Blake and Juli

This weekend Blake learned how to:

-  splint a broken femur using a branch, rope, and a pair of shoes

-  perform an emergency cricothyrotomy (practice was done using a pig)

-  identify venomous snakes from non-venomous

-  rescue a person from a rapid river while stabilizing their cervical spine, and then bringing them out of hypothermia

-  treating a person who has just been struck by lightening

-  intubate a person

And he also learned that duct tape and safety pins are amazing in wilderness medicine scenarios.  For example, if rescuing a person from a rapid river and their tongue is blocking their airway…. (warning: this isn’t for those easily grossed out)…. then the best thing to do is safety pin their tongue to their bottom lip to keep the tongue from sliding to the back of their throat.  Gross, right? But then again, you’re saving their life.

I’m glad to have him back at home, and I’ve enjoyed hearing about the things he learned.  Way cool!

Aimee Mullins is a world-class runner in the Paralympics. She was born without her shin bones, and her powerful message voices so many of my same thoughts and perspectives! I could have typed out her whole message because it was all SO GOOD, but here are some of my favorite excerpts instead:

“People have continually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and I’m going to make an admission—this phrase never sat right with me and I always felt uneasy trying to answer people’s questions about it. And I think I’m starting to figure out why. Implicit in this phrase of “overcoming adversity” is the idea that success or happiness is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience. As if, my successes in life have come about from an ability to side-step, or circumnavigate the presumed pitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as my disability. When in fact, we are changed. We are marked, of course, by a challenge whether physically emotionally or both. And I’m going to suggest that this is a good thing. Adversity isn’t an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living out life; it’s part of our life.“

“In our desire to protect those we care about by giving them the cold, hard truth about their medical prognosis or indeed a prognosis on the expected quality of their life we have to make sure that we don’t put the first brick in a wall that will actually disable someone. Perhaps the existing model of only looking at what is broken in you and how do we fix it serves to be more disabling than the pathology itself. By not treating the wholeness of a person, by not acknowledging their potency, we are creating another ill on top of whatever natural struggle they might have. We are effectively grading someone’s worth to our community. So we need to see through the pathology and into the range of human capability.”

“So maybe the idea I want to put out there is not so much overcoming adversity, as it is opening ourselves up to it. Embracing it. Grappling with it. Maybe even dancing with it.”

“The only true disability is a crushed spirit. A spirit that’s been crushed doesn’t have hope. It doesn’t see beauty. It no longer has our natural child-like curiosity and our innate ability to imagine. If instead we can bolster a human spirit to keep hope, to see beauty in themselves and others, to be curious and imaginative, then we are truly using our power well. When as spirit has those qualities, we are able to create new realities and new ways of being.”

As I listened to this message, I thought of my parents and how blessed I am to have been raised by them.  My mom, being a nurse, looked beyond the pathology of my condition and never saw reason to let it limit me.  They didn’t see me as incapable, helpless, or weak; rather, they saw me as strong, capable, and able to adapt.  They also saw my condition as an opportunity of growth and a privilege in that God could use me simply because I’m different. I attribute my upbringing as a platform for who I am today.

My condition has shaped me as a person, and I believe that it has given me greater joy and appreciation for life.  Like Aimee, I did not want my life to be apart from normalcy when I was young (I wanted “big” hands like everyone else in 1st grade); however, today I would hesitate to trade my life for what we call “normal”. It is something to embrace.  I feel it’s necessary to clarify myself after that statement because I understand adversity it not a peaceful, happy, sun-shiny experience all the time.  In fact, it’s often painful, draining, and agonizing. But is that not the definition of being molded and refined?

Hearing this message reaffirmed to me another reason I think Blake is going to make one kick-ass doctor!  It is the physician who often sets the scene and introduces an unfamiliar future to parents receiving their child’s diagnosis.  I’ve heard story after story about parents giving birth to a child with dwarfism and it being followed by a grim, depressing, hopeless monologue from their doctor.  There seems to be a certain bias among the healthcare field in which abnormal is bad, when in fact it doesn’t have to be the case.  I think Blake is going to do an excellent job at communicating the medical details of someone’s prognosis in a way that is genuine and hopeful.  He’s exceptional at extending sincere sympathy to a person, while recognizing a person’s resiliency. Yep! That’s my husband

This last excerpt especially spoke to me, as I have experienced a crushed spirit by people’s blatant discrimination.  I’m not talking about subtle doubts that I might get from the general public… I’m talking about arrogant disapproval of my condition and not even giving me a chance to demonstrate my abilities.  I don’t think people understand the power of their own words and actions.  To deny someone a chance based on their physical body is one of the most monstrous things you can do, in my opinion.  It has taken me months of heart-wrenching prayer and hundreds of miles out on the running trail for me to regain hope.  All because several people told me “you can’t” without even giving me the opportunity to see whether I could.  I don’t mean to leave this on a downward note; rather, I want to get the message out there that our actions affect others in a dramatic way!  Imagine if we could rid the world of the idea that disabled people are flawed or incapable, and instead we saw the incredible value of a disability.

Yesterday, my Grandpa Smith went to be with the Lord.  The life he lived was a wonderful examples of devotion, and he was always eager to turn back praise to God.  I spent some final moments with him last weekend, which I’m so thankful for!  We will miss him greatly, but we rejoice with him that he is no longer suffering!

Last night was a fantastic night!  We went to an oyster roast on the marina with Blake’s class, which was sooo much fun!  It was the first oyster roast experience for both of us.  How to even describe it? About 60+ people all crowded in a tented area where there were two big tables made out of wooden boards.  Oysters were brought in 40-50 lbs at a time and just dumped right on top of the table. At that point, everyone would just grab an oyster, pry open the shells, dip it in some cocktail sauce, and eat it. It was wonderfully chaotic!  650 lbs worth of oyster was dumped on top of the tables by the end of the night!

In the midst of the madness, someone yelled “it’s snowing!!”  We were certain he was making it up because, after all, we live on the coast.  But sure enough, another person drew back a side of the tent and we all saw big snow flakes dropping from the sky!  The whole tent started cheering and clapping… here we were at an oyster roast on the marina, watching snow fall.  The snow didn’t last very long, but it was enough to cover maybe 1/2-in on our cars.  The salty air has already swept it away.  Regardless, it was another memory made!

This post is a little late, but it’s better late than never.

Almost two week ago, I completed one of my life goals– running a marathon!  I’ve gotta say… the weekend at Disney with my mom, mother-in-law, and Blake was so memorable that I’m still replaying the moments in my head. I still laugh thinking about how insane it was to wake up at 3am to get to the starting line.  Did we really do that?? Not to mention, the sub-freezing  temperatures outside gave you even more reason to want to stay in bed.

Friday– Blake and I drove down to Orlando, and I attended a pasta dinner in Epcot with my team from Rally Foundation.  The dinner was provided for the runners who raised money in support of childhood cancer research.  It was awesome to meet some of the Rally kids and hear their stories of battling cancer.  Thanks to many of you who generously donated money, I was able to raise beyond my pledged amount of $600 and raised $661!  All of the runners combined raised more than $120,000!  93% of money raised will go directly to fund research projects around the country. To see some of the research projects Rally is currently funding go to: http://rallyfoundation.org/index.php/researchgrants.

After dinner, we were able to meet up with Casey, a good friend of ours, who lives only 45 minutes from where we were staying.  We know Casey from LPA, but we don’t get to see her often so it was fun to catch up and talk about life and God.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me at all on Friday, so the only pictures I have will remain in my head.

Saturday– Blake and I picked up our moms at the airport and the uncontrollable laughter began!  My mom had never been to Disney World, so we spent the day at Magic Kingdom acting like little kids.  The smartest thing we did all day was to rent a wheelchair for me, and I was pushed around the park to conserve energy for the race the next morning.  And geez, did I need that energy the next day!

My favorite memory at Magic Kingdom was riding Space Mountain, or should I say my mom’s reaction to riding Space Mountain.  For as long as I can remember, my mom has always been concerned about my neck. I think she has some imagined scenario in which I whip it the wrong way and injure myself. So we get on this ride, which is a roller coaster that goes pitch black and assimilates the experience of going through space (by the way, we gave my mom no details of what to expect).  I was sitting in front of her, and the ride began.  Did I mention she hates roller coasters? Not long into the ride, I notice a hand on top of my head grasping a fist full of my hair.  Meanwhile, my mom is screaming, “Juli!!! Your neck!!! Your neck, Juli!!!” and this hand is pulling my head (by means of my hair) against the back of the seat.  I could not stop laughing… I mean about-to-pee-myself-laughing.  My hair was a mess by the end of the ride, and I’m pretty sure my eyes were tear-filled from laughing.  For those of you who might be wondering, my neck was fine and I fit safely into the ride.  I definitely wouldn’t have been laughing if that was not the case.

We were all ready to crash by the end of the day, so we went to bed early to prepare for another busy day ahead of us.

my team before heading over to the starting line

Sunday– I don’t even want to pretend that our day started in the early morning.  No, our day started in the middle of the night.  The race started at 5:40am, but in order to get to the starting line on time we had to wake up at 3am and leave the hotel by 3:45am.  It. was. insane.

It was dark, cold, and wet as I made my way to the starting line.  They had music blasting to wake us up and everyone was running in place or forming huddles to keep warm.  The race began with FIREWORKS!!  Disney does it right

My goal for the race was to pace myself well enough that I could finish strong, run the entire distance and not walk, and to do it all under 5 hours.  My family held a Minnie Mouse balloon on the sidelines, so that I could spot them easily at 9 mile, 12.5 mile, and finish.  I give them props for standing in the cold, rushing from point-to-point to catch me, and doing all the aforementioned before the sun even came up I was feeling good all the way up to 15 miles, and then I felt my body tightening up and my lower back was mad at me.  I discovered Biofreeze to be my new best friend… I stopped at the medic tents 2-3 times to slather that stuff on my body until I went numb.  Note: running numb feels funny.

Sue & my mom on the sidelines trying to stay warm

handing off my outer shell at the 9-mile mark

At mile 21 my vision started to go.  I was told that running a marathon will bring you to the point of experiencing a whole new state of being.  Thankfully, I think the 5-6 sports gels I took down prevented me from experiencing anything worse than blurry vision. Mile 22 I got really excited, realizing I only had 4.2 miles left.  It was at this point that I started singing praise and spontaneously skipping.  The poor people around me must have thought I was crazy, but I couldn’t help myself– “Today! Today! I live for one thing– to give You praise in everything I do! Oh, my praise goes out to You!”

you can spot me in the middle, slightly to the left

Note to everyone: don’t ever congratulate someone who just ran a marathon, “Good job! You just ran 26 miles!”  It’s 26.2….. and that 0.2 matters!  I have never felt like two-tenths of a mile was so forever far away.  I could see the finish line, but it felt like one of those dreams where you are trying to run but feel stuck in place.  Nonetheless, I picked up my pace and made it across the finish line at 4:56:58, accomplishing my goal to finish under 5 hrs!!

coming into finish!!

Here are the stats and such for those interested:

-   I placed 272 out of 782 in my division (females 18-24) which is top 35%

-   I placed 7,308 out of 16,891 overall, which is top 43%

-   The distance that I ran was equivalent to an average size person running 39 miles (according to number of steps). This is because I take 1.5 steps more than the average person– for every 2 steps they take, I take 3.

-   Another way to look at it… if I were average size, the pace that I ran would be like an average size person running 7:33 min miles, which would be like running the marathon at 3:18:00

-   According to the Disability Program, I qualified for the Boston!!!

All in all, it was an amazing weekend and one I will never forget!  Thank you everyone who donated money to Rally Foundation, encouraged me throughout my training, and cheered me through to finish!

Yesterday, we celebrated our first anniversary as a married couple!  I find myself falling more and more in-love with him as time goes on, and I look forward to many more years to celebrate our life together.