On this first day of August, 2024, I am at home feeling some unrest about a phone conversation last night with daughter Julia. As careful as I try to be with words, sometimes I make the wrong choice. I know what I mean, but the platform of love from which I speak is not always what is heard. That is why I have been praying. I am asking God to be the communicator that I am not.
I am also remembering the story she told me, over the phone, on Tuesday. It was such an example of her unpredictable, eventful, and exciting life. She was still laughing and smiling as she told it, and it gave us a chance to marvel with her.
She has sheep, and has been learning to shear them herself. One of her tasks for the day had been to get the woolly coat off the last young ram and then to castrate him. She is a veterinarian and has years of experience with this procedure, on multiple species of animals. However, sheep are surprisingly sensitive creatures.
After getting his anesthesia, this poor little fellow stopped breathing altogether. Julia started doing chest compressions and sent husband Kevin, who was watching while holding the baby, for some epinephrine. I was trying to picture her doing chest compressions and rescue breathing on a sheep, but am not at all sure that I got it right. I'm thinking it was somewhat of a miracle that Kevin found the right medicine, and that she was able to administer it several times, even right into the sheep heart. Reviving him was not quick or easy. And then, somehow, Julia and the sheep were in the back of her truck while Kevin drove them to the vet hospital where she works. Fluids and a reversal drug seemed to put things in a better light. The sheep survived and was recovering.
Mom and I, my brother Gary and his partner Lyn, listened to her story while eating our ice cream cones on a bench in front of West's Dairy. It was kind of like having a treat while watching a good movie.
This is a different sort of week for me. My car is at the car hospital having body work done and I am attempting to keep my appointments in town by biking or walking. We are having some of our hottest summer days, so I am arriving hot and sweaty to some places. And today it is raining off and on, which is another complication. I am supposed to mow grass at church, but for now I'm going to go help at the Resource Center for a while, and stay dry.
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