Our Prayers Were Answered and Laughter IS The Best Medicine...

Thank you so much everyone for your prayers. THEY WORKED!

My brother passed the treadmill test with dye.  The radiologist said he did not have any blockage in his arteries!  He was discharged from the hospital today and no doubt is home in his bed getting some good sleep because he DID NOT get any at the hospital...

It looks like it was stress.

I spoke with him this morning and he sounded WONDERFUL!  He said they put a Nitroglycerin patch on him and it gave him a horrible headache and made him nauseated.  The doctor removed it today.  Last night, they told him if he had a clogged artery, they would have to put in a stint.  Thank God he is OK.

When we talked this morning, we laughed and made jokes. It is typical for our family when we are are on the other side of something terrible. We definitely believe, laughter IS the best medicine...

I asked how the food was and he told me it was horrible because he didn't have anything to eat since 7am yesterday...that patch made him too sick to eat...and he is never too sick to eat... I asked how the coffee was...because my brother LOVES HIS JOE (aka coffee). 

"I'm holding a cup in my hand right now...". 

I laughed.  A cup of coffee in his hand is as much him as are his dimples.  He had just finished his stress test and it was his first request! His wife made sure he got his wish...

I told him I had chest pains when I worked for the federal courts... I asked he was under any stress...

"Well, yeah...I have to work..." 

After my brother graduated high school, I let him live with me in my little beach bungalow in Belmont Shores. He slept on the couch and I slept in the Murphy bed.  We had a great time, philosophizing and listening to Rod McKuen poetry on an album called, THE SEA...

I got him his first job at Big Johns Pizza in nearby Long Beach...and his second job at Charley Browns restaurant, where I worked as a cocktail server.  We would stay up late after we got off work, walk down to 2nd street and have dinner at Hamburger Henry's.  We have lots of fun and memorable memories, but this particular one is my favorite...

One late night not too long after he first moved in, he awoke from the couch and stumbled in a drowsy haze to use the bathroom. I had an old wooden Coca Cola crate on the wall, as a shelf to hold my lotion and bath powder.  It was a tiny bathroom.  We had to shut the door, not only for privacy but to get to the toilet.

Living at the beach, there were cockroaches.  BIG ONES...  So huge you could throw a saddle on one! 

As he finished what he went in to do, still in the dark, (can someone please explain to me why men pee in the dark?) he felt something on his foot and naturally jumped.... only to feel a disgusting "crunch" under his bare feet.

He immediately made a growling yell of repulsion and began to flail his arm in search of the light switch. Instead, his arm banged into the crate on the wall. The shelf fell and spilled my bath powder all over him and the bathroom in a cloud of sweet smelling chalkiness. He began to sneeze uncontrollably...crashing and banging, attempting to open the bathroom door...

The loud ruckus woke me from my peaceful slumber.  Heart pounding, I turned on the light to see my 6'2" brother, covered in my favorite perfumed White Shoulders bath powder... Sneezing one giant, boisterous sneeze after another, attempting to tell me what had happened...

I had to laugh.  You would have too. So did he. I wet a dish towel and shoved it at his nose.  He finally stopped sneezing and cleaned himself up.  He showed me the smashed cockroach as we laughed hysterically. In our giddiness, we decided to put the "deceased" into a shoe box and deliver it to our landlord.  My brother wrote the note..."I thought you said the policy was, NO PETS?"

In those days, he was like the North Wind...he would blow in awhile, feel restless, and then off again, toward his next adventure.  He didn't stay at one job very long, but with his personality and Tom Selleck good looks, he never had any difficulty in finding one. 

He and a friend decided to go on a road trip.  We had seen the movie, Blume In Love, where Kris Kristofferson takes off on an adventure and then sends Susan Anspach a postcard which read, "Nothin' to it".  That's what my brother did.  Sent me a post card saying, "Nothin' To It".

He eventually came home, got another job, then quit suddenly one night and decided to go to Hawaii.  Came back and on his way home on the bus, which was too slow; got off, walked into some ho-dunk car dealership and bought a car.

Of course the car was a lemon, so he worked on it with his friend, who was mechanically inclined...unlike my brother.  One day, while following the manual to rebuild the engine, the wind blew the page and he ended up with a cardboard box full of extra parts....His friend saved him and fixed it up fine...

He drove it until he was tired of feeding it oil and it breaking down.  One night he stopped at a gas station and when he got back in the car, it wouldn't start.  So he left it and hitch hiked home.  The gas station called the next day to tell him how much it would cost to fix it.  Without regret, he told them to just keep it...

He liked to golf, much better than he liked keeping a job, so he decided to be a professional golf caddy. We gave him a big family send off, complete with a singing telegram, at some fancy restaurant in Orange County...I don't remember which one right now...but his dimples were deep and happy. He smiled a lot that night...

So off he went to figure out how to be a caddy...  First he worked on the men's tour, which didn't last long...and then for the Ladie's Tour, where he eventually met his wife.  He was her caddy.  She ended up giving up golf, he became a born again Christian, they married, settling in Ohio and had three sons and a daughter.  All the boys are grown up now, their daughter will graduate next year..

He has slowed down to a light, napping breeze these days...he is happy and content living in a 100 year old house with his wife, daughter, three dogs and a couple cats.

I love you my brother...we are all so glad you are well....