August 7, 2014 – Living Adventurously

Tonight’s dinner, in honor of my cousin’s new baby. 🙂

The cousin closest to me in age is my cousin Diane, who lives in Houston now with her Italian husband and three kids. Today she gave birth to the third, a son (their first), whom they named Matthew Francis.

This recipe is hereby named after him; I was going to make this tonight anyway, but when I came back from my swim, I had a text message saying Diane “had been delivered” (love that phrase) of a baby boy.

When I cook, I add the dates I cooked recipes on the recipe page, so I can see how frequently or infrequently I make things. The last time I made this was on Diane and Matthew’s anniversary (Matthew is her husband’s name as well). So this dish has their family written all over.

Baby Matthew won’t be eating this for awhile, but I can image the rest of his family eating…

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I don’t get nervous about surgery anymore.

I mean, really, when you’ve had your chest open and been naked on an operating table for twelve hours, and almost lost your arm, and come out the other side alive? There’s really nothing to worry about, after that.

Sinus surgery, which I’m having next week, isn’t something I’m worried about.

It’s part of the CF parcel. The sinuses, like every other part of the body, can become crammed with mucus that attracts infection, and we don’t want that coming into my nice, non-CF lungs. So every other year, I go to the OR and my ENT uses his tools to clean them out, swish some antibiotic solution around in the clean cavities, and send me home.

This year, we’re adding something else. My septum has deviated, for reasons none of us know (I’m not playing hockey or getting in bar fights), so that also needs fixed. So this surgery has a hint of unknown about it. I’m not sure how I’ll feel afterwards, waking up in the PACU, and I don’t know if they’ll need to keep me over night.

But this isn’t anything to worry about. Because one, I trust my doctor, and I also trust God. He’s got this, so I don’t have to worry about it. I’ll go to confession before, because it’s always good to have a clean slate when going into surgery, but I’m not worried about it.

The first time I had surgery, it was having my sinuses cleaned out, and having my wisdom teeth removed. The anesthesiologist was scared when she saw my lung function, in the mid-twenties. She thought we were crazy for doing this, and that my doctors were crazy, too. That time? Oh, I was scared. I wasn’t scared before she came in, but her brash words and hard manner terrified a surgery virgin. I trusted my other doctors, sure–but she didn’t.

Was I crazy for trusting?

Sometimes trust seems crazy. We’re taking a jump off a high high dive, and we don’t know if there’s enough water in the pool. We jump of the ledge, hoping someone will catch us. We think someone will.

God always catches us.

So next week, when I roll into an OR, I might be nervous about the recovery time or what, precisely, will happen. But I’m not worried about the big things, because I trust the people who are handling those big things.

God is always good, and I am always loved.

Trust.