Had a very very very cool experience. It was cool.
At Cornerstone, in the Sanctuary tent.
As some of you may remember, my daughter has a congenital heart defect, had corrective surgery, and now wears a pace maker.
Late in June, she got ill. At first, it seemed very flu-ish. She was vomiting and sluggish, but not horribly - so we thought it was just the flu. Well, the vomiting continued way past what we thought was flu-ish. My wife gets on the horn with the 'nursing hotline' or whatever - when you call and they try to triage you over the phone to see if you need to go to the ER or not. They said mostly - well, no. My wife tried to do the computer dial-up thingy for my daughter's pace, but got no confirmation from the cardiologists office on whether it went through or if there was a problem or not. . . but bottom line, we were darned uncomfortable. Thinking it was flu-ish - we went to the home town ER - instead of the OSF (Cardio) ER - to see what was up.
When we got in, they immediately start vitals, and 2 of the nurses are like - somethings wrong with our equip - we're only getting a 50bpm heart rate. Oh no. . . we know what that meant. They got an IV started (after 5 sticks and lots of crying) put us in the ambulance, and took us to the cardio hospital in peoria (a 10 minute drive - so not too far).
When we arrived, the cario comes in, tells us shes losing capture (iow - the pace is firing, but the heart is not responding to the pace). This doc says she's got a bad wire - and it needs replaced. The jack up the voltage on the pace - dropping the expected battery life to 6 months (typically, the battery life is 5 - 10 years).
Our cardiologist comes the next day - we did get admitted - and says, no surgery, lets try steriods instead. This must be due to scarring on the surface of the heart - so lets try to heal it up. Ok - for 1 1/2 days. Then she begins to lose capture again. Not completely - but enough that the doc comes in at 9:30pm on a sat - when he's not on call.
Ok, well - we do need to replace the lead. Her heart is getting better - so that must not be it. Must be the lead. Lets replace it - quickly.
Next day - they tell us the open heart is scheduled for Tues. morning.
Ok. Surgery goes fine. But they should always - ALWAYS - tell you longer than they think it'll take. They tell us 2 1/2 hours - it was more like 4. 4 very long hours. Arabella is only 16 months old now. . . .
Anyhoo - surgery goes very well. She's sent home the next day after surgery - running around the house 2 days post-op. Amazing. Kids are way resilient.
So I posted this up on my blog on myspace - which I figure no one reads - and oh, by the way - cornerstone was going on - where I was supposed to be - this was obviously more important - so I get the blessing from the wife, and make sure all is well with 'Bella - and head down to c-stone (which is less than an hour away....) on Friday. (3 days post-op). Wife was very cool with. Or I wouldn't have.
Who's playing tonight? Oh, cool. DBeality.
Sweet.
I'm hanging at the tent - SL is running sound, so I'm loading bands & what-not. Catch the rumor that Robert Sweet is in camp somewhere (he ended up drumming for DBeality) - setting stuff up or whatever - and this guy walks up to me.
"You're Wes, right?"
"uh, yeah"
"I'm Jeff. I've been praying for your daughter - how is she?"
"um, who are you again?"
So this guy - who ends up being Jeff Adams (for reference -
http://www.trabenbass.com/artists.html# - the second guy listed) - David's bass player - goes on to tell me about how his band, family, church - all the people - are praying for my daughter, and he's talking to me like we've known each other for years - and I'm feeling like really great *vibes* (not the best word, but it'll do) - and so I just start sharing with this guy. We talk - deep intimate stuff - for about an hour or so. He's a spector player - knows that I am too - talks about bass, kids, bands, God - healing. . . it was just very cool.
So then, I get to help ROBERT SWEET set up his drum set. Then took some pics of Jeff & Robert & David (who is also a very cool - down-to-earth guy) and Dale Greer (smoking guitar player).
The set was fantastic. Great stuff.
Had a blast.
Took a bunch of pics & vids. I'll post some when I remember where they are on my computer.
Anyway - wanted to share. Very cool stuff.
God is good.
Subject: DBeality, cornerstone, pace makers & me....loving DOOOOM 
Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:14 am
" and then you launch into how well she is doing and how you got to have such a cool experience at C-stone and I was like "wow! 
"
