Month: June 2005

  • Time Out

    I‘m looking forward to my next vacation. Our plan is to spend as much time on the water as possible — whether in a sailboat, a waterpark, or an inner tube. Or maybe all three.

    This hotel is aesthetically pleasing to me.


    The Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai

  • Intensive Care

    Currently I’m working in the ICU, and every day I’m surrounded by dying people. It’s really quite stressful, but somehow I’m getting used to it. I admire people who can somehow manage the medical problems of multiple dying patients at once. It’s really amazing to watch — a dance with deadly weapons as in the movie “The Killer.” At the end of the day, if no one died, I’ve accomplished my daily goal. If I’ve killed a few R.N.s and respiratory therapists, that’s okay. They’re expendable. Phlebotomists, however, are not.

    I’m absolutely, positively, unanimously certain that once I’m done with residency, a critical care fellowship is not on my list of things I want to do in my spare time.

    I just want to say to all my lovely readers, please wear your seat belts. They really do save lives. Please don’t shake your babies because you’ll shear the meninges off their brains, and yet somehow we’ll save them and they’ll be breathing from a tube in their throat, still in diapers, and fed Pediasure by a gastrostomy tube because they can’t move, even though they’re 24 years old. Please don’t let your kid ride a bike in front of a truck going 35 mph, because somehow they’ll survive and be in much the same condition as the child who got shaken as an infant. Please be careful pulling out into an intersection, even when the light is green. Please don’t let your toddler play with coins. Please don’t have sex and get pregnant by someone who has multiple congenital anomalies. Please see a doctor early if you have purulent discharge coming out of your ears and nose. You just got out of prison? Yay! But please don’t drink 4 bottles of Absolut at your celebration party. If you are leaving your kids at grandma’s for the weekend, please make sure she locks up her amitriptyline and glyburide, because only toddlers can open child-proof bottles. And lastly, please don’t ever stand in a puddle of water next to something that’s humming.

    If you’ve ever known someone on a ventilator, you probably know that the word “uncomfortable” doesn’t even begin to describe one. So I am amazed by this man who managed to sail while ventilated.

    He brought a whole ‘nother meaning to harnessing wind.

    Vale Andrew Hartley

    from http://www.sailability.org/news.cfm?news_id=41

    Monday, 07 February, 2005

    Australian sailing has lost a true hero with the death of Andrew Hartley in Adelaide last week.

    Andrew was lauded as the joint Australian Disabled Sailor of the Year only four months ago and was in the midst of preparing for the 2005 IFDS Single Person Dinghy World Championships in Italy later this year. At the 2004 Worlds, he became the only ventilated quadriplegic to have competed independently in a World Championships – in any sport. Andrew’s contribution to the development of sailing for people with profound disabilities is without comparison. His extraordinary courage remains an inspiration to the people he came in contact with.

    The following is kindly provided by one of Andrew’s greatest supporters – Past President of Sailability South Australia, Deirdre Schahinger.

    Andrew Charles Hartley
    June 9, 1961 – February 1, 2005

    In 1982, just four days before his 21st birthday, Andrew broke his neck at the C2 level during a game of rugby. He had no movement or feeling below his neck and was dependent on a ventilator to breathe twenty four hours a day.

    Andrew learnt to sail with his father and two brothers on the lakes of England. He competed in national and international competition from the age of eleven. The family came to Australia in 1976 bringing with them Andrew’s boat disguised as a piano. This ‘piano’, International Cadet sail number 6232 is still sailing competitively at Adelaide Sailing Club.

    Andrew sailed at the Glenelg Sailing Club until 1982. In June of that year he broke his neck playing rugby union for Southern Suburbs – this accident left him a ventilator-dependant quadriplegic.

    After twelve months in hospital, during which time he married his fiancée Anne, Andrew became the first ventilator-dependant quadriplegic in Australia to live in the community.

    Andrew became involved with Sailability in 2002 when he learnt that a dinghy had been designed that would enable him to go sailing again. After a successful fund-raising campaign by the Hartley family and Deirdre Schahinger (Sailability SA) the Access Liberty was purchased in October 2003.

    In October 2003, Andrew had his first sail in more than twenty years. Strapped tightly into an especially modified seat, with no head support and using a makeshift chin control, Andrew showed no fear or misgivings as he rounded the breakwater at Adelaide Sailing Club into open water and twelve-knot winds. Andrew’s ventilator sat in an especially built compartment in the transom of his boat.

    Andrew had become only the second ventilator-dependent quadriplegic in the World to sail solo. He steered the boat with his chin and was able to fine tune the sails using a magnetically activated reed switch taped to his cheek.

    In Andrew’s second sail, he competed in the first leg of the South Australian Access Dinghy State Titles. Again, despite no head support and a makeshift chin control, he amazed everyone with his determination and obvious sailing skills. Andrew completed both races in third place in the Liberty division; even managing to control his boat when his chin control came loose and slipped almost out of reach.

    After just a couple of day’s practice, Andrew competed in the 2004 IFDS Single-Person Disabled World Championships in Blairgowrie. In his first race he finished a highly creditable third, and also gained two fifths and a sixth during the regatta. He finished with an eighth overall in fleet A. This was despite having to carry thirty kilos of medical equipment in the transom of his boat. When Andrew competed at Blairgowrie, he became the only ventilated quadriplegic in history to compete in a World Championships – at ANY sport.

    In February 2004, Andrew competed in the second leg of the South Australian Access Dinghy State Titles with obvious improvement on his first attempt.

    In March 2004 Andrew sailed in the Sailability SA Regatta at Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club. He finished eight races over the weekend in winds sometimes exceeding twenty-knots, gaining a second place in two races.

    Later in March, Andrew travelled to Sydney to represent Sailability SA in the Sail Sydney Harbour Disability Regatta where he finished fifth. Andrew was awarded the Best Seamanship Award, in what the organisers described as a ‘lay down misere”

    Andrew was elected to the board of Sailability SA in June 2003. He has attended every Sailability day at Adelaide Sailing Club, advising and encouraging new members; pioneering sailing for people with a profound disability. He was highly involved in raising the profile of Sailability in South Australia conducting a number of radio interviews and has been the subject of both newspaper and television features.

    Andrew worked hard to raise funds for Sailability SA. Apart from raising enough money to buy three Liberties at the beginning of the season, Andrew spoke to service clubs and completed grant applications in an effort to secure further funding for disabled sailors in South Australia.

    The 2004 Access Dinghy National Championships were held in October on Lake Macquarie in some of the worst weather for a long time Andrew showed his grit and determination to just even get there. Up at 5am to get the plane, then catch a train from Sydney which had to be abandoned due to flooding on the line, wait for a van to take his electric chair and the driver got lost. He bought us all large gin and tonics. Later that evening I un-wrapped my folding bed to find out that it was a folding chair; Andrew, like a true gentleman offered to share his double bed with me!

    At the Nationals Andrew was presented with the Yachting Australia 2004 Disabled Sailor of the Year award with which he was delighted; for the recognition of not only his sailing ability but also his contribution to the sport of sailing.

    When Andrew joined Adelaide Sailing Club he was delighted to see that his old boat was still racing with good results. Andrew had a strong competitive spirit and he had not lost his ability to hit the start-line on the gun going flat out, even though the crew on the start boat had to duck to avoid having their hats taken off by Andrew’s Access Liberty mast. 15 to 20 knots of wind was Andrew’s idea of a good breeze; the only condition that made him head for the bar on a race day was when the seas were over a metre as his chin control would move out of his reach and he was going nowhere. Lots of wind, flat water, sun sparkling on the sea was Andrew’s favourite racing conditions.

    Andrew will be missed for many qualities; his spirit, his wicked sense of humour, his friendship and his huge delight in being able to go sailing again. Breeze on, Andrew; fair winds and good sailing.

    Deirdre Schahinger

    6th February 2005

    By David Staley, Sailability Australia

    from http://www.sailability.org/news.cfm?news_id=41

  • Calming Seas

    I stole this from another Xangan’s site. (Thank you! You know who you are!)



    Calming Seas

    When Christ was in need of solitude
    When He needed peace of mind,
    He went out to the water,
    Where comfort He could find.

    When He saw the ship in trouble
    He was standing on the land
    Jesus walked on the waters
    To give His loving hand!

    When He fell asleep exhausted
    And a rain filled their boat with
    harm, Jesus reached out His
    mighty hand, and calmed the
    raging storm.

    When showing faith in our Father
    John baptized Him at the river
    So that all that saw and followed him
    From sin could be delivered.

    He told Simon and Andrew
    To go unto all the land
    Cast out your nets upon the sea
    Be fishermen of men.

    He will be my anchor
    My ship won’t drift away
    He will calm my stormy seas
    Cause gentle winds to stay!

    He will not leave me
    To perish in the sea
    For I know throughout my
    storms, My Savior stands
    with me!

    No wonder I seek out the ocean
    I turn to the calming sea
    Whenever I need healing
    Whenever my spirit needs
    to be free!

    ~Lynn King~

  • Father’s Day

    I‘m very surprised by the number of single mothers who pass through our hospital. Many of the mothers have several kids with different fathers, none of whom participate in their children’s lives. Often, while she’s in the hospital, a boyfriend will stop by — probably another new father-to-be, who will pass out of her life in another month or so. A couple of my colleagues have walked in on these couples busy making yet another little one, even after the mother has just finished giving birth to a baby from another father. Like bunnies, people are.

    There’s a 15-year old who is constantly in the hospital for pyelonephritis. I asked her if she’s still having sex with her previous boyfriend who gave her chlamydia. She told me, “No, I don’t see him anymore.” I was relieved until she said, “He’s in prison now.” So she’s seeing someone new now, which is why she is in the hospital again. I guess, to her credit, with all the UTI’s she’s getting, she doesn’t need Depo-Provera because she probably has PID.

    I honestly don’t understand why women let themselves be used this way.

    And for some reason, women think burquas are more humiliating than sexual liberation.

    I admire women who do not let themselves be used in this way. The responsibility of a woman is ingrained from the first moment you realize you need to remember what time of the month it is. Men have no compunction to be responsible at all, unless it was ingrained in them from their parents.

    Too many men I know are still living with their parents, without regard to the fact that they may one day need to support themselves financially when their parents are dead.

    I applaud all those men who stick by their families and support them by their fidelity, honor, and hard work.


    Father’s Day

    Father’s Day is the 3rd Sunday in June. The idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Having been raised by her father, Henry Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

    In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Roses are the Father’s Day flowers, red to be worn for a living father and white if the father has died.

    For some reason, Hollywood likes to glorify single motherhood. However, in their usual ignorance of reality, they fail to acknowledge that most single mothers do not have the income of a celebrity, and are in fact, on Medicaid.

    For the economically unaware, Medicaid is supported by taxes, something that typical Hollywood heroes hire financial agents to help them avoid in favor of their paltry contributions to help pets avoid testicular cancer or cows from being eaten.

  • Workin’ Overtime

    I have to say, I got the most wonderful birthday present ever yesterday. The weather was perfect, because we were about to have a huge thunderstorm. So the wind was probably 10-15 mph. Not too strong, not too wimpy. Just brisk and sunny and nearly cloudless. Not too humid. Not too warm. Not too cold.

    ‘Could not have asked for a better day if I’d planned it. Someone must have said a prayer for me. Thank you, whoever you are.


    First sailing of the season for me. Not because of weather, but because of work.

    Did I mention how happy I am that it stays light outside until 9 PM?

    While sailing, Matt and I pondered how we ever used to get along with driving 45 miles to the nearest lake in order to put down. Yup, those were hard times.