Month: November 2020

Wedding Anniversary Cards

My 39-year marriage to Robert has defied the odds in two respects. According to United States Census Bureau data, the marriage rate for people with disabilities is much lower than for the general population and the divorce rate is much higher.

After a whirlwind romance, God closed the 8,500 mile distance that separated us in two different countries. And when our marriage hit the wall after 12-years, God intervened to help us work through our problems in marriage counseling.

We share our story to encourage others and to remember what God has done for us.

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“Remember His wonders which He has done,
His marvels and the judgments spoken by His mouth,”
Psalms 105:5. New American Standard Bible

Over the years we’ve celebrated our anniversaries in various ways—dinner out, flowers, jewelry—but the one constant has been exchanging anniversary cards. And despite my desire to declutter, I can’t toss the 80 anniversary cards I’ve saved since our first anniversary in 1982!

“Love is a touch, tender with care,
a meaningful look, secrets to share . . .
Love is excitement, a joy ever new,
love is a faith that dreams can come true.”
Hallmark (1982)

On several anniversaries, I placed cards from prior years in unlikely places around the house for Robert to find. I thought it was fun to surprise him with a card in the refrigerator, a dresser drawer, or wherever he didn’t expect it. But Robert was unimpressed with what he viewed as recycled cards. The addition of a new card each year didn’t erase the memory of the one and only year I forgot and gave him a card from the year before.

On our tenth anniversary in 1991, since we didn’t have an engagement ring, we added a ruby eternity ring to my wedding ring finger. As Robert wrote in his card to me:

“It’s been ten marvelous years having you at my side in the good ones and the difficult ones. . . through our marriage we have grown stronger and closer to Christ . . . you have made a positive change in my life.”

As we faced down uncertainty in both our careers on our 15^th anniversary, we shared an American Greetings card:

“Time may change a lot of things in our lives, but one thing it can never change is the way I feel about you. . . with every passing year you become more beautiful and precious to me. Today and always my heart belongs to you.”

And here’s to closing with some beautiful one liners:

“If I could go back in time to before we met I’d look for you and find you sooner so I could love you longer.” Sunrise Greetings (2012)

“I always thank God for your love.” American Greetings (2013)

“I found the one my heart loves.” Song of Solomon 3:4 (2014)

“I know we’re right where we’ve always belonged—together.” Hallmark (2017)

“You’re the man I’d marry all over again.” (2018)

“Two hearts together, forever, whatever life brings. Hallmark (2020)

For more writings on our marriage, go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com for retail links to my book, Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith and subscribe to my blog for automatic delivery of weekly posts to your email inbox.

Medical

Thankful for Aortic Valve Replacement (AVR)

Post author By Angela Van Etten
Post date November 23, 2020
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Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! ∞ 1 Chronicles 16:34a New Living Testament.

Who would have thought changing doctors would save me from congestive heart failure and death within a year? But I’m thankful that my new doctor noticed that my heart murmur was kind of loud and referred me to a cardiologist. Imagine my surprise, at age 59, when the cardiologist recommended aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery. As a little person with many joint anomalies, I always anticipated the possibility of orthopedic surgery, but heart surgery never crossed my mind.

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After finding a medical team at Johns Hopkins hospital, I added a prayer team. I prayed as I did before Robert’s hip replacement surgeries. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. ∞ Psalm 20:7 New International Version. I especially prayed for wisdom on whether to implant a mechanical or biologic aortic valve. I picked the mechanical valve which requires blood thinning medication, but lasts the rest of my life; the biologic valve requires no medication, but wears out and could require a reoperation for replacement in about ten years.

On February 19, 2013, I underwent AVR surgery to split open my breastbone, stop my heart, hook it up to a heart-lung machine, replace the damaged aortic valve, and restart my heart. Major surgery! While waiting in the OR queue, I read various Psalms instead of thinking about the surgical risks of bleeding, blood clots, irregular heart rhythm, infection, kidney problems, stroke, or death.

My anesthesiologist talked to me about the limited range of motion in my neck that would make intubation difficult. To avoid cutting off my airway with fatal consequences, she chose to intubate me while I was awake; this gave her accurate feedback on how I was tolerating the intubation tube. My surgeon, also challenged by my airway restriction, was unable to insert a camera to check for life-threatening air bubbles. Instead, he squeezed my heart with his hands to expel any hazardous bubbles.

Thank God I survived the surgery without complications. And the surgeon’s post-surgery concern—that I would forget instructions not to lift more than five pounds for six weeks and would be back in the OR to realign my rib cage—was resolved by Robert, my in-house rehabilitation engineer. Robert accommodated my daily living activities of accessing a chair, toilet, bed, or car without lifting my entire body-weight of 72 pounds.

Fast forward seven years—my electrocardiograms are boring and my echocardiograms are good. This is not to say there are no challenges. Achieving a therapeutic International Normalized Ratio (INR) is an ongoing struggle. Frequent nontherapeutic INR readings show my blood as too thin and susceptible to internal bleeding or too thick and prone to blood clots clogging the aortic valve. As a result, my medication dosage often needs adjusting and careful monitoring of my vitamin K intake is critical. But I thankfully accept lifestyle changes that come with life-saving surgery.

This blog post was first published in LPA Today (Fall 2020). It is a condensed version of a chapter in my book—Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith. Go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com for book retail links and subscribe to my weekly blog for automatic delivery of posts to your email inbox.

Accessibility

“Accessible” Public Bathroom Absurdities

Post author By Angela Van Etten
Post date November 16, 2020
10 Comments on “Accessible” Public Bathroom Absurdities

National Absurdity Day recalls some of the entirely off the wall things in our lives. So this November 20^th my mind immediately jumps to my collection of absurd “accessible” public bathroom photos. So sit back and enjoy these crazy pictures I have accumulated in my travels over the years.

And when you see me in some of these photos, consider what the other bathroom user was thinking when I asked them to take these zany pics of me with a bathroom backdrop instead of the typical seascapes, mountains and other iconic vistas.

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Bathroom comode — No thanks, I’d rather do this solo.

Bathroom absurdity — Let’s install the toilet paper above her head so as not to mess with the tiles.

The silver lining is that not all these absurdities appeared in the same bathroom!

I’d love to see any crazy bathroom pics you have in your album. Surely I’m not the only one absurd enough to document the ridiculous!

This post was inspired by my book,Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith, which sells at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million and other retailers.

God's protection

Disaster Averted

Driving in blizzard — Image by Mircea Ploscar from Pixabay

As newlyweds of six weeks, Robert and I had a harrowing driving experience picking up my personal effects from the port of Philadelphia. We drove the 150 miles from Arlington to Philadelphia when we learned the shipping would cost more than the 8,500 mile trip from New Zealand to Pennsylvania!

But Philadelphia greeted us with snow, ice and slush as we drove through city streets to complete paperwork at the shipping line office before going to the shipping terminal. The gate guard at the terminal was hostile towards our Honda wagon and waved us out of the container truck line. Our unlikely transit vehicle was only granted entry when Robert got out of the car and showed him our paperwork.

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Service was also denied at the shipping clerk’s office. Robert couldn’t see over the counter so he called out, “Is anybody there?” The clerk replied “no.” Not so easily deterred, Robert took his cue from other truckers getting service. He slammed down our papers on the counter above his head and gruffly stated, “Shipping order to be picked up.” The result? Immediate action.

Ordinarily, trucks receive shipments by backing up to the warehouse loading bay. We drove right inside. Surrounded by rows and rows of floor-to-ceiling shelving filled with boxes, we had no idea how we would find my shipment, let alone get them it into the wagon. There were no workers in sight—until Robert got out of the car, revealing his stature. Suddenly, workers appeared from all corners of the building, convinced that Robert was a movie star or one of the millionaire real estate twins who were the same height and age as Robert. Their assumptions provided all the help we needed to locate and load my shipment into our wagon.

Our ordeal at the terminal was almost over—or so we thought. I was driving towards a warehouse opening when Robert yelled, “STOP.” I jammed on the brakes just before launching off the loading bay ledge. The whiteout of the continuous snowfall made it impossible to tell that this way out was for the birds.

Disaster averted, I backed out the warehouse entrance on level ground, and we started home. After only travelling ten miles in an hour-and-a-half, we pulled off the highway and found a motel. Then we learned that not everyone had escaped disaster that day.

The snow blizzard had also hit Washington, D.C. and Air Florida flight 90 had crashed into commuter traffic on the 14th Street Bridge before sinking into the Potomac River. Seventy-eight people were killed. Within a half-hour of the plane crash, three more people died in a Metro derailment on the Blue/Orange Line.

If Robert had been in DC that day, he could have been in the traffic on the bridge the plane crashed into, or on the Orange Line going to Ballston Station in Arlington. God’s hand surely protected us.

This post was adapted from my book,Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith, which sells at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million and other retailers.

Etiquette FAQs

What should I call you?

Political Correctness — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Call me whatever you like, just don’t call me late for dinner. This line works well in comedy, but not so much when interacting with people with disabilities. And don’t believe it when people say, sticks and stone will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Name calling does hurt!

Here are some of the offensive words used to describe people with disabilities—crippled, retarded, dumb, psycho, midget, handicapped, spastic. All these words are negative and degrade the person with a disability. It’s time to stop using them.

When confronted about their poor choice of words, some people say, Oh, I didn’t know.

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Others claim to be only joking while the worst offenders are egged on and get louder and more obnoxious. Well, ignorance and using people as the butt of their jokes should not be tolerated in a civil society.

Sure, there is some genuine confusion. After all, terminology does change over time. For example, I was a crippled child, a handicapped teenager, and now a disabled adult. I’m still the same person despite aging through many decades, but the words to describe my condition have changed. It’s not enough to keep up with fashion trends, we must also stay current with our language.

So why italicize disabled adult? That’s because it’s a violation of disability etiquette to describe a person by their disability. See the person first, not the disability. We are not defined by our disabilities. This translates into using person first language. Don’t say, the blind man or the deaf girl. Instead say, the man who is blind or the girl who is deaf. Yes, I know it’s not as literary or concise, but it’s better to be polite and sensitive.

Another common phenomenon is for people to go overboard with endearing words like dear, pet, or darling. I don’t hear the endearment, I hear patronizing. But before assuming they see me as a needy cause, I listen to see if they use the same words when talking to people without disabilities. If the endearments are applied to everyone, then I know no distinction is being made between people with and without disabilities.

Another trend is for people to downplay disability with euphemisms, such as physically challenged. My problem with this one is that in trying not to offend, the disability experience is undermined. Disability is not something that needs to be softened as something unpalatable, it’s a fact that needs to be acknowledged and embraced as part of human diversity.

So, for those not wanting to offend, you might now worry about inadvertently using offensive language. My best advice is don’t ask, What should I call you? The better question to ask is, What’s your name? When a person with a disability answers this question, it’s important to remember, A good name is to be more desired than great wealth, Favor is better than silver and gold. Proverbs 22:1. New American Standard Bible.

This blog post was first published as a guest post on https://aisforadelaide.com/2020/08/26/what-should-i-call-you/. For more of Angela’s writings go to her website at https://angelamuirvanetten.com where you can subscribe to her weekly blog and find retail links to her new book, Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigate Life’s Detours with Love and Faith.