You Never Know

It’s time for a story. This is a story that is hard for me to relive and even think briefly about. But it’s worth mentioning here, as it’s never very far from my mind and helps me remember what’s important.  

“Kirk, we know what this is. What you’re having is called an Aortic Aneurysm.” Everything in the small emergency room fell away as those words took hold in my brain, and I turned to lock tearful eyes with my husband lying on the bed next to where I was sitting. I didn’t know specifically what the aortic part had to do with it, but I definitely knew the word “aneurysm”. 

My best friend and I had been at high school basketball practice when someone came to tell her that her mother had been found slumped over her desk at work, dead with an aneurysm. A well-liked local family had lost their dad and husband when the man fell next to his car, dead with an aneurysm. I didn’t have the exact definition for aneurysm in my head, but I knew it meant swift and certain death. 

“Don’t leave me,” I demanded tearfully. His eyes answered that it was the last thing he wanted to do, but we both knew this was beyond us. The fact that we’d even been given a diagnosis as he was lying here conscious was more than most people we knew with aneurysms had gotten. 

“We’re going to fly him out of here,” I vaguely remember hearing. I know one nurse was working at a desk, while the doctor and nurse practitioner were setting plans in motion to get him to a heart specialist as quickly as possible. 

Someone handed my husband a couple of stapled sheets of paper with the heading “Aortic Dissection”. He read briefly and handed it to me, whispering, “I don’t want to read anymore of this.” I noticed a few phrases: serious condition, blood vessel tears, aortic dissection is often fatal. I shoved it into my purse and grabbed his hand tightly. “Do I bring your mom with me, or do I leave her here?” He just looked sadly at me and said he didn’t know. 

I sprang into action. “Okay, I’m going to start driving. You’re going to beat me there, so I’ve got to get going,” I kissed him gently. “I love you and I’m going to see you again soon.” He nodded with such a sad look in his eyes and told me he loved me, too. My mom, who was also in the emergency room with us, assured me that she would stay with him until he left for the helicopter, and then she would follow. 

I jumped into my car, which my stepdad had just returned to me with a full tank of gas. My husband and I had been spending an increasing amount of time with his mother recently. She had woken up a couple of times from naps and had no idea where she was, even though she was in her own home. I punched in the number of my father-in-law’s nursing home and called. 

This is the right move, I thought, I’ll have her to focus on, and that will be good.  

I picked her up after a quick stop at our house to grab a bag and shove a handful of clothes and toiletries in. I also foolishly grabbed an outfit for my husband, reasoning, or rather, hoping, that he’d be coming home right away. 

I had a two-hour drive to where a helicopter would be flying my husband. I did a good job of keeping it together and keeping the car on the road as I was driving 85 or 90 miles per hour. We caught and passed a car with my husband’s daughters and one of their husbands along the way. We were almost there when I got a call. 

“Hyde,” my eyes filled with tears as I heard my husband’s voice flood the car. I heard his mother do a sharp intake of air as she recognized it as him. 

“Yes, I’m here,” I said quickly, realizing it had taken me a moment to speak.

“Hyde, I’m here. It only took about 35 minutes or so.”

“I’m glad.”

“Hyde, the surgeon wants to talk to you. He’s here with me,” his voice broke as he said the word surgeon, and I found myself fighting to keep my emotions in check. 

“Heidi, this is Dr. Smith,” I heard a southern voice fill the interior of the car. “I’m here with your husband, and I’d like to visit with you for a minute. Is that okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” I heard myself say, all business again. 

“I’d just like to explain what’s happening with him. His aorta, which is the largest tube that comes out of his heart, and usually looks like a single-barrel shotgun, is under so much pressure that it’s split into essentially what looks like a double-barrel shotgun.” 

“Oh, okay,” I stammered. 

“Heidi, if we don’t do surgery, there’s a 100% chance that he’s going to die,” he paused. “And if we do DO the surgery, there is still a 40% chance that he may not make it.”

My voice cracked as I said, “So we’re going to do it, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. How far out are you?”

“We’re five minutes away.”

“Okay, we’re going to wait for you.” Both his mother and I were in tears as I thanked him and hung up. She continued to cry as I forced myself to get it together.

We arrived in the parking lot of the huge hospital, parked the car, and joined the rest of our family, climbing quickly out of their vehicle. I told them what the surgeon had said and that we needed to hurry so we could see their dad before they took him into surgery. 

We raced through the hospital, just to end up in the wrong area. A nurse finally called my cell and told me she would come get us. She led us back through the maze of hallways, and there he was, clad in a hospital gown and head cover, ready for surgery. 

I wanted to hold him as tight as I could, and never let him go, but I also knew his kids and his mother needed a chance to do the same, and the surgeon was waiting. 

A man introduced himself to me as the anesthesiologist and told me that if he were going through the same thing, he would want Dr. Smith to be the one operating on him. I think I smiled at him. He handed me something of my husband’s, maybe his wallet, maybe his cell phone, or possibly both. We all kissed and hugged him, every one of us crying, including my husband. 

I held his hand as they began to wheel him down the hall. We got to a certain area, and they told us that was as far as we could go. We kissed and hugged him again, and he said, “Let’s go, let’s just get this over with.”   

My mother-in-law, two daughters, son-in-law, and I were led to a large waiting area and given instructions. It was 6 p.m., and the surgery could take as long as seven hours. There would be a nurse in the room during the surgery who would be calling my phone every hour to let me know how it was going. If there was ever a time that I wanted to call them, there was a phone on a desk in the corner of the waiting room. She handed me the number, showed us that there was coffee and water available, and she was gone. 

We all found a spot to begin the excruciating, never-ending seven and ½ hour wait to see if my husband, her son, their dad, and his father-in-law, would ever be the same again. 

As the surgery began, each of us kept busy by sending text messages to other family members and friends. My phone rang and I saw that it was my dad. My parents are divorced and remarried. My mom and stepdad live near us and are with us often, certainly whenever something major happens. My dad and stepmom live states away from us. While we talk on the phone quite frequently, we only actually see each other a couple of times each year. 

“I’m on my way,” my dad said in my ear. The world dropped out from under my feet once again. If my dad was headed this way, it could only mean one thing: he didn’t think my husband was going to live through this. It became hard to focus on anything else he said. All I could think was that my dad coming could only mean that my life was about to change drastically. 

I joined the group with a few minutes to spare before the first hour ended. I stared down at my phone, waiting for it to ring, and when I happened to glance up, I saw four other pairs of eyes watching my phone screen too. It rang, and the cheerful nurse’s voice on the other end reassured me that everything was going along just as they had thought it would. Everything was going well. I thanked her, she told me she’d call me again in an hour, and we hung up. The wait for the next phone call had begun. 

The next couple of hours continued in much the same manner. People would call or text or Snapchat me, and I would respond with whatever information I knew. My mom and stepdad arrived, and my son-in-law went to a motel room. My sister called and one of the first things she said was, “Dad’s coming.” Everything skidded to a halt again. I told her he had called and that I definitely knew what that meant. We managed to talk for almost an hour after that, and it even seemed somewhat normal. My dad arrived a couple of hours later. 

The third hour hit, and we all sat around watching my phone screen. We watched, and watched, and watched. Nothing. We all knew the call would be coming in at any second, and none of us did anything but watch until we realized that the fourth hour was approaching. I wondered if this was how it would start: first, the phone calls quit coming, next, there would be a nurse coming in, asking for the wife. 

I couldn’t wait any longer. I went to the corner phone and dialed the number the nurse had given me, asking to get an update. The nurse asked who I was calling about, and there was a long pause as she did something. 

I envisioned her covering the handpiece with her hand, telling her co-worker that the guy’s wife was on the phone, the one they were cleaning up before they came to the waiting area to explain that they had done everything they could possibly do. The “we’ll get back to you just as soon as we can, we’ll call you on your cell phone,” confirmed what my mind had already decided. 

A call finally did come in, telling me that things were going well. I had been so sure they weren’t that it was hard to believe the voice on the other end of the phone. I don’t think I ever really did believe, until the call came telling me that the surgery was over, it went well, and the surgeon would be coming to speak to me. It had been a seven-hour ordeal. The surgeon was finally sitting with us at 1:15 a.m.  

Dr. Smith explained the whole process to us, beginning with the aorta swelling from a single-barrel shotgun, to a double-barrel shotgun, and how lucky we had been that it hadn’t torn into a triple-barrel shotgun. He talked about how they replaced my husband’s aortic valve, which had become faulty, with a pig valve and his aorta had swollen from three centimeters to 5.5 centimeters, where two layers had torn. They used synthetic mesh to repair the aneurysm. He also brought up the fact that the human body normally has around 1.7 gallons of blood. They had used 28 units during the surgery, which translates into 3 ½ gallons! Finally, he told us we could see him, although he wouldn’t be waking up for hours yet. 

I walked into my husband’s ICU room holding my mother-in-law’s hand. They had agreed that we could take turns seeing him, as long as we went in pairs. I had barely glanced at him when a nurse smiled at me and said, “he’s a miracle man.” My mother-in-law lost all composure at hearing that, and we just stood next to him, hugging each other and sobbing. 

I pulled away. I had to touch him, drink him in with my eyes, and make sure he was still the man I knew. The way he was lying was a lot like a person in a casket, arms folded over his chest, and I needed to see the rise and fall of his breath before I could be sure he was okay. 

He was covered by a blanket to his waist. There were gauze pads running from right underneath his neck to the top of his belly. He had tubes coming out of his chest and several other tubes close to his neck and coming out of his mouth. He was paler than I’d ever seen him. But he was breathing and he was alive. I could finally breathe again, too. 

It would be another 26 days before my husband was sent home “to cure like a country ham,” as his surgeon, Dr. Smith, put it. He had been put into a hypothermic state during surgery, and it took his insides a long time to wake up. 

We got to go home on February 26th, just to return about a month later for him to have his cecum removed, a part of the large intestine. It had never gotten the message to wake up, and it was decided that his stomach would feel and work better if he wasn’t constantly battling it. By this time, COVID had arrived, and I didn’t get to go with him; I just had to drop him off at the door to the hospital. 

I picked him up several days later, and we had to drive through a blizzard to get back home, just in time to spend Easter by ourselves. Another first. 

With all of the ups and downs of his medical issues, I fell deep into depression. Even when he came home, I couldn’t shake the feelings of sadness. There had been several times I was sure he was going to die, and the feeling stuck with me. He was home and back in his recliner, where I had hoped and prayed for him to be, and although my brain was happy about it, my feelings couldn’t catch up. 

The nurse practitioner, who had first recognized he was having an aneurysm, and I had become close as we were constantly texting about what was happening with my husband. She recommended that I start on some antidepressants. It was exactly what I needed to get back to feeling like myself. After a couple of months, I was able to ditch the pills and express all the happiness I had knowing “the miracle man” was home and working, and living life again. 

The thing is, you never know. If tomorrow were your last day here on Earth, are you okay to go knowing you have done every single thing you wanted to do? Or are there goals, hopes, and dreams you’re putting off until you’re ready? Spoiler alert: you’re NEVER going to be ready. My advice is that you should start chasing all those crazy ideas living in your head. Make every one of them your reality.

A Nickname to Grow Into

A long time ago, in my very first teaching job, I taught high school English on a nearby Indian Reservation. While there, I taught a girl who, after she got to know me pretty well, called me a Badass.

These kids grow up fast

I should mention that my students on the reservation had seen a lot more of life than the students I would go on to teach in Nebraska. These kids had been through and seen things that I hope to never see, and yet it was their everyday experience. I’m not exaggerating when I say that alcoholism, rape, and abandonment were commonplace for them. Often, these kids were caretakers of younger kids in their families. I may have been teaching high school kids, but they had already experienced so much of the ugly in the world and it aged them. 

My student (hello Jonan!) anointed me Badass and I never stopped her from saying it. I don’t remember her ever calling me that in front of a principal and I was secretly delighted with the title. Every time she said it, I would smile, but also give her a look that conveyed we both knew she shouldn’t be calling me that. 

Much more BA than I

This girl would go on to become much more of a badass than I ever was - singing and playing the guitar in a band, interning at Nike, creating a documentary, and continuously posting glamorous modeling shoots on social media. 

She embodies every part of that title. But, each time she said it to me, I wanted to become better. I wanted to be certain I was living up to her hype. As a teacher, I did that by making sure I was pushing her and preparing her for the real world, which she was actually living day-to-day already. As a writer, I now find myself surrounded by all things “badass.” 

Jen Sincero has a series of Badass book titles, which I’ve devoured. She’s the author of You are a Badass, You are a Badass at Making Money, You Are A Badass Every Day, and Badass Habits. I also have her You Are A Badass planner and daily calendar. I love her message but it’s also a shout-out to my former student who firmly planted the idea in my head that I could be more. 

One person I didn’t want to disappoint

The name made me think back to my elementary-age self and all the dreams I knew I was going to achieve as I got older. The dreams that fell by the wayside as I realized that life was not always kind to people with big dreams. Adults needed dependable jobs and regular paychecks, and my dreams of becoming a writer never guaranteed that. 

When I quit teaching, I found myself thinking a lot about that young girl. I wondered what would have happened if I would’ve just shut out the noise of the world and followed her dreams? Why is it that other people’s opinions seem so important? 

Debts to pay

To honor that girl, I have a photo of her hanging inside my medicine cabinet. I owe her. I focus on her twice a day as I’m brushing my teeth, and running through several affirmations: “Anything is possible,” “You got this,” “The power of you,” and “Strength.” 

I also owe my student who thought I was a badass when I really wasn’t. I was an educator because everyone in my family had been one. And it was good for me. I use so many of the skills I developed as a teacher in my everyday life today.   

I guess I’m a slow learner. But I think when you finally become okay with taking risks that you feel deep inside, that’s when your inner voice becomes louder than all the others. It makes me believe that I’m finally learning what being a badass is all about.

5 Reasons You Need to Plan a Girls’ Weekend Today

I’m currently listening to the audiobook Let Them by Mel Robbins. Somehow, I always find Mel right when I need her. Because of her, I high-five myself when I look in a mirror. She taught me that you have to be your biggest fan, and it’s true. She also taught me I can do hard things like get out of bed when I don’t want to, simply by counting down from 5. By the time I reach 1, I’m up and out of bed (most of the time). 

I’m not very far into her latest book, but I’ve already been hit with something so powerful. She says, “Time with your loved ones is like a melting ice cube.” Oh, my heart - OUCH. 

Of course, it makes me think about my family - my parents, husband, kids, and grandkids. But it also makes me think about my girls, those ladies who are there for every major event in my life. 

My friends and I have been going on a girl’s weekend since 2010. As far as I can tell, we’ve only missed one year - shocking that it was 2020, right? - and I just got back from that weekend with them. When we were first talking about it, we decided to call it WOW, but never actually clarified if it was Women Only Weekend, Women on Whiskey, Women on Wine, or some similar combination. If you’re not going away with your best friends already, I’m here to convince you it’s time to do it. 

1. When was the last time you went away with just the girls? Staying up late, eating food you wouldn’t normally eat, drinking too much, laughing until you almost wet your pants (or maybe you do because you know, you’re at a certain age), and knowing it’s okay because you’re with people who love you no matter what and there’s no judgment. However, they don’t forget either, so keep that in mind. 

2. The Planning! I often wonder if the planning isn’t just as good as the weekend itself. We always start multiple text strings. We share thoughts, food ideas, Instagram Reels, and emojis for weeks before the actual trip takes place. Eventually, we get down to the nitty-gritty of who is picking up whom and what time we’ll all be meeting at the house we’ve rented for the weekend. 

3. Staying in a beautiful house that’s not your own is part of the fun. We used to stay in the same place each time we traveled to Deadwood, SD, for our weekend. It was called, appropriately enough, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Suites. We always stayed in the biggest one - the Butch Cassidy. Back then, we were so excited to find a large Coke cooler to keep all our food in, swinging saloon doors that housed one of the bedrooms, and exposed brick walls. It was two blocks from the main street with all the casinos, and every one of us knew the key would be under the mat if anyone was last to straggle in. 

   Now, we find a beautiful VRBO home located several miles outside of town. Our tastes have changed. This past weekend we were happy to find a stainless steel fridge, hot tub, and open floor plan so we could carry on conversations while grabbing something in the kitchen and moving back to the living room area. We were also delighted to find that one of the large photos hung in an alcove was of Robert Redford and Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 

   But also saddened when on a stroll by our old place this year, we found it gutted.  

4. The deep conversations keep us coming back. Our lady’s weekend has been a chance to divulge new careers, blooming - and ending - relationships, check in on kids and grandkids, and compare health concerns, among tons of other topics. We stay up talking late into the night after several drinks, and we’re up early so we don’t miss any of the hanging around in our jammies talking some more. Our conversations eventually lead us to the hot tub and, finally, out the door to try our hand at gambling in town. Those conversations have cemented old and brand-new friendships, and it’s the heart of why we wouldn’t miss our weekend for the world. 

5. Time is precious, even when you don’t notice. Much like Mel’s melting ice cube theory, every one of us values our time together, especially now that we’ve realized we’ll never know when we’ve been on our last girl’s weekend. In 2019, our weekend took place in March. In early December of that year, one of our own had gone missing as she had passed away unexpectedly. Last year, our trip was again in March. One of the ladies didn’t feel the greatest, but she came along anyway. Seven short months later, she succumbed to cancer. This year, we set our table with memories of our two friends who we knew were with us in spirit and toasted to them. 

Looking back through the photos of weekends with my girls, I count at least 12 ladies who have joined us over the years. There’s never been a time when every single lady could go, and we always welcome new people joining us. But I believe I can speak for all of us when I say that we’ve never regretted our weekend together. There’s never been a fight or a blow-up, just great times. So much so that when we were all attending the funeral of one of our friends, the woman next to me whispered, “Kind of makes you never want to miss another WOW, doesn’t it?” I couldn’t agree more. 

Going off the rails

Following your own authentic journey is hard.

In the book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, by Susan Jeffers, she suggests that we have two voices in our heads - the chatterbox and our authentic voice. The chatterbox rarely shuts up and it takes some time before you’re able to stop her incessant nagging and overthinking so that you can listen to the authentic voice that will guide you toward where you really are supposed to go. 

When you decide to turn your life upside down, doing something completely new and different, yet you know without a doubt it’s what you’re supposed to be doing, people react in unexpected ways, both good and bad. 

To Share or Not to Share

I remember telling my closest friends that I was going to resign from teaching and pursue becoming a writer, and really being excited to break it to them before so many others. The reaction wasn’t what I had hoped for. Or perhaps it mostly was, but I ended up focusing only on the negative. (Why is that always the focus??) One of the comments I can’t unhear was, “Ohhhhhh. I could never do that!” While it seemed not to be about me, it kinda was. It felt like I was doing something ridiculous, and it stuck with me. 

Some family members weren’t any better. I had a couple who could not believe I was leaving my stable, salaried job, complete with paid insurance, to tackle the unknown. One person even went so far as to text in a group chat, “Are you working full time yet, Heidi?” I had to lay my phone down and walk outside before I said all the ugly responses that popped into my head. 

Because really, when I finally decided to follow my dream of being a writer, I was working lots more than full time. I was cold emailing possible clients, building my website, making connections and networking on LinkedIn, creating spreadsheets of the people I was emailing and networking with so I knew when to contact them again, building social media accounts for my business, pitching article ideas, researching article ideas, conducting interviews and writing. I was working way more than overtime, but of course, the comment was meant to hurt me and translated to, “Are you making money like you’re working full time yet, Heidi?”  

Is it Me or Is it You?

After a few of these comments, I realized that the negative reactions were more about the person delivering them than they were about me. Not that they still didn’t sting like hell. I was doing something rebels do, going off the rails, living by my own lights, and that’s something a lot of people don’t understand. You’re supposed to find a decent job, live modestly, and not rock the boat, right? 

Choosing to walk away from my teaching job meant I was following my own path. It’s a path uniquely created by me, and if too many people stop and think about it too long, might there be more that attempt to follow their dream? 

I’ve always loved the question: if money weren’t an issue, what would you be doing? Would you still be in the job you’re in, or would you be following your heart’s desire? And if you happen to be able to say, you’d still be doing the same thing…lucky you for already being where you love and knowing you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. 

The Best was Yet to Come

The best reactions came from my hubby. At first, he couldn't understand it. He told me, in a gentle and absolutely non-accusatory way, that he had been raised to go to work to provide for his family, and because of that, my resignation confused him. But he knew I wasn’t quitting because I didn’t want to work. It was just that it had become work that I couldn’t do anymore. 

Once I started having some success with getting articles published and he overheard people telling me they were impressed with my writing skills, he came to me, gathered me into a hug, looked straight into my eyes, and told me I was so much braver than he. He had kept the same job for forty-some years, not because he loved it and couldn’t wait to get to work each day, but because he felt like he was doing what he was supposed to - providing for his family. 

I’ve never received a better compliment and it makes me realize what a gift I’ve been given to be able to follow my dream and have his full and unending support.  

Beguin Bits Blog is Born!

I’ve always wanted to write a weekly blog, but it hasn’t seemed right until recently. My heart is now screaming at me that it’s time to tackle this. So here goes…

What you need to know about me is that I’ve been moving toward a more authentic life for the past few years and that’s what lies at the heart of this blog, my reason for sharing all that I plan to share. 

Who I Was

I was a high school English Language Arts teacher for 17 years until it stopped feeling right. 

During the last few of those years, I started listening to an inner voice I hadn’t noticed before. As I was helping guide seniors to their first ever life choices, I heard myself say, “You can be anything you want!” But I also began hearing that inner voice chiding me - “are you?”

Ever since I was in the 5th grade, I’ve wanted to be a writer. That was the year I wrote a play about Strawberry Shortcake and the Smurfs. I convinced my teacher to let my friends and I act it out for our class. I don’t know if everybody, including the teacher, was just ready for a break from school or what, but it seemed to be a big hit.  

During the spring of 2023, that inner voice started beckoning so loudly that when my superintendent stopped in one day to see if I was planning to come back the next year, I could barely concentrate on what he was saying as that voice was screaming, “NOW! Tell him NOW that you don’t plan to come back, not next year or EVER!” I clapped my hand over that voice’s mouth and told him I needed some time to think about it. 

The one thing I truly loved about being a high school teacher was the energy the kids brought every single day. It wasn’t that they were the problem, it was that I had never allowed myself to explore what I knew deep down I was meant to do. I had taken my first job as a teacher because I thought I would enjoy it, but better yet, it would put me on the same schedule as my young children. I was up for the adventure of it. 

What I Learned

Being a teacher was amazing, and tiring, and fulfilling, and heart-wrenching, and brought me into relationships I never would’ve imagined I’d get to be a part of. I loved almost every single one of my students (truly, there are only a couple that I never could make myself like). It wasn’t their fault that school wasn’t where I wanted to be anymore. It just felt like I had outgrown the classroom and everything that had to do with school.  

It took a lot to summon up the courage to tell my superintendent that I would not be coming back. I really had no plan, except a need to write.

Before I Forget

I might add to this introduction that I live a crazy blessed life with my hubby, who was more or less blind-sided by my insistence that it was time for me to try something new. I thought I had saved enough money to carry me through for a bit (I didn’t). I thought I would maybe be broke for just a couple months (try well over a year). My husband has graciously (mostly) taken on so much of our financial burden and I plan to switch roles with him as soon as possible. 

We have a great house that we have lovingly remodeled a lot of and two vehicles that are paid for (thank the Lord). We also share:

1 stepdad

1 adopted dad

1 stepmom

3 ex-spouses

9 stepsiblings

5 kids - 2 are mine and 3 are his, so we’ve also shared the good, bad, and sometimes ugly experience of being stepparents.  

This blog isn’t going to be a play-by-play of how we ended up with all those people in our lives. It’s not a blog about creating a blended family or being a part of one through our parents, but it certainly colors a lot of our life. My journey to being the most authentic person I can be has absolutely been affected by all those people. 

So jump on in and come along for the ride with me! I’m hoping this is the best adventure I’ve been on yet.