"I Regret to Inform You about Your Flamingo"

           

            An e-mail I received last month read: “I regret to inform you about your flamingo. It is not the brand I had thought…”—etc.

            Did I care what company manufactured my hopeful purchase? Nope. My focus was on needing a flamingo. I messaged the EBay seller to go ahead and ship my 11” stuffed bird and proceeded to order another tiny one. The real issue? WHY I “needed” flamingoes in the first place!

            Weeks earlier I walked into a pulmonologist’s office. (I’ve had difficulty with my lungs since dealing with long-term pneumonia almost a decade ago.)

            The nurse escorted me to a chair in the practice’s hallway. You know. The area where the dreaded scale stands! She put a little gadget onto my finger, and exclaimed as the alarm in that thing went off, “You just qualified for oxygen.”

            I thought she was joshing. I mean, what kind of greeting is that! I was then led into an exam room, saw the doctor, and learned the tests done prior to that day showed a bit of this ’n’ that, and I’d be scheduled for a CT scan and echocardiogram.

            The nurse was summoned again and did a walking test with me, accompanied with that gadget on my finger and pulling along a green oxygen tank connected to my face with a cannula. I set off a few more alarms.

            As we walked back to the exam room and passed some chairs, she said, “You need to sit down.”

            I replied I was fine and could push to get back.

            “No. You need to sit.”

            So I sat. Apparently, my oxygen level dipped, but what did I know?

            Back in the room I learned I’d become the proud owner (renter or whatever I am) of a home oxygen unit and a portable one, if my insurance agreed with the plan.

            This wasn’t a joke. The nurse wasn’t smiling. Neither was I.

            So, I left my appointment with a long tube and cannula in hand, got in the car, and pow! It hit me what this might mean! Thus began a twenty-eight mile tear-fest.

            What would I tell hubby? He struggled with his health, and I’d become his taxi driver, etc. Then there’s our adult, live-in, developmentally disabled son with brain cancer whom I must take here and there and help in his care.

            At home I walked in the door, wondering how to break the news that we would be getting new “furnishings.” But the hospital already called to schedule my tests, so hubby knew something was up. Then my tears streamed, and he held me as I blubbered.

            Jump forward two weeks! A very kind gentleman arrived with my needed supplies (which I rejoice in that answer to prayer—the insurance having complained a time or two about a portable unit before okaying).

            Anyway, here’s to a new way of life! The good news? I don’t need to use the oxygen when I’m sitting. The bad news? I need it when I move about and throughout the night.

            This brings me back to the purchase of flamingoes. (Were you beginning to wonder if there really was a lucid reason for those purchases?)

            Time warp: Decades ago, my friend Pat and I traveled back from a writers’ workshop. She’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever known, and—in times when laughing seemed impossible—Pat could cheer the guffaws right out of me!

            She told me about a home where every year the owners set out a nativity scene. That’s not funny. That’s lovely. Then she added, “And I don’t know why, but they have a half-circle of flamingoes facing it!”

            So, come Christmas season, we HAD to do a drive-by. Sure enough! Flamingoes in their “expected” position before the nativity! I couldn’t believe my eyes! Not that I doubted Pat, but really? We laughed till we nearly wet our pants!

             The next year Pat was diagnosed with cancer. I visited her weekly, hoping to cheer her as she lay on the couch in and out of what might be considered a coherent state—although with Pat it was hard to tell.

            We set up her Christmas tree, and the conversation turned to flamingoes and the need to put some on her tree. I made a motion that we “authenticate” the décor by adding random spots of white-out underneath. And poor sick Pat laughed hysterically and seconded it!

            To this day, we get a jolly out of the flamingoes half-circling that nativity and that cancer Christmas.

            So those strange, long-legged, pink birds came to mind when I thought of needing to smile in my new-found situation—one for my home oxygen concentrator and a tiny one for the portable unit. No, they don’t cure the shock I’m feeling, but they do make me smile.

            In time I hope to joy in this journey, for God makes no mistakes. We’ve lived enough years to know we’re placed in some situations by design—that I need to meet someone there who needs to know God cares—that He’s their all-in-all, if they allow Him to be.

            As for my two flamingo friends? I smile as I flip on the huge home machine, take the canula off the flamingo sitting on it, and don my face with that unattractive tubing. And I tote my portable oxygen and will see where it and the little flamingo take me. Hopefully in time this gal will allow her tears to dry, put on a happy face, and mean it.

 

Day by day and with each passing moment—Strength I find to meet my trials here;

Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment, I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure—Gives unto each day what He deems best—

Lovingly, it’s part of pain and pleasure—Mingling toil with peace and rest.

 

Ev’ry day the Lord Himself is near me—With a special mercy for each hour;

All my cares He gladly bears and cheers me, He whose name is Counselor and Pow’r.

The protection of His child and treasure—Is a charge that on Himself He laid:

“As your days, your strength shall be in measure”—This the pledge to me He made.

 

Help me then in ev’ry tribulation—So to trust Your promises, O Lord,

That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation—Offered me within Your holy Word.

Help me, Lord, when, toil and trouble meeting—E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,

One by one, the days, the moments fleeting—Till I reach the promised land.

 

(from hymn “Day By Day” by Caroline Sandell Berg—a.k.a. Lina Sandell, 1865, public domain)

#flamingoes #oxygen #trials&tribulations #oxygenconcentrator