The Adventure Continues: Return to Work

I returned to work in Seattle Children's Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) Administration Office on Wednesday, April 4^th following eight weeks of recovery from my radical prostatectomy.  It was very good to be “back in the saddle” in front of my computer, going through emails, hearing about all that went on over the past two months.  The staff had two helium-filled balloons and some banners taped up in my area.  Our ED Admin Team did a fantastic job covering for me while I was away!  And I wasn’t overwhelmed with having to catch up on things!

I’ve been making some good recovery progress; I began going to the gym about a month ago and am doing some resistance exercises with increasing the weights incrementally to achieve some real workouts over time.  I get great satisfaction out of my gym visits.  Karin and I have also continued to participate in our Monday evening care group where we have just concluded a fairly in-depth study of the Gospel of John.  I posted earlier that my prostate specific antigen (PSA) was 0.05 when it was tested in mid-March, which was excellent news; hopefully it will remain at that level in June when I test again.

God has certainly answered the many prayers that people have prayed for Karin and me during this stressful “little-c” crisis we have been through.  The “big-C” (Jesus Christ) has been so faithful to hear and answer those prayers.  I certainly thank him for that and I thank you all for praying also!

"Unbroken"

Our friend, Roger Kent, recommended a book to me that he read in just a couple of sittings because it was so riveting.  “Unbroken- A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” by Laura Hillenbrand (the author of “Seabiscuit”) is the true story of Olympian Louis Zamperini and his ordeal as a prisoner of war of the Japanese in World War II.  I’m not a very fast reader, but this a book I finished in only a few days of reading.  Louie Zamperini was a lieutenant in the Army Air Force aboard a B-24 Liberator when his bomber crashed into the Pacific in 1943.  Author Hillenbrand really succeeded in telling a compelling story of true heroism in the face of the incredible cruelty and merciless humiliation our comrades in the Pacific faced during their captivity seventy years ago.

This amazing account is not only about the more-than-harsh circumstances that the former Olympic runner and other prisoners faced, and the realities they faced coming home after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and facing the nightmare of PTSD and all that goes with it, but with his life after attending one of the early Billy Graham crusades in Los Angeles in 1949.  I would encourage to you to pick up “Unbroken”, I’m certain you’ll enjoy reading it.  As they say, it’s available at your local bookstore, Amazon.com and also for electronic devices like Kindle and Sony eReader.