just thought i'd surface from my harry potter book long enough to post this kinda cute link to a "write your own chapter" thing. (pick tom cruise and scientology when you have the chance!)
last night at about 4:40am-ish i woke up to the sound of much rain pouring down and running down the streets. it's about time... my front lawn looked like an army of great danes had been pissing on it all summer. now it still looks ravaged by doggie piss - but the clover has rebounded nicely & there are little green weed spots. oh well. it's a rental!
as i was listening to the rain, i swore i also saw some lightning. i started to fuzzily wonder if i should move my fan away from the window area. my room is on the 3rd floor of the house & it would just be something for the lightening to come zipping in my window seeking the electrical current of the fan. you see, my dad was struck by lightening a few years ago. he's a farmer - so it's really not that uncommon... all that time spent by great hulking pieces of machinery in open fields.
how did it happen? he was kneeling on some straw and mud (which probably saved his life) trying to fix a broken piece of equipment. he saw the storm clouds and lightening in the distance and kept working, thinking that he'd probably have to call it a day. then he said the next thing he knew he woke up and he was laying on the ground. he idly wondered if he'd been struck by lightening. he got up in a bit of a daze, got in his truck and drove to the house - which wasn't far away. my mom said he came in, said he was struck by lightening (to which she laughed because it sounded so strange) and said he didn't feel well and went to go to sleep.
he woke up in the middle of the night and felt that his heart was beating at a crazy rhythm in his chest. without waking up my mom, he got in the car and drove himself to the hospital (are you starting to see where i get my stubborn, bullheaded and independent streak from?) he was admitted immediately and when they hooked him up to those little machines, his heart beat was not doing good things. speeding up, slowing down, that sort of thing.
after a few hours he seemed to stabilize and the doctors sent him home. they were able to confirm that it was a lightening strike and not some other cardiac event because they found "exit points" on the tips of two of his fingers. seems that when the current enters your body it needs to also leave. usually strike victims can locate both entry and exit points.
my dad is just fine & the doctors told him he was quite lucky to have survived. the only lasting effects he has suffered is a significant reduction in short-term memory. we all tease him it's just because he's getting older - but he has gone from a person who could keep the most minute details about his business up in his brain to a guy who needs to carry around a note pad to make a list to remind himself of things he needs to do that day. i shouldn't laugh - i need one of those lists myself!
so - even though my sleep/heat addled brain thought i should turn off my fan "just in case" - i decided 'fuck that!' and threw caution to the skies. no way in hell was i turning off my fan. and if lightening rod tendencies run in the family - well, so be it....
[music | chris koster, "wartime romance"]
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2 comments:
That's pretty amazing Jodi , wow struck by lightning, now thats an ellite club, huh? Three years ago a next door neighbor was struck while working on an telephone pole, it completely blew off both of his arms !!
After seeing some crap like that I stay the hell out of any kind of lightning . This spring at a prison not far from our happy little Hollow some poor sap was playing baseball in the courtyard and got zapped through an aluminum ball-bat ,by a damned storm that was 5 miles out !! As freaky as that is , you know the First thing that went through my mind is "What in the hell is a prisoner doing with a baseball bat !! "
so so happy for my dad that he has both of his arms still! owch.. :( now he doesn't push it if he sees a storm coming. he comes inside and waits for the eletricity to pass....
and that is a very good point about the aluminum baseball bat in the hands of a prisoner! i mean, i can't even bring my knitting needles on an airplane - and i've never been convicted of anything.... ;)
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