Nihao, Cupcake!

A Family Story for Storytelling Sunday

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I'm linking up at Sian's blog for Storytelling Sunday (first Sunday of every month). Sian shares a story and invites others to tell a story on their blog and join her linky party. If you have a story to tell, why not think about joining in?!

I'm excited to get this story documented today. I can't believe I managed to get a scrapbook page made as well!

Here is the journaling:

Guilou: This is likely a word we heard while we were sitting at a table in public in Golmud, China in 1997. We were traveling with our friend Bob (from London), who we met on the road. Bob studied Mandarin in Beijing so he was our translator. On this day, we were sriting postcards and since foreigners were a rare sight, we attracted quite a crowd. Bob made a sign (in Mandarin) asking for a few kuai (about 5 cents) to watch the show. Unfortunately, we didn't get any takers so our only take away was a good story!

It is a short but sweet one today. I hope you enjoyed it.

#LOAD212 - Day 8 {Jodhpur Fort}

Even though I have been keeping up with the LOAD (Layout A Day) Challenge, I haven't been posting my layouts here every day for a couple of reasons. Sometimes I have something else to post and other times, I have other people in my layouts that aren't in my family so I keep those layouts only in private galleries.

The papers for this one as well as the sequin-type things at the top were purchased on my trip to India at a neat paper store in Delhi.

What's the most exotic scrapbook supply that you have ever purchased? Where did you buy it?

To see everything LOAD related on my blog, click here.

To see everything SCRAPBOOK realted on my blog, click here.

 

True Stories from The Jing {Bikes & Italian Food}

Tonight we rode our bikes to the new Annie's just south of Central Park & east of The Place for dinner. We parked our four bikes directly in front of the restaurant door & 2-3 meters from a guard box. The area had two security cameras pointing at it.

We had a wonderful, leisurely dinner at Annie's (a local kid friendly Italian place with consistently good food & reasonable prices - hard to find in Beijing) with impecable service including free make your own pizzas for the kids, fresh bread basket and extra special treatment to the kids.

The manager checked on us more than once, but the service was not agressive or pushy, just attentive.

When we left to get our bikes, the one bike that was locked to itself and not locked to a tree was gone. The manager at Annie's immediately came to our aid and accompanied my husband to the building's room with security cameras. After 20 minutes of looking around the lost bike area and talking with the security guards, it was determined that the camera was too dirty to find any footage of our missing bike.

It seemed illogical that someone could take a bike that had a lock around the tire past the two guards directly next to the bikes and make it past both security cameras without being seen. And funny that both security cameras were too dirty to view any footage.  Hmm...

The kind manager at Annie's never left my husband's side and they walked around the property to see if they could figure out what happened.

Just when they had given up, they spotted the bike, hidden behind a wall! Who knows why it was there or how it got there, but the lesson learned is:

1) Lock your bike to something when in the CBD (About 15-20 bikes weres stolen in broad daylight (all parked together) about a year ago right outside The Place.)

2) Eat at Annie's because not only is the food good, but the service goes above and beyond expectations. And in our experience, they look after their customers. A big thanks to the manager at Annie's!

 

I posted this story to our Yahoo group (for foreign passport holders living in Beijing) as a warning to neighbors and as a thank you to a local business for helping us out. I couldn't pass up a good story that we will want to remember so I copied and pasted for the blog today. Our oldest son is so excited that we found the bike. He loved the excitement and you could feel it when he came to report to me that they were checking the security camers to see if they could locate the bike. I'm so glad this story had a happy ending or else it would be the third bike our family had lost in Beijing!

I'm linking up at Sian's blog for Storytelling Sunday. She hosts it the first Sunday of every month. Do you have a story to tell? Post it on your blog and join us!

And since I totally forgot to link up last month, I wrote my story a couple of weeks later when I realized it. Here it is, if you care to read.

The Brady Bunch was my all-time favorite TV show!

On our recent trip to the States for the holidays we took a road trip from California to Durango, Colorado. I did this many times during the summer with my father and my brother. My father was born and raised in Durango and loved to go back in the summers. We would drive through the hot desert sun in the blue VW bus.

My dad made some of his own alterations to that van to make it somewhat of a camper. He used bungee cords to strap a Coleman cooler, that sat upright and was designed like a refrigerator, to the back of the passengers seat. Then on top of that sat a heavy plastic gallon water tank that when laid flat worked as a sink. It was a pretty ingenious invention. The sink was molded into the side of the water tank. I hope you can imagine what I am describing. The faucet was a pump and it even had a little soap dish molded into it as well. It also had a drain with a plastic plug. My dad took a clear PVC pipe, hooked it up to the drain and threaded that through the back of the seat (but not through) and down through a hole that he made in the bottom of the van. When we pulled the plug, the water would drain out into the street below. He never allowed us to use it while he was driving, though. We were only allowed to use this when we were safely parked at a campground.

That was back in the day before it was law to wear seatbelts, so we never did. If one of us kids were sitting in the front seat and he had to slam on the breaks, out would shoot his arm to prevent us from lurching forward. Of course, if it were a real accident or emergency, his arm really wouldn't have done much. But out it went anyway.

I also remember curling up in the shade and falling asleep because the desert sun was so hot. It was the only relief I could get from the smoothering heat. The van had no air conditioning.

My dad was a huge napper. One day when we were in Durango and it was pouring down rain. My dad decided he needed a nap. So there we were parked on Main Street, Durango with my dad asleep in the back of the van and the rain pouring so hard against the van windows that we couldn't see out. 

At this time I was a huge fan of the Brady Bunch and had taken my trusty tape recorder and taped one of my all-time favorite Brady Bunch episodes. The one when the Brady kids (Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby & Cindy) became a music group and sang in a contest to buy their parents a silver platter for their anniversary. Anyone remember that episode?

Anyway, I brought my tape recorder and that tape on this trip, so the way my brother and I passed the time while my dad was sleeping was to write down all of the words to those songs and memorize them. I can still sing almost every word to those songs to this day. SUNSHINE DAY.... everybody's laughing! SUNSHINE DAY... everybody's singing! SUNSHINE DAY.... everybody seems so happy & gay! It's a Sunshine Day!

How did you pass the time when you were a kid before the age of endless gadgets we are in today? Though, I guess that portable tape recorder was the very beginning of the gadgets we have at our disposal today, huh?

I wanted to link up to storytelling Sunday (the first Sunday of every month at Sian's blog), but I keep forgetting to have my post ready by then so I decided I would publish this to my blog any way and if I forget on the first Sunday of February, I can link this story up anyway since I love the idea so much!

Collecting Information from Family {Journaling Tool}

The holidays are coming and many of us will be seeing family we don't see during the rest of the year. If you are a memory keeper, it is likely that you like to include information about family (immediate and extended) in your scrapbooks. The holidays are the perfect time to start gathering this information that you can add to your scrapbooks at a later time.

A few years ago a put together a quiz for just this purpose. If I remember correctly I got inspiration from several different resources, but I'm not exactly sure which ones, so I will guess for now: Stacy Julian's Library of Memories/Photo Freedom class at Big Picture Classes, Ella Publishing eBook: Quick & Creative Quizzes and Simple Scrapbooks special issue on quizes (from oh, so long ago!). Unfortunately, none of my extended family filled out my quiz. But I just found the stack of un-filled-out quizzes, so last night I had my boys fill them out. Luckily, they didn't complain at all and spent the next 30 minutes or so diligently filling them out. I was so proud and pleased! Thanks guys! :)

I loved the answers!

Here are the questions for your copy and pasting pleasure:

MY FULL NAME:

I WAS BORN ON:

IN THE YEAR:

MY BIRTHPLACE WAS:

HERE ARE SOME OF MY FAVORITES:

color:

book:

holiday:

food:

song:

Place to visit:

 

SOMEONE I GREATLY ADMIRE:

because:

 

MY LIFE'S WORK IS:

AN ACCOMPLISHMENT I AM VERY PROUD OF IS:

 

THREE WORDS THAT BEST DESCRIBE ME ARE:

 

PLEASE SIGN YOUR NAME:

 

Back side of paper:

MY FAVORITE SONG THIS YEAR:

SOMETHING I JUST LEARNED:

MY FAVORITE TV SHOW:

MY CURRENT OCCUPATION:

IF I COULD LIVE ANY WHERE IN THE WORLD, IT WOULD BE:

WHEN I AM 80, I HOPE I AM DOING THIS:

IF I COULD BE SOMEONE FAMOUS, I WOULD BE:

WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP:

WHAT WERE YOU MOST AFRAID OF AS A CHILD:

WHAT WAS THE NICEST THING YOUR PARENTS EVER DID FOR YOU?

WHAT CHILDHOOD STORY ARE YOU TEASED ABOUT?

 

CIRCLE ONE THAT APPLIES TO YOU:

Hamburger Helper or filet mignon

van or sedan

Yellowstone Park or Disneyland

McDonald's or Rubio's Fish Tacos

Early bird or night owl

Road trip or air travel

White or wheat

on the team or in the bleachers

snow or surf

hotel or camping

 

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE?

MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOUR SPOUSE?

EVERDAY THING YOU COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT:

SOMETHING I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE:

SOMETHING I WORRY ABOUT:

A STORE I SHOP AT:

SOMETHING THAT SCARES ME:

SNACK I EAT REGULARLY:

A NICKNAME I'VE BEEN GIVEN:

PLACE I WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

WHAT'S YOUR SECRET TO A HAPPY LIFE:

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENT:

 

I think I might try again this year to see if my extended family will fill one out. And before the end of the evening I'm going to fill one out and have my husband do it too. Perhaps I can make a mini-book out of the answers.

Cloning Steve Jobs in Beijing???

 

This video is interesting to me for several reasons; the fact that Beijing actually thinks it can reproduce a genius like Steve Jobs, they interviewed several people at my kids' school, the first parent interviewed and the first child interviewed are our neighbors and another good friend is also seen in the video.

It's worth watching for the story alone! Let me know in the comments if you think Beijing will succeed!

The Broken Plate: Storytelling Sunday

 

As many of you know, our family has been living in Beijing, China for the past three+ years. When we first arrived we had the desire to expose our children to the local culture and were hoping to have them learn the language. My husband who used to fly back and forth for business before we moved here, found a local international school with a section for foreign passport holders. It seemed the perfect place for our two older boys to experience the culture and learn the language. They did learn the language and experience the culture, but that didn't mean it was a healthy place for them to spend their days.

Our oldest ended up being harrased by his Chinese teacher for not knowing any Mandarin (he was tested before entering the school, so they were completely aware of his level when he started), and our middle son who was only seven years old, was left without adult supervision at lunchtime with a bully who we found out later, hit him so hard in the head, his ears rang for two hours. When I confronted the school about this problem, their solution was far from adequate, so I removed him early and kept him at home for the rest of the year. 

We then found another school that was fairly new to the international school scene. We were very impressed. They touted themselves as a bilingual/bicultural school. Half of the day was in English, half of the day in Mandarin Chinese. They would learn PE (Physical Ed), art, math and language in Mandarin and everything else in English. They believed in respecting the child and teaching them appropriate ways to treat others. We thought this would expose them to the positive sides of Chinese culture and protect them from the local habits of shaming children and comparing them publically with their fellow classmates. Unfortunately, the school grew too big for itself and couldn't maintain its original goals. The staff felt overwhelmed and was not well trained. I remember clearly the day this first became apparent to me.

The school was having a fundraiser organized by the students to raise money for a charity. The community was invited for the fun booths and a bakesale. I was walking around with my youngest son enjoying the activities. I was approached by a Chinese woman I had never met before. She didn't speak any English, and I had limited Mandarin. We pulled over a parent who was bilingual to translate. The Chinese woman, who it turns out worked for the school, explained to me that Nicholas, my middle son who is very mild mannered and rarely gets into trouble at school, if at all, had purposefully broken a plate in the cafeteria. She had told him to bring a plate from home to replace the broken one and she wanted to verify that this solution was OK with me. If I hadn't already lived in China for 2 and a half years, I probably would have thought that I misunderstood her. I would have thought it was a strange request! Nevertheless, I was still half surprised by what she was telling me. "Yes," I told her, "I do need that plate." Coincidentally, many of my plates had been chipping and a couple had broken in the past month or two, so I really couldn't spare another one! 

I told her I had another plate in my cabinet that was white and would match the cafeteria plates better, but it was larger. She said that wouldn't do. It was too large. Funny thing about the plate from my cabinet, it was a grey, flat plate and the plate that got broken was actually a white, bowl, though they were of similar size. 

My other suggestion was that my son do some chores to earn money to pay for the broken plate. To me, that was the best option since it was a consequence that affected him. Taking a plate from my cabinet was a consequence for me. She told me not to worry and gave me my plate back. 

Before we ended our conversation though she wanted to request that I tell Nicholas he shouldn't play on the swings while he is waiting for the bus after school. Of course, I agreed. 

After the fundraiser, I had a chance to talk to Nicholas about the plate incident. He swore that it was an accident. Knowing his personality, he is much more likely to do something like that carelessly than ever break something on purpose, especially at school. He told me incredulously, with his older brother, Reece, chiming in in agreement, that not only did she insist relentlessly that he did do it on purpose, she took a photo of the pieces of the broken plate and put it in a Power Point presentation to show to the entire school as an example of how not to care for things at school. In addition, she announced it to the entire school at an assembly! My oldest son, verbalized quite clearly how much he, in no uncertain terms, hated this woman and it was not even him she was targeting in this situation.

I also asked Nicholas about the swings and he said that this woman already told him not to play on the swings several weeks ago and he hadn't done it again.

A week or two after the broken plate conversation, Nicholas came home on the bus quite concerned. This same woman told him that he wouldn't be allowed to take the bus the next morning. Shocked, I wanted more information. She was angry that he was watching another boy play on the swings and she didn't want him to do that so she banned him from the bus the next morning. Ridiculous, I thought. Another consequence that inconvenienced me and not my son. Surely, there were more productive ways to handle such a minor and arguably silly infraction.

This finally prompted me to contact the school. I told them everything that she had done. I hadn't mentioned the Power Point presentation or the announcement to the entire school before, because I assumed one of the administrators would have heard it and set her straight. But now that there were more incidents and I was feeling like this woman was targeting my son, even harrasing him, I was getting seriously concerned. 

The morning bus monitor never said a word that my son couldn't ride the bus so he rode the bus without incident. The school responded with a stock email that they were concerned too, would investigate and get back to me. Three or four days passed without a response. I was getting angry. I wrote back thinking maybe I had missed the return email. "Oh no," she wrote, "it had been a busy week and they hadn't had a chance to meet with the lady yet." I was livid! I am concerned one of their staff is harrassing my son or at the least using inappropriate and potentially damaging means to discipline him and likely the other children as well, and they are too busy to meet with her!? What!?

Absolutely not OK. This is not what I expected from the administrators whom had responded adequately in the past to much less serious concerns. I continued to wait for their response. In the meantime, my oldest son, aged 12, had a confrontation with the same broken plate woman. Whatever she did drove him to cuss at her! Totally out of character for him!

I received an email from another staff member, we'll call her Talia, who told me about the incident, not mentioning the name of the person who Reece cussed at. I had my suspicions, though. Talia wanted Reece to write a thank you letter and deliver it in person. Under normal circumstances, I would be in full support of the consequence, but since I felt it was largely the school's fault for not having addressed my concerns and hopefully, remove this woman from interacting with children, I had a hard time holding my son fully responsible. And sure enough when I got both sides of the story, asking for more information from Talia as well as my son, I had to agree with my son that he was treated unfairly. I would have felt powerless and unjustly punished if I had been in my son's shoes.

We talked about what he could do differently next time and frankly, he didn't have a lot of options. He complained that the few teachers he did trust at school were always too busy to help him, even during class time. And he was treated unfairly, the thing he (and several others) were punished for, had been approved by another supervising staff member. 

I told Talia and the school director that none of this would have happened if they took care of my other concerns promptly. I also told them that the bigger concerns were lack of appropraite supervision in the gym, one staff member undermining the other in front of the students, slow responses from the administration. I felt my son writing a thank you note, was the least of their concerns. 

I did have my son write the thank you note as I wanted him to know disrespecting another person was not OK regardless of their behavior. We emailed the note to Talia asking her to pass it on to The Broken Plate woman. I told Talia that I did not want my son to deliver it to her in person. I no longer trusted the school and I wanted to limit any face to face interaction between my children and this woman. Talia strongly encouraged me to have my son deliver the note in person, offering that she would accompany him. I refused and requested she respect my decision as his parent. I wanted to limit any face to face interaction between my children and Broken Plate lady to avoid any further problems.

These series of incidents, include many more details I have left out for the sake of length (can you believe that since this is soooo long already!?), made me lose all faith in the adequacy of the school's administration as well as many of the key staff members. Needless to say, we chose to move all of our children to a new school this past fall and we are much happier (so far). I have learned to reserve my judgement until we are really far into the year. But already, we are getting much more real communication from the teachers and have a more accurate idea of how our children are doing in school. And so far, no strange stories of shaming or inappropriate discipline.

 

Luckily, we can laugh about it all now and the Broken Plate incident is a family joke. We saw this ad in a taxi the other night and laughed that Broken Plate woman was still so upset by the incident, she paid to have this ad put in taxis across Beijing. I hope that even though my children have had to endure these difficult situations, they know that we love and care for them because we have made efforts to correct the situation once we realize what had been going on.

It has been quite a learning experience for me living here. There is so much we take for granted being from a developed nation. I have lived in three other countries besides China (including my home country of the US) and there is far less I can take for granted here than any other place I have lived. 

I'm linking up at Sian's blog for Storytelling Sunday. She hosts it the first Sunday of every month. Do you have a story to tell? Post it on your blog and join us!

 

To read more STORIES on my blog, click here.

31 DAYS OF CREATIVE INSPIRATION: Day 2 {Story Telling Sunday} & Simple Things Sunday

Day 2 in my 31 Days of Creative Inspiration series it is all about STORYTELLING.

I've been wanting to get more of my stories recorded. I don't think I am the only one out there who is a chronic picture taker, yet not much of a story teller.

waiting for our plane to board for Beijing

I believe photos are significantly more meaningful when combined with words and especially when paired with a story written from the heart. How many of us have come upon old photos and have no idea who is in them or more importantly what the story is behind the photo?

I don't want that to happen to the people who find my photos in the future. Of course, with digital photography, we have so many photos that we couldn't possibly tell the story of each and every one.

Even still, we owe it to ourselves as well as those that come after us, to tell our most important stories.

You get to determine what those are.

I give you complete freedom to tell any story your heart wants to tell. 

That last sentence is as much a message to you as it is to me. The story I will tell today is not a happy story, but I have been feeling the need to tell it or more acurately, record it. I have told it many times over the past month or so, but this is the first time it's been recorded.

Again, my hope is to INSPIRE you to record your own stories.

At the end of this post, don't miss links to Storytelling INSPIRATION on the web.

**I hope you will see that my story may not be perfectly written or even super interesting to someone outside our own family, but despite its flaws, it is an important story and it is now recorded.**

 

HOW WAS YOUR SUMMER?

Summers in Beijing are far less than desirable. The pollution reaches unhealthy levels almost daily, the temperatures reach into the 100s (40s C) before the end of June, and it is very humid. Therefore, many of us Beijingren who have children, vacate for the worst of it and return to our home countries for the months of July & August. This summer was no different.

the view out our living room window on a less than stellar bad air day

Reuniting with friends in early September, the standard question is "Did you have a good summer?" In the habit of saying 'yes' and moving on, I often had to catch myself this year and say, 'actually, no, it was terrible!'

The kids and I flew to Redondo Beach on June 30 and on July 7, I found myself flying back to Beijing without kids. Within 24 hours after we left Beijing, my husband was admitted to the hospital. Rewind 20 days before, 48 hours after we landed from our holiday in India, I came down with a high fever and a bad stomach bug. It seemed too long past our trip to be something I caught in India, but of course it is suspect. Nine days after my illness began, Paul, my husband, came down with the exact same symptoms. Twelve days into his illness, the symptoms appeared to be worsening again and just after the kids and I left Beijing for California, the cramping was painful enough that Paul went to the ER.

They sent him home the next morning but he lasted only an hour at home and returned by taxi, barely making it. He was communicating with me using his Blackberry to text and email as well as making the occasional phone call. He sounded just like himself and assured me it was nothing. He was certain he would be home by Saturday at noon, but called again and said they were going to keep him another day and figured out he was simply dehydrated. They would hook him up to an IV with fluid and he would be home by noon the next day. Shortly after that conversation he emailed me to tell me his phone battery was about to die and he would call me when he arrived home the next day.

Paul with his Blackberry

That time came and went and there was no phone call. I was not the least bit worried at that point because I assumed he knew what he was talking about. When he didn't call me, though, I decided I better call the hospital fully expecting to hear that he had already been released. Much to my surprse, they put me right through to Paul. When he got on the line he sounded horrible. His breathing was labored and it was difficult for him to talk. Shocked I asked him what was going on. He told me that he was fine, he just had fluid in his lungs.

What?!

He said it like it was no big deal. I questioned him about it. Why do you have fluid in your lungs? He thought it had something to do with the IV with fluid.

Huh?

In my limited medical knowledge I knew that pretty much the only reason you should have fluid in your lungs is if you have pneumonia. No, he assured me, not only didn't he have pneumonia but his body was infection free! This just wasn't adding up, but he insisted and he also told me for the third day in a row, that he would definitely be home tomorrow.

I knew something wasn't right, so I asked him to find me a nurse who spoke English. I was able to speak with a very well spoken male nurse who sounded like he was from North America. He told me everything that he could about Paul's current condition. The most important information being that Paul had sepsis.

receiving some meds before being released while enjoying cards made by the kids

I had heard of sepsis before. And knowing the meaning of septic, I automatically knew that it was poisoning (in this case blood poisoning from an infection). For some reason, though, I wasn't nearly as alarmed as I should have been. I think it was one of those words I had heard too many times that it had lost its meaning. Not to mention, the nurse didn't sound alarmed and nobody from the hospital had even called me, so how serious could it have been?

I decided I better let someone in Beijing know that Paul was in the hospital just in case he needed an advocate. I thought my friend's husband might still be there so I sent her an email just in case he hadn't yet joined her in the States. Unbeknownst to me, he reads her emails and he got back to me within five minutes! He happens to be a doctor who specializes in infectious dieseases and obviously reading that Paul had sepsis raised a red flag for him.

He immediately went to the hospital to check on Paul and found out all his medical information from the doctor's on duty. He promptly reported back to me and continued to assertively asked questions at the hospital until he was able to be in touch with and have a conversation with Paul's head doctor. He even went to the doctor's clinic office and left his business card. He wanted to make sure Paul was getting adequate care. He wasn't confident in the doctors who he first met who were attending to Paul.

Luckily Paul's head doctor, turned out to be an American who graduated from UCLA medical school. PHEW! My friend warned me not to talk to any of the subordinate physicians but to only speak with Paul's head doctor who he had every confidence in. When I finally arrived in Beijing and spoke with the various doctors, I understood why. The subordinate doctors often gave incorrect or misguided information and rather than admitting they might not have an answer but would find out, they would make something up. These doctors, though called doctors, might not actually be completely through medical school which is also a very different structure than we are used to at home. Bottomline, they aren't reliable sources of information. Sometimes they even seemed to know less than the nurses. They were not decision makers but took information back to the head doctor and he made all important decisions.

our middle son talking to Dad via Skype

Thank goodness my friend gave me this information so I wouldn't be scared by inaccurate information.

I also lucked out because one of my best friends from home is a seasoned physician. She was by my side or only a phone call away day or night through the entire ordeal. When I was finally able to talk to Paul's head physician, she came over to my mother's house and shared my Skype earphones so she could hear everything and interpret his condition and translate everything into lay terms for me and Paul's family who were in town for 4th of July.

You have to picture the two of us, with my laptop on the bed, I had the earphones on my head, one earpiece was turned out and she was standing next to me, a knee on the bed and her ear pressed up against that outturned ear piece. Now that is a true friend!

The good news was, they thought they would have to intubate him the day before and they didn't have to. He was not yet out of the woods, though. Dr. M, Paul's head doctor, told me we should wait another 24 hours to make sure they wouldn't have to intubate him. We would know by then if I should fly to Beijing.

All three doctors who were helping me, told me there was no medical reason for me to go to Beijing. I trusted what they said. Paul's parents had a different idea. They felt it was necessary to go yesterday, however, neither of them had an active passport. Nor were they talking to the doctor's directly. They were welcome to, but didn't seem interested. They were happy to have me be the sole contact person. They felt I should go immediately. I had just landed and had three children to think about, not to mention three knowledgeable doctors were telling me not to go or at least to hold off and see. I was in shock and confused.

the photo I sent to family & friends to show them Paul was OK - everyone loved his floral hospital gown

Eventually, I decided it was best for me to go, just to be with my husband and help him recover. Over the next 24 hours, I realized exactly how serious his condition had been. Later I found out that the scariest time was when I wasn't able to reach him. The last time I spoke with him before he crashed, I had no idea that he wasn't entirely lucid. Those first couple of days when he assured me he was going home the next day (especially the second time), little did I know that even though he sounded completely lucid, he was already confused. He had no idea how very serious his situation was. I'm not quite sure why the hospital didn't get any emergency contact information from him and call me when he started to crash. That is when I should have been getting on a plane and rushing back to China.

But alas, that time is thankfully passed and all turned out well. He was in incredibly capable hands, thanks to Dr. M and his other team of specialists. I was able to have confidence in their decisions due to my two physician friends who could tell me we would do the same thing in the States or other Western nations. My best friend from home even consulted some of her specialist friends when decisions being made in Beijing didn't sound right to her, but turns out they were pretty standard. That's why there are specialties - no doctor could possibly remember all the information for all the various specialties!

I arrived in Beijing that Friday. By Sunday he was released. He had to return three more times to the hospital to get antibiotics by IV. In the States, IV antibiotics can be administered at home, but they are still not that advanced here.

I took photos out my airplane window upon our approach to Beijing. I don't usually land when it is daytime.

What exactly happened to Paul, you must want to know! How did he get sepsis? Was it related to our trip to India? Turns out it he was a victim of the perfect storm. He had a kidney stone unbeknownst to him. This stone was blocking infected fluid from leaving the kidney. The infection was not responsive to normal anti-biotics. Unfortunately it takes 1 to 3 days to figure out that a certain bacteria is not responsive to a medicine, but by that time the infection, because it couldn't drain, spread to his blood and began attacking multiple organs - gall bladder, kidney, liver and lungs. The lungs were never infected but they leaked fluid so at his worst he had only about 5% of his lung function. When so many organs are under attack, the chances of mortality are huge. The chances of survival are in the single digits. Scary.

Life is so very precious. How can a healthy man in his early 40's almost die from a simple infection? It happens everyday. Even in the West. My friend has seen 17 year olds die from the same thing. After a certain point, it is no longer up to medicine and it is the body that takes on the fight alone. We are blessed that he has been given a second chance. I don't let myself think about if things had gone another way.

spending time together in Beijing without the kids a few days after being released from the hospital

I lost my father to colon cancer when I was 20 and I know the pain of losing a loved one far too well. I am grateful beyond words that I didn't have to go through that again and more importantly that my children didn't have to suffer that pain at an even earlier and more critical age.

MY BEST TIP for getting started is to pretend you are telling your story to a good friend over tea. Don't worry about writing the correct words, making it sound eloquent or even entertaining your audience. The most important first step is to get that story recorded! Once it is down, you can go back later and edit if you want.

 

More STORYTELLING INSPIRATION on the Net:

**I found another 31 Day series blog who is devoting her entire series to STORYTELLING INSPIRATION. Click here to see what she has in store.

**Amy Sorenson who teaches many classes about journaling and story writing at Big Picture Classes, is an inspiring story teller. I encourage you to check out her blog.

**Storytelling Sunday over at Sian's blog is hosting a link party today. I've been wanting to participate for quite some time, but life has gotten in the way, so I am very excited to finally link up. And if you are INSPIRED to write your own story today, go over and link up and see if you can INSPIRE others to record an important story or family legend. Or get ready for next month because she hosts Storytelling Sunday on the first Sunday of every month.

Tomorrow will be all about SCRAPBOOKING.

31 Days of Creative INSPIRATION Series (Links to Past Posts)

Introduction

Day 1: Design Your Own Cupcake

Day 2: Storytelling Sunday

Day 3: Scrapbooking

Other topics in the works: 

Photography - Should I buy a DSLR or upgrade my Point & Shoot Camera?; Find out who INSPIRES me; Photography Pet Peeves

Recipes - my husband's delicious salsa, HealthIER (Yet Still Delicious) Recipes

Scrapbooking - My favorite mini album, 30 minute scrapbook challenge

Family Photo Fun, Cupcake Ideas, craft ideas...

AND LOTS, LOTS MORE!

 

SIMPLE THINGS SUNDAY 

Bringing out an old favorite. What is better than a beat up old favorite originally purchased in the basement of the library? We have been sitting around together reading one chapter each night. Reece, who read the whole series several years ago is reading this one again and joins us when I read it aloud to the younger two. He can't get enough!

 I'm linking up over at Rebecca's blog today where she is having an amazing give-a-way in celebration of her 52 Weeks of The Simple Things.