Isaac Slideshow

Link: http://picasaweb.google.com/ultimadj/20100921IsaacBirth

Welcome Isaac Mitchell Johnson!!

Ring ring!! Gah!! I startled out of bed after a few restles hours of sleep. Where did my phone come from? It's dark, why am I awake. Why didn't the rocket work?

Oh, there's no rocket (what a dream). I'm home. Annabelle is still asleep. It's still dark out. Where's Cheryl? Why did I wake up?

Oh! Cheryl is calling me. How did I get this phone in my hand?

After a minute of dashing through the fog between sleep and wakefulness, I was out in the living room... and Cheryl was having conTRACTIONS. Owie owie ooooooh graaaaaah!! Apparently, these were intense... and painful. I called the midwife. Halfway through the call, Cheryl said "I'm pushing!"

"She's pushing?" replied the midwife. Yup. In a mere 4 hours (only 40 minutes of which she thought was serious), Cheryl had gone from relaxing in bed, to a baby who was coming out. NOW...

Annabelle woke up. "Mommy is being too LOUD," she said with a slightly concerned tone. She rolled back over in bed and clamped her arms over her ears. "Daddy, would you please shut the door." And she was back asleep... just like that.

"Oooough" Low, groaning birth sounds were the order of the day. Belle woke up again and asked to join us. I picked her up and brought her to our perch. She looked concerned with Mommy's anxiety, but I smiled at her and told her the baby was coming. Wow! You should have seen the explosive smile that lit her face. "I'm going to be a sister!" She sat and waited patiently on a chair a few feet from us.

Cheryl went to feel for the head to get an idea of how far off we were. "I think I can... is that the head... ? Ow! *another contraction* HONEY CATCH THE BABY!!" *splort* out came the head, I dove. With a quick twist Isaac plunged from the birth canal towards the floor. Due to the odd angle and cramped quarters, I made a blind grab, and caught him on the way down.

Annabelle hopped off the chair to get a better look. With a proud smile, she observed "her baby", then hopped back up to her seat.

"Aaaah..." Cheryl's relief from labor was instant and complete. I quickly unraveled the cord from around his neck, wiped him clean, then verified his heart-rate and breathing. Healthy, happy, and apparently hungry, Isaac joined us in bed where we relaxed til the midwife arrived. :)

Let's Go Fly a Kite... Ack! Annabelle!!

Yesterday, Annabelle and I went to fly my kite. The temperature had dropped from the steamy 92 it had been the week before, down to the low 70's. The drop was accompanied by gale-force winds. (At least, gale-force from Annabelle's perspective.) "Daaad! I need to walk with my head down like this because my hair is going to blow away!!"

We walked to the park and set up my stunt kite. Belle held the poles while I rigged the nylon, then held the handles while I attached the strings.
(See this video for an intro to stun-kiting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ghrrCNRe8)

The launch was successful, and the wind was STRONG. ZZzzzzZZZZZzzzz the nylon sang into the wind as it zipped up and down, doing spirals through the air. Belle was as excited as me! "My turn my turn!" she exclaimed as she pranced around my legs.

At first, I had her stand in front of me. Putting her hands on my hands, she got a feel for how to direct the kite's aerial ballet. After a few minutes, she wanted to drive the kite herself. So, I passed the handles off to her. "Don't let go baby. If the kite gets away from you it will float over the trees into the lake and we won't see it again," I warned.

Taking this advice to heart. She white knuckled the handles and began her flight. Dip! Dive, turn WHOOSH!! Zip! stall... neeeeewwwwwwww bang. After around a minute of successful maneuvering, the kite bit the dust. I asked her to stay there and hold the handles tight as I started to jog towards the downed kite. "Alright baby, 3, 2, 1, LAUNCH!!!" The kite was back up, and Belle was doing a fine job of flying it! She got so excited, she started running towards the kite. Without the wind, it fell back to the grass. I told her to walk backwards slowly this time as she flew. After a quick nod, the kite was back up again.

Just then, the wind doubled or tripled in strength. Whoosh! The wind hit the kite, the kite pulled the string, the baby lifted off the ground!! Ack!! Taking my advice about losing the kite, she held fast, even though she was a foot off the ground. The first crowhop lifter her about a foot off the ground and caused her to travel a yard. The continued bluster picked yanked her off the ground again the second she landed. This time though, the tug was so fierce, she went prone about 2 feet off the ground. Proing! The lines zipped out of her hand and she got a face-full of grass!

Still lying on the ground, scraped and bruised, she looked up to see the kite soaring away, diving and twisting, pilot-less. She pointed and cried, desperate to retrieve it before it hit the lake! I did a 180 (when she lifted off, I started sprinting towards her... halfway there, she pointed and my priority shifted.) She was fine, and she wanted daddy's kite!

I made a mad dash for it, and caught the looping lines a mere 10-15 feet before the water.

I picked up the kite, and brought it back, but Belle had had enough for now. She helped me disassemble the kite, and we started the trek back home...

Next time, I'm going to bring a backpack with rocks, or a stake and string to fasten her to the ground... I can't believe the wind was strong enough to lift my 20 lb kiddo!!!

Belle and Dad for a Saturday

What happens when Cheryl is away for a whole day?

Find out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtraUVFEpDU

Spazzing Kills

Cheryl just came up the stairs from the garage with an odd look on her face and tidings of confused doom.

An almost dead chipmunk was sitting in the garage, just inside the door to the house. Looking at the mayhem in the garage, it appears to have been trapped when I closed the garage door after playing outside with Belle. It then tried to get out the window, chewing through the strings to the blinds. After little success with that endeavor, it went spastic and just starting chewing things.

One of the things that looked particularly delicious was a grease soaked rag... the rag used to lube my bike's chain on a regular basis. The little guy didn't make it far after that. It crawled about 5 ft from the rag to the place Cheryl found it...

Surgery? What?!

(WARNING: This post contains several items that are considered to be TMI (Too Much Information), I've tagged those items, so skip ahead if you're squeemish.)

Wednesday I had a lovely filling meal at Sbarro in Eastview Mall. The meal was huge and delicious comprised of a broccolli, chicken strombolli, 2 breadsticks and a medium drink. The company was grand and the walk over in the 70+ degree weather had me in higher than normal spirits.

I walked back to work with my team lead, Peter Pan (a.k.a Matt). The walk back wasn't nearly as great as the walk out, despite the excellent conversation, something was amiss. I thought I had a case of bad gas, and told Brion later in the day that the wonderful meal wasn't sitting well at all.

Two days later, I was still feeling the pain, but the twinge had increased to more of a stabbing and I was starting to see a bulge in my 6-pack... something far more nefarious than mall-food gas was setting my insides asunder.

Friday morning I woke up with the feeling that something wasn't right. I couldn't put my finger on it. It didn't feel different than any other morning, and I (warning, TMI) passed a fair amount of gas during my morning yoga routine (still totally normal). I called in sick to work and raced down to my family doctor. I say raced, because I had thought walk-in hours were 9-10:30, but they were really 8-9:30... the time was currently 9am, and I was 30 minutes away in Webster.

Arriving at 9:29 precisely, I got in to see Dr. Maskiell and told him about my Sbarro experience and the subsequent pain and bulging. (By the way, I would like to note, Sbarro made no contribution to my state of affairs and I will be eating there again next week... soooo good!!)

Dr. Maskiell poked and prodded as doctors do, landing on a very, VERY tender point. Tender enough that it made me yelp and tears sprang forth of their own accord. "Yeah, I need you to go to highland's ER. I need you to get a CT scan for appendicitis," he said.

I headed to the checkout window with the paperwork. The secretary took one look and said, "Oh! You're headed to emergency!? Whenever you come it's something big. Good luck!!" (I have a reputation at this office. Whenever I go in, something drastic has happened. My last three incidents had me: 1. On crutches for a month with a high probability of lowered mobility for years, 2. pass out on the floor of the office on my way to check out (warning TMI) from rectal bleeding (EWWWW), and 3. covered in a case of systemic poison ivy, which is as close to hell on earth as I've come.)

With a hop, skip and a jump (actually closer to a labored waddle, grunt and a thump) I was back in my car and off to Highland's ER. I got in with no waiting. They ran a variety of tests on me which all came back good... really good.... good enough for one of the nurses to comment, "Whoa, you are one healthy dude." The resident commented that the pain was probably bad gas and because everything came back clean, he didn't expect to see anything in the CT scan, but still wanted me to get it. Better safe than sorry.

Throughout the day, I received many comments on my positive attitude. I took a nap during the first bit of downtime, and chatted with the nurses and other patients near me the rest of the time. With the exceptions of the IV, starving from having not eaten since the night before, and the odd hospital stink, I was having a grand old time. This comes in to play later.

My turn finally came at 1:30 in the afternoon (I'd bee at the hospital since 11am), and after downing a litre of contrast solution, I was off to the CT room. I entered and the nurse asked, "Did they tell you that we need to give you rectal contrast?" I laughed. The nurse smiled, but came back with, "No, I'm actually serious. :(" (fast forward) so filled with contrast from the top and bottom, I started in on the bed. They hooked up an IV contrast as well. When the tech told me the list of side effects, I laughed again, but he was serious too: "Hot flashes, a metalic taste on the tongue, a burning smell..." And when the IV contrast shot in, I got to experience these firsthand... It was weird, but not the least bit unpleasant.

(EDIT: There was originally a bit here about my time in the bathroom after the CT scan, but it's pretty much two paragraphs of quite disturbing, TMI content.)

So back in my ER room, the results came back and everyone started scurrying. It was appendicitis and it was BAD. Shelly and Sarah (sweetest nurses ever) came in and gave me the news that I was headed for surgery. All of the nurses were shocked. They had assumed from my grand attitude that I couldn't possibly be experiencing the pain associated with my condition. NOTE: It's the whole dancer and extreme sports thing. I'm almost always in pain from something or other, so my tolerance is pretty ridiculous. Also note, I bring up the tiniest scratch in pretty much the same way I bring up a deep tissue gouge. (I have a high tolerance, but I am also quite sensitive, leading to my edge in sports and thing like juggling.)

Less than an hour later I was in surgery. I came out with a big smile and two thumbs up, much to the delight of the nurses in the OR holding room. I couldn't talk or pee owing to (warning TMI) a full catheter up my woohoo into my bladder, and the respirator tube that was shoved down my throat, but aside from that, I was still doing well.

It took 6 hours to finally start peeing, and when I did, I had to go every 3-5 minutes (irritated bladder). Two hours later, after a full meal, and about a mile of pacing around the hospital to try to work out the carbon gas they had injected into my abdomen (turning me into a human balloon for the operation), I was free to go. The problem was, my bladder didn't agree with leaving. I asked for one of those urine buckets for the trip, and the hospital staff was quick to oblige. Bucket in hand, clothes back on, I set off for the car. I barely made it. It took 2 pee stops to reach the 24-hour CVS (a mere 3 miles away). I had to wait 30 minutes for my Vicodin script to be filled (another 4 pee stops), then it was off to home (20 minutes and 3 pee stops).

We got home at 2am, readied ourselves for bed, then passed out for a great night's sleep. Upon arising this morning, I find I still can't talk right, and using my abs is excrutiating, but all-in-all, I'm none the worse for wear. I'll be taking it easy for the next few days. I'd love to hear from you on Facebook or via Email if you get the chance. :)

Thanks for all the "get well" txts, twitters & emails so far! I love you guys!!

P.S. Here's some more info on what went down: http://www.umm.edu/general_surgery/lap_appendectomy.htm

What is a laparoscopic appendectomy?

The laparoscopic (minimally invasive) surgical technique involves making several tiny cuts in the abdomen and inserting a miniature camera and surgical instruments. As many as three or four incisions are made. The surgeon then removes the appendix with the instruments, so there is usually no need to make a large incision in the abdomen. The camera projects a magnified image of the area onto a television monitor which helps guide the surgeons as they remove the appendix.

In Memory of My Mom

Video Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0OvRWOKB-k

Photo Gallery:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ultimadj/HelenJohnsonMemorialGallery?feat=directlink

Obituary/Guestbook:

http://obit.johnsonkennedy.com/obitdisplay.html?id=758795&listing=Current

If variety is the spice of life, my mom OWNED THE MILL... She always had something new and interesting to try like octopus salad, fresh figs, all sorts of goat dairy products, the lastest mix from the Mediterranean bar, a new bottle of vitamins that would enhance your night vision and make your teeth brush themselves, golf lessons, groovy dance styles, and all sorts of workshops ranging from high-art to martial arts...

My mom was a distinctly selfless person. Her time consisted solely of assisting someone with something. The things and persons involved shifted rapidly, but her pivotal role remained the same throughout... a testament to her God-centered life.

Rock on, Mom!!