Celebrity Meets

Over the years I have had the opportunity to meet some celebrities.  Some just happened and some due to my medical issues.  I can remember most, if not all, the celebrities I've met.  Here are three and what happened when I met them:

James Doohan.
James Doohan played Scotty on Star Trek and he was the first celebrity I met.  I was in my junior year in high school.  It wasa Saturday in March I was talking with my mother and she asked if there was any of the actors from Star Trek I wanted to meet.  I was, and still am, a fan of Star Trek.  I said that I would enjoy meeting Jimmy Doohan.  From things I read he was very nice and really responsive to fans.  Besides he played Scotty, my favorite character.  The next day at church a friend handed me a
newspaper article and said that we were going.  The article was about a guest speaker at Lehigh University, James Doohan.
When we arrived we saw people going in the hall where he was to speak.  As we got closer I saw a man with a large set of keys on his belt and thought it the person responsible for the opening the hall.  Then he turned around and it was Jimmy.  We ware able to walk up to him and got a picture taken with him.  He was just walking around meeting people.  Afterwards he signed autographs.  I brought along my Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise book and was able to have him sign it.  I did get to see him at a few other Star Trek conventions I went to.

Tony Todd. 
To Star Trek fans Tony Todd is know for Kurn, Worf's brother from Star Trek The Next Generation and also Jake Sisko as an adult from Star Trek Deep Space Nine.  The convention he was at was run by a local Star Trek fan club that I was a member of.  The fan club raised money for a local charity called Dream Come True.  Dream Come True is an organization that fulfills the dreams of chronically,
seriously or terminally ill children.  Due to my heart defect I qualified and they sent me to Walt Disney World and Kennedy Space Center.  At the convention there was an auction and the proceeds was for Dream Come True.  Tony was very interested in what this Dream Come True was all about.  The organizers explained it all to him and he was fascinated and indicated that it would love to meet one of the kids.

I was there at the convention but only as a fan not an organizer.  One of the them found me and said that they need me backstage.  I was confused.  They told me that Tony wanted to meet me.  Me?  Why?  So I went back and my friend from church was there too and he went with me.  Tony was very nice.  He asked about me and what it was like for me and he wished me well.  I got a picture with him and my friend videotaped it.  Tony also signed my Klingon Dictonary.  Marc Okrand, the writer of the Klingon Dictonary was back there too and he talked with us a bit and also signed the dictionary.  That was a log of fun.

Brent Spiner.
I didn't actually meet him but I did interact with him a small bit, to my embarrassment.  At the convention he was at, you had to pay to get his autograph and I didn't have the money.  I was close by when he asked anyone who could hear if there was someone who knew anything about BlackBerries.  At the time I worked for T-Mobile as BlackBerry tech support.  I said I did.  Then he asked a non-BlackBerry question and it threw me.  He wanted to know how to save a voicemail without listening to it.  Arrggh.  I did know but I blanked.  I was all ready for a BlackBerry question and....well someone else helped him.  Normally I would be able to answer such a question for a customer and if I blanked I would have the info right there within seconds.  Oh, well.  I did get to talk to him.........

The Blalock-Taussig Shunt

            The Blalock-Taussig shunt or BT Shunt was first performed by renowned heart surgeon Dr. Alfred Blalock on November 29th, 1944.  The procedure is named for him and Dr. Helen Taussig a pediatric cardiologist.  Taussig approached Blalock after being frustrated and powerless to help children with the Blue Baby Syndrome.  The Blue Baby Syndrome gets its name from the blue pallor to the skin of infants and young children who have severe congenital heart defects.  Of the heart defects that cause the blueness, or cyanosis, tetralogy of Fallot is one of the most common.  The blueness comes from the fact that the blood is not as oxygenated as a normal person's blood.  This comes from either complete or partial blockage of blood to the lungs and a mixing of the blood between the two sides of the heart.  The left side of the heart pumps oxygenated blood to the body and the right side pumps blood to the lungs.  The blockage is usually associated with the pulmonary artery, which takes blood from the right side to the lungs, or the pulmonary valve.  The mixing is usually caused by a hole between the ventricles, main pumping chambers.  In cases like tetralogy, the defect causes more blood to pass from the right side of the heart to the left bypassing the lungs, the causes a much lower oxygen presence in the blood than is needed by the body. 

            Taussig noticed that those patients with the Blue Baby Syndrome seemed to survive longer if there was another defect present.  The associated defect is called a patent ductus arteriosis.  Everyone is born with a connection, called the ductus arteriosis, between the aorta, which takes blood to the body, and the pulmonary artery so that the lungs are bypassed when they are not working before birth.  The connected closes usually within a few hours or few days of birth.  Sometimes this connection stays open and causes a mixing of the blood.  In the case of tetralogy of Fallot due to the blockage in the pulmonary artery the blood flow in the ductus to be in the other direction thus sending blood to the lungs.  Taussig believed that there should be a way of reconnection the major arteries to get more blood to the lungs.  At the time Blalock had been working with his lab technician, Vivian Thomas, in procedures associated with shock and the side effect was more blood sent to the lungs.  He believed he could modify that procedure for blue babies.  He brought the problem up with Thomas who began to work on it.

            Thomas had planned to go to medical school when the depression hit and left him penniless.  He sought work and got a job as Blalock's lab assistant.  Blalock noticed the skill Thomas had and Thomas' interest in his surgical notes and books.  Blalock taught Thomas in surgical techniques and Thomas became his lab technician.  In order to test his how a modification of his procedure would work they needed to recreate the condition in lab dogs.  This was Thomas' job.  After some experimentation, Thomas was able to replicate the condition in a lab dog.  He then went on the modify Blalock's shock procedure and was successful.  He had to modify some of the instruments he used so they would work properly for a human patient.  Many of today’s surgical instruments come from what Thomas had originally done.  He then taught the modified procedure to Blalock.  The basic procedure is connecting the left sub-clavien artery, which is an artery that carries blood to the arm, to the left pulmonary artery.  This created an artificial ductus arteriosis.

            When the time Blalock felt confident enough to perform the procedure on a human, the surgery was scheduled.  The first patient was 9 pound baby girl named Eileen with tetralogy of Fallot.  Blalock, a little uncertain, had Thomas brought into the operating theater to observe and guide him during the surgery.  Thomas did direct and observe the surgery from behind Blalock's right shoulder standing on a step stool.  Besides widely opening up the field of cardiac surgery is the fact that the major work on this procedure was done by Thomas, a young black man living during the era of the Jim Crow laws.  If it were not for him I probably would not be here today.  The BT shunt was my second surgery on my heart and allowed me to grow so that the total correction could be done on me.  I was born with tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia.  My defect caused a total blockage of blood to the lungs but this surgery was one of two that helped keep me alive until the total correction surgery was done.  All of this is possible because of Taussig, Blalock, and especially Thomas.

Here is a scene from Something the Lord Had Made, dramatizing the first attempt of the surgery:

LEGO

Along with model building, I have another constructive hobby: LEGO.  One of my earliest sets was a basic set my grandparents gave me but what really started my fascination with LEGO was a set my school classmates gave me when I went in to the hospital for my second surgery when I was 8.  The school asked what would be a good thing to give me while I was in the hospital and my mother suggested LEGO because I would be laying down in a bed recovering from surgery and LEGO is also an educational toy that helps to build creativity.  I also would say it helps with improving problem solving and spatial ability.  I was given another larger basic set.  When  I was recovering in the CICU (cardiac intensive care unit) one of the nurses helped me build something out of the  LEGO set.  Together we build a model of the CICU.  Took us a bit of time but was fun.  This began my interest in the toy.

A few years later I had my total correction surgery and brought my LEGO toys with me.  This surgery caused a much longer stay and recovery and I was grateful for the LEGO toys I had.  Around this time my brother began an interest in LEGO also.  Another few years later we began to have issues with sharing them.  Over the years some pieces got lost and there were not too many left to really do anything with them.  With these issues our mother decided to buy each of us our own set and we were not to share the pieces or make one big collection.  This way we each had our own and could not fight over them any more.  LEGO had created some specialized sets in addition to their Basic Sets.  They offered Castle, Town and Space themed sets.  I collected the Town and Space themed sets and my brother collected all three.  We still did get a basic set or two.

As we each grew our collections we amassed a lot of LEGO elements.  We would created things and sometimes share building tips or designs.  I focused mainly on science fiction based designs: spaceships, space stations, etc.  I would do other stuff too.  I've build a Mad Max era truck, an Airwolf inspired helicopter with design elements from my brother, a home/cabin that was based on a design from LEGO and some amusement park rides.  Most of my better designs are from when I was in high school and college.  I still have a few things together that I build back then, over twenty years ago.

It has now become a tradition that almost every time I go in to the hospital I am given a small LEGO set to keep me occupied.  Without the LEGO sets I'd have to find something else to occupy my mind.  There is TV which gets boring after awhile, reading, music, etc.  I do those things too as well as prayer too.  I also like visitors but people cannot always visit all the time.  So LEGO is great for the alone time I have a lot of.

I still build with LEGO at home but not as much as model building.  I also still collect sets but not as frequently as I did as a child.  Recently I've been collection the Star Wars themed sets.  I don't have all but I have quite a few of them.  I even like going to the LEGO store where you can select individual elements and build up the collection with special pieces.  I am very grateful for LEGO and still will collect and play with them.

Some of my sets and creations

A Racing Heart.

My previous post was poem I wrote about an event in my life almost two years ago.  It was part of the beginning of a "year of  hell" for me and my family.  In January of 2003, over 6 months after my last heart surgery to replace the pulmonary valve and conduit, I was undergoing a cardiac stress test to see how my heart was functioning.  During the test I gagged on the mouthpiece that was connected to a machine that was measuring my oxygen consumption.  When I gagged my heart rate jumped from about 130 bpm to about 200 bpm.  They stopped the test started taking my blood pressure.  They were getting no reading at all when they were using my left arm.  They then remembered that I had a BT shunt on the left side and the BP readings are not normal in that arm and possibly gone when the heart goes crazy.  They called for a crash cart.  They then tried to get the pressure from my right arm and they were getting normal readings.  After about almost two minutes of this my heart had one of its skipped beats that I usually get and that broke the rhythm.  I went from 220 to 160 in one jump.  They had me sit and not move or do anything and they kept monitoring my heart rate.  They debating keeping me overnight to monitor but since I was doing well and the EKG looked good I went home.

That incident including a similar event that occurred when restarting my heart and a halter monitor showing a few runs of tachycardia (fast heart rate) prompted my doctor to start me on a beta blocker (an anti-arrhythmia drug) and then have an ICD put in.  I have my first ICD put in in July of 2004.  Until January of  2009 I only had about 3-4 shocks from the ICD, all appropriate and all months apart from each other.  At the end of January I was shocked twice in one day.  I was to go to the ER if I had two or more shocks in a 24 hour period.  I went to the ER of a local hospital and they monitored me overnight.  Everything looked okay and they sent me hope and then I saw my regular doctor who takes care of the rhythm.  That doctor said it was probably a fluke.  They see this happend and I may never need another shock again or it might happen again.  There is no way to tell for sure and that is why the ICD is there.

A month later I came home from work and my heart rate was up a bit so I sat down when I got home.  As I sat there the heart rate was not dropping then suddenly it felt like the heart stopped.  That is the only way I could describe it.  A moment or two later I was shocked and then I felt the heart going but the rate was still up.  My wife called for an ambulance and a few minutes later I got another feeling of the heart stopped and then a shock.  I was put in the ambulance and they were switching drivers and I got two more shocks in the ambulance. Turns out the feeling of the heart stopped was the heart actually beating about about 250 to 260 bpm.  I stabilized but the rate was still up over 100 bpm.

Once in the ER it started again.  In about a 10 minute time span I was shocked about 6 more times.  In the middle of this happening the hospital's lullaby went off as it does when a baby is born.  I heart it and thought how TV cliché it was that when one life ends another begins.  After constant requests by my wife that they give me something to calm me down they gave me two drugs to relaxe me.  Shortly after the heart rate went down and stayed down to almost my normal rate.  I spent a week in the hospital that time.  This was what the poem was about.

The rest of the year was a nightmare of shocks and pacing outs.  When the ICD paces you out of a tachycardia it throws an extra beat or two in at a rate faster then the tachycardia.  This disrupts the rhythm which slows it down.  It is similar to what a shock does but with out the kick a shock gives or the full reset of the heart.

Finally after a year, two electro-physiology studies and two ablations (burning out the cells causing the fast rhythms) the tachycardia attacks or tachy storms stopped.  I been tachycardia free for about 11 months.  Now will see what the future will bring.  I still jump every time I feel a skipped or weird beat.  This is something that will be hard to forget or get over but I'm working on it with God's help.  .

Sounds on the Second Floor

Here is a poem I did for my writing group

The prompt was to take a sound and use it as the basis for writing something and make it a poem if we wanted to.  Kirsten gave me the idea for what sound and I took that for a specific incident in my life;


Sounds on the Second Floor



Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....
Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...
Bipbipbipbipbip
Oh
Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....
Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...
Bipbipbipbipbip
Oof
Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....
Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...
Bipbipbipbipbip
oof
Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....





                     la
                        la
                           la la
       laa       laa             la
                                         la         la
la  la     la  la                     la    la  la
                                    la


Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...
Bipbipbipbipbip
Oof
Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....
Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...
Bipbipbipbipbip
Ow!
Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....
Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...
Bipbipbipbipbip
Ugh!
Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....
Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...
Bip...bip...bip...bip...bip...

Bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....bip.....
Bip......bip......bip......bip......bip......
Bip.......bip.......bip......bip......bip......
Bip.......bip.......bip......bip......bip......
Bip.......bip.......bip......bip......bip......
Bip.......bip.......bip......bip......bip......

My First Story

This is the first chapter to the first story I wrote:

  1989 -- Activation. 

            It is lunch time at Valley Christian High.  At a table in a far corner of the cafeteria, five students sat eating lunch together.  They were good friends and the hot topic of their discussion was the upcoming Junior-Senior Formal Dinner.

            "So Ryan, who are you taking?"  Tim O'Reily, one of "The Gang," drilled Ryan.

            "I said I'm not going to go."

            "What will it take to get you to go?"

            "Nothin'."  Ryan mumbled between bites.

            Steven Evans, another one of the group, jumped into the conversation, "Good!  So that means you are going!"

            "I'm not going!"

            Tim leaned over to Steven and whispered, "I'll bet if we got him a date he'd go."

            "Yeah! . . . Who?"

            Tim turned to Ryan. "If you had a date for the dinner would you go?"

            "What is it with you guys?  I don't want to go," the thought about a date made him want to maybe reconsider his decision.  One reason he did not want to go was that he did not want to go alone.  He silently added, "sorta."

            "Would you go?"

            "If I had a date, yes, I would have to go."  Ryan tried to hide the smile from that thought.

            "So who should you take?"  Tim wondered.

            "I don't know anyone.  Oh well, guess I don't have to go."  Ryan smiled.

            "Yes you do.  I've seen the pictures in your wallet," Tim thought for a minute.  "Let's see the pictures," he said suddenly.

            "No.  Why would I want to do that?"

            "So we can decide who you can take."

            "Nah, that's okay.  Don't want to trouble you," Ryan said while Tim gave Steven a look, who in turn reached and grabbed Ryan's wallet and handed it to Tim.  "Hey. . . "

            "Oh, it's no trouble at all," Tim said and began to look through the pictures.

            "So?  What's he got Tim?" John Crush, another of the group, said finally speaking up.

            "Hold on," Tim started to think and then said to Ryan, "How about if you take . . . wait, you have a few pictures of Dani Thompson.  How about her?" Ryan became white, but also smiled a little and started to hope that maybe his friends would somehow arrange it.  "You know," Tim continued, "I could go ask her now."

            Could you?  Ryan thought but instead said, "You wouldn't!"

            "I'll be right back."  Tim got up with a smile on his face and headed toward where Dani was sitting.

            "He's not going where I think he's going, is he?"

            "Yep," Steven snickered.

            "I gotta get outta here."  Ryan got up and headed toward the lockers on the other side of the room.

            "Wait!  Where are you going?"  Jared Martin, another one of the group, said, but it was too late.  Ryan had moved out of there fast.

            As Ryan moved toward the lockers, he had to pass where Tim and Dani were talking.  Dani saw him and smiled.  Ryan moved faster.  What was Tim saying?  What is Dani going to think or say?  He hoped she would say yes, but then what was he going to do?  He had never been on a date.  Maybe she'll say no and he won't have to worry about it.

            Ryan arrived at his locker and opened it.  He examined his locker for something that would get his mind off his present situation.  Nothing.  He just stared into it.  As he looked someone came up behind him.  He turned thinking it was Tim.  As he turned and faced the person, his heart jumped.  It wasn't Tim; it was Dani.

            Dani stood in front of Ryan.  She seemed to beam like an angel.  Her beautiful, long blond hair hung down on her shoulders.  Her crystal, sapphire blue eyes gazed softly at Ryan.  She was smiling her small quiet smile.

            "Hi Ryan," she said.

            Ryan's heart was beating fast and all he could manage to get out was, "Hi."

            "I hear that someone wants to take me to the Junior-Senior Formal Dinner."

            Ryan wondered why she was telling him this.  "Are you going to go with him?"  he asked, thinking that she meant someone else had already asked her, and not even thinking about what Tim did.

            "I don't know.  He hasn't asked me yet."

            "What?" he said still confused.  " How do you even know that he wants to take you?"

            "One of his friends just asked me for him, but I'll answer him if only he asks me."  Then she gave him a look that made the light go on in Ryan's head that said it was him she meant.  Her expression also encouraged Ryan to ask her now.  He should have known.

            Ryan looked over her shoulder at his friends.  They were laughing at his predicament, but he also saw that they were sincere in helping him find a date.  He looked at her again.  She seemed eager to go with him if he'd only ask.  So he decided to try.  Ryan had never asked any girl on a date before so he did not know what to say.  "Ah . . . would you like to go with me to the dinner?"  He hoped he hadn't sounded foolish, but that was all he could think of.

            As Dani was about to answer Ryan, the school's bell sounded and Dani's friends urged her to their next class.  She smiled at Ryan as she left the cafeteria.

            At the end of the day, Ryan grabbed his books and jacket and hurried to the bus anxious to go home.  As he sat in the left front seat, Loren Moser got on the bus.  She was her cheerful self and she sat behind Ryan as she usually did.  Because there were only a few students on the bus, Ryan would be the first one to get off.  However before the bus reached his stop, Loren spoke with him, "I hear you asked Dani to the dinner.  What did she say?"

            "Yeah, I asked her," Ryan smiled.  "But she didn't get a chance to answer me."

            "From what I heard, she'll go with you."

            "You think so?"

            "Hey, for the last two weeks she had been hoping that you would ask her.  Yeah, I think so."

            The bus came to Ryan's stop.  "Maybe she'll tell me something tomorrow.  I don't know."  Ryan stood up.  "Well, see ya tomorrow, Loren."  He got off the bus.

            When Ryan reached home, he did his homework and then went outside to take a walk.  He walked for a while and then came home and sat on the porch until dark.  As it got dark, Ryan stared at the stars as they slowly appeared and admired their beauty.  He really appreciated the beauty of the stars that God created.

            Later he went inside and decided to watch some television.  Turning on the set, he watched a news brief about a young actor, Thomas Moyer, who was missing from his home in Beverly Hills, and a couple of other shows before he went to bed.

  *                    *                    *

            Later that night in an abandoned building, four men, dressed in expensive suits were talking.  They stood around a table with a map of the United States on it.  On the map strategic locations were indicated by red dots and "X's," and on one corner of the map sat three clear bags of white powder.

            "How is everything going?" Said the man with a cane.

            Another man wearing the same exact suit as the one with the cane responded, "All is going according to plan.  When the election is completed, we will have control of most of the East Coast.  Our men are winning the debates all the time.  We will begin removing all opposition."

            "Good.  Soon we will be the only ones to whom people will come for this."  He picked up one of the bags and threw it to his side man.

  *                    *                    *

            Early the next morning around 2:30 am Ryan awoke with a strange feeling in his head.  He did not know what it was, but he felt as if he were being drawn into the cellar.  He tried to fight it off and go back to sleep, but the harder he tried, the stronger the feeling became.

            He tossed and turned for about ten minutes.  As he sat up, the feeling became stronger, and he went downstairs.  He walked over to the cellar door, opened it, and stopped.  He looked down and saw a dim light pulsing steadily.  His curiosity overcame any fears he might have had; he went down.

            The source of the light was in a small room situated in one of the corners of the cellar.  He went inside.  In front of Ryan stood a table and on the table was the source of the light, a cube measuring about one foot on each side.  Ryan reached out and touched it.  For a second it glowed steadily then began pulsing dimly again.  He reached out with both hands on either side to pick it up.  The cube began to glow steadily and brightly.  Ryan took a step back.  The cube gave a bright flash that almost blinded Ryan.

            When Ryan's vision cleared, he was no longer in his cellar.  He was in a very large room.  The cube, which was still in front of him, was projecting a three dimensional image of someone. He looked closer.  He thought he recognized the person.  He looked and tried to think of whom.  It was a girl, fifteen or sixteen, with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes.  "Dani!"  He jumped back.

  *                     *                    *

            About five miles north of Ryan's house, in an upstairs bedroom, Dani was sleeping.  She awoke suddenly thinking that someone called her name.  She sat up and looked around her room, but nothing was out of the ordinary.  She tried to go back to sleep.  She tossed and turned for a half hour and finally she went to sleep.

Some of my writing.....

I thought, for the next few posts I would put up parts of stuff I've written.  The first here is how I was going to open the sequel to my very first story I ever wrote.  Enjoy:

              She knew she was in trouble as soon as she let him out of her sight.  She carefully searched the lightly wooded area with her gun drawn and ready.  She heard a sound and stopped.  She carefully looked around.  All of a sudden a lot of water poured down on her.  Dani's mouth twitched, formed a smile, and then she broke out laughing as she was drenched.

                "Why, you. . .!" Dani said aiming her gun above her.  She was about to fire when she saw that her attacker had a very large bucket, and apparently it wasn't empty.  "Ryan, that's not fair!" she yelled up to him.

                Ryan smiled down at her from his position on a catwalk above her.  "Oh, and leading me into an active sprinkler system is?" he said still smiling.

                "Well a girl's got to protect herself, doesn't she?  That's fair," she said.

                "You outmaneuver me, I outgun you.  That's fair," he said with a sly smile.

                "Humph," she grunted and then looked at her watch.  "Oh no, Ryan.  We promised to be at your sister's practice and it starts in five minutes."

                Ryan looked at his own watch and grimaced, "You're right.  We better get going."  He put the bucket down and ran down the nearest stairway.

                As they walked side by side to two large doors, Dani shot Ryan with a stream of water from her gun.  He looked at her and said, "Just wait.  You'll get your own soon enough."  They walked through the doors and stepped into a corridor of the  H. M. S.  Trinitarian .

                Fifteen minutes later, after changing into dry clothes, Ryan and Dani arrived at the meeting room where Nicole's dance practice was being held.  When Nicole noticed them come in and sit down, she ran over to them.  With a hurt look she said, "And just

where were you?  You're ten minutes late."

                "Well, your brother here. . ." Dani started saying but Ryan cut her off.

                "We're very sorry, Nikki, but we've been running a bit behind schedule today, " Ryan said while glaring at Dani.

                "Uh, sure," Nikki said, unconvinced.  By watching the two of them, she knew something was going on and she decided to find out later what was going on.  "Well, I have to get back," she said and went back to the rest of her group.

                "Think she believed us?" Ryan whispered to Dani.

                "Us?!  What's this us?  It's your fault that we're late." Dani said.

                "Me?  You started the whole thing!"

                "Not me, I'm just a sweet little angel.  See my halo," she said and made a ring with her fingers above her head.

                "It's more like this. . ." Ryan said moving her fingers to the top of her head, making them look like horns.  "Anyway, you're the one who threw the first water balloon."

                "Well, maybe.  But you're the one who brought in the first water gun."

                "True.  However. . ."  Ryan began and the playful banter continued throughout the practice with them not paying any  attention to the dancing.

I might post the opening to the first one next post.