, shame, anger, bitterness, and even hatred that I had been ingesting chewing upon like a cow does its cud every day.  In its place, I was able to embrace God’s grace and forgiveness and gave me the ability to forgive those who have wronged me.  I realized those intense feelings of being “wronged” were not ever going to help me achieve my final goal, which is to have as close of a relationship with my son, Austin, as possible.

    I was also able to reunite with some great old friends that I hadn’t seen in such a long time and also made some more eternal friends.

    “Thank you, Jean and those whom you were able to rally together on my behalf.  You have no idea how your generous gift to me not only blessed me, but it also revived my love and passion for the Church, the Bride of Christ, whom I had become disenchanted with for far too long!”

  • Bill and Laura Althaus
  • Erik and Stacy Carney

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

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There was only one instance where I can remember my father being affectionate toward me.  I was very young, 6 or 7 or 8.  It was in the evening, and my dad, sister, and I were watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  Even though it was supposed to be a kids movie, i remember crying my eyes out when the fat kid got stuck in one of the tubes.  I tried hiding my tears by turning away and burying my little face into a couch pillow.   I remember my dad coming over to me, and asking me what was wrong.  I just felt sorry for the fat kid who was crying because he was stuck in the tube.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

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Because of last week’s bad biopsy results, I had to make another appearance at Northwestern Hospital for ANOTHER biospy.  I also scheduled a few other appointments that I was expected to get taken care of.

6:00 – My good friend, Dave Westergaard came into the room that he had so graciously allowed me to sleep in for the night.  He lives in Highland Park, IL which was only a 20 minute drive to the hospital!  Usually, I have to rely on my family in Rockford to drive me.  But, since it’s a good 1.5 or 2 hour drive, we have to get up extra early in order to get to the cath lab between 6:30 and 7:00am.

7:03am – Dave let me off at the curb on 201 Huron Street at the door that I usually go through, and I dutifully went straight up to the 8th floor.  The check-in nurse, whose desk is so strategically placed right next to the elevator bank so that you can’t avoid you, recognized me immediately!  A very, very cheery woman, the first thing she said to me was, “Where’s your mom?”  (My mom is pretty popular around that place too.)

I had a brand new nurse assigned to me this time, Denise.  She was very, very friendly, but didn’t realize how familiar I was the place, the people, and the procedures.  (I even informed her that she forgot to ask me when the last time I ate was!)

I brought my laptop with me, but just felt so, so drained that I just didn’t have the energy to break it out.  The demands that other people have been placing on me have just been enormous!  It seems as though everywhere I turn, someone is trying to insert a spigot into any available spot on my body.  It’s much like the nurses who have had to scour my arms to find a spot on a vein that fights the needle.  I had to force myself to relax, and to stop thinking/worrying about the stressors that constantly plague me.  I’ve been finding that my life is nothing but a series of crises, one, two, or three at a time connected by life-squeezing wormholes.

So, I just slept until it was time for the biopsy. 

9:30 – Biopsy.  I was escorted into the sub-zero temperature cath lab, stepped right up onto the super skinny table, stripped naked by 2 gorgeous nurses and then sedated.  The next thing I knew, I was back in my parking spot in the holding area. 

12:55 – I had to race over to the 626 building to meet with Dr. Stoser from the infectious disease department.  Evidently, my donor had been exposed to a dangerous virus called CMV, but I had not.   Consequently, I have been taking an anti-viral medicine called Valcyte (which costs nearly $3000 per bottle!).  They would like me to discontinue me from it, but I have to very closely monitor my health and get lab work done every two weeks.

2:00pm – I had to go over to the Galter pavilion in order to have a procedure done that I never had done before.  It was called a “DEXA Scan” — the purpose of which was to measure my bone density.  (Prednisone, one of the powerful steriods I’m on, has a lot of beneficial effects, but also, a lot of negative ones.  Although it’s helping to prevent mst y heart from being rejected, it also likes to erode my bones.)

Luckily, I was able to con my father to drive in to the city to pick me up.  He left at 2:30 and didn’t get there until 5:30.  I just sat in Au Bon Pain restaurant on the second floor and then in the lobby getting some work done.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

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Thursday, July 30, 2009

I had to go into Northwestern today, (the hospital in downtown chicago) in order to meet with the clinical psychologist who was assigned to my particular case. She said that they were now pretty concerned about me because of an issue that my mom brought to their attention behind my back. So, I showed up there this morning (very late because my dad insists on avoiding the Illinois toll roads as much as possible — He says he does it on principle (i.e. the state is already taking too much of our money already!) So, instead of saving himself an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes, he believes that by NOT paying the total amount of 3.50, he’s making some kind of protest. oh well.

So, needless to say, Gail made sure I heard about it today. She definitely was not the same person that I remembered her to be. She was putting me on the defensive and acting very standoffish.

Sometimes, it seems like you just can’t ever win.

October 1, 2009

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My parents and I had to wake up very early this morning in order to make it to my scheduled heart biopsy at Northwestern hospital in downtown Chicago.

Fortunately, I was still very tired and was able to sleep most of the way to the hospital.  My dad, who would rather whittle away minutes from his ultimate Time of Death by taking all of the side roads into Chicago rather than paying a couple bucks by taking the tollway, was able to get us to the front door of the Feinberg Pavillion shortly after 7:00 am. 

My mom and I jumped on the elevator to the eighth floor where I was greeted by name by the secretary there and given my typical blue placard with the letters, “H1” on it.  Holding room 1 was my typical spot during these outpatient procedures. 

I was met with some new nurses this time.  One was a really short, old
Chinese woman, extremely pleasant and nice, (nevertheless, I’m sure she’d be a shoe in at a casting call for a rice field worker).   She had the hardest time with my veins, fumbling around with needles in my left arm, while I just lay there gritting my teeth, grabbing the bedsheets, and trying not to squirm.  After what felt like an eternity, she asked, “Does it hurt?”  (For the life of me, I still can’t figure out what clued her in.)  “Very much, so, YES!!”  — She graciously apologized and said she would let me rest and let someone else give it a try.  It was obvious that today was just not her day when she just stood there for several minutes scratching her head in wonderment while trying to shove a thermometer down my throat.  It was obvious she was not getting the reading she wanted, and then I snickered and just waited for her to pull the thing back out before telling her, “You just put an ice cube in my mouth and then stuck the thermometer there 2 seconds later.”   She laughed embarrassingly as she realized why my temperature was only 95 degrees.

The  nurses from the lab came in and I could tell they were in a rush.  After getting myself settled on the skinny, cold operating table, they were able to get an IV fairly easily into my right arm, and get a more accurate temperature reading.

Per my request at every one of these procedures, I was sedated throughout the whole thing.

After it was all over, Susan Tafini, (my new nurse practitioner), came into my curtain cubicle and started asking me about my meds and such.  She said that I needed to lay off some of the steroids since my white blood cell count was TOO low, meaning, I’m very susceptible to infection.  I also had a high percentage of potassium (where the heck I could be getting too much potassium is beyond me, — OOOH Shoot!  My banana just broke off onto my keyboard, brb.)

My echocardiogram, for some reason, occurred much later than usual.  At 11:30, the guy peeked in and said he’d be back in half an hour to take me.  Starving, I instantly called my mom and asked her to go down to the cafeteria to get me something hot to eat.  (It was either that or have one of the dull sandwich’s the hospital serves.)   My wonderful, dutiful mother delivered the perfect little lunch to tied me over for a couple hours. 

The echo guy told me that my heart was actually pumping better than it should (the ejection fraction rate was about 70%), which meant that I was basically dehydrated. As he put it, “My heart was thirsty.”

I could tell it was finally October.  The weather was cold, wet, and dreary — I loved it!

Thank God for another day on my second lease on life!