So Proud Of My Son ~ An Update On Jeff One Year Later ~ And A Little About Heroes

Okay, so it's been 14 months rather than exactly a year, but I haven't had a lot of time to post here.  I set aside some time for it today because a mom's gotta brag.  ;)


Some of you may remember (for those of you who don't, here's the story) that last year my son, Jeff, was very badly burned in an accident on the day before his sixteenth birthday.  This happened, as luck would have it, just a couple of weeks after he'd been released from an extended hospital stay due to a previous incident, so it was a very bad time for him and for all of us.  I posted a couple of updates last year as he was healing (beautifully), but now that he's fully healed I wanted to just tell everyone what he's been up to since then...  And brag a little because I'm so proud of him.  :)


This is Jeff last year.  I never got a very "good" photo of the most severely burned parts of his face in the burn unit because he didn't like me taking pictures.  He was terribly afraid (as was I) that he was going to be permanently disfigured, and he wouldn't even allow mirrors, let alone cameras.  Anyway, this was him:

And part of his arm (again, I never got pics of the worst of it):

Now, on with the update/bragging:  


After being released and healing up well enough to go outside, Jeff hopped on his bicycle and rode to the fire station nearest to our home.  He walked in, told them his story and said that he wanted to volunteer so he could help other people.  Training he'd previously received as a Boy Scout was sufficient to qualify him to provide basic medical assistance.  The firefighters had Jeff on a truck that very day.  He immediately learned to handle dispatch and rode along on three emergency calls within the first couple of days of his volunteering.  Now he wants to be a paramedic!

Meanwhile, Jeff put his nose to the proverbial grindstone and got down to some hard work toward becoming an Eagle Scout.  As of now, he has completed everything except his final project, which is in progress.  He's temporarily put that on hold, though, because...


Jeff's spending this summer working full-time at Camp Geronimo as a lifeguard and teaching swimming classes for the littler Scouts.  I should probably mention, too, that Jeff attended Camp Geronimo last summer as a camper himself (on a full "campership" scholarship), while still bandaged up and on pain medication, and taught fire safety lessons to the kiddos.  They took things a little more seriously after meeting him in person.


Also last summer at a different camp, again while still bandaged up and on pain medication, Jeff pulled a 17-year-old boy larger than himself out of the Colorado River.  The boy had fallen out of a raft while white-water rafting.


Oh, and backing up a little bit...  Last December, on the way to a leadership training course he was attending, Jeff happened to be the first person to encounter an injured man in the middle of a highway who had been thrown from his motorcycle in a hit-and-run car accident.  Putting his training to work, Jeff tended to the man (who was in shock and unaware that he had multiple broken bones, some protruding from his shattered hand) until an ambulance arrived.


Jeff also rescued a woman in the Grand Canyon who'd been thrown from a horse and had broken ribs.  He signaled (using those signals they learn in Scouts) to a touring helicopter for assistance, made a sling for her out of his own clothing, and carried her to the rescue helicopter when it arrived.


I could go on.  I'm sure I'm forgetting things.  He's a busy kid, a tough kid, a great kid, and a go-getter.  As you might have ascertained by now, I'm really, really proud of him!


And this is Jeff now, just a few weeks ago, doing beautifully and with NO scars from his burns:

One last thing I'd like to add is that the lovely girl there in the photo with Jeff is Hayleigh Funk, his forever friend and my forever hero, because without Hayleigh there would quite literally be no Jeff.  I can't stress enough how true this is.  There was a time - and I won't go into too much detail because I haven't asked Jeff's permission to talk about it publicly - when Jeff himself was all alone and very near death.  Very near death (it took five days in I.C.U. to stabilize him).  It was Hayleigh who found him, and not by accident - she hunted him down with virtually no information on his whereabouts, no contact information for myself or any of his family, and with Jeff himself unconscious.  She found him with mere moments to spare, and she saved his life.


I am forever indebted, and forever proud to know them both.

About Trust...

My kids say I trust people too easily. And maybe they're right, but it isn't something I wish to change. At least not too much. Of course it's always a good idea to apply the wisdom you gain from years and experiences - I'm not indicating that I wish to be naively foolish - but I do not want to become a suspicious, jaded, distrusting person.

It would be true to say that because of my trusting nature we have had people steal from us, but not in any major kind of way. It would also be true that from time to time I, and my family, have been taken advantage of. But again, usually not to a huge extent, nor have I failed to put a stop to it once the matter was spotted, so I wouldn't say we've suffered greatly in that area. To anyone reading this who knows us personally there is one glaring exception to what I've just said, though, and that would be what happened with my foster son. Interestingly, however, the horrible things he did to us (and I'll grant they were, in fact, pretty horrible things) didn't occur until he was twenty-one years old and a long-established member of the family. But that is a story all its own that stand separate from everything else. It's a story I will write about when I'm ready (it'll be soon, I think). I'm not yet ready, though, and I don't want to wander off track here.

My point is that I am a trusting person but I'm not a fool about it, although my kids express some concern regarding my potential in that area. Basically, they worry about me. But I want to stay a trusting person, and I have my reasons.

And here they are:

First of all, I know that I, personally, can be trusted. I've worked very hard at that throughout my life, making it a priority to be a trustworthy person and stressing to my children the importance of integrity. Not that I'm perfect - far from it. Naturally I will sometimes fail, sometimes fall short of my own standards, sometimes let someone down. But I try very hard not to let that happen, and when it does, I own up to it, apologize, and try to learn how not to let it happen again.

Now, I cannot possibly allow myself to believe that I am the only person in the world who values their integrity in this way. To tell myself such a thing would be not only illogical but supremely arrogant. There must be other trustworthy people. There must, I would think, be lots and lots of other trustworthy people. I cannot bring myself to think otherwise.

Secondly, and this is the most important point on this topic for me, I certainly can't ask the young people I encounter to trust me if I trust no one myself. I'd be telling to do as I say but not as I do, I'd be telling them in a sense that I don't believe my own words, I'd be asking them to believe I am worthy of their trust while at the same time setting an example that says I don't believe the same of anyone else. I'd be a hypocrite.

So I am determined to remain a trusting person. Not a naive person - that's not the same thing - but a person who applies judgment, takes the risk, and then steps forward well aware of the possible costs. Will I be hurt again, as I sometimes have in the past? Probably. No, certainly. But I am not afraid of that; I am not afraid to experience let-downs and disappointments and painful feelings. I will not "protect" myself by putting up a barrier of guardedness and suspicion at the cost of being the person I wish to be.

No, when the time comes again - and it surely will - when someone breaks my trust of maybe even my heart, I will feel those feelings willingly and ride out the proverbial storm and come out the other side continuing to believe what I must believe... in order to believe in myself.

In the well-known and admirable words of Anne Frank, "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."

When They Can't Go To Their Parents, They Go To Me

A couple of days ago a boy in our neighborhood ran over to our house in his pajamas, frightened and bleeding all over the place. He cuts himself. You know, a "cutter" as they call them, because he has some very serious emotional pain. This time he cut deeper than intended. Afraid to turn to his father (I don't believe his mother is involved in his life), he ran here. I closed this up for him:

I am glad that he knew I was available and knew where to go, but it saddens me so deeply that he doesn't feel he can go to his own family. See all those other scars on his arm? He is covered in them. Although he wears long sleeves and hides this issue from his friends and family, I have known about it for a while. I try very hard not to be pushy when talking to him, wanting him to feel he has someone he can trust who won't prod or judge. And I'm glad I have taken that approach; otherwise he might not have come here seeking help. I'd like to see him receive help from professionals for his emotional problems, of course, but I also know enough about his home situation to know that his father would not cooperate with anything like that. As a matter of fact, part of the reason this young man is afraid to open up to his father is because he would, in all likelihood, be thrown out of the house. See, his dad regards him as just generally too much trouble.

I suppose there isn't a lot more to say about this. I'm just sad that he doesn't have the nurturing environment he deserves at home, but I'm glad he knows I'm here. Hopefully I can find a way to be helpful to him in a deeper way, even in light of the obstacles that his circumstances present.

If you love your kids, and of course I hope you do, please make sure they feel comfortable and safe that they can come to you with their sadnesses and anything that's on their mind. It's just so important. :(

I Almost Gave Up

Obviously I haven't posted anything here in months. I almost walked away from this blog, walked away from this whole "I'm everybody's mom" thing, ditched it all. Almost. I did, actually, put my online booth on vacation hold (meaning I temporarily closed it down, and as of this writing it's still closed) and basically crawl into a metaphorical hole for a while, just didn't talk to anyone any more than I had to. I couldn't deal with any more. That may sound weak - perhaps whiny? - but that's just the simplest way to put it. I had to sort of withdraw from the world for a while and take care of myself. I could not take any more.

The approximately eighteen months between the summer of 2010 and the end of 2011 contained so much drama for this family, so many crises, that I couldn't even bring myself to talk about most of it. I mentioned a few things here, but I never like to feel like I'm posting all sorts of negative stuff, so I always try to keep some balance by posting positive things that are happening in my world as well. The trouble was that there were no positive things. A few small ones here and there, maybe, like when my daughter took me on a fun little road trip to Las Vegas. The truth was, though, that even on that trip I just grinned through tightly gritted teeth and tried to tell myself I was having a good time. It was work - actual effort - to keep up the appearance. The truth was that nothing could balance out all of the awful things that were happening, though, and a momentary escape here and there was the best I could hope for.

Actually, now that I look back, I recall that even that trip was mostly ruined by a barrage of phone calls from home as my world continued to crumble while I tried to get a tiny bit of reprieve. Ugh.

Anyway, things are better now. I am still recovering from it all, though, and I am allowing myself to "re-enter" life slowly. I've been through a lot. A LOT! It's all about baby steps, as they say.

I will write about the events of 2010/2011, and I will do it soon. For my own reasons, I have to do it soon. But for today, I will just update y'all on my daughter's car accident (the most recent thing I'd blogged about).

I'd said she wasn't seriously injured, but that turned out not to be true. She had some back pain, but we all thought it was just the standard back pain - you know, some soft tissue injuries and basically whiplash - that one would expect after being hit from behind. She was seeing a chiropractor, but while her neck was starting to feel fine, pain in her lower back was only getting progressively worse. The chiropractor suggested she get an MRI, but she couldn't afford it as she was uninsured. By the way, it did turn out that the at-fault driver had insurance, but they would only cover her expenses on a "reimbursement basis". Meaning, in reality, that she would have to come up with cash to pay for all treatment and they would reimburse her when it was all done. I mean ALL done. So, being a broke college student and with a mom (me) who didn't have a lot of cash, she really couldn't move forward. All she could do was hurt, and be frustrated knowing that there was insurance to take care of her, but she couldn't access it.

By December her situation became dire. She worked retail, so the holiday season was her busiest time, and she was continually sent home from her job because she'd stand at the register and cry. By early January she had to quit her job, a job she'd had for four and a half years, a job they'd held for her when she went away for six months to work at Disneyland, a job she liked and was good at. She was very depressed over this.

By the end of January she could no longer attend classes and had to drop out of college. Her pain was tremendous, but when I'd taken her to the emergency room they only suggested Ibuprofen. An x-ray didn't reveal anything serious, but they suggested (as her chiropractor had) that she get an MRI. We explained that she was uninsured, explained the "reimbursement coverage" situation she was in with the auto insurance company, and pleaded with them to do the MRI there at the hospital during her ER visit. They refused, told her to go get one herself, and insisted that there were places who would do this and third-party bill the responsible auto insurance company. I told them we'd been unable to find any such places, asked again and again that they do it there, but all to no avail. They didn't even want to give her any pain medication and treated her, frankly, like some drug-seeker who was making things up. Only when I had a fit did they give her a few Percocet, grudgingly. We were sent on our way with no idea how to proceed. She was in tears. Honestly, by this period of time, she was always in tears. She'd just cry constantly from the pain. No one seemed to care.

By early February pain that had been steadily creeping downward into her hips and legs made it nearly impossible for her to walk or even to sleep. Finally having scraped together enough cash for the new-patient fees at a doctor's office, I took her in and we asked them to give us the referral paperwork for an MRI (apparently you can't just get an MRI unless a doctor orders one, so we had to pay for that first). This doctor - sadly and disappointingly my doctor - also didn't appear to take her seriously. She did order the MRI, but refused to prescribe any pain medication at all. My daughter, who is intelligent and driven and works hard, was angry and offended at being treated like some kind of drug-seeker. She'd lost everything - her job, her college education, her social life, everything - and yet this didn't seem to be enough to convince anyone she was in severe pain.

We scraped together more money and took her to another doctor, one recommended by someone on Craigslist, actually! This doctor took her more seriously, and also ordered an MRI from a place that was somewhat less expensive than the one my doctor had ordered. It took another week and tons of begging to get contributions from family members, but we finally got that MRI. It changed everyone's attitudes and facially expressions remarkably.

On the same day as the MRI was done, we ran back to the doctor's office with the films. Suddenly everyone was compassionate, everyone was sorry, everyone was placing their hands on her shoulder and calling her "sweetheart". They tripled the dosage of pain medication they'd prescribed a week earlier and they referred her to a spinal surgeon, whom they wanted her to see immediately.

More begging, more family members chipping in money. We got to the surgeon's office in less than a week. I don't remember all the terminology, but suffice it to say that her lower spine was torn up. Four discs were problematic, one was "just gone, there is no disc" (using the surgeon's exact words) and was herniated so badly that - again using his own words - they were "surprised you aren't peeing all over yourself". He ordered surgery within 36 hours, and the biggest scramble for cash was on. We turned to everyone, even cousins I hadn't seen since high school, and within those 36 hours we came up with nearly $11,000 to pay for the surgeon, the hospital and the anesthesiologist. She had the surgery and felt relief immediately. The surgeon, outside of my daughter's earshot, said that this thing he'd removed was one of the largest he'd ever seen and that he'd showed it (ewww) to everyone there in the OR that day.

It's been two and a half weeks now and she is recovering beautifully. She still has physical therapy coming up that we still can't pay for, and our entire extended family is flat broke, so we'll have to find ways to deal with that. Her total out-of-pocket expenses now exceed $20,000 and the insurance company still won't talk to her until she's "all done".

The important thing, though, is that she's better. So much better. She's almost giddy with joy at the relief she's finally feeling. And that, folks, is a mood-lifter for all of us around here!

I guess it's time for me to crawl the rest of the way out of my hole and re-open my shop, though. Gotta sell!

Just Some Random Stuff That's Going On

Just a few notes of some things that are going on in my world...

My daughter was in a car accident recently and her car was totaled. The guy who hit her at 55 mph on the freeway and spun her car completely around to facing the opposite direction in traffic was driving with no insurance and a suspended license. Fortunately she carries good insurance coverage herself, so everything will be taken care of. You can't see it in this photo, but the car was smashed in the front as well as the rear. She was very lucky, though, and was not seriously injured.

This situation has left our household short one car (it'll be replaced, but hasn't been quite yet) when we were already short a car, so managing everyone's transportation has been a challenge.

On a separate note, it turns out I have severe arthritis in my lower spine and the degeneration has reached the point where a couple of nerves are being pinched. Not good. My right foot goes numb much of the time, and my left leg goes numb much more frequently. In addition, the pain in my right hip area is terrible. Pain meds upset my stomach, so I often get to choose between leg/back pain and vomiting. Most days I can't walk lately, and on ALL days I cannot put on my own socks and shoes. Fun times!

Because of these things that are happening, I may not be able to pull off my "Black Friday" project as planned, but I should still be able to do the Christmas stockings (theoretically, things should settle down by then). In any case, I'm not giving up just yet. I'll just see how things go within the next few days before I make any decisions.

On a lighter note, we have two cats that are mother and daughter, and the daughter is now about eight months old and close to the size of her mom. We've all been endlessly entertained by their antics lately. The two of them look very similar and are absurdly inseparable. They roll all over the house together in a constant blur of black and white fur, and you never see one without the other. Such a hoot!

Let's see... What else? Hmmm...

One of my now-grown strays, Jonah (who just turned 21) had previously been attending college but experienced some setbacks that forced him to drop out for a while. Naturally I was concerned that, as often happens, taking some time off from school would turn into a permanent situation and he'd never finish. However, Jonah seems to have really put effort into pulling a lot of things together, as well as paying off some past-due tuition he owed, and he's now ready to return to ASU for the spring semester! Yay! :)

Here's Jonah on Halloween with his girlfriend, Victoria:

Well, I know there must be other stuff going on, but I can't think of anything else terribly important at the moment. This will do for now. I promised myself I was going to blog more often, so I feel like I kept that promise today. :)

Until later, everyone have a great day!

Starting My 2011 Holidays Project!

**Quick note: I went ahead and left this post up (I just feel weird about writing stuff and then deleting it - think it looks hinky), but I have actually canceled plans for both of my holiday projects. This isn't a sad thing, it's just that my family needs attention this holiday season and also there are two new young people added to our home, so it just wasn't feasible to add anything more to my plate. So, I have to take a year off of holiday projects, but it's for the best.

This year I'm starting a little early on my annual project for the holidays (well, I guess it's not really that early, but it is for a "queen of the last minute" like myself - lol). Last year we filled Christmas stockings for the homeless youth at the Tumbleweed Drop-In Center, the year before that I did a Christmas Day dinner, and before that the kids and I had done gift bags for the homeless. If you'd like to read about previous projects, just browse through my older posts here. ;)

If I can pull it off, I would actually like to do two projects this year. First of all, I'd like to do something on "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving, for those of you not familiar with the term). I was thinking about that day, and how when my kids were little I used to be out there every year in the wee hours of the morning with all the crowds, hunting down the toys and loving every minute of it. I've always loved how "Black Friday" kind of jump-starts the season. This year I would like to use that day to jump-start the season in a different kind of way. Instead of starting the season right off the bat in a commercialized, shopping-mall kind of mind set... Why not start the season right off in the spirit of giving and sharing? You know, reminding ourselves right from the beginning of what the holidays are really all about?

So for my first holiday project this year, I would like to throw a "Black Friday Party" that is not limited to homeless and at-risk youth, but rather open to anyone and everyone who is in need - whether that need is for food, tangible items, or just company and friendship. While we're all still basking in the glow of all that gratitude we expressed on Thanksgiving, let's keep in mind that the holiday season is not all about the mall. It's about people. Families, friends, communities. And this has been a rough, rough year for many people (myself and my family included), so let's start our holiday season off by remembering to stick together. Everyone has something to offer, whether it's a little extra food or a few kind and encouraging words.

For the "Black Friday Party" I will probably select a public park since we have the good fortune in Arizona of nice weather in the fall. I don't have my job at the church anymore, so I don't have the access I used to have to those facilities (bummer), but a park should work nicely. Of course I will serve food, but I'd also like to give away gift bags to those in need - bags filled with items like toiletries, socks for the cold weather season, first-aid items, useful stuff like duct tape and toilet paper, etc. I would like to set up and exchange table - if you received something you don't need, put it down and pick up something you do need. Share, swap, trade, talk, get to know people, spread some cheer and encouragement to each other... That's the whole idea here.

The second project I'd like to do this year is - again - Christmas stockings for the homeless youth. Exactly the same as we did last year, except this year I don't know if we will personalize them again or not (there were some complications with that, but I'm still thinking about it).

For both of these projects I'm going to need stuff, and I'm going to need volunteers to help out. If you'd like to contribute any items, we can use the following (I'll surely amend this list later):

• Socks
• Toothbrushes
• Small-sized toiletry items (shampoo, toothpaste, etc.)
• Rolls of toilet paper
• Duct tape
• Bunjee cords
• Christmas stockings
• Batteries
• Chapsticks
• Band-aids
• Aspirin
• Knit caps
• Snack food items
• Pens
• Dental floss
• Combs
• Breath mints
• Razors
• Feminine hygiene products
• Shoestrings
• Deodorant
• Rubber bands
• Gift cards
• Wet wipes
• Cough drops
• Matches / lighters
• Etc., etc., etc.

If you would like to contribute a dollar or five, you can do that here using PayPal: Holiday Projects Chip-In.

If you'd like to help out or if you have questions, drop me an email at salmagundigeneral@yahoo.com.

I will keep posting updates as these projects move along. If you'd like to be involved, feel free to jump in at any time! The more, the merrier! And let me be the first to say to you this year... HAPPY HOLIDAYS! :)

Getting Back To "Normal". Maybe?

I know I've been pretty silent on here for a while. There's been a lot going on (I've had some health issues come up, been being bounced from doctor to doctor), yet at the same time it's felt kind of like there's been nothing going on. That's because since the dramatic and upsetting exit of my foster son a few months ago, my kids have not wanted any new additions to the family. As a matter of fact, they haven't even wanted anyone really coming around at all. They were hurt, and they didn't want to share their mom with any more people.

Thus, my once bustling and busy house became silent and dull, and I hated it. Two of my girls - my "strays" - who have been members of the family for years moved away, too. My Tiffany got married, had a baby and moved to North Carolina. My Kayla got engaged and left for California. So then the now-silent house became even more quiet, and it started to feel like a morgue around here to me. I could still do some volunteer work, take out clothes and food or reach out to kids in ways that didn't involve bringing them home (all as my health / pain level would permit), but coming back to the house was always a let-down. I didn't enjoy being here at home anymore. Especially since my kids are older now and very busy, which means that even though they didn't want to share me, they also weren't here at the house a lot. I found myself making dinners for no one, and eating alone most of the time. Eventually I gave up making dinners and went with frozen stuff, eaten by myself in a quiet house with a book. A far cry from what I've been accustomed to for decades. I was really bummed.

Then yesterday morning I went for a walk and I met Amber. Amber is 19 years old and homeless. Her father is in prison and her mother committed suicide when Amber was just twelve years old, and she doesn't have any real family. She told me that she did have her own apartment for a little while when she was of age to get one, but she lost her job and was soon on the streets again. She carries only a plastic grocery bag with her.

Amber was hungry, so we walked back to my house together and I cooked her breakfast (my kids were still asleep). Then she helped me pull some weeds and rake the yard while we chatted. The things I found most impressive about this young lady were her sweet demeanor and her amazingly positive attitude. While she had her own problems, I often found her looking for ways to encourage me. Really just a very kind and thoughtful person.

While we were in the yard, my son woke up to get ready for school. He saw Amber outside and said to me, "Hey, I've seen that girl around. She's always in the dumpsters." I told him how she'd come over for breakfast and he went outside to introduce himself. They talked for a while as I did the dishes and watched out the window. He did not seem annoyed that I'd brought someone home. My daughter got up next and commented, "She seems nice." So far, so good. It didn't seem like the kids were bothered.

I offered Amber a shower, which she was really happy about, and gave her some clean clothes (I keep teen-appropriate clothing around and fortunately had her size). After that she was on her way. She did leave me a phone number, but her phone is turned off right now. I haven't seen her again, but that was only a day ago.

I do hope Amber will be back. For now, though, I'm just encouraged that my own kids seem to be coming back around. Perhaps some healing has started.