Teach me to Pray

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions,
and thanksgivings  be made for all people,     I Timothy 2: 1

When I was a little girl, my parents never taught us to pray; “Now I lay me down to sleep.” We were taught to pray for whatever was in our hearts and for anyone we knew who might need a boost with prayer. We never had a time limit on prayer. When my mother prayed, I knew she touched Heaven.

    When Brenna grew old enough to say her own nighttime prayers, I followed the leadership of my own parents. Each night before sleep, we had a routine of reading a story from a favorite book, a Bible story, and prayer time. If a babysitter failed to follow this nightly plan, Brenna insisted that they not come back.

    As she grew, her prayers matured. She had a quiet spirit, seldom volunteering to pray in public. She had seen too many people praying loudly, and in her opinion, praying more for attention than with sincerity.

    When we ate out, she added a special prayer for those who waited on us, those who prepared the food, for their unknown needs, for the people across the restaurant who seemed to be facing heartache. She quietly observed those around her and included them in her prayers, asking God to bless each and every one.

    It is no wonder that at times, someone working in the restaurant would come to Brenna, asking for her continued prayer for a special need. Brenna lived her faith in a quiet way, but in a manner that strangers understood as genuine.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honk if you love your brain

This is the mockup of the sign that is being created by Signs Now of Boise. The sign will be installed on Monday. Expect to see the motor home throughout Idaho and Eastern Oregon in the next 10 days before I get ready for the big trip East.

A more than fair deal

Today was a great day.

Last week, while at Ponderosa State Park, I had a bit of a brush up with a tall pine tree. The reservations map said the site would fit a 40 foot motor home. Not so! My motor home is 34 feet. While trying to avoid the large concrete blocks that guard the electric and water hook-ups, I hooked the rear of the motor home on a tree. No major damage but it did pull the passenger corner off a bit.

What to do? I turned to the Taskmaster who always seems to have an answer or know where to find one. He set up an appointment at Spangler’s Body Shop at 11650 West Fairview in Boise. Before going to that appointment, I went to the generator shop to figure out why the generator wasn’t running. After an hour+ there, the mechanic told me I needed a carburetor that was not in stock anywhere in the US and wouldn’t be until the end of Sept. They told me it also needed a fuel pump. No need to spend money on a fuel pump if I didn’t have a carburetor.

I went ahead to Spangler’s.  Kevin Spangler gave me a more than fair price to fix the motor home. I told him about the generator. He called a customer who just happens to work on generators. I left the motor home there. Yesterday the generator repair man from Gem State Generator Repair called and said the problem was not the carburetor or the fuel pump and gave me a price. I expected the repair to be done within a few days.

Well, this morning I got the call. All the repairs were done and under the bid price. Both repairs cost me less than what I had expected to pay for the body repair alone.

Then on to Signs Now on Maple Grove in Boise where the “Honk if you love your brain” wrap sign will be made. We didn’t have the graphics yet but by 5 PM, I had approved the graphics and the sign will be made on Friday, ready to install on Monday.

This evening as the Taskmaster and I were watching the Giants/Cowboys game, I asked him if he thought God pushed the motor home into the tree so I could find the right person to repair the generator. He smiled and said, “I was thinking about that.”

I am grateful to the Taskmaster and his giant fount of knowledge that seems to know just the right people I need to get me ready for this journey.

Thanks to Kevin Spangler, who not only fixed the body and called someone to fix the generator, he made sure I had his info in case I have trouble on the road. He did a great job on the repair and treated me fairly on the price.

Also, thanks to John at Gem State Generator for his expertise in doing what I had been told couldn’t be done. The price he charged was much less than what he quoted.

Yes, God can get our attention by pushing an aging motor home into a tree. The repairs were done God’s way by people he chose.

Now, I can get ready for the trip and not worry about the big things.

God is good.

 

 

Thank you, NFL Commissioner Goodell and owners

Pamela G. Blaxton-Dowd

                                                Condemned to Die:  Ask me how. Tell me why.
                                                                    pgd83716@yahoo.com

September 5, 2012

Commissioner Roger Goodell

c/o The National Football League

345 Park Avenue

New York, New York 10017

Dear Commissioner Goodell:

I want to express my gratitude for the generous donation the National Football League gave to the National Institute of Health for Traumatic Brain Injury research.

On May 26, 2010, Brenna, my 27 year old daughter suffered a medically unexplained anoxic brain injury, that occurred as an awful byproduct of an eye surgery she had the day before. Brenna died on October 1, 2011, as a result of many complications associated with the brain injury.

I have chronicled her nightmarish journey through our broken health care system in a newly released book. In September, with Brenna’s two dogs, I will embark on a three month, personally financed nationwide tour, not primarily as a book tour, but to meet with brain injury victims and their families in every region of the United States. I feel strongly that I must do this to honor my daughter who would expect no less from her mother.

The purpose of this one woman two dog odyssey is to empower other families who are facing a health care system that struggles with answers to rehabilitation and recovery of brain injuries, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Hypoxic-Anoxic Injury (HAI).

In my personal visits with health care professionals at all levels, one thing has became abundantly clear; the mysteries of brain injury treatment and recovery care are, in many ways, still great mysteries. As I travel across the United States, I feel it is important for me to be part of a national catalytical dialogue about how this country’s health care system treats brain injuries and how they involve the family in the post injury therapeutic recovery process.

As I prepare for this trip, I wanted to take the time to correspond with you and thank you and the NFL team owners for the effort they are making for TBI patients, regardless of the original source of their injury.

For that, Commissioner Goodell, I commend you. As a 65 year woman who has never watched a live or television broadcast of a NFL football I want you to know I am now a big fan.and insurance company guidelines that discriminate against anoxic/hypoxic brain injury. Since DX codes for anoxic/hypoix brain injury do not include length of coma, unlike TBI DX codes, we need data around length of coma and corresponding outcomes.

Sincerely yours:

Pamela G. Blaxton-Dowd

NFL Scores Big for TBI

NFL Scores Big for TBI

Congratulations to the NFL for their $30 million donation to the National Institute of Health for  brain injury research. Their generous donation will help soldiers and athletes who suffer brain injuries.

Please go to their site and read the article. It would help if we also posted our thanks on the site.

I will be posting a thank you letter to the FB site later today. If anyone has an NFL team in your area, please contact the local team owner with your thanks. I don’t have an email address for Mr. Goodell but a snail mail letter of thanks would go a long way to helping bring recognition to the rehabilitation and treatment for our loved ones.

National Football League
345 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000058447/article/nfl-donates-30-million-to-national-institutes-of-health?module=HP11_headline_stack

 

God is the Glitch

God is the Glitch

Have your life all planned out, know what you are going to do with your life, and then suddenly life takes a turn in an unexpected direction?

When that happens, God is the glitch. God is saying, “Back up. I am in charge and you aren’t going the direction I want you to go.”

I had a major moment like this in my life in 1994. I want to share it here.

In late 1993 I decided not to run for another term on city council. I felt at peace with the decision. Then during the spring of 1994, I decided to throw my hat in the ring for county commissioner. I won a 5 way Republican primary, beating out the incumbent and three others. It looked like smooth sailing in a county that was predominately Republican.

During that summer and fall, I attended the fairs, picnics, and parades, meetings, hearings, and candidate forums. I went to everything where a candidate was supposed to go. Everyone said I was a shoo-in.

We posted signs and my husband even built a huge sign, lit with white Christmas lights, on the west end of town.

The night before the election was cold and rainy. We went to a dinner at church. After the dinner, I felt pressed to go to the big lit-up sign. When I pay attention to those inner feelings, I learn something. 

The sign was sitting high on a berm where no one could miss it. I got out of the car and walked alone to the bottom of the sign.

As I stood at the sign, I gave the election into God’s hands. I wanted to win. I knew I could do a good job. But God had other plans.

As I stood with head bowed, I heard a gentle voice say, “And if I ask you to lose?”

I didn’t question. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I slowly walked back to the car. I looked at my husband and said, “It’s over. I will lose the election.”

The next day was difficult. My supporters were so positive and uplifting. How could I tell them about this message from God? I didn’t want to burst their bubble. They had gathered for victory. My heart knew it was going to be a loss.

Since then, some have asked how I could lose a Republican seat, in a predominately Republican county. Even my Democrat friends, who had voted Republican for the first time in their lives, wondered.

I knew. My plan was not God’s plan.

I went through years of being very ill. In 1998, a doctor said I should go to bed as I would never get any better.

God had a better plan. God needed me well. He needed me for Brenna’s sake. God needed me for this day, for this trip.

I did not know that God’s plan meant losing my only beloved daughter. My heart aches for her every day, but I know that she would be happy that her mom has at last reached the place where I am again listening to God’s plan and not trying to do things alone and in my own way.

I have placed this trip into God’s hands and myself into his keeping. God sent a wonderful Taskmaster to take care of the logistics of the trip and arrange a team of people who could do what I cannot do.

When we truly let go and let God have charge, we discover that while God’s plan may also be difficult, he will make a way for all things to work together for His good.

So, when you face a major glitch in your life, know that our loving God cares for you and he has a better plan.

 

 

 

People are humans, not vegetables.

People are humans, not vegetables.

When doctors claim someone is in a vegetative state, what vegetable are they referring to? For those of us who have sat by the bedside of a loved one with a brain injury, we must stop the medical professionals in their tracks as soon as they mention the term vegetable. The use of this ugly word seems to give the medical profession the "self-license" to treat the patient as an inanimate object, shuffling them from one inept facility to another.

After Brenna first experienced her anoxic brain injury, the term persistent vegetative state (PVS) entered our world. I knew what the doctors willingly chose to ignore. Brenna was NOT PVS. She was not brain dead and her tests proved that. Her EEG was pretty good.

Brenna did not die as a result of her brain injury. She died as a culmination of multiple institutional acquired infections, poor diabetic protocols, prescription "errors", untreated broken teeth, potassium imbalance, and inept care for a person with a brain injury in most of the facilities where she was unfortunate enough to be.

I spent many hours by Brenna's bed, searching for answers, searching for information the medical professionals chose to ignore and deny. I discovered this 1996 study in the British Journal of Medicine. Why hasn't the United States government funded studies similar to this?

If we as a nation are going to stop using this archaic terminology for human beings, the first step must be with those of us who have seen the miracles of victory over hypoxic-anoxic injuries.

http://www.bmj.com/content/313/7048/13.full
Misdiagnosis of the vegetative state: retrospective study in a rehabilitation unit

Psalm 116: 8, 9

Psalm 116: 8, 9

8 For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, 9 that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

Every day I read devotionals to Brenna from a little book called Jesus Calling. This verse became a frequent theme in our lives as we journeyed to the hope of recovery. I explained the verses to her as I believed they applied to her.

My precious Brenna joined hands with Jesus eleven months ago today; and today, she truly walks before the Lord in the land of the living. Although my heart aches at the loss of her presence, I cannot be bitter at God for to be bitter would be to dishonor my God who gave me the blessing of my only child. I would not have missed her life for the world and am ever grateful to God for those moments we shared.

 

**********

 

Three weeks from today, in Brenna's honor, I will begin the journey to Washington, DC, to bring the message that how we treat and accept people with brain injuries must change. I know that Brenna is happy, knowing at last that her mom is on the way, and I know that she is happy that the Taskmaster has made this trip so much easier for me as he created a team to remove the burden of logistics off my shoulders.

 

Let the dialogue begin. To God be the glory.

Another awesome day!

Today has been another great day. At noon I met with the two young professionals who are designing the web site. What they have done is awesome and I couldn't have asked for anything better. They aren't ready to publish on the site yet as they are still gathering information. Check it out in two weeks. By then, they should have it ready for viewing.

The Taskmaster found getsocialeyes.com and these two young women took on the task of web design. I am grateful to getsocialeyes.com, but especially to Jessica and Jen, for all the work they are putting into the site. They will have not only the web site but a FB and Twitter account that goes along with it.

My heart jumped when I saw across the site a  thought I had given Jessica last week. I continue to be amazed by their talent and expertise, but most of all, for reading Brenna's journey, feeling the pain, and accepting the mission to do their part to bring change to brain injury recovery.

As I get ready to leave on the journey to DC, please keep me and the old motorhome in your prayers, along with one aging dog who finds it difficult to get up the steps and a lively pup!

Working God's Plan

I spent the last two days at the Ponderosa State Park near McCall, Idaho. My assignment from my team was to rest, no work, except to learn how to use my Sony Exmor R video cam corder. It has so many features, but if I just learn to get the sound right, I'll be thankful.

My team has my best interests at heart. They don't want me tired before I leave for the trip and don't want me trying to learn things on the trip. Tomorrow (Thursday) I meet with the web design team to see  their progress.

I am hearing good things about the book from people across the country who have read it, even women in Canada that I met through another health issue years ago.

This journey is to complete the plan God had for Brenna. With God's help, I am working Brenna's Plan he had for her. Part of the plan was this awesome team God sent my way. When we stop and listen for God's direction, he makes things happen and clears the way for us.