Sermon 33 - Transplanting

Sermon 33 - Transplanting

Matthew 13:3b-8

A farmer went out to sow his seed.  As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.  Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

Matthew 18:6

If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

I still don't know why I am gardening.  When I was moved to Delta, shortly after Gloria died, and I was gardening five different gardens, my baby brother asked why on Earth I was gardening, since Mom had made sure that we all hated gardening.  He was quite right.  As the eldest in the family, I bore the brunt of the bullwork necessary when Mom decided that any of her long-neglected gardens needed to be revived.  As the only one who had a job in town, I was also the one who had to do the weeding and other maintenance during the summer months.  So, yes, I hated gardening.  I had no interest in it.  I do not have a green thumb.  I do not even have a brown thumb, so much as a black thumb.  Between us, Gloria and I managed to kill every single living plant that anybody ever gave us.  So, I have no idea why I am gardening.

But, after Gloria died, I seemed to have a deep, and highly emotional, need to garden.  I don't know the why of that, either.  Maybe it is simply as facile as the fact that Gloria is dead, so I need to bring something to life.  It seems a stupid reason, but it's about the best that I can come up with.

I still don't know if that's the actual reason.

At any rate, I am gardening.  I am not, as mentioned, an experienced, or a good, gardener.  However, I did pay attention in biology and botany classes, and, as a scientist, I am a quick study.  So I am learning quite rapidly.  (Or, as rapidly as I can, when you only get one experiment per year.)

When I started gardening after Gloria died, I didn't realise you didn't grow things from seed.  I didn't realise that most people bought tomato, pepper, squash, sunflower, and cucumber plants as small plants, and then transplanted them.  Most people who are, actually, avid gardeners, do not grow tomatoes and peppers from seed.  Generally speaking, they will buy tomato and pepper plants.  These plants have been germinated from seed, but by somebody else.  And they have been put into little pots, all ready for you to plant the small plants into your garden.  But, of course, the potted plants are even more expensive than seeds are. 

I am also cheap.  I hate spending money if I don't have to.  So I am learning how to grow plants, and garden, spending the least amount of money that I possibly can.  And that includes trying to spend as little as possible on buying seeds.  I started growing things from seed.  I didn't have much luck.  I put a lot of seeds into the ground that just died.  Eventually I realised it was much more effective to sprout and germinate the seeds, and then transplant the seedlings.

Now one would think that seeds were the very *least* that you needed to buy.  However, if you pay attention, you will notice that there are a number of sources of seeds available to you for no money.  Or at least, for no extra money, beyond what you are already spending on food.

A lot of our foods are plants.  A lot of the plants contain seeds.  So, I am growing three types of tomatoes, and a bunch of bell peppers, in various colors, simply because I harvested and dried the seeds that were available in those plants when I bought them for food.

So, I harvested the seeds out of certain food plants, and I dried them out, and stored them, and, taking paper and plastic cups that I have cleaned up off the streets (I *told* you I was cheap), and dirt that I dug up out of the forest, and using plastic clamshell packaging from various baked goods as miniature greenhouses, I have germinated, sprouted, and transplanted a number of tomato and bell pepper plants.  I am also now on my third generation of sunflower plants, from a single initial packet of seeds.

All of this is very experimental, and a learning experience.  I have learned why most people buy their tomato plants as potted plants.  It's a rather tedious process to grow your own.  It's tedious to harvest and wash the seeds, and it's tedious to dry the seeds, and it's tedious to store (and label) the seeds, and it's tedious even to set up the mini greenhouse, and keep an eye on it, for when the plants germinate and sprout.  And then there is the transplanting process itself.  Starting from seeds, you may have to transplant tomato plants up to five different times.  Each time you will learn that God really doesn't care about efficiency.  Because each time, some of the plants die.

In the first place, not all of the seeds actually germinate and sprout.  Then, if they do sprout, you have to carefully take them off the medium that you have been using to keep them moist while they are germinating and sprouting.  If, for example, you use paper towel, the roots from the sprout often will have penetrated the paper towel.  So, even taking that initial sprout, and trying to put it into a small amount of dirt, to let it get started, means that, simply by pulling it off of, or through, the paper towel, you strip off the root hairs.

Of course the sprout is very tiny, particularly for a tomato seed.  So it's entirely possible that, simply by trying to pull the sprout off the paper towel, you will damage the stem, or the leaf, or the root.  And, of course, if you do that you kill the plant.  But, even if you are able not to do gross damage to the plant, pulling the root away from the paper towel may tear off the root hairs.  You probably don't even see the root hairs.  They are extremely tiny, and, of course, extremely delicate.  But they are also the actual active part of the root system.  It is actually the root hairs that start to bring in water and nutrients that the plant needs in order to grow.  The root hairs are also, in many cases, the beginnings of new side roots that the plant needs in order to develop an extensive root system, and to stabilize itself in the soil.  In either case, tearing off the root hairs is another likely way to kill the plant.  You have to be really, really careful when you are transplanting tiny new shoots.

Which brings me to church.  We have been given the great commission.  We are to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  We are to tell people the good news.  We are to transplant people from the natural world into God's world.

For some reason, we are not very good at this.  We find it embarrassing to go to people and tell them that they are sinners, and that they need a personal relationship with God.  We think it makes us look like religious fanatics.  Well, of course, we *should* be religious fanatics.  That is, in fact, where the word "fan" comes from; like a sports fan.  Shouldn't we be God's fans?  If we actually have good news, shouldn't we be telling people about it?  We have no problem telling people about our favorite hockey team, or restaurants, or TV show.  Shouldn't we be willing to tell people about the greatest thing in the universe?

But, okay.  I have dealt with that in a different sermon.  So we will leave outreach alone for a moment.  Will come back to that some other time.  (Even though we should be doing it all the time.)

Okay, let's do something a little easier.  There are people who have heard that we might have something good going on.  Just to skip back to the great commission for a second, someone has famously said that spreading the gospel, telling forth the good news, is not like televangelism.  It's more like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.  So, in some cases, somebody has already heard that we might have some kind of metaphorical bread.  Which they might think that they might need.  So they wander into our churches.

Now, that's a lot easier isn't it?  We don't have to go out and stand on soap boxes on street corners, and be seen as a religious fanatic.  The person who has come into our church already knows that we are religious fanatics, so we don't risk anything by acting like religious fanatics.

So here is somebody new in your church.  Now, of course, they may simply have wandered in out of the rain.  In Port Alberni, that is a non-trivial possibility.  Or, they may already be a religious fanatic, possibly even of our particular type.  They may just be looking for a church home; church shopping.

We still have a bit of a responsibility.  Whoever it is that wandered into our church, they don't necessarily know how we do things.  So, as embarrassing and uncomfortable as it may be for us, we may have to actually talk to somebody that we don't already know.

Yes yes, I know.  You don't like to do that.  You would much rather talk to your friends.  I can certainly understand that.  Unfortunately, God, in many, *many*, *MANY* places in the Bible, says that you have to welcome strangers.  So, you are going to have to talk to them.

Now, of course, you may luck out.  It may be that this person was just getting out of the rain, or, it may be that this person just simply wants to know how to join the church.  In either case, you can let them go back out into the rain, or you can turn them over to the church secretary, and your job is done.  You can go back to talking to your friends.

Unfortunately, sometimes this stranger may be that mythical vagrant wanting that mystical piece of bread.  No, I am not talking about an actual homeless person looking for something to eat.  I am talking about someone who has a need.  A need that God, and fellowship with the church, is going to provide for.

Now you're *really* in trouble.

Now you are faced with the stranger.  The foreigner.  Someone who doesn't know, or at least has only the most tenuous knowledge of, God and Christ.  And, moreover, someone who is probably in distress, in some kind of difficulty, very probably in some kind of pain.  Otherwise, why would they have come into the church in the first place?  It's not as if the church is known as a welcoming place.  Ninety-six percent of the population of Port Alberni knows, very well, that you stay away from any of the churches in Port Alberni.  After all, there is a reason why we don't advertise when we meet.  We don't want people wandering into our services.

The thing is, this presents us with a bit of a dilemma.  This is not simply a sin of *omission*, where we simply have not gone into the highways and the byways and told people the good news.  This is a situation where someone has already heard that we might, possibly, have some good news.  That there might be something here that they need.  And they, rather than we, have reached out.  They have come to us.  They are begging for that metaphorical bread.  And if we don't do anything, it is no longer a sin of omission.  It is now a sin of *commission*, if we turn someone in need away.

So we have to talk to them.

Actually, we probably don't need to talk to them.  Probably all we have to do is listen to them.  Now, yes, I know, once again.  Listening is *way* harder than talking.  After all, you can talk for hours, with no effort at all.  You can trot out Bible verses and cliches by the basketful.  You can ramble on, and *on*, and *ON*.  Feeding them stuff that they don't need.  Because you haven't listened to what it is that they actually *do* need.

So you need to listen.  Now, it's not as if you have to take on this person as a lifelong burden.  If you listen, if you truly listen, you may find that what they need is better addressed by someone else in the church.  If that is the case, then by all means, take the stranger and introduce them to that other person.  That more qualified person.  That more knowledgeable person.  That person who actually has gifts in pastoral care, when you don't.  Then you're off the hook, once again.

But, if not, if you can't think of someone else who has a better grasp on the Christian life than you do, who has more skills in addressing distressing personal issues than you do, then you have to keep on listening.  If something comes up that you actually do know the answer to, something that will, actually, address this person's pain and distress, in that one instance, then, certainly, mention it. But, of course, that still doesn't get you off the hook.

Because most people in difficulty have more than *one* difficulty.  You have to keep listening.  You have to listen and find out whether what you gave them did actually address one small part of their pain.  If it didn't, you're back to square zero.  And even if it did address that part of the difficulty, you have to keep listening and see what *other* sorts of distress to which that person is prey.  (And, people in distress are not necessarily accurately self-analytical.  So it's work.)

Now, it's possible that your various suggestions do address their distress.  If so, well and good.  But your job is not over yet.

To find out why, we have to go back to transplanting.  As I said, when you are growing something from seed, there are an awful lot of potential problems.  Jesus told us about them.  A sower went forth to sow.  Some seed fell in good soil and created a bountiful harvest.  But some seed got snapped away by distractions.  Some seed got carried away by feathered distractions.  But some seed actually sprang up.  It germinated.  It's sprouted.  It started to put out roots and shoots.

Unfortunately, it was not in particularly good soil.  It might have been in thin soil overlaying a rock.  It might have been in particularly rocky soil where there wasn't much soil in between the rocks.  It might have been in rocky soil where there was no moisture, and no water to promote its growth.  Growing plants need water.  Even if you're into hydroponics, light and water may be the only thing that they need, but they *definitely* need water.  All growing plants need some water.  More or less.

So that's where our stranger, who, if you are lucky, and you have been diligent, may be.  They are a new Christian.  They are starting to grow.  They are reaching out for the Water of Life.

You have to make sure they get it.

If they don't get water, believe me, they are going to die.  Sometimes it is possible, if they are only *mostly* dead, but not *completely* dead, to give them extra water and bring them back to life.  But, for the most part, you have to keep an eye on them.  You have to water them everyday.  Okay, possibly not every single day, but definitely regularly.  And definitely more than once a week.

You have transplanted them.  From their old life.  Into the new life.  But they have been transplanted.  They do not have a root system.  They haven't been stabilized in whatever soil they are growing in.  And the soil may not be perfect.  Once again, there may be multiple difficulties.  And you have to make sure that those difficulties do not prevent them from getting the water, and the growth, that they need.  If they die, from lack of water, and they completely die, there is no bringing them back.  They are mulch.  They are compost.  The fact that they have died, and their decomposition, may warn others of the need to turn to the new life.  But, of course, if this new Christian has been telling other people that the church, your church, has been helping them, and then you let them die, the warning will be, don't go to that church.

We in the Christian life, and the church, too often plant seeds ... and then we don't care.  If they fall on stony ground, or among weeds, or don't have enough soil, it's not our problem.  We need to do more transplanting.  Are people not worth more than the grass of the field that is here today and thrown on the fire tomorrow?

Matthew 13:9

Whoever has ears, let them hear.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Fr2al8f0bNT9fTo1nYzwV

Sermon - Garden series

Sermon 2 - Broad Beans

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-2-broad-beans.html

Sermon 3 - Blackberries

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-3-blackberries.html

Sermon 57 - Leaven

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/sermon-57-leaven.html

Sermon 59 - Corn

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/03/sermon-59-corn.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1XxT0do4aFywpZPwPWrvHv

Sermon 83 - The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/04/sermon-83-years-locusts-have-eaten.html

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Review of "What's So Bad About Feeling Good?"

I don't know if I saw "What's So Bad About Feeling Good?" when it was relatively new, but I probably did.  I remember it as being in black and white, so I probably saw it on TV, on a black and white set.

It's not exactly a classic.  Just the fact that it was played on TV, all those years ago, likely proves that.  It's got some heavy-handed, and forgettable, slapstick.  It's got a few really good lines, but most of the dialogue is predictable and common.

But, watching it again, now, I can't help but feel that it still has something to say to a day when a lot of people feel that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, that the authorities are lying to you at every turn, that isolation is the only companionship, that the only way to save the world is to destroy it, that the world is therefore destroying itself, and so what's to worry, right?  (Sorry: that's one of the good lines from the movie.)

Get some grapes and watch it.  Preferably with a feathered friend.  (Maybe beware of bird flu, though ...)

Oneshotted

Recently I was made aware of a new term doing the rounds in the online world.  The term is oneshotted, or oneshotting.

This is a term that has come to us from the world of computer gaming, and particularly the first-person-shooter variety of games.  Shooting someone, be it another competing player, or a non-player entity that one still must kill or destroy, is sometimes more complicated than it is in real life.  Of course, in real life, one does have to make sure that the shot, or shots, hits something vital, like the brain or heart, or a major organ, or a major blood vessel.  Or that you shoot a sufficient number of times to hit something crucial.  But in the gaming world, you are not always shooting with a firearm, and sometimes the gun, or sword, or wand, or poison spell, has a certain strength rating, and that has to be compared against the strength rating of whoever, or whatever, you are trying to kill.  (Or destroy.)

So, it is a matter of some skill, in terms of aiming, and some knowledge of the parameters of the game, in order to kill, or destroy, something with a single shot.  One shot.  So, if you "one shot" someone, you are a skillful player in the game.

Then, there is the other side.  If someone kills you, with one shot, you have been careless, or possibly unlucky.  Or, possibly, you are a newbie.  And you have been oneshotted.

This term has moved out of the realm of shoot-em-up games.  It has now spread into social media.  And, generally speaking, it refers to some, usually sudden, event in your life, which changes your life forever.

As one of the bereaved, I definitely, and immediately, understood this concept.  I've even talked about it, elsewhere, as a sort of grieving quantum life.

I should say that, in general online parlance, "oneshotted," or "oneshopping," is generally a negative term.  Something has happened to you, and it makes it difficult for you to go on with your life as it was before.  Sometimes it is impossible to go on with your life as it was before.

Once again, in terms of grief, I definitely understand this concept.  Your person has died.  The world is no longer the same.  The person that you talked to, went to, discussed things with, could expect support from in any situation, has died.  The world is not the same.  Some of the battles that you face, sometimes on a daily basis, may be the same.  But you no longer have the resources to face them.

I definitely understand that.

But, as with any experience of grief, people react to the loss differently.

Yes, for some people, the loss is a loss, and it is a fatal loss.  If someone else doesn't pick up the slack; if you can't find a support resource, and quickly; well, you just can't survive.  That's what it feels like, and, in all too many cases, that's what it is.  Your life is, actually, over.

But people do react differently.  And, of course, not all losses are equal.  I lost my wife.  I lost my best friend.  Since I was also her caregiver, I lost my job.  I lost any semblance of schedule in my days, weeks, and months.  I lost the person that I most wanted to talk to in any situation.  The person that I had to discuss things with: whether they were movies, hockey games, or newscasts.  I lost all that.

But, of course, different grief is different, because different relationships are different.  When Gloria's mother died, Gloria had grief bursts for ten years thereafter, and even longer.  When Gloria's father died, she grieved, but not with the same intensity.  In the case of my parents, I didn't grieve that much for either of them, because our relationship simply had never been very close.  Not when I was a child, certainly not when I was a teenager, and not when I became an adult and started my career, and then married.  My parents and I were never particularly close, and so, while I did grieve over them, it wasn't earth-shattering.

When my father died, my mother didn't grieve all that much.  It didn't make that much of a change in what she did.  Different marriages are different.  The relationships are different.  Gloria and I had to make contact with each other pretty much constantly.  We had to talk, at great length, about whatever we learned, or encountered.  I have seen many many other marriages where this is not the case.  Where the couple live together, but have different interests.  They sleep together, they eat together, they raise children together.  But that togetherness isn't particularly close.  One has one set of interests and activities, and the other has a different set, and very few of those sets intersect.  So, when the one dies, the other will probably grieve, yes, but not extensively. And it doesn't completely change their life.  They haven't been oneshotted.

But others have.  Their life is completely changed.  *My* life is completely changed.  I am no longer writing books.  I am no longer teaching, at least not in any traditional sense.  I am not taking care of Gloria.  I am writing sermons, which I never did before.  I have started an intensive, and in-depth research into grief itself.  I am experimenting with providing three different, and fairly unique, styles of great support.  I am doing a great deal of volunteer work, with a great many organizations.  Yes, I have done volunteer work pretty much all of my life.  But I didn't have as much time for it while Gloria and I were married, and even before we were married I wasn't doing as much as I am doing now.

So my life is different. When Gloria died, one of my colleagues informed me that now I had the opportunity to reinvent myself.  My response was that I would pass on the opportunity.  But that ship had sailed, and, yes, I did know what he was talking about.  I am still trying to reinvent myself.  As far as I'm concerned it's not working out very well.  But I'm trying.  I've been oneshotted.  My life is over.  I am trying to, not rebuild or reinvent my life, but to build a completely new one.  So far, I don't like it.

Grief topics: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/06/grief-table-of-contents-and-resources.html

MGG - 6.19 - Gloria - health (2)

Gloria had always had medical issues, and problems, but they were generally unpleasant, and painful, rather than life-threatening.  She frequently said, "My body has never been my friend."  She suffered from IBS-C (Irritable Bowel Syndrome of constipation type).  She had suffered with this since childhood.  Her father did not understand, and thought it was stubbornness on Gloria's part in her inability to produce a bowel movement.

She also suffered from a hiatus hernia.  For most of her life she felt that this was simply limited to gastric reflux, and pain, on occasion, when lying down, which sometimes meant that she could not go to bed.  Eventually, as noted, the diaphragm opened sufficiently that it became a major medical issue, requiring surgery.  The surgeon, at the time, noted that her diaphragm with paper thin.  This was rather odd, given Gloria's status as a soloist, and, as one choir director put it, a coloratura soprano, which normally requires a great deal of strength in the abdominal muscles, and in the diaphragm as well.

Gloria suffered from arthritis and joint pain.  She suffered lower back pain.  She suffered misalignment of her hips, and frequently had recourse to a chiropractor.  (On one occasion, when we were both in the car, and were rear-ended by another driver, Gloria went immediately to the chiropractor, and stayed in alignment for an unprecedented period of more than a year.  Rather ironic, given the circumstances.)

Again, somewhat ironically, given her career as a soloist, whenever Gloria got a cold, it went immediately to her chest.  Her lungs would get congested, and it would usually take quite a while to clear up.

Gloria had fibroids, and, eventually, a prolapsed uterus.  Requiring a hysterectomy.

Because of the arthritis, and other joint issues, Gloria was placed on a very strong anti-arthritis medication.  This resulted in bleeding in her gastrointestinal system, which was undiagnosed for many years, and resulted in extremely low iron levels in her blood.  (The iron deficiency was so sever that it did not respond to oral supplements, or even office intravenous iron infusions.  When Gloria finally went in for chemo, we were well familiar with the chemo centre, since we had spent many sessions, and hours, in there getting extensive iron infusions.)  This, in terms of her total energy levels, was probably not helped by an undiagnosed problem with her thyroid, which was only discovered when she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  No one ever did determine what the problem with your thyroid was, although they did determine that it was not a malignant tumor.

Following the multiple surgeries to deal with her diaphragm, Gloria was on a considerable number of medications.  Some had to be taken with food; some could not be taken with food.  Some could not be taken with each other.  It was extremely difficult to figure out a schedule of all the medications, and when they needed to be taken.  Different types of medications needed to be taken at some time distance from each other.  As noted, some needed to be taken with meals, and therefore meal timing had to be quite rigorous.  This determined our meal times, and medication times, and even the timing of other events, during the last decade of Gloria's life.  Therefore it determined much of my life, as well, and may explain the complete breakdown of any idea of schedule, and even appointments, for me, once Gloria died.

As well as noting that her body was never her friend, Gloria frequently stated that she wanted her Resurrection body, and she wanted it *right now!*  Well, now she finally has it. Although I miss Gloria terribly, I could never wish her alive again, and in the difficulties that she always suffered.  The one definitive piece of medical diagnosis that I was able to obtain during Gloria's final stay in hospital was a report, by an oncologist, noting that, if Gloria survived that stay in hospital, her remaining life would be short, unpleasant, and painful.  I cannot regret that Gloria died when she did.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/mgg-618-gloria-health-1.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/mgg-620-gloria-acting.html

Snowdrops

The developers didn't do much, if anything, with quite a large chunk of property next to the parking lot.  (Well, except for weeding out the sunflowers which I had tried to keep alive, by hand watering, during the hottest part of the summer.)

There is an area not too far from our property where people seem to have dumped quite a bit of yard waste.  In the late winter, there are clumps of snow drops, crocuses, daffodils, and other bulb based flowers.  So, last year, after most of them had died back, I had taken note of where the flowers had come up, and went and dug until I found some bulbs.  I took a few bulbs from the edges of a number of different clumps, and then planted them behind my car's parking space.  Predictably, the landscapers didn't do anything in this area, except dump another layer of mulch on it in the late summer.

So, the fact that these plants have survived the neglect, as well as an exceptional (for this part of the world) cold snap of two weeks duration, is the reason that I have been so chuffed about the little green shoots that have been showing up.  And, yes, I can now confirm that the earliest of the green shoots were, in fact, snowdrops.  I am reasonably confident that another clump of shoots, in a slightly darker green colour, are likely crocuses.  I think there is at least one Narcissus in the area, and possibly also a hyacinth.  So, as silly as it may seem, I am absolutely delighted that there is a bed of these hardy early spring flowers behind my (and only my) parking space.

MGG - 6.18 - Gloria - health (1)

I really don't know what to title this one.  "The Beginning of the End?"  Yes, this marked a significant change in Gloria's health, but most of it really wasn't related to her death.  Yes, it kind of marked the start of my career as Gloria's caregiver, but she always *had* had health issues.

Number Two Daughter was moving house, so we were babysitting the kids.  We took them to a movie.  They wanted to see the new Transformers movie.  Which was in 3D.  And was also around three hours long.  Wearing 3D glasses, for so long, is somewhat disorienting.  Coming out of the theater, and crossing the parking lot, Gloria slipped on a patch of slimy mud that had been the bottom of a drying puddle.  She went down.  She didn't get up again.  When I got to her she was in an awful lot of pain.

I drove her, and the kids, to the hospital.  We called Number Two Daughter, who came and got her kids.  It turned out that Gloria had broken her shoulder: shattering the top of the humerus into four pieces.

It was, of course, extremely painful.  As with any joint break, it took an awfully long time to heal.  In the initial stages of healing, Gloria was in the big armchair/massage chair that I had won at a trade show, very early in our marriage.  It allowed her to sleep in a semi-reclining position, and ensured that she didn't roll onto her shoulder during the night.  However, Gloria was not able to manage to get out of the chair by herself.  So, during the night, when she needed to get up to the bathroom, she had her cell phone with her beside the chair, and would call me on the house phone, so that I would wake up, come downstairs, get her out of the chair so that she could go to the bathroom, and then put her back in the chair, and go back upstairs to bed.

It was her right shoulder that was broken.  While everyone was extremely sympathetic to her plight, and her pain, when they went to comfort her, all of them, universally, patted her on her right shoulder.

She went to a physiotherapist over a period of about a year.  The physiotherapy seemed to help a bit at first, but then she hit a plateau.  We went back to the doctor, who eventually got more medical imaging of her shoulder, which determined that her rotator cuff was torn, and therefore physiotherapy was contraindicated.  Her right shoulder was somewhat restricted after that.

While it can't be said that this problem caused the further medical problems, this was the beginning of a long string of surgeries and medical issues.

Gloria had had problems all her life with IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  She also had a hiatus hernia, which caused gastric reflux, frequently seriously painful.  Her stomach and gastrointestinal problems seemed to be getting worse.  And then one day, she seemed to have heart or lung problems, so we went to emergency.  It turned out that the hiatus hernia had opened up sufficiently that her stomach was actually in her chest, where it is not supposed to be.  It was impeding her heart and lungs, because of the stomach occupying the space that they should have used for normal movements.

The hospital did surgery on the hiatus hernia.  However, there are two ways that you can do this.  One is to completely open the abdominal wall, and do the surgery with the abdomen exposed.  The other way to do it is a kind of keyhole surgery, using four holes, and special manipulators through the holes to reposition organs and sew up the diaphragm.  This was the choice of surgery in Gloria's case.

Gloria has always had problems with wounds taking a long time to heal.  In this case, the even the small surgical holds that were used for her diaphragm surgery, reopened after the surgery; a process known as dehiscence.  We went to the ambulatory care clinic, which we tended to refer to as the wound clinic, and, revisiting two or three times per week, had absolutely wonderful care from the nurses who viewed, cleaned, packed, and explained all the processes, in caring for the wound over a period of at least three months.  Finally, on one visit to the wound clinic, when Gloria was not feeling very well, the nurse treating her on that occasion said, "Congratulations, your wound is finally healed.  Now go straight to emergency, because you're very sick!"

So, we were back at emergency.  In this case, the problem was not determined right away, and so Gloria was admitted to hospital, and I went home.  During the night, the nurse who was on shift where Gloria was, was someone that we knew.  She knew that Gloria tolerated an awful lot of pain, and that if she was complaining of pain that it must be extremely painful, and so alerted a doctor, and insisted that Gloria be seen, since something was obviously seriously wrong.  I got a call at 7:00 in the morning.  The doctor had determined that the previous surgery had completely let go, and the surgery would have to be done all over again.  They transferred her to the Vancouver General Hospital, and did the surgery with the abdomen fully open, rather than trying to do the keyhole surgery again.  The surgery, in this case, took at least eight hours.  Gloria ended up in the post recovery post-surgical board with at least a dozen tubes and wires running in and out of her body.

It was a while before Gloria could go home.  And then the wound dehisced again. So it was back to the wound clinic, for another three months, to get that wound healed up again.  In this case, when Gloria went home, she had one tube still running out of her stomach, left there to stabilize her stomach in a position where an artificial scar would be formed inside, anchoring the stomach in position so that it wouldn't move again.  I had to clean her tube and wound twice a day, in order to prevent infection.

And then, roughly a year later, while she was still occasionally visiting the surgeon to make sure that her internal organs were settling into place properly, she got an inflammation around the surgical site.  Again.  We went back to the General, seeing the doctor, who sent us over to the emergency ward, immediately, to have this inflammation lanced.  It turned out that there was a piece of surgical suture, that had been in place from either the first or the second surgery, which the body had finally infected and rejected.  So, once again, it was back to the wound clinic, for another three months of sessions two and three times a week.  We were getting quite familiar with the wound clinic staff by this point.

Sometime after (and, once again, there was no causal link), there were some troubling indications, and Gloria was sent to an oncologist.  In pursuing the situation with regard to the cancer, it was also determined that there was a problem with her thyroid, so she was seeing a thyroid specialist at the same time.  Nothing was ever really determined about a specific problem with the thyroid, although she was put on hormone replacement medication, a synthetic form of the hormone that they thyroid normally produces to give you energy.  So, once again, two things were going on that seem to have seemed to possibly be related, but actually had no relation to each other, as far as anybody could ever determine.

The cancer was Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  This was diagnosed, but the oncologist wanted to get more details about it, so Gloria was referred for a PET scan.  As it happens, I went to UBC just after the TRIUMF cyclotron was put into operation, where PET scanning was invented.  So I knew something of the situation and process.  However, due to some kind of administrative mix-up, Gloria was delayed in terms of being scheduled for a PET scan, and so it was some months before she was actually scanned.

The PET scan process is quite interesting.  The process involves being injected with a sugar solution, where some of the component atomic particles have been replaced with positrons.  Because it is sugar, the sugars end up in areas that are more active than others, and, when you have tumours, cancer is generally one of the most active sites in your body.  Therefore, by looking at where positron radiation is being emitted from, you know where the sugar molecules are collecting, and can therefore pinpoint cancerous sites.  The positron scanning is paired with a CAT scan so that there is a reference as to where the emitting sites are in particular organs in the body.

As well as knowing about PET scanning, as a security maven, I also know something about border security procedures.  The technician doing the PET scanning, when she gave Gloria the injection of sugar, noted that she should not try and cross the border for the next 72 hours. Gloria found this kind of surprising, and I burst out laughing, because I knew why this was the case.  At the US border land crossings, there are extremely sensitive radiation detectors.  These detectors are so sensitive that, yes, anyone who has had radiation treatments, of whatever kind, will set the detectors off.

In the delay between Gloria's initial referral, and the final scheduled PET scan, Gloria's lymphoma had progressed from stage one to stage three.  It was an extremely aggressive form of lymphoma.  This is actually a good thing.  In the same way that a high performance car requires lots of time in the shop to maintain its operation, aggressive cancers are more susceptible to chemotherapy, and therefore, in a sense, aggressive cancers are easier to treat.  Gloria was treated with chemotherapy.  At least six sessions, and possibly eight.  I can't recall anymore.

I can recall that the chemotherapy brought her white cell count down very drastically.  In order to try and boost her immune system, she was prescribed an extremely expensive drug, which did not exactly *increase* white cell production, but did release the white cells earlier than they would normally have been released.  This meant that she did have some white cells in her bloodstream, but that they were primarily immature.  We joked about having to rely on her teenage white cells.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/mgg-617-gloria-glorias-hoodie.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/mgg-619-gloria-health-2.html

MGG - 5.52 - HWYD - 555-1212

OK, I might have been a little too subtle.

I posted, "My phone said I had a missed call from +1-604-555-1212.

"Can't quite put my finger on it, but I have the strangest feeling that it was from a scammer ..."

555 is, and has been for some time, a "reserved" exchange in the North American public telephone system (+1-).  No area is ever assigned 555.  For the most part, you will see all telephone numbers on Hollywood/American movies and TV shows are in the 555 exchange, since the telcos know that calls to those numbers don't go anywhere.

There are a few reserved numbers *within* the 555 non-exchange.  At one point various area codes used 555-1212 as directory assistance.

At one point I worked in telecommunications consulting, including some work with telephony, so I know these things.  I tend to assume that anything *I* know is common knowledge.  I *also* know that, these days, pretty much any call you get from a scammer is going to have a falsified number show up in automatic number identification (so-called "caller-ID).  (This is why the advice to block numbers from scammers on your phone is pretty much useless: scammers just generate random numbers, or numbers "near" your number, that they put out in automatic number identification.)  (Even I, with my *extremely* limited experience in telephony, and not being a phone phreak, know at least *four* *different* ways to generate false input to automatic number identification.)

So, when my phone told me that I had a missed call from +1-604-555-1212, I knew that that was impossible.  Being impossible, it *had* to be from a scammer.  So I figured that my colleagues in security would all appreciate the joke.

It turns out, the joke was on me.  As I knew, if I had thought about it for a minute, there has always been a gulf between telephony people, and data communications people.  And, even these days, when "the network is the computer," a lot of techies still don't actually know how the network works.  Even the data network.  So, a lot of them didn't get the joke, and went to work to help me out.  (Sorry, you lot.)

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/09/mgg-551a-hwyd-positive.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/06/mgg-553-hwyd-dead-phone.html